Ancestral Shrine Keeper

Blazing Flame Tribe.

The rain had been falling without end.

Today was the thirty-third day.

The torrential downpour had finally eased somewhat.

Huo Tang, Lord of the Tribe, gazed at the vast white expanse of heaven and earth with a worried expression. After sighing, he still said, "While the mountain flood is weaker, A'Shan, take the others out to salvage wild beasts again. Bring the tribe's young people with you too. They need experience, one way or another."

Dense clusters of caves lined the mountainside. At the call, over a hundred figures emerged from the caves, leaping like apes toward the floodwaters.

The flood surged and roared, crashing between the rocks. Grass and branches covered the muddy surface.

The figures rushing out were each built like black bears. A single leap carried them several zhang, and they darted back and forth across the rocks jutting from the flood, searching for prey washed out by the mountain torrents.

"Splash!"

"A-Can was swallowed by the flood!"

All of a sudden, among the many black-bear-like figures, one relatively smaller figure was swept into the waves.

"Gurgle, gurgle..."

"Cough, cough..."

Wasn't I working overtime? How did I end up choking on water?

That thought surfaced in Shen Can's mind. Then his skull throbbed with agony, and memories that did not belong to him poured in like a tidal wave.

Then he felt himself seized by a huge hand and hauled out of the water.

One month later.

"This rain just won't stop."

Standing at the entrance of the cave, Shen Can stared blankly at the torrential rain. It was as though the River of Stars had burst its banks in the sky; as far as the eye could see, heaven and earth were a boundless white.

Through the curtain of rain, he could still see the tribe's warriors appearing and disappearing along the edge of the flood, salvaging wood and other things washed out by the waters.

In such circumstances, only warriors had the strength to protect themselves. The younger generation who were not warriors had long since curled up inside the caves.

The rain kept falling, and the atmosphere was truly anything but harmonious.

Not only did it make people feel deeply uneasy, it also left their whole bodies sticky and clammy.

After a month, he was still somewhat dazed by the fact that he had come to the Great Wilderness.

This was a vast, boundless, primitive world, where natural disasters never ceased and Disaster Beasts roamed.

Like this rainstorm, which had already lasted over sixty days. The rolling mountain floods had never stopped, while beastly roars like thunder occasionally echoed from the distant deep mountains.

Without martial arts, surviving in such an environment was truly harder than climbing to heaven.

Shen Can touched his firm abdominal muscles. He had never imagined that his towering height of one meter eighty-three would one day count as frail.

The Blazing Flame Tribe practiced the Kui Ox Fist. Every clansman wolfed down meat and hammered away at their fists, growing as sturdy as calves. Yet he alone seemed to have grown a beat too slowly.

He was only one meter eighty-three.

A'Yu could beat ten of him.

A'Yu was his childhood companion. He was only two meters thirty, that was all.

Over the past month, Shen Can had not gone into the flood to salvage prey again. He was afraid of making the clansmen fish him out once more.

With a sigh, he turned and walked into the cave. A slab of beast meat roasted over the bonfire, its fragrance filling the air without stirring even the slightest appetite in him.

But hungry or not, he still had to eat.

Shen Can took out a jar, pinched out a small pinch of fine salt, and sprinkled it over the beast meat.

He had not expected a tribe brimming with the feeling of primitive barbarism to possess fine salt.

The first time he saw that the tribe had fine salt, Shen Can felt as if he had lost a hundred million. His chance to make a name for himself had vanished just like that.

He gnawed on the roasted meat, chewing wax instead of flavor. His gaze drifted, and his thoughts wandered beyond the clouds in an instant.

"If this were my previous life... Mongolian brothers wouldn't do; I've had enough meat. Some Xinjiang people would be nice—the difference between day and night is huge, so they're high in sugar. They could be dessert. Guangdong cousins would work too; they drink soup every day, so they'd be wonderfully nourishing. I absolutely need some Shandong people, to borrow a bit of scallion flavor. Shanxi cousins could lend some vinegar flavor. Friends from Sichuan and Chongqing have plenty of spice... Western Hunan... Western Hunan won't do. Can't eat delivery drivers... Yunnan..."

Before long, Shen Can, smacking his lips and imagining a scene of brothers across the land becoming one family, was abruptly awakened.

A'Yu, built like a bear, walked into the cave.

"Brother Can, Uncle Huo Shan told me to call you to the ancestral shrine."

"What am I going to the ancestral shrine for?"

Shen Can hesitated. Had they discovered him slacking off?

For the past month, he had done nothing at all. Every day, he ate and slept, then slept and ate.

The ancestral shrine stood in the central area, surrounded by the tribe's many caves.

At that moment, inside the spacious cave of the ancestral shrine, a drenched Mountain-Cleaving Kui had been bound tightly with vine ropes. It had only recently been salvaged from the mountain flood.

Using prey returned from a hunt to offer sacrifices to the ancestors was a rule passed down through the tribe.

Moreover, the shrine keeper had to personally draw blood, take meat, and remove bones from the prey to offer to the ancestors before the prey could be divided among the tribe.

However, with the rain falling continuously lately, the hunting party could only salvage prey from the floodwaters. Catching live creatures was no easy matter.

Huo Shan, the leader of the hunting party that had delivered the prey, did not leave. Instead, he began chatting with Huo Xian, the shrine keeper who guarded the ancestral shrine.

"Old Clan Uncle, didn't you say long ago that your spirit was failing and that you needed someone to inherit the position of shrine keeper? What do you think of having A-Can follow you?"

"This child's body is somewhat frail. During the last few hunts, he was already struggling to keep up with the hunting party. This time, he was nearly drowned. We thought he would not survive."

"With such a weak body, even soaking in beast blood would make it difficult for him to withstand the impact of the blood. It will be far too dangerous for him to keep joining hunts in the future. Why not have him follow you and sweep the ancestral shrine? Surely the ancestors will not blame us for it."

Huo Xian rubbed a grayish-brown herb between his hands and replied without turning around, "They are all children of our own tribe. Why would the ancestors blame us?"

"I truly am old. The shrine keeper's lineage cannot be allowed to end. If A-Can is willing, let him follow me. The hunting party will not suffer for lacking one person."

Huo Shan's expression turned somewhat hesitant upon hearing this. Becoming a shrine keeper meant that one could never leave the tribe again, spending every day sweeping the halls of the ancestral shrine and living the same repeating days.

The younger generation of the tribe had fire in their bellies. None of them wished to guard the ancestral shrine. They preferred to hunt in the Great Wilderness, where they could display their courage and embrace women with big buttocks.

It was not as though he had never mentioned this to A-Can before, but the boy had always stubbornly refused.

When Shen Can arrived at the cave housing the ancestral shrine, he heard a beast's roar before even entering. Then he heard Huo Shan calling for him.

"You two, get in here quickly."

"A-Can, does your head still hurt?"

After seeing the two approach, Huo Shan's gaze settled on Shen Can.

"It is much better now."

Shen Can answered, then bowed to Huo Xian, the shrine keeper, and obediently called him Grandpa.

There was no helping it. Everyone in the tribe around his age, including middle-aged cultivators like Huo Shan, had eaten Huo Xian's secret medicinal pellets.

The moment he entered the cave and saw the elderly man's tall, vigorous figure, it matched the memories in his mind. What followed was a flood of memories of having medicinal pellets forcibly stuffed into his mouth.

"A-Can, Uncle Huo Xian is old. The ancestral shrine cannot be left without someone. Come guard the ancestral shrine with Uncle Huo Xian."

"Guard the ancestral shrine?"

Shen Can froze. His merged memories told him that the ancestral shrine was the spiritual foundation of the tribe, a sacred place in every clansman's heart.

Of course, he had once been deeply opposed to guarding the ancestral shrine. It would only trap him.

But now...

"I am willing to guard the ancestral shrine."

After hesitating, Shen Can agreed.

There was no helping it. His merged memories told him that the Great Wilderness was far too dangerous.

With his build, if he went hunting again, he would easily die outside.

Uncle Shan asking him to come to the ancestral shrine and follow Old Master Huo Xian was clearly an act of protection.

He should not go around doing things that sought death.

Going out was not hunting—it was delivering meals, and he would only drag down the other clansmen.

Guarding the ancestral shrine did not count as living off others, either.

Huo Shan was somewhat surprised to see Shen Can agree. He had thought Shen Can would refuse again.

It seemed that being nearly drowned this time had made him grow up.

"Old Uncle, everyone is getting impatient. Once we have offered sacrifice to the ancestors, let us hurry and divide the meat."

Huo Xian nodded as he looked at the clansmen gathered outside the cave. "A-Can, come here."

Shen Can quickly answered, straightened his disheveled robe, and walked toward Huo Xian.

The cave of the ancestral shrine was very deep. At its far end stood wooden spirit tablets, one after another, and they did not look particularly sacred.

Yet when Shen Can drew near, he still felt an inexplicable solemnity.

On a wooden rack beside the spirit tablet altar lay a knife, a bronze wine vessel, and several other pieces of Bronze Ware.

The end of the knife's hilt bulged into a hollow sphere, with a bronze ball inside. When held in the hand, it gave off a crisp ringing sound.

This was the Luan Knife used exclusively to take meat when offering sacrifice to the ancestors.

The bronze wine vessel was blackened across its surface and shaped like a three-legged ding. No one knew how many layers of beast blood had dried upon it.

At this moment, Huo Xian turned his back to Shen Can and picked up the Luan Knife. "This time, you will preside over it. Do you dare?"

PS: Shrine keeper (tiāo)

Duties: A full-time guardian of the imperial ancestral shrine, responsible for safeguarding sacrificial vessels, repairing the shrine, and preparing sacrificial rites.

The Rites of Zhou: Spring Offices records: "The shrine keeper is in charge of guarding the ancestral shrines of the former kings and former dukes." It was a hereditary office that had to be held by direct descendants of the clan.

The ancestral shrine symbolized the orthodox bloodline. A shrine keeper held an exalted status, comparable to a "living court historian."