Six days had passed since word first came of the tribe's disappearance. The messenger had spent five days traveling from far away, then another half day passed before Zhuanxu met him. After that, they set out overnight.
Not to save anyone.
Everyone knew there were probably very few survivors left there.
They were going only to "deal with the aftermath."
Death was not the end.
Death was merely a stage. To them, death could even be a "release." There were far too many cases of people becoming entangled with things that made life worse than death.
Too many to count.
That was why they risked traveling at night. The flames meekly lit their way, and no one chose to look up at the stars to find their bearings.
Because everyone knew perfectly well.
The stars they saw were not where the actual stars lay. Apart from Shamans who specialized in stargazing, anyone else would only fall into a trance.
Zhong did not know whether he could reach the tribe alive, either.
"The sea becoming mulberry fields" originally meant that time brought changes, even to the landscape. But in this era, it meant that a landmark seen when leaving home in the morning might be gone by evening.
Because it might be moving "nature," or even something "pseudonatural."
The age of large-scale horse domestication had not yet arrived.
Zhong traveled with the tribe's elite warriors.
They used enormous bears and elephants.
Their "herdsman" was named Mu. He was the tribe's finest herdsman and could command all manner of beasts.
They all carried weapons. The messenger was one of only two people who had survived there, and Zhong was questioning him.
Zhong needed details, a great many details, to establish exactly what this subordinate tribe had encountered.
Bronze vessels were not yet