Chapter 83 Attending the Banquet

I finally understood one thing at this moment, that is, the reason why Poker-Face never answered whenever I asked him what was wrong.

Because now Xiuxiu was asking me the same thing, but I didn’t know how to answer her. Even if I tried to make something up, I still couldn’t describe what I saw.

But the difference between me and Poker-Face was that although he didn’t say anything, he at least knew how to deal with it. I was now obviously encountering a gap in my knowledge, so I couldn’t handle the current situation at all.

What were these things? What was going on? What were they trying to do? Were we in danger? I had no idea.

But the situation was urgent, so all kinds of theories were flashing through my mind.

These things might be Lord Shituolins, originating from the Bon religion, which first came into being during the Stone Age and later merged with Buddhism. I knew almost nothing about this religion, so many of my current theories were essentially based on my knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism. But I had to look at it from a more simplified and primitive view in order to infer some information about the Bon religion.

Now these Lord Shituolins were putting their hands above their heads and spreading their fingers in a peacock-like gesture. What did this mean? I had no clue, but obviously, they had changed, and this change must be meaningful—after all, many animals made such movements as a warning before launching an attack.

But after theorizing up to this point, my mind started to wander and my thoughts immediately turned to Poker-Face.

Because I needed someone to tell me what this thing was. I was really starting to regret not using the Wu family’s interrogation techniques to extract all his knowledge when I was hanging out with him instead of eating and drinking the whole time.

But he wasn’t here right now, and everyone was looking at me, from Fatty, Xiuxiu, and the others, to those Lord Shituolins and even the corpses.

At this moment, I was a reluctant superstar, awkwardly thrust into the spotlight. I could only sing something at random; otherwise, there was no telling what the result would be.

My brain continued to work quickly, trying to come up with more theories. But this time, at the moment when I was about to lose focus again, I tried to pull my thoughts back and get myself back on track.

Ok.

There was no doubt that I couldn’t handle the present situation. The fact that these things could move the corpses shouldn’t be some kind of illusion, and although they were invisible, their power was able to affect these corpses, indicating that they existed in this world. So, our weapons should be able to harm them.

No matter what kind of zombie it was, I didn’t believe it would be immune to the damage caused by gunpowder, so we could at least stop their first attack with guns. Plus, Fatty and Xiuxiu were skilled enough to hold their own.

Second, it was best not to let these things go on the offensive. There may be a ten second lapse before they attacked, which meant that I still had time to think of a way to avoid direct conflict. Although this method may be completely ineffective, I just had to gamble on those ten seconds.

I had countless options, such as trying to apologize or starting to dance again, but at this moment, an image suddenly popped into my head.

I was watching a person undergo a sky burial on a designated platform. The person was a sinner, so the burial was a lonely one.

Why was I there? I didn’t know. But at that time, I was already an old man in the temple, and the local villagers regarded me as one of the lamas. They treated me with kind respect and misplaced courtesy, which allowed me free access to almost all areas. I normally wouldn’t have been allowed up to the sky burial platform, but at that time, I just walked up there.

No one was there to see the sinner off. After the body was delivered, it was left at the foot of the mountain. I followed the sky burial master, Duobhutan, up the mountain step by step to the boundary line where the plateau meadows disappeared and the rocks were exposed.

Duobhutan said to me, “There won’t be many vultures today.”

Because this sinner made too many mistakes, it took a lot of effort to be forgiven. If the vultures didn’t come, the person’s soul would remain in the world to suffer, unable to leave.

I didn’t believe in such things at the time—after all, every sky burial was filled with vultures, so it was hard to believe that these birds were spiritual—but as expected, hardly any vultures came that day.

Duobhutan worked hard for a long time before seven or eight vultures finally arrived. He chopped the corpse into pieces and begged the vultures to eat, but they remained unmoved, just staring at us coldly.

I sat off to the side and watched him knock out the bone marrow—food that was normally irresistible to vultures—but they still refused to eat.

Finally, I saw an amazing scene.

Duobhutan mixed the bone marrow with a sticky rice cake, took a bite himself, and then handed it to the vulture at the front of the flock.

That vulture had a name of its own, and was said to know every vulture within its domain, which also had their own names.

Duobhutan’s actions expressed an effort: I’ve worked hard to forgive his sins, so I ask that you also forgive him.

The vulture came over slowly, brushed its wings over Duobhutan’s head, and then took away the piece of bone marrow.

Then, all the other vultures came over and slowly started eating the corpse.

No more vultures came by during the rest of the ceremony.

Duobhutan told me that these vultures were the most compassionate ones here, and other than them, no other vultures would come. But they couldn’t eat the whole corpse at once, so it would take some time before it was completely eaten. This slow process meant that the soul would suffer immense pain.

This was the punishment for doing evil deeds.

Did this custom of sky burials also come from primitive religions? I suddenly realized that these Lord Shituolins may be playing a role similar to Duobhutan’s—they were the sky burial masters here. But what did that make us, the vultures?

Duobhutan wouldn’t harm the vultures, but what about these Lord Shituolins? I didn’t dare draw any conclusions, but I already knew how to make the scene harmonious again.

I picked up a piece of meat from the table, which was already as hard as a rock, and said to Fatty, “Eat!”

“Why?”

“The two of us should eat first. I don’t know why, but I think that if we eat, it’s a gesture of goodwill.”

<Chapter 82><Table of Contents><Chapter 84>

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Heads up but this upcoming Tuesday (the 23rd) I’m going on a two-week long trip and not lugging my laptop with me. I can’t promise I won’t leave you on a cliffhanger, so I recommend picking a chapter you think is a good stopping point and then picking back up when I return (I know, I know. It’s a tough decision since NPSS is soooo good at cliffhangers lol).