frightfiction Chapter 249 Those who haven't died might not understand
Chapter 249 Those who haven't died might not understand
You...you're only seven years old, aren't you?
Jiang Luoluo opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Calm down, calm down, she needs to calm down.
She can travel from another world, so who says our ancestors can't travel from the past to the present!
But wait, no, that's not right.
Was he really from the future? Why is he so calm? He doesn't seem panicked at all about being transported to the future. He's accepting it way too quickly!
And they just said it outright—is that something you can say?!
Even if you trust the tribe members, you wouldn't just say it so casually!
Jiang Luoluo was lost in thought, but her face was surprisingly calm—she was so stiff and numb that she couldn't make any big expressions.
"This...I see..." However, her uneasy voice still betrayed Jiang Luoluo's shock.
"Aren't you the same?" The python's reaction was even calmer.
Me? Me? Has my identity as a time traveler been exposed?
Jiang Luoluo calmed down at this point.
So that's why I mentioned "the same kind" before; it turns out it meant the same kind of time traveler.
“But it’s normal that you don’t have any memories and don’t know these things,” the python said casually.
“I have no memory of it…” Jiang Luoluo repeated the sentence in a low voice.
Wait a minute, she seems to have memories... She doesn't seem to have traveled through time the same way as this "ancestor"!
After a moment of panic, Jiang Luoluo calmed down. After all, she could tell from the python's words that she was not in danger at the moment, and the tribe's attitude towards "time travel" was quite good, so even if she was exposed, it shouldn't be a big problem.
So, after a moment's thought, Jiang Luoluo began to subtly probe the python to learn more about time travel.
"So...so why did you end up on Meng's body?" Jiang Luoluo remembered that the shy little boy was named Meng.
"I originally just intended to help him drive away the hyena that was approaching, but somehow the child resonated with me and I ended up inside his body."
Python glanced at Jiang Luoluo, who couldn't hide her nervousness, and answered patiently.
Perhaps it's because Jiang Luoluo has been answering his questions with the same serious and responsible attitude recently.
Jiang Luoluo then learned that during the snow season when wild animals attacked, in addition to the two children who were eaten, other families had also been attacked by wild animals.
Meng was one of the victims, but luckily his father was at home when he was attacked, so he survived.
Unfortunately, his father died in a wild animal attack while protecting him.
As for Meng's mother... each family had to send one member of the clan with fighting ability to participate in the defense of the back mountain, and Meng's mother had an accident in the back mountain.
The probability of both husband and wife having an accident at the same time is very low; I never expected that this family would experience it simultaneously.
The python attaches itself to the grasshopper to protect it when the grasshopper is attacked by a wild animal.
This might be hard to understand—at the top of Silver Peak Mountain, there is a huge bonfire, which the tribe calls the Fire Seed. Inside the Fire Seed are the ashes and consciousness of tribesmen who have died over the years.
The ashes that merged with the flames became the carriers of the tribe's consciousness.
When each family in the tribe moves into a new dwelling, they take a handful of ashes from the fire on the mountaintop and bring them home, borrowing the power of their ancestors to protect their family.
When the tribesmen are truly in danger, the ancestral consciousness within the fire will be briefly activated, igniting everything around them to give the tribesmen a chance to survive.
Sometimes, perhaps due to blood ties or other reasons, surviving members of the clan may draw the consciousness of their ancestors from the fire into their own bodies.
Typical examples are pythons and grasshoppers, which have two consciousnesses within one body.
Occasionally, there are special cases, such as when a member of the clan is on the verge of death and is possessed by the consciousness of their ancestor, they may be directly replaced by the consciousness of their ancestor.
Or perhaps the consciousness of some ancestors has been worn down over time, leaving only instincts and no sense of self. When they possess someone, they give their clansmen a lot of knowledge, but no corresponding memories.
Jiang Luoluo recalled the night she first transmigrated; she saw raging fires and a burning wooden house...
She kept wondering why she had no burn marks on her body, since she must have been brought out of the burning wooden house.
It turns out that the flames were not the culprits that harmed her, but rather the ancestral consciousness that sheltered her.
and so……
Jiang Luoluo recalled the words Wu spoke to her when she first met Wu, words she hadn't understood before, but now she could understand them all.
It turns out that the shaman had always regarded her as someone who had inherited some kind of ancestral consciousness, which is why the shaman trusted some of the things she said and did.
So even though she acted as if she knew a lot, no one suspected her... She thought that the people of her tribe were just that simple and innocent.
It turns out she was the naive one.
Upon learning the truth, Jiang Luoluo's mind was in a state of confusion, and her mood became somewhat depressed.
"Don't you feel... like you're stealing someone else's life?"
Perhaps if she hadn't traveled through time, that little girl named Luo might still be alive.
"Robbery?" Python's expression turned strange.
Why would you think that? Do you think I, or we, really want to live physically?
Jiang Luoluo blinked. "Isn't that right?"
"In the flame, we are asleep most of the time, and only occasionally regain a little consciousness due to external influences."
"And in those moments of lucidity, we see that nothing has changed; it is the same as it was thousands of years ago."
It's like a video on repeat. Sometimes you see the beginning, sometimes you see the end, but the content is always the same, just different stages.
Who would want to go through something painful again after already experiencing it once?
Jiang Luoluo suddenly realized that this was not her previous world. The people in the tribe did not have their own dreams, nor did they think about what kind of person they wanted to become or what kind of things they wanted to do. Their only goal was to live.
Those who wanted more of their people to survive and thought more about things than others became the leaders who could lead the tribe to survival.
For most of the tribe, returning to the flame and gaining the perpetuation of consciousness brought peace.
They no longer need to worry about food every day they open their eyes, nor do they have to fight endlessly to hunt for food.
Those who have never died may not understand and cherish life, but most of those who have died truly do not want to live again.