Traveling back to ancient times to determine the zodiac

"Coo-coo." The eagle received the order and flapped its wings and flew high. After soaring around, it flew back to Xiaoxing, pointing its wings to the east and calling "Coo-coo".

"Cave Master, the eagle said there is water over there. Let's follow the eagle!" Xiaoxing said.

"Okay! Let's follow the eagle to find water." Qiu stroked his white beard and nodded.

So everyone followed the eagle and headed east. After walking for about ten miles, they found a river. It was a small river about ten feet wide, not deep, very clear, winding through the grassland like a brocade ribbon.

Everyone cheered and jumped into the river, some drank water, some took a bath. Qiu said to everyone, "Warriors, let's camp here tonight." Then he ordered people to find dry firewood, build a bonfire, take out dry food, and start dinner.

It was mid-July, the moon was bright in the sky, the stars were shining, and the grassland seemed even brighter. Everyone was having dinner when they heard the sound of horses neighing not far upstream. Looking in the moonlight, they saw that it was the horses and the Nian Emperor Beast King who came to the river to drink water.

As soon as Dong saw the horses, he jumped up and asked, "Master, the horse king and the Nian beast are also coming there to drink water, let's chase them!"

"Brother Dong, forget it!" Xiao Xing shook his head and advised, "It's still futile to chase him like this. It's better to think of another way."

"Xing, they are drinking water. Let's go over quietly, maybe we can get close to them." Dong insisted on going, so regardless of Xiaoxing's objection, he took more than a hundred people, armed with weapons, and ran over quietly.

The horse king had been chased by humans for a whole day and only came to drink water now. Although they saw humans just downstream, they did not take it seriously and went to drink water without hesitation. Horses have excellent night vision. When they were drinking halfway, they found humans approaching. The horse king raised his head and neighed loudly, spread his four hooves, and led the herd to run again.

Dong watched the herd of horses disappear into the depths of the grassland, sighed deeply, and had to return to the camp in disappointment.

"Dong, what's going on?" Qiu asked.

"Reporting to the cave master, before we could get close, the horses ran away and we couldn't catch up with them." Dong replied with a frustrated look on his face.

"I had guessed that this would be the result." Xiao Xing suggested, "Master, the grassland is vast and the horses are roaming everywhere. Chasing them is like chasing the wind. Why don't we come up with a plan to deal with them?"

"Yes." Qiu nodded, stroked his white beard, glanced at everyone, and asked: "Dear warriors, do you have any good ideas?"

Everyone shook their heads. Chen suggested, "Master, the grassland is too vast. Why don't we use a trap like last time? Divide our army into three teams and chase and intercept the horses. I don't believe they can get away."

"Chen, although this encirclement plan is not sure whether it will succeed, we can still give it a try." Qiu saw that no one had any better ideas, so he announced: "Dear warriors, we will hunt the horse king according to this plan tomorrow. Everyone is tired today, so let's rest early!"

Nothing happened overnight. The next morning, the sun rose from the end of the grassland, making everyone's butts hot. Everyone woke up and ate some dry food. Qiu divided everyone into three teams: Dong and Xi led one team; Xiaoxing and Chen led one team; and he and Zhi led one team. After the division was decided, Qiu led the army to the center of the grassland to find the horse king's herd.

"Cave Master, the grassland is so vast, which direction should we look for it?" Dong looked around the flat grassland and said in confusion.

"I don't know either. Let's just search as we go!" Qiu replied.

"Cave Master, I'll let the eagle fly up to the sky and patrol and we'll know the answer." Xiaoxing said, and called the eagle over.

The eagle flew high into the sky as ordered, and soon landed in front of everyone. "Coo, coo," the eagle pointed its wings in the southwest direction, calling continuously.

Xiao Xing pointed to the southwest and said, "Master, the eagle said that the Horse King and the Nian Beast are over there. Let's go find them quickly."

"Okay, let's go look over there." After saying this, Qiu strode forward and led the way.

After wandering for more than ten miles, they finally found the Horse King, the Year Emperor, the Beast King and the herd of horses.

"Dong Hexing, the two of you go on the left and right to encircle and block the horses' path. I will lead the team to chase them from behind." Qiu immediately gave orders to everyone to surround and attack the horses.

Dong and Xiaoxing received the order and each led a team of warriors to spread out to the left and right, running towards the front of the horses. Because they were worried about alarming the horses and causing them to run again, the soldiers tried to expand the encirclement as much as possible, forming a large encirclement of four or five miles in radius. The horses saw that the humans were far away from them at first, and they didn't care. Later, they found that the encirclement was slowly shrinking and getting closer. Emperor Nian panicked and said to the Horse King: "Horse King, humans have surrounded us, run!"

“Don’t be afraid, Emperor Nian. No matter what humans do, they can’t catch this horse king.” The horse king remained very calm, sneering at Qiu and the others who were getting closer and closer and shouted, “You defeated generals, are you still refusing to admit defeat and give up? Today I’ll let you get a little closer, and see what you can do to me? Haha——”

"Humph! You stupid horse, if you have the ability, don't run." Qiu shouted.

The encirclement shrank smaller and smaller until they were about ten feet away. The horse king raised his head, neighed twice, and led the horses to run wildly towards a gap. Everyone hurriedly tried to catch up, but in the blink of an eye, the horse king, carrying Emperor Nian, led the horses and the beast kings out of the encirclement and fled several miles away.

After the capture failed, everyone was dejected. Qiu immediately organized his troops to chase the horses again, but the result was the same, failure. After chasing for a whole day, everyone was tired and exhausted, so they reluctantly returned to the camp.

The moon rose again, shining as bright as day. Everyone built a bonfire and took out some dry food to eat when they heard the sound of horses neighing from upstream. It turned out that the horse king was leading his horses to the river to drink water.

"Brother Dong, the horses have come to drink water again. Should we attack?" Xi asked.

"Forget it!" Dong shook his head and replied dejectedly, "Why don't we take a good rest, recuperate, and try to wipe them out tomorrow."

Lian Dong lost confidence, and everyone watched the horses drink water and leave. After dinner, everyone discussed for a while, but there was no good plan, so they had to continue the encirclement and suppression.

For several days, although Qiu led everyone to chase the horse king and the horses, they still got nothing, not even a hair of horse. Another afternoon, the sun was scorching and the weather was very hot. An accident happened. Just as everyone was chasing the horse king, Lao Ge in the team suddenly fell to the ground. He was sweating profusely, and his limbs were stiff and twitching constantly. Everyone hurriedly stopped the team and called the cave owner to check.

Qiu heard the news and quickly turned to look at Lao Ge with Zhi, Dong, Xiaoxing and others. When Zhi saw Lao Ge's symptoms, he shouted: "Cave Master, based on my hunting experience of more than 50 years, Ge is suffering from heat exhaustion and is too hot."

"Heat exhaustion?" Xiao Xing asked in confusion, "Isn't this called heat stroke?"

"Xing, what is heat stroke? Zhi is right, this is heat exhaustion." Qiu confirmed Lao Ge's condition and asked Dong and the others anxiously, "Who has water? Bring some water quickly."

Everyone hurriedly took out their water bags, only to find that all of them had been drunk up.

"Cave Master, there's no water." Dong searched through everyone's water bags and answered disappointedly.

"Since there is no water, let's carry Ge back to the camp quickly." Qiu ordered.

"Yes, cave master!" After receiving the order, Dong, Xi, Bei and others immediately lifted Lao Ge and ran towards the camp.

Half an hour later, everyone finally returned to the camp. Xiaoxing, Chen and others quickly fetched water from the river. Qiu took the water and fed it to Ge, then rubbed it on his body. Although everyone kept rescuing him for a long time, Old Ge still died of severe heatstroke.

Looking at the upright corpse of Old Ge, Dong's last bit of confidence also collapsed. Frustrated, he could not help but want to retreat again, and said to Qiu: "Master, this herd of horses is too fast, and the weather is hot. If we continue to chase them like this, we will not catch up with the Horse King, and we will die of heat like Uncle Ge. I think it is better to give up and return to Hongmeng!"

"Nonsense!" Qiu glared at Dong and scolded him, "Dong, I stressed two days ago: Once you set your mind, you must succeed. Why are you giving up like that again?" At this point, Qiu stroked his white beard, glanced at everyone, and continued firmly, "My fellow warriors, although Ge had an accident today because of the heat, we cannot chase him when it's hot. We can chase him when it's cooler. Anyway, no matter what, we will never retreat until we catch the Horse King and destroy the Nian Beast."

"Yes! Cave Master." Everyone responded loudly.

Seeing that Dong was still silent, Qiu encouraged him again: "Dong, when you encounter difficulties, you should not give up, but try every possible way to overcome them. Although horses run fast, we humans are smart and wise. As long as we unite as one and never give up, we will definitely be able to come up with a magic weapon to win, catch them, and destroy them all."

"I understand, Cave Master. I will try my best." Dong was encouraged and cheered up again.

Afterwards, Qiu ordered everyone to bury Lao Ge's body on the spot. By the time the burial was completed, it was already dark.

Everyone had just started dinner when the sound of horses neighing came from upstream. Everyone looked up and saw the horse king leading the horses to drink water again. After drinking, they swarmed away like a gust of wind. Suddenly, Xiaoxing slapped his head and shouted, "I have a solution!"

"Xing, what can you do? Tell me quickly." Qiu asked impatiently.

"Cave Master, horses are like cows. They are good at running but not good at climbing. So, why don't we set another trap?" Xiaoxing replied.

"Xing, the trap plan is feasible, but this grassland is very vast and the horses have no fixed route. Where should we set it?" Zhi interrupted.

"Uncle Zhi, Cave Master, I found that the horses come to this river to drink water every day. Let's set a trap here by the river, and the horse king will definitely fall into the trap." Xiaoxing said, pointing to the place where the horses just drank water.

"Yeah, that makes sense." Qiu nodded and announced, "My fellow warriors, let's try setting up the trap again tomorrow."

"Yes, sir!" Everyone responded in unison after receiving the order.

After the discussion, the exhausted people fell asleep. Qiu took out the wooden sculpture of the Nuwa statue, placed it upright, then knelt down respectfully and prayed quietly: "Nuwa, in order to destroy the Nian beast and eliminate future troubles, we have come to this grassland from afar. But the Nian beast rides on the horse king and runs like the wind, making it difficult to capture. Please, Nuwa, Bai Ling, tell me how to capture the horse king and destroy the Nian beast as soon as possible?"

After praying several times, Bai Ling still did not appear. Qiu had no choice but to give up and go to rest.

The next morning, Qiu Sui ordered everyone to dig traps. They used stone knives and stone spears to dig hundreds of deep traps along the river upstream of where the horses had been drinking water the night before. Then they covered the traps and covered them with loose soil. When everything was set up, it was already sunset.

Everyone evacuated upstream and returned to the camp, built a bonfire, and ate dinner while waiting for the horse king and his herd to fall into the trap.

After repeated failures in pursuit, the Horse King became more and more arrogant and no longer took humans seriously. Every time it escaped, it would show off to the Nian Emperor, the Sheep King, the Monkey King, the Rooster, the Pig Head, the Dog Head, etc.: "Look, how fast we horses are, we run like flying. It's ridiculous that those humans are as slow as turtles, but they always chase us relentlessly, really overestimating their own abilities. Wow..."

"Haha..." Seeing that the humans could not catch up with them, Emperor Nian and the other beast kings also laughed, showing extreme contempt for humans.

That night, after seeing the humans withdraw their troops and return to camp, the Horse King led the Nian Emperor, the Beast King and the horses to the river to drink water as usual. From a distance, he saw that the humans were gathered in the camp several miles downstream, and there was no one near the upstream. The Horse King then boldly led the horses to the river. While walking, he did not forget to laugh at the humans: "These people are really fools. Even if they run their legs off, they can't catch up with us. It's ridiculous that they still don't give up and don't go back to Hongmeng."

"Whew—whimper—" When the horse spirits heard this, they all burst into laughter, being so proud that they had no sense of vigilance at all.

Suddenly, there was a loud "boom" as if the sky was falling and the earth was collapsing. Several horses running in the front stepped on the trap and fell into it, screaming and unable to get up.