Traveling back to ancient times to determine the zodiac

After saying that, he turned around and glared at Xiao Xing, saying contemptuously: "Squeak! Do you humans think you are powerful? This Rat King is almost three thousand years old, and I have never heard of anyone powerful. Let me tell you, we are not short of food. We come to steal food to contribute to Emperor Nian. You rebel against this Rat King, which is to rebel against Emperor Nian. If you know what's going on, quickly hand over the food to us. Otherwise, I will go back and report to Emperor Nian, and in a rage, Emperor Nian will kill all of you humans."

Xiao Xing was furious after hearing this and said, "You rat thieves, you came to steal our food and pretended to be the 'Nian Emperor'. I tell you, if he is the 'Nian Di', I am the 'Ren Tian'. Let's see who is more powerful, the Nian Emperor or the Ren Tian."

As soon as Xiao Xing finished speaking, the rat spirits sneered. The Rat King laughed, "With the appearance of you humans - no sharp teeth in your mouth, no horns on your head, you can't run fast, and you can't jump high. What ability do you have to dare to despise Emperor Nian and call yourself the god of man. Squeak, squeak, squeak...! You really overestimate your own abilities and are arrogant. Emperor Nian is so powerful that he can move mountains and overturn seas. How can humans compare to him?"

This statement aroused Xiao Xing and the others' curiosity. So Xiao Xing asked, "Rat Thief, how powerful is the Nian Emperor? We must be afraid of him."

"You have never seen Emperor Nian, so of course you don't know how powerful he is. Well, now I will tell you the story of Emperor Nian..."

As the Mouse King was speaking, suddenly, a noisy voice came from the southeast. Everyone turned around and saw a large group of people running towards them, led by Qiu, Ping, Zhi, Dong and Xi.

Everyone cheered: "Great! The cave master is back!"

It turned out that the eagle was ordered to fly to find Qiu and his hunters, so it naturally did not dare to slack off. Although it was a bird, it had been dealing with humans for a long time and had become quite smart. It knew the direction where Qiu hunted every day. When it flew up in the air and looked down, it found Qiu and his group of hunters still on the way. The eagle immediately flew in front of Qiu, looked at him, and kept calling "coo".

Suddenly, a eagle descended from the sky and blocked Qiu's way. Qiu was very surprised: "Hey, eagle, why are you here? Is Xing here to hunt as well?"

The eagle can understand human speech, but cannot speak. It flaps its wings and makes "cooing" noises non-stop.

Qiu frowned in confusion and thought. Dong stepped forward and shouted at the eagle angrily: "Eagle, get out of the way quickly. Don't delay our hunting."

After that, he led Xi, Nan and others to leave. The eagle called "Gu Gu" and ran to Dong to block his way.

Last night, Xiao Xing was brought to the stage by the cave master and praised in public, which made Dong very jealous. Therefore, the big eagle was also very hostile to Xiao Xing. Seeing that Xiao Xing was blocking the way again, Dong became angry and drove it away, saying, "Big eagle, if you make trouble here again, I will beat you up. Go back to Xiao Xing!"

The eagle was still not afraid and just tried to stop the crowd. Dong got angry and raised his hand to hit him. Qiu hurriedly protected the eagle and shouted, "Dong, stop it! Don't hit it!"

"Cave Master, this big eagle just blocks us and won't let us leave. How can we go hunting?" Dong said helplessly.

Qiu stroked his white beard and said to Dong seriously, "Dong, I don't know why my eyelids kept twitching today. Now the eagle has come to find us alone. Based on my intuition, I think something urgent must have happened in the cave, so Xing ordered it to call us back to help."

"Cave Master, what urgent matter could there be in broad daylight?" Dong didn't believe it at all.

"Dong, as the old saying goes: It is better to believe something than not to believe it. If there is something wrong, we can go back and help. If there is nothing wrong, that's even better." After Qiu finished speaking, he glanced at everyone with a sharp look and immediately ordered: "Now everyone listen: Stop hunting and return immediately!"

So Qiu led everyone to take two steps at a time and rushed back to the front of the battle.

At that moment, Qiu, Ling, Ping, Zhi, Dong, Xi, etc., holding stone knives and stone axes, went straight to Xiaoxing, Xia, Chen, Feng, Yun, etc. who were in front of the formation. Suddenly seeing those huge rat spirits and the large number of ordinary rats, even an old hunter like Qiu was almost shocked and asked anxiously: "Xia, Xing, what happened? Why are there so many rat spirits?"

"Master, since you set out, we have started to do some finishing work. Then we found that a group of rats came to steal food again, so I sent the eagle to inform you, and then organized everyone to kill rats. Unexpectedly, even the Rat King came out this time. The Rat King also said that they stole food to pay tribute to Emperor Nian. Resisting it is rebelling against Emperor Nian. Emperor Nian will destroy us." Xiaoxing hurriedly recounted what happened just now to Qiu and others in detail, and finally asked: "Master, what do you think we should do now?"

"Xing, you did a great job. You are worthy of being the son of a tiger-killing warrior." Qiu patted Xiaoxing's shoulder vigorously and said, "We are hunters. How can we be afraid of those animals and surrender to them?"

Qiu stroked his white beard and turned to the Rat King and said, "Go on, you thief, where does Emperor Nian live? How powerful is he? How scary is he?"

The Rat King saw a large number of strong men coming, and his arrogance was weakened. He continued, "Squeak, Nian Emperor lives in Tianshan, more than 2,000 miles away from Hongmeng. Nian Emperor is a monster, about 10,000 years old, the oldest animal in the world. He is extremely powerful, one of his horns can kill five cows, and he can swallow an elephant in one bite. His tail alone is more than ten feet long, and it can uproot a tree when rolled up. Nian Emperor controls all animals in the world, including tigers in the mountains, dragons in the water, and birds in the sky. All of them obey him. If there are any who resist, Nian Emperor will drive them all out and eat them all."

After hearing this, everyone couldn't help but take a deep breath. Ling frowned and said to Qiu: "Master, since the birth of mankind, no one has ever heard of the Nian Emperor. I don't know if what this mouse said is true or not?"

"Yes, Cave Master. Ever since Nuwa created human beings, generation after generation, we have believed that human beings are the kings of the world. But we have never heard of the Emperor Nian who is in charge of the world. This is really unexpected." Ping followed.

"Cave Master, with my hunting experience of more than fifty years, there is no such powerful animal in the world. This must be the rat thief deliberately exaggerating in order to scare us." Zhi said disapprovingly.

Qiu stroked his white beard and frowned, "Ling, Zhi, although we have never heard of the Nian Emperor, the world is so big that there are all kinds of wonders. The Nian Emperor may really exist."

"Ah? Is there really such a powerful and terrifying Emperor Nian in the world?" Dong was surprised when he heard it.

"Dong, although this Nian Emperor is powerful, I guess it is just a super big beast." Qiu continued.

Xiao Xing suddenly slapped his head and immediately thought of the story of the Nian Beast: In ancient times, there was a Nian Beast, also called Xi, which often came out to eat people at the end of the year. Later, it was driven away by humans, and people have lived a stable life since then. I didn't expect that I would travel to this era. So he said loudly: "Master, you are absolutely right. The Nian Emperor is actually a Nian Beast, and it was finally defeated by us humans."

"Xing, how do you know about the Nian beast? Who told you about it?" Qiu looked at Xiaoxing in confusion.

"Well - I, I dreamed about it." Xiao Xingru said that she had traveled through time, but no one believed her, so she simply made up another lie.

"Since Emperor Nian is also a beast, we hunters are here to hunt beasts. Why should we be afraid of him? If he dares to come, I will shoot his head with an arrow." He raised his arms and shouted.

"Yes, when the Nian beast comes, we will kill it as well." Chen followed.

"Yes, yes, eliminate the rat thieves and the Nian beast." Ri, Yue, Feng, Yun... and other young men became excited and immediately followed suit in shouting.

Qiu waved to everyone, and when they stopped, he said solemnly: "Xing, all warriors: No matter how powerful the Nian Beast is, I believe that as long as we humans dare to challenge it, we will definitely be able to defeat it."

"Cave Master, although I don't know whether what the Rat King said is true or not, I think since Emperor Nian is called the Emperor of the World, he must be very powerful. Anyway, we can collect food later, so we might as well offer the food to the Rat King to avoid a disaster." Dong expressed a different opinion worriedly.

"Cave Master, what Brother Dong said makes sense. If we are unable to defeat the Nian beast, we will be in trouble." Xi immediately followed.

"Cave Master, what Dong and Xi said makes sense. As the saying goes: Don't be afraid of ten thousand, just be prepared for the worst. If we cause trouble, we will never have peace in the future." Ling also expressed deep worry.

"Cave Master, with my more than fifty years of hunting experience, even if the Nian beast is more powerful than a tiger or a cheetah, there is no need to be so scared. I think Dong Heling and the others are worrying too much." Zhi said unconvinced.

"Ling, Zhi, what you said makes sense. Hmm..." Qiu stroked his white beard again and fell into deep thought.

"Master, I don't think so." Xiao Xing objected strongly. After all, he knew before anyone else that humans would defeat the Nian Beast, so he insisted on fighting: "If we give away the food, it means we have surrendered to the Nian Beast. In this way, we will be controlled by the Nian Beast, and we will have to offer food to it and even work for it. Therefore, we must not obey them and must fight the Nian Beast to the end."

"Yes! I agree with Xing's opinion! Kill these rat thieves and declare war on the Nian beast." Chen next to him shouted passionately.

"Yes! We support Xing. Destroy the Rat King and defeat the Nian Beast!" The people below also shouted.

Soon after, Hong'er, Lan'er, Yue, Ri, Feng, Yun, and others raised their sticks and shouted, "We support Xing. Down with the Rat King! Down with the Nian Beast!"

The shouting was like spring thunder, shaking the earth. Seeing everyone so excited, Qiu was infected by their enthusiasm, so he made a painful decision and said, "Since everyone supports the fight against the Nian Beast, I have decided to destroy the Rat King and defeat the Nian Beast."

Dong and Xi saw that the cave master had made the decision, so they could only obey.

Qiu looked at the Rat King and announced to him in a loud voice: "You thief rat, we will not give you any food, and we will never surrender to the Nian beast. If you insist on robbing us of our food, we will definitely destroy you."

"Squeak, squeak, these ungrateful humans actually dare to resist Emperor Nian and want to destroy us. They really overestimate their own abilities." The Rat King shouted angrily.

"You rat thieves who chew stems and roots are no match for us humans. Go back quickly and call your Emperor Nian." Ping shouted, waving his spear.

Seeing the mighty and majestic humans, a mountain rat spirit timidly asked the Rat King: "My king, humans are stubborn and stubborn. Even if you bring out the Emperor Nian, you can't suppress them. What should we do now?"

"My people, since humans refuse to offer food, let's go and rob them. Let's see how powerful they are." The Rat King gave an order and ordered the rat spirits and little mice to attack.

The rat spirits and little mice received the order and swarmed towards humans.

When Qiu and his companions saw the rats coming, they led the hunters to meet them. A fight broke out between humans and rats.

Dong yelled, "You damn rat thief, go to hell!" He raised his stone axe and chopped at a rat that was running towards him.

The axe chopped the rat demon into two pieces without any deviation, and blood splattered immediately, and it died.

As soon as this rat spirit died, two more rat spirits jumped towards Dong. Dong raised his leg and kicked one to the side. He swung the stone axe in his hand and smashed it down at the other rat spirit. It was hit with a concussion and lay on the ground, groaning.

Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, more rat spirits quickly attacked from behind. Dong was quickly in a panic and was bitten on the foot by a rat spirit. Since rats are rodents, the bite was not deep. Dong was furious and chopped it down with another stone axe.

On the other side, the generals swung their wooden sticks like flying, hitting the rat spirits head on. "Pa pa pa..." After a few "pa pa pa...", several rat spirits were beaten to the point of having their heads tilted, their arms and legs broken, and they kept screaming.

Xiao Xing saw that although the rat spirits were vicious, their attack power was not strong, so he immediately rushed forward with a wooden stick, shouting, "Brothers, these rat spirits are nothing to be afraid of. Their fighting power is only 500 kilograms at most."

Although the rats did not have great attack power, their large numbers made it difficult for everyone to cope with them.

After fighting for a while, although many rat spirits and ordinary rats were killed, the rats behind them continued to come. Qiu saw that things were not going well, so he secretly looked at the Rat King and saw that it was still watching the fight in the same place. So he bent his bow and drew his arrow and shot at the Rat King.

When the Rat King saw some of the rat spirits being killed, and some wounded and screaming deserters, his pride had long since flown away to the clouds. He was terrified and trembling all over. At this moment, an arrow flew over and hit him right in the neck. Even though he was old and hard, the pain made him jump three feet high.

"Squeak--" The Rat King was so frightened that he didn't care about the rat spirits and the little mice. He turned around and ran away, holding his head. While running, he shouted: "I was shot and injured. My people, humans are too powerful. Retreat quickly, retreat quickly!