Chapter 115: The Actor

The blood of the zebra, the bison, and the gorilla was all drained away. Even the skulls set into the humanoid totem had turned blood-red. They seemed almost sentient, charged with a strange vitality, watching every person in the square.

“Rakutu Alimande Pyanima, take some men and carry these three offerings away to be cooked,” the black elder ordered.

“Yes, Father!”

The black executioner with the absurdly long name nodded to the elder.

At once, several tribesmen began making preparations. They set a pot larger than a millstone over the bonfire. The executioner and several others briefly scalded the three bloodless carcasses in boiling water, then skinned them, stripped away the bones, chopped the meat, and threw it into the pot to stew.

The others were hardly idle during this time. Some gathered around the fire and began shouting loudly.

To the rhythmic beat of hide drums, one black tribesman after another began performing the Fangtengfrom Dance, a solemn ritual dance reserved for the most important occasions. Then several young warriors, wearing animal skins around their waists and bells around their ankles, strode forward in swift, vigorous steps. Their dark, gleaming bodies shook as they gripped machetes, shouting fiercely while slashing left and right and leaping through the dance.

It was the Machete Dance, much like the Axe Gang’s Axe Dance. Both existed to display the warriors’ courage and strength, and to rouse the spirits of the people.

The fervent spectacle somewhat dispelled the sinister, uncanny atmosphere that had hung over the sacrifice. Jessica and the other two women also seemed to relax a little as they watched this exotic scene, something they could never have witnessed in Europe.

The three animals continued simmering in the great pot. The black executioner—Rakutu, for short—and several others added handful after handful of ingredients: cassava, corn, black beans, nuts, and even strange flowers and herbs.

As the aroma of meat began to spread, the throats of many tribesmen bobbed with hunger. Some took out food and roasted it over the flames, though these were merely small scraps—things like insect larvae, spiders, and grasshoppers, just enough to tide them over.

When the three animals had boiled down into a thick soup, the zebra’s head, the gorilla’s skull, and the bison’s head rose and sank amid the richly colored, roiling broth. By then, evening had arrived. The dark clouds still had not dispersed, and the sky had grown even dimmer.

The black elder walked to the great pot, thrust his dark hand directly into the scalding broth, seized a fist-sized chunk of meat, and swallowed it in several bites. He nodded with satisfaction.

Then he took a small pouch from his waist. Opening it, he sprinkled some powder into the soup. At once, an indescribably rich fragrance filled the air.

The members of this native tribe rarely ate meat in their daily lives. Now, smelling that aroma, their mouths began to water uncontrollably. Had the elder not been standing there—and had this not been a solemn sacrificial ceremony—some of them might already have rushed to the pot to seize the meat and gorge themselves.

“What was that powder he added?” Yan Luo asked curiously, turning to one of the tribesmen nearby.

“It is a spice bestowed by the gods. After eating it, a person can feel as though he has ascended to heaven.”

Yan Luo fell silent.

At that moment, the black elder announced to everyone, “It is ready.”

Several black children even cheered. Many people brought out chipped bowls, clay jars, tin cups, and other containers. One man even carried a washbasin. The meat had been portioned out, but at least they could drink as much soup as they wanted. Once the soup was gone, they could always add more water.

As everyone lined up under the shouts of several spear-wielding guards to receive their meat and soup, the black executioner, Rakutu, suddenly stepped forward.

“Wait, Father. What did you put into the soup?”

“It is a divine medicine bestowed by the gods. It allows the spirit to communicate with them. Everyone takes it at every sacrifice… What is the matter?” The black elder turned and looked at his son.

“Divine medicine? I fear it is poison.”

A cold sneer spread across Rakutu’s dark face.

“How dare you speak this way during the ceremony! Do you wish to provoke the gods’ anger and bring disaster upon the tribe?” The black elder struck the ground heavily with his staff.

In private, they called it an evil spirit. But before so many people, during a sacrifice, it naturally had to be called a god.

Those words caused the tribesmen to murmur among themselves. To these ignorant natives, the sacrifice was the most important event of all, and the wrath of the gods represented the most terrible disaster imaginable.

“Do not try to frighten me, Father.” The black executioner was still smiling. “Where is the snake that used to be on your staff?”

The elder’s face darkened.

To obtain the evil spirit’s power through this sacrifice, he had needed a grand blood offering—one that might even require the entire tribe, more than three hundred people, to surrender their blood and lives. Although he was the tribal elder, he could not order everyone to commit suicide. Besides, no matter how powerful he was, he could never defeat three hundred people. Some among them were warriors and shamans in their own right.

There was only one solution.

Poison.

Ordinary poison would not do. He had therefore ground into powder the cursed snake he had painstakingly cultivated. If he could obtain the evil spirit’s power and infuse it into Jerry, allowing the Hoffman family to remain united and flourish once more after decades of division, then the sacrifice would be worthwhile.

But… why had he been exposed?

The black elder was both shocked and suspicious. There had clearly been no one nearby at the time. Nevertheless, he maintained his outward composure and used a father’s authority to rebuke him.

“Rakutu, my son, stand down!”

“Hahahaha! You call me your son?”

The executioner, wearing a necklace of finger bones around his neck, laughed bitterly. His face filled with boundless hatred.

“Rakutu, have you gone mad?” the black elder cried in shock.

The people around them began murmuring again. Both the elder and Rakutu were familiar figures within the tribe. Now the man was claiming that the elder was not his father. Was that not an obvious lie? Or perhaps… had something happened between the elder and his wife all those years ago?

“You must have been tainted in mind by evil from hell. Bind him and take him away! After the sacrifice, I will personally drive the evil from his body,” the black elder said painfully.

Two guards approached Rakutu.

The executioner did not resist. He allowed one guard to seize each of his arms. Blood seemed to flicker in his eyes, while a savage, mocking grin twisted the corners of his mouth.

“Even if you drag me away, the doubts in everyone else’s hearts will not disappear. This is a pot of deadly poison. Drink it, and the entire tribe will be destroyed!”

“Would you dare drink it yourself?”

The black elder swept his gaze around the gathering. Sure enough, the people who had been waiting in line for meat and soup now wore expressions of suspicion.

For the sake of the Hoffman family…

Having made his decision, the old man took a clay bowl, ladled out a generous serving of soup, and drank it in one gulp.

“I have drunk it! Guards, take him to the animal pen!”

“Hahahaha… What a spirit of sacrifice. Who would have thought that, in order to offer up the entire tribe and obtain the evil spirit’s power, you would even be willing to drink the poison yourself? Everyone can wait and see whether this old bastard dies when the poison takes effect.”

Rakutu’s expression abruptly changed. It became like the oppressive, violent fury that gathered before a storm. He growled, “Old man, should I call you Father—or should I call you a dog of the Hoffman family?”

“What?”

The black elder felt as though he had been struck by a hammer. Even his pitch-black face seemed to pale for an instant.

He had drunk the poison with the resolve to die, only to have his true identity exposed by the son he had lived beside for more than thirty years.

“Thirty-two years ago, when I was two years old, my father, Elder Blackgrass, received a group of visitors from Europe—the Hoffman family, who had maintained a relationship with our voodoo tribe for hundreds of years. But that family was no longer satisfied with obtaining power through trade. They wanted to lay hands on even greater power, and they decided to control the tribe. During that visit, the Hoffmans killed my father.”

Rakutu’s eyes brimmed with tears.

“I will never forget the sight of my father’s death. His body was soaked in chemicals. Then a complete skin was peeled from him, from head to toe. A blond man put on my father’s skin…”

“From that day onward, that man impersonated Blackgrass. He impersonated my father. But he never imagined that I, though only two years old, would remember everything and secretly swear in my heart that one day I would take revenge—not only on you, but on the entire Hoffman family! And now the sole heir of that family has arrived. My opportunity has come.”

“You! Evil has taken control of your mind! Take him away! Take him away!” The black elder shouted, waving his staff as though trying to cast some spell.

But the deadly poison he had swallowed suddenly took effect. An unbearable agony exploded inside him, and he violently spat out a mouthful of blood.

“You… my son… how could you do this to your father…”

“Father? No. You are merely an actor! You played the role of the elder. You played the role of a father. You have been performing those roles for thirty-two years, but you still cannot compare with me! Because I am an actor too. Though my heart was buried beneath a hatred that cut to the bone, though I wanted to kill you every moment of every day, I endured it. I endured it for thirty-two years, waiting for the people of the Hoffman family to return. I played the role of a son perfectly—better than you played yours, and far more deeply!”

“Do you know how Tia and Mande died?”

The savagery and cruelty vanished from Rakutu’s face, leaving only an icy, expressionless calm.

“Before they went to dig up the grave, I secretly placed a curse on them—a curse that provoked rage and madness. I made them turn against each other, causing the deaths of two people who both possessed the power of witchcraft and were utterly loyal to you. Now you have reached the end of the road. You will die. The heir of the Hoffman family will die as well. And those three women will become slaves, locked in a cellar until they perish!”

Overcome by rage and grief, the black elder could no longer use his own power to suppress the terrifying poison. Black blood flowed constantly from the corners of his mouth, while tears rolled down from his eyes.

The two guards holding Rakutu released him involuntarily. They were bewildered by the sudden turn of events, utterly at a loss.

“Bang!”

Rakutu charged forward and kicked the old man to the ground. Then he viciously kicked him several more times, sending him rolling into the bonfire.

“Ah! Ahhh…”

The black elder screamed in agony and crawled desperately to escape the flames. But every time he managed to break free, Rakutu kicked him back into the fire. The other tribesmen watched the scene unfold before them, yet no one stepped forward to stop it.

They saw the black skin covering the elder’s body burn and crumble in the flames, revealing the pale skin of a white man beneath it, along with a head of blond hair.

It was true. He had put on human skin and disguised himself as the tribal elder for thirty-two years.

“For more than thirty years, I truly came to think of myself as your father. I poured all the love in my heart into you. I even raised you to become a shaman. In my heart, you were my son! Why would you do this? Why? This time, even if a blood sacrifice was required, I would never have killed you! My son…”

The figure within the flames let out a nightmarish cry of grief and anguish. Then he suddenly shouted, “Young Master Jerry, run! I will hold these people back!”

The old man standing in the fire thrust a hand into his own chest and tore out a bright-red, beating heart.

“I curse you! With my heart, I curse—”

“Go to hell!”

His words were cut short. Rakutu rushed forward and swung the long blade that had killed the gorilla, severing the old man’s neck in a single stroke.

The flaming head rolled across the ground, still faintly bearing the handsome features the man had possessed in his youth.