"Oh! Has the learned elder Jatili already arrived? Summon him at once! No, I myself shall go to the entrance!"
Xiulote suddenly awakened and turned around. A trace of joy appeared on his face as he quickly made his way towards the great hall’s entrance. Then, the young king suddenly remembered something. He glanced at his plain robe, paused briefly, and gestured for the Head Warrior to drape him in a formal ceremonial dress before he strode eagerly to the entrance to look carefully.
The mighty wind blew along the corridor, entering through the doors of the Palace of Wind; a curtain depicting the Chief Divine stood in the corridor with the Hummingbird Sun emblem fluttering in the wind. Two lines of silent Mexica samurai stood guard, with only the sound of wind chimes gently ringing in the palace.
Between the lowered war clubs of the samurai, an old man with white hair, leaning on a rustic wooden staff, quietly gazed at the ancient frescoes in the corridor as well as at the freshly painted marks on them. His figure was thin and his face rosy; he wore a flat, dark round hat and the traditional blue robe of Prepetcha. The back of the blue robe trailed with a few black and white ribbons embedded with various mysterious symbols.
This sage’s attire, though simple, was not something ordinary people could wear. It symbolized a rare and noble status, representing those in the tribes who possessed knowledge and traditions. Wearing this outfit in public naturally earned the reverence of various Prepetcha tribes.
Upon hearing the sound, Sage Jatili finally shifted his gaze from the ancient and fresh frescoes. He turned his head, revealing a pair of deep eyes like lake waters, and an aged yet sharp face. He looked at Xiulote, observing the young king’s delicate and resilient features, his gentle eyes like jade, and then assessed the king’s formal and dignified posture, eventually showing a hint of surprise on his face.
"The decayed wood of Prepetcha, the remnant people of the Tarasco Kingdom, Jatili, pay respects to your Highness of Mexica, the conqueror of the kingdom, the great new king!"
Jatili, caught off guard for a moment, lowered his wooden staff and bowed deeply.
The king before him was so young, merely a fifteen or sixteen-year-old youth! The young king’s appearance was handsome, his demeanor grave and his gaze wise and firm, starkly different from the cruel and tyrannical image of the Mexica conqueror he had imagined... With this thought, a slight movement stirred in the sage’s heart, a divine light flashing in his eyes.
"Respected learned elder, revered by our kingdom’s citizens for your seniority, I admire you immensely. Please, dispense with the formalities!"
Xiulote quickly moved forward two steps, carefully lifting the elder by his arms. In the Prepetcha language, the name "Jatili" itself means an old sage.
The elder naturally stood up straight, without much fuss, and a calm smile appeared on his face. However, this smile was soon replaced by surprise once again.
The young king released his hands, stepped back, then clenched his right fist to his chest and bowed deeply, performing a solemn ritual.
"Sage Jatili, you are the keeper of history for the Tarasco Kingdom, the bearer of the Kingdom Epic. Today, there are no distinctions of sovereign and subject, only teacher and student. This gesture is in honor of your wisdom! As a newcomer to this land, I sincerely seek your instruction on the Tarasco epics and ask for guidance from a wise man!"
Jatili shifted his thin frame to sidestep the king’s gesture, then returned the formal gesture with equal solemnity.
"A man from a vanquished nation dares not accept a gesture from his Highness... What skills does a turtle, coiled in a mud pond, have to teach an eagle soaring in the sky?"
Saying this, Jatili paused. Observing the young king’s sincere expression, he continued.
"A turtle living long in a mud pond might have glimpsed some forgotten skies. If the eagle does not mind, I am willing to slowly share what I know."
Upon hearing this, a genuine smile appeared on Xiulote’s face.
The cultural heritage of Tarasco was largely concentrated in two places. One was the Temple of the House of Wind, guarded and handed down by the priests of the three divinities. But this inheritance, along with the knowledgeable high priests, had turned into ethereal blue flames on the night of Qinchongcan’s downfall.
The other heritage was preserved in the Palace of Wind, managed by generations of tribal sages. Thanks to the sudden uprising of the old militia, the Tarasco chief died too abruptly to light the prepared fire. Thus, the codices, books, and frescoes in the Palace of Wind were preserved intact.
In these days, Xiulote was both drafting laws for the fief and studying the ancient codices.
In his reading, Xiulote realized that although the Tarasco Kingdom had lasted only two hundred years, the Prepetcha civilization of the Lake Region had been handed down for nearly two thousand years! The upper echelons of the Tarasco Kingdom were originally from a tribe of Chichimeca Canine Descendants from the northwestern highlands. More than two hundred years ago, they had moved south, conquered the Lake Region, and then integrated into the ancient civilization of the Lake Region, becoming members of the Prepetcha people. In the Lake Region, the overwhelmingly predominant Prepetcha people possessed a mature and unique cultural system.
Xiulote wished to understand the spiritual world of the Prepetcha people and explore the cultural origins of the civilization to better formulate strategies for tribal assimilation. However, these ancient records, abstract and mysterious, profound and difficult to interpret, and not written in text, required an oral tradition from inheritance bearers for proper understanding.