Chapter 12 Chapter Thirteen Negotiators

When the tongue can't solve the problem, use the teeth - "Sun Tzu's Art of War. Combat" On New Year's Day, January 1, 206 BC in the Republican calendar, a Mayan came to the camp of the Yin Shang Corps, claiming to be a divine envoy representing the Pan-Mayan city-state alliance, and then he died. Some South American historians who are prejudiced against Eastern civilization said: This shows that the Shang Dynasty was a barbaric and backward uncivilized nation, cunning and evil, and lacked the minimum respect for international law.Their invasion of the Mayan civilization was like Mongolia's invasion of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Huns' invasion of Byzantium, and the Corsicans' invasion of Austria.

In fact, this incident was just an early tragic example of The Culture Clash. Like most civilizations in the world, the Maya believed that envoys represented the image of a country; but unfortunately, their aesthetics, like the Maya text, showed a state of nonlinear chaos.Even within each city-state within the Mayan cultural circle, they had their own unique aesthetics, very different from those of neighboring city-states. Researchers have been studying this strange cultural phenomenon in depth for several years. Finally, a biologist found that this characteristic of the Mayans originated from the habit of oviparous animals. regarded as the most perfect, and worshiped almost morbidly.For example, a Mayan city-state is beautiful with psoriasis, so the first thing their ancestors saw was a pangolin; another Mayan city-state is beautiful with bulging cheeks, which is the first thing their ancestors saw was a frog; there is another Mayan city-state name Called Hamazur, there is no doubt that their ancestors must have seen the termite queen.

In fact, unifying the aesthetics of the Mayan city-states is more difficult than unifying the Mayan city-states themselves, which is at least theoretically possible. Therefore, before the departure of the Mayan envoys, the representatives of the Pan-Mayan City-State Alliance agreed that he should dress up beautifully so as not to lose face, but what is considered beautiful has sparked a protracted debate.According to the custom, the Mayan envoys needed tattoos to show their identities, so all the representatives insisted that the tattoos should reflect a healthy and upward aesthetic; Unfortunately, the Mayans did not have the habit of making sketches. They tattooed the drafts directly on the envoys, and then discussed where they needed to be revised.Several envoy candidates died painfully during this discussion. When they died, none of their skin was blank, and they were filled with semi-finished graphics, red crosses and comments marked by representatives.

The more heated the debate, the more pain the envoy candidates endured.Because fanatic representatives often give up persuading the other party, and directly stab the other party's words on the skin, and finally the person who can't find a place to use the knife is considered a loser. In this way, after paying for the lives of more than a dozen envoy candidates, the tattoo was finally finalized.Delegates smacked their cheeks contentedly to signify the unanimous approval of the result by the House of Lords.The envoy who survived was standing awkwardly in the center, his whole body covered with patterns.

Several city-states tattooed patterns on his tongue and eyelids because of insufficient skin space. In order to reflect the spirit of complete equality between city-states, envoys had to stick out their tongues and close their eyes.There are two other city-states sharing his genitals, which can reflect different styles according to the different states of the organs-it could have been shared by three city-states, but this envoy is obviously not as big as his sacrificed predecessor in this respect. The last process is decoration.Maya glued on him a mass of parrot feathers, artistically dotting it around the tattoo.From a distance, the envoy looks like a colorful parrot-like creature.Apart from the feathers, he is completely naked in order to show as much of the tattoo as possible.

The speaker handed him a coconut and a stone ax and asked him to hand it over to the commander of the Yin Shang Legion.It's a Mayan metaphor: "Either we eat coconuts in peace, or we fight a war." However, due to the lack of precision in Maya text, some people interpret it as "either hit my head with a coconut or a stone axe"; another version thinks it is: "Here is a stone axe, go smash the coconut yourself, don't come again Bother me." The former is from the Italian military, the latter from Bloomingdale's customer helpline. Whatever the metaphor was, it didn't really matter, because the message didn't reach Commander Youhouxi in the end.

After the envoy left the city-state of Panama, he walked all the way north.The Mayans naively believed that if they disguised themselves as any animal, they would have the ability of that animal. If they disguised themselves as a parrot, they would naturally have the ability to find their way—in fact, parrots can’t, and pigeons are sensitive to the earth’s magnetic field—so he lost his way. up. The dense forest is an extremely dangerous place for ordinary humans, but fortunately, his colorful and unrestrained appearance makes all dangerous animals detour.The jaguar and the anaconda looked at this monster walking through the forest suspiciously, and felt that there was no need to take the risk of attacking. This kind of guy with ugly spots all over his body would never be delicious, even if he was not dangerous.

Only parrots and monkeys introduced him as the same kind. They thought it was a new hybrid of macaw and capuchin monkey, so they regarded themselves as cousins.The capuchin monkey, who is good at imitating, also imitated envoys to pluck out parrot feathers and stick them all over their bodies. They also dressed up colorfully. They also learned to use tools for tattooing. This was a decisive breakthrough for capuchin monkeys, because the ability to use tools is the fundamental difference between humans and apes.The capuchin monkey who obtained this opportunity has since then embarked on the broad road of "evolution".After more than two thousand years of evolution, this monkey species gradually migrated to the North American continent and integrated into the local human society.It's just that they still retain this primitive custom of adorning themselves with colorful feathers and tattoos, and are active in underground bars and heavy metal rock concerts in New York, San Francisco and other places.

The Mayan envoy walked in the dense forest for a full week, but still could not find the right direction.The real turning point came on the eighth day.That morning he got up from the tree and dug up some papayas for breakfast.At this time, there were faint footsteps in the dense forest behind the envoy, apparently someone was approaching.The envoy raised the stone axe, thought for a while, changed to a more lethal coconut, and looked vigilantly in the direction of the sound. Soon, a fat Maya emerged from the bushes.He was dressed in exquisite vines, and a crown of rafflesia that was about to wither hung on his head. Even by the standards of the Mayans, he was in a terrible state.

He suddenly found someone in front of him, and when he looked up, he saw the Mayan envoy. He couldn't help but let out a heart-piercing scream, then fell to the ground, and kept kissing the envoy's instep. The envoy was very surprised, and slowly put down the coconut in his hand, confused by the weird behavior of this weird guy.At this time, the guy sobbed, hugged the envoy's leg, and said in Maya with a strong macaw accent: "You must be the real parrot king!" Obviously, this person is the former priest and king of the Au tribe, and the current government-in-exile.Ever since he was kicked out of the political arena by the coup launched by the prime minister, he has been wandering in the dense forest, afraid to go back to the village.He couldn't find the foreign hostile forces to help him restore the country, so he remembered a sentence from the god envoy Yikouguan.The parrot at Yikouguan said: "Au Wuxing, the priest king." If you want to restore Au Wu, you must find the real parrot king.

He wandered in the jungle with this belief, and he was completely unaware of the series of political changes that took place in Owu, but he just wanted to find the legendary Parrot King.He tried his best to imitate the parrot's movements, calls, and living habits of the parrot, and tried his best to meditate on the parrot's psychology. In the end, all members of the unfortunate Ou government in exile were in a trance, unable to distinguish the difference between reality and imagination. So he ended up becoming a poet. The Maya text itself is very wonderful, coupled with the spiritual state of the Parrot King itself, it has made him quite amazing achievements in poetry.He creatively pioneered the method of expressing artistic conception with carrier materials. In order to express his loneliness in the jungle and the melancholy of the past, he carved these poems on the shell of a large American snail, so the text of these poems appears sticky and slow; while other works appear ethereal and jumping , completely free from the shackles of imagination and logic, because they are engraved on the seven-star ladybug and the flea.Other poems were vicious curses on the Oru, and they seemed most fittingly written on the skin of the poisonous golden dart frog. The only regret is that he couldn't find a jaguar skin to express his noble status as king.He dares to deal with snails, ladybugs and frogs, but the jaguar is an opponent of another order of magnitude, which is definitely not something a poet can deal with. Whether it is the parrot king or Pushkin, their combat effectiveness is very poor. In fact, the Parrot King was the first poet who burst out with dazzling sparks after he abdicated, and Li Yu was the second.There are no literary readers or critics in the jungle, and he doesn't care at all, just talking to himself, like a real poet, and like a real parrot. He was originally here today to look for possums, such wretched little things are suitable for engraving poems mocking the Prime Minister.And now, standing in front of him is a humanoid parrot covered with feathers, which couldn't be more obvious.This must be the real king of parrots that Yikouguan said! !Moreover, words are engraved all over his body, indicating that the real parrot king itself is the carrier of poetry. Facing this wonderful unexpected guest, the envoy did not forget his mission.He sticks out his tongue, closes his eyes, and shows all the tattoos on his body. From time to time, he raises his hands up as if to fly, because some city-state tattoos are painted on his armpits, like a huge macaw. The purpose of this set of actions is to show my identity, representing more than 200 representatives of the Pan-Mayan City-State Alliance.But the Parrot King was originally just a little priest in a remote village. He had never seen anything in the world, so he didn't know these things at all.He saw that the other party was flapping its wings like a parrot, and he was even more convinced that what he had found was the real parrot king in the legend.He threw himself into the arms of the envoy, crying out his tragic experience of being overthrown by the mob. "Ou?" The envoy repeated the name mechanically. "Yes, yes, Auwu!" The Parrot King nodded hastily, and shouted in a high-pitched voice, "Auwuxing, King of Sacrifice!" The envoy thought about it carefully, and did not remember that there was such a number one member in the city-state alliance.In other words, this Ou was just an inferior tribe that didn't even have a pyramid, and his attitude immediately became very bad. "You want me to help you restore the country?" the envoy asked coldly. "No, no, I just hope you can help me publish a collection of poems." The Parrot King took out a large pile of snails, frog skins and ladybugs from his arms, and looked at the envoy with hope.He even grew his hair long for the occasion. "I'm sorry, I can't help you." The envoy rejected the request, which was impossible.Publishing a book is a big event in the Maya. The Mayan publishing industry is to engrave words on the pyramids; while poetry is divided into lines, as many lines of poems have to be built as many layers of pyramids; with the technical capabilities of the Maya, it can only be repaired to fourteen. layers—in other words, the sonnet was already the limit of Mayan civilization. Some literary history researchers made comments based on this: "The Mayans would appreciate Shakespeare, Matsuo Basho, Whitman, and Du Fu who only wrote quatrains, while Dante, Spencer, and Mayakovsky were all in the Mayan literature and art circles. It is doomed that there will be no day of success." "Why?! Aren't we all parrot people?" The parrot king cried out in disappointment. "I don't work today." "What about tomorrow? Is tomorrow okay?" "Tomorrow I will rest too." The envoy was telling the truth. He was used to taking two days off for every five days he worked.Christian theologians say that God spent six days creating the world and rested on the seventh day; in Mayan legend, where the union is more powerful, God spent five days working and rested on the sixth and seventh days. "You monkey in parrot skin! Possum that blasphemes art!" The disappointed Parrot King cursed angrily, the envoy shrugged and turned to leave.Suddenly he thought, since the Parrot King is from Auwu, then Auwu should not be too far away from here.In Ou, at least you can replenish your food, and ask for directions by the way. Thinking of this, the envoy turned around and said to the Parrot King in an arrogant tone: "Take me back to Auwu, and I will help you restore the king's government. At that time, you can build as many pyramids as you want to engrave your poetry collection." This guarantee was very unreliable, but Parrot King was eager to publish, so he agreed.Then the Parrot King found some feathers, dressed himself up like an envoy, and then the two walked towards Auwu with their own thoughts. Along the way, the parrot king kept showing off his poems to the envoy and showed him the snail.The envoy ate the snail meat without saying a word, and returned the snail shell engraved with words without even looking at it.If the Parrot King is a true poet, the envoy is a true poetry critic. When they approached the edge of the Ou tribe, they saw an unusual atmosphere surging in the tribe.Many never-before-seen flags fluttered high, and strange metal impact sounds and human voices came and went.From a distance, some strangely dressed creatures can be seen walking around, and there is no trace of Mayan civilization on them. "Are they the invaders I've been looking for?" The envoy squatted on a fir tree next to the tribe, thinking suspiciously.In every way, these guys are aggressive and scary.The Parrot King said that he had never seen such a creature in the tribe before, except for Yikouguan. Well, it's worth a try. Thinking of this, the envoy stood up, stuck out his tongue, closed his eyes, and while shaking his feathered arms and genitals, he let out a loud gurgle, which in Maya means "peace, not war" the meaning of. Unaware, the Parrot King thought he was declaring war on the invaders who occupied Auwu, so he also followed his example and jumped up on the branches. After a minute, there were only two "puff puffs", and two flying arrows hit the heads of these two guys accurately.They swayed and fell from the tree to the ground. The last voice the envoy and the parrot king heard in this world was the oracle bone inscription of a man and a woman, but unfortunately they couldn't understand it. "Two big parrots, they sing very nicely." "No, they're monkeys." Commander Youhouxi put down his bow and arrow, and began to argue seriously with Qi.