Chapter 25: The Direction From Which Disaster Comes
Yun Ce had gathered a lot of tree bark these days, and naturally made a lot of Yi Tree Fiber. He didn’t just casually extract the fiber and call it done like others did, but instead carefully washed it, boiled it, and finally sorted the uneven fibers into uniform lengths before stopping.
His Yi Tree Fiber hung neatly on long ropes, looking extremely tidy. Not only that, others’ Yi Tree Fiber was grayish-white, but his fiber, after being boiled with quicklime, was decolorized better than others’, appearing much whiter than theirs.
Neat, clean, shake it by hand and it separates into fine strands, unlike others’ fiber which was mostly tangled together, looking messy.
Finally bundled with green reeds, this thing clearly looked like a commodity, not casually produced farm goods from a peasant family.
Yun Ce felt his Yi Tree Fiber could sell for at least a third more money than others’, and he was very confident about that.
The caravan that specifically buys Yi Tree Fiber just wouldn’t come…
Staying in Hekou Village for eighteen days, in between, Yun Ce had long stopped stripping Yi Tree bark, mainly because they had stripped too much, and the caravan wouldn’t take it, saying they didn’t have that much green money to pay them.
Green money had little use in Hekou Village because there was nothing to buy. If people wanted to trade, they could barter.
The problem was with this bartering: things E Ji had, other families also had; things E Ji didn’t have, other families didn’t either.
To eat salt, go gather salt grass, wash it clean after gathering, pound it in a stone mortar, wrap it in cloth and squeeze hard, collect the juice that flows out and boil it in a pottery jar, and after boiling off the water, you get a kind of green salt. Yun Ce had tasted it, and the flavor was fairly pure.
1 To drink vinegar, go to the wilds to find a sour grass with fat leaves, wash it clean after gathering, pound it in a stone mortar, filter it with cloth, and you get a slimy green sour liquid. Yun Ce had tasted it; aside from lacking vinegar aroma, it was very sour.
1 To eat sweet, you need to go to the wilds to find a thing called sweet root with fat rhizomes, bring it back and pound it in a stone mortar, filter with cloth, then boil in a jar, and after the water evaporates dry, you get a slimy green crystal. It was sweet, just not very strongly so.
1 As for eating spicy, that was even easier. There’s a thing called fire grass in the wilds; just pick a leaf and touch it to your mouth, and your whole mouth will swell up quickly, not subsiding for two days. Yun Ce got this thing and used water soaked from the leaves.
1 Yi Tree can provide starch. In the wilds there are patches of a thing called bean pod; when grown, it’s as long as Yun Ce’s arm, full of beans inside, the beans about ping-pong ball sized. Boiled soft in water, they are full of bean aroma.
1 Yun Ce soaked this thing in salt water for two days or fried it in sand, making it fragrant, crispy, and tasty. From then on, E Ji ate only bean pods every day, not Yi Tree lumps.
1 He also felt this thing could be made into tofu, but he didn’t have a stone mill on hand, planning to wait until Zhao Jin got the stone mill he needed made.
1 This day reached noon again, and the caravan that Zhao Jin said never delayed still hadn’t come, disappointing the diligent Yun Ce greatly.
1 E Ji took a bean from her cloth bag pocket, crushed it in her hand, and put piece by piece into her mouth, occasionally glancing at Yun Ce who sat at the door whittling a tree trunk with a knife.
1 This was already the third tree trunk Yun Ce had whittled. Clearly a trunk one grip thick, now whittled into three thin slices. Watching Yun Ce glue these three thin slices with a viscous juice that smelled strange, then place them on a wooden board, bend them forcefully into a bow shape fixed to the wood, and leave it.
1 Zhao Jin said Yun Ce knew bow-making, and did it very methodically, which meant Yun Ce was a scion of a noble family, probably one with considerable background.
2 He now just hoped E Ji could serve Yun Ce well, so when Yun Ce stopped sulking with his family and went home, he could take their whole group back to serve as retainers.
2 Now, he just didn’t know if Yun Ce’s family was in Chang’an or Luoyang.
2 Yun Ce grabbed a bean, crushed it and ate a piece. Just as he was about to eat the second piece, he saw a woman run in from outside the village, running while jili guala calling out.
2 “The caravan’s here, 98%”
2 Yun Ce looked down at the new cloth clothes E Ji made for him; this was made from cloth woven from third-crop tree bark. The clothes were light, thin, and breathable. Aside from the ugly color and full of loose threads, it was rare good clothing, at least much better than what Zhao Jin wore.
2 A line of black snaked down from the distant mound. His eyesight was excellent; he glanced far off at something like a horse carriage and sighed slightly.
2 The animal pulling the cart had horns on its head, very large horns, gnarled like they’d grown for many years, and this thing’s body was huge, not inferior to cattle and horses.
2 Yun Ce first ruled out it being a stag, because its horns looked more like goat horns. As the caravan got closer, Yun Ce was very sure: the cart-pulling animal should be something like a goat.
2 A goat’s triangular face is actually the scariest face among all animals, plus they have grayish-white eyeballs, and when looking at people, they always seem eerie. That’s enough to prove this thing isn’t harmless.
2 There were many people with the caravan, Yun Ce didn’t like looking much, because humans this animal can disguise themselves. If he wanted more info from this caravan, better to look at what they brought.
3 Over sixty guards, riding sheep very like argali, wearing armor, most of the armor worn out, among them about twenty whose armor clearly wasn’t a set, pieced together from odds and ends.
3 The bearded man at the lead should be the core of the guards. His armor was equally worn, full of marks from knife chops and axe hacks, but a person like that wearing such armor inexplicably made one feel reassured.
3 Others’ bows were carried on their backs, only his bow, though unstrung, was always gripped in hand, quiver right by his thigh, with a strap binding the quiver to the outside of his thigh, unlike others’ quivers loosely hanging on their buttocks.
3 This person should be a bow and arrow expert. Yun Ce judged this entirely because the bow in his hand was exceptionally good: surprisingly a long-handled composite bow made of horn, wood, and sinew, with long thin tips at both ends, the thinnest part only thumb-thick, looking black and glossy reflecting dim light, not like wood.
3 His weapons were all in very handy positions, especially this guy with a dagger inserted at his waist, hilt down… this guy should be a true professional warrior, the kind specialized in killing.
3 Yun Ce had seen many such people; back when living with Yun Linchuan, this kind often came to the house. Clearly just a child himself, when that group came, he couldn’t be lively or happy.
3 Zhao Jin guarded the village entrance to welcome the caravan. The caravan people had no intention of even glancing extra at this man holding two benches to greet them, and went straight into the village.
3 Over a hundred horse carriages entered the village; those guards took over the village’s defenses, nearly half going up the village walls, only a few warriors guarding a sheep cart that looked sturdy.
3 That professional warrior had already strung his long-handled bow, hiding in the sheep cart’s shadow, not knowing who he was guarding against.
3 The people on the sheep cart seemed not planning to stay long in Hekou Village, not even getting off, just instructing Zhao Jin to send some clean water for those tall goats to drink.
4 E Ji’s Yi Tree Fiber was the most, needing a long queue to her turn. With nothing to do, she sat side by side with Yun Ce pinching beans to eat.
4 “We have too much Yi Tree Fiber, they might not take it, 93%”
4 Yun Ce nodded and squeezed out a few words from his mouth: “They will take it.”
4 This was the first time E Ji heard Yun Ce speak to her, joyfully saying: “You can talk now? 98%.”
4 “Mm!”
4 While Yun Ce and E Ji were having their chicken-and-duck-like conversation, Zhao Jin came over with a gloomy face and handed Yun Ce a wooden slip.
4 “The sixth horse carriage is very light, guarded the most, should be the most valuable goods. As for what’s in the eighth horse carriage, it’s very strange, I think it’s a corpse.”
4 “Horse carriage? Shouldn’t it be sheep cart?”
4 Zhao Jin was long used to Yun Ce’s strange focus points, continuing to write on the wooden slip: “I was specifically in charge of collecting corpses in the military before, too familiar with corpse smell.”
4 Yun Ce wrote: “Why call it horse carriage? Horses aren’t like this.”
5 Zhao Jin wrote angrily: “This is a horse.”
5 Yun Ce looked up carefully at those tall goats, shook his head and wrote: “Does the corpse have anything to do with us?”
5 Zhao Jin wrote: “The corpse smell is sweet!”
5 Yun Ce had only been in this world less than a month, naturally not understanding the local joke of sweet-smelling corpses. Seeing the wristband show no reaction, he gave Zhao Jin two beans, signaling him to eat together and mind his own business.
5 Seeing he couldn’t persuade Yun Ce, Zhao Jin angrily gave the two beans back to E Ji, propped on his two benches, and hurried off, like going to handle some huge matter.
5 E Ji’s face turned a bit green. Seeing Zhao Jin gone, she jili guala said to Yun Ce: “Corpses of people bitten dead by red beasts are sweet, 95%”
5 Yun Ce had never heard of red beasts. Seeing his bewildered face, E Ji continued: “Red beasts are wild beasts raised by wildmen. 95%”
5 Yun Ce looked up at the anxious E Ji, then at the caravan orderly receiving goods, still not understanding the connection, but a feeling of ominous clouds already loomed in his heart.
5 “Swish!”
5 An arrow stuck in the ground very close to Zhao Jin. At this time Zhao Jin seemed unafraid of the caravan people, roaring: “Are you trying to get our whole village killed? 97%”
6 The bow-holding warrior walked out from the sheep cart shadow, squatted in front of Zhao Jin and said: “We’ve killed all the red beasts. 91%”
6 Veins bulging on Zhao Jin’s neck, he yelled at the warrior: “Red beasts killed off, then what about the wildmen? You’re bringing corpses of people killed by red beasts to attract all the wildmen to Hekou Village? 97%”
6 The bow-holding warrior chuckled lightly and said: “You’re from the Martial Valor Camp, isn’t your duty to level the world’s uneven places?”
