Chapter 28: The Self-destructive Tendency Unique To The Wise
When the last wild boar fell to the ground, that small beast darted out like lightning. The warrior leader, out of arrows, grabbed a bow and arrow from someone nearby and shot three arrows in succession.
These three arrows formed a triangular pattern enveloping the small beast. The small beast ducked to avoid the one aimed at its head, twisted its body to dodge the one targeting its waist and back, and as for the third arrow, it was truly powerless to evade, so it could only increase the speed of its forward dash a bit to avoid vital spots.
If it had run a bit slower, that arrow would have hit its tail and been severed by the arrowhead. The small beast let out a miserable cry and climbed toward the top of the village wall.
The warrior leader’s agility exceeded Yun Ce’s imagination. He actually determined the small beast’s escape direction the instant after shooting the arrows, turned around, and fired another arrow. This time, the feather arrow hit the small beast’s hind leg squarely, the powerful force piercing through its hind leg and nailing it firmly to the earthen wall.
The small beast cried miserably, using its mouth to pull out that arrow, but helplessly, with little strength, it drooped powerlessly. It was yanked down from the wall by the warrior leader and stuffed into a pocket.
With all the wild beasts dead, few guards and shop assistants from the caravan remained with intact bodies. The warrior leader glanced at the grim battlefield and fixed his ruthless eyes on the people of Hekou Village who had run far away.
Yun Ce, squatting beside Zhao Jin, nudged Zhao Jin’s shoulder with his own and wrote: “Three sheep carts were burned, but plenty of things remain. I think they are ironware.”
Zhao Jin wrote with a grim face: “Don’t you feel that Hekou Village is now filled with a fragrant aroma?”
Yun Ce sniffed and nodded.
“The corpses of those bitten to death by the red beast turn sweet. Burning them with fire releases a fragrant scent. If these corpses are buried in the soil for twenty days, they rot, and the fragrance turns into a foul stench.”
1 Having read Zhao Jin’s words, Yun Ce wrote curiously: “Isn’t it inevitable for corpses to rot and stink?”
1 “Do you know that when those rotten corpses are dug up after stinking, oil is boiled out, and candles made from that oil, when lit, give off a strange fragrance lasting three days without fading, and repel mosquitoes and insects? A single candle made from this oil can sell for ten thousand coins?”
1 “Now, the corpses are burned, and the caravan has lost so much money. Do you think they will let us go?”
1 “Using living people, or dead people?”
1 Zhao Jin was already used to Yun Ce’s odd focus. He sighed and wrote on the wooden slip: “Living people. Dead people’s bloodline doesn’t flow; the red beast doesn’t bite them.”
1 “Using human bodies to make spices—do the government officials not care?”
1 “Why would the government officials care?”
1 “People.”
1 “In the wildman tribe, people are raised on secret medicine until they are at their fattest, then bitten by the red beast, and finally boiled for oil to make candles. Those corpses were robbed by the caravan from a wildman tribe.”
1 After hearing Zhao Jin’s explanation, Yun Ce looked at the warrior leader again, his gaze no longer cold, and he felt a faint guilt in his heart. If Zhao Jin had explained earlier that those corpses were goods raised by their wildman tribe themselves, he wouldn’t have released their captured wild boars, nor set fire to their caravan, leading to their nearly three hundred-strong team now left with only seven or eight who could still stand.
2 “Next time you speak, explain clearly. Don’t always say half and leave half unsaid.”
2 After reading Yun Ce’s words, Zhao Jin sighed and wrote: “They were clearly returning fully loaded. Why come to Hekou Village to collect worthless Yi tree bark? It was to pin the crime of robbing the spices on us, and also make the wildmen who pursued and killed following the corpses’ scent think it was us who robbed them.”
2 “Is robbing wildmen also a crime?”
2 “Robbing wildmen is naturally no crime, but the problem is robbing the spice materials that nobles had wildmen make for them—that’s a great crime.”
2 Yun Ce looked up again at the warrior leader approaching, his gaze restoring its original coldness.
2 “Next time, explain the causes and effects clearly.”
2 “What now? That guy seems to be coming to kill us.”
2 “He alone can kill all of us, but we have more people.”
2 “Back then, Champion King alone killed over twenty thousand people. A formal Shang Zao like him—killing our few hundred old, weak, women, and children is nothing.”
2 “Is he a Shang Zao rank?”
3 “He wears a leather hat with one beam.”
3 Yun Ce glanced again at the warrior leader nearly upon them and quickly wrote: “Who is Champion King? Tell me quick!”
3 “Huo Qubing, King Huo!”
3 Seeing Zhao Jin write this, Yun Ce’s suspicion in his heart was finally confirmed. He took the long-handled bow from E Ji’s cloth bag, tied the quiver to his right leg, strung the long-handled bow, stood up, and went forward to meet the warrior leader.
3 After he walked ten steps forward, behind him only E Ji stood alone. Of over four hundred in the village, she was the only one who most firmly chose Yun Ce.
3 She had never seen Yun Ce shoot arrows. She had only seen him fight once, and even then she hadn’t seen clearly. This time, she was prepared to watch closely.
3 Seeing a boy of fourteen or fifteen walking toward him, the warrior leader grinned. The distance wasn’t far; he didn’t plan to use bow and arrow, intending instead to stab this little thief who stole his bow and arrow to death with a knife in a moment.
3 Yun Ce’s archery was good. Before, he had shot at targets. His greatest hunting achievement in life was two wild chickens and half a rabbit—the reason it was half was because he clearly hit it, but the rabbit ran off without a trace.
3 Therefore, he planned to get close before using bow and arrow to shoot dead this guy who treated human lives like grass.
3 Although the caravan suffered heavy casualties, the injured and uninjured guards were each busy with their own tasks, finding nothing strange about their leader about to kill someone.
4 “I’m going to tear you apart. 96%” said the warrior leader wearing the leather hat.
4 Yun Ce said nothing. After he took the fiftieth step, Yun Ce nocked an arrow and drew the bow to six-tenths full, stopping his footsteps. The moment the warrior leader’s foot landed, the arrow flew out.
4 The warrior leader’s body also moved at that moment. By the time his body steadied, the arrow Yun Ce shot had landed in his left hand.
4 He was reluctant to discard his arrow, gripping that one and continuing to approach Yun Ce. Thus, Yun Ce’s second arrow also flew out. Before the second arrow hit the enemy, Yun Ce’s third arrow followed.
4 Before, in the countryside, he had studied the linked pearl arrow technique. Time wasn’t sufficient; he could only manage two in a row, which already made him outstanding among archery enthusiasts.
4 The warrior leader held one arrow in his right hand and bit another in his mouth. This nimble arrow-catching skill drew cheers from the shop assistants.
4 Seeing the warrior leader strike a majestic pose, Yun Ce slung the bow on his back, went to the majestic warrior leader’s side, removed the feather arrows from his two hands, put them back in the quiver, carefully pinched the fletching of the arrow in his mouth, pried open his clenched teeth with a knife, retrieved the arrow—but this one he didn’t put back in the quiver. Instead, he took a long bamboo tube from the quiver, carefully put the arrow into the bamboo tube, plugged the stopper, and only then breathed a sigh of relief.
4 Looking at the warrior leader again, his lips were like half-melted black chocolate, shiny and gleaming black.
4 This poison was collected by Yun Ce when he first came to this world from the many-legged viper under the big tree. Since this poison could corrode a wooden club, there was no reason it couldn’t corrode a person.
4 Seeing this unknown Shang Zao’s head begin to smoke along with the leather hat, Yun Ce continued walking toward the caravan, preparing to finish off the remaining people.
5 At that moment, a shout came from behind, and a great many people surged past Yun Ce toward those warriors and shop assistants. Yun Ce saw clearly: Zhao Jin’s face was twisted, a knife in his mouth, hands propped on a bench as he scuttled on the ground at the front.
5 They fought extremely fiercely, especially the disabled ones. Once on the field, they used their low stature to attack the enemies’ lower bodies. Even if a knife struck their shoulders or backs, they would desperately hug the enemy’s legs to let the brothers and sisters coming after finish the guy off.
5 By the time Yun Ce comforted the laughing and crying E Ji, the battle here had ended. Hekou Village lost nineteen people: thirteen men and six women.
5 Zhao Jin’s mouth might have taken a kick; he lost two teeth, and his back was slashed once, though not deeply. Even beaten almost unrecognizable, he still came respectfully to Yun Ce’s side and said: “Captain, what to do next? Please instruct. 96%”
5 Yun Ce frowned, about to rebuke Zhao Jin, but seeing the intense longing in his eyes almost dripping water, he suppressed his displeasure and wrote on the wooden slip: “Clean the battlefield.”
5 Zhao Jin clasped his fists to accept the order, roared once at the people in the village behind him, and everyone quickly dispersed to clean up the village messed up by the wild boars, bears, and warriors.
5 E Ji didn’t go. She pretended to follow Yun Ce, bossing around the surrounding women like a landlady’s wife, but when turning back to look at Yun Ce, she immediately became spineless.
5 The fragrance in the village was too heavy. The corpses rescued by the shop assistants overflowed with fragrance mixed with a burnt smell.
5 Though this thing had lost much value, it was still very valuable. When Zhao Jin heard Yun Ce wanted to throw all these corpses outside the village, he felt somewhat reluctant.
5 “The wildmen are coming.”
6 Seeing Yun Ce say this, Zhao Jin took people to get to work.
6 Yun Ce’s way of dealing with the wildmen was simple: place over three hundred ragged corpses outside the village for them to see.
6 To make the wildmen understand one thing: this group who could raid their tribe for things had now all been killed by the people in this village—let them weigh if they could afford to provoke the people here.
6 Also place their lost sweet-smelling corpses outside together, to reduce their anger over losing the spice materials.
6 In short, Yun Ce looked down on these wildmen who, to curry favor with nobles, used their own clan members as spice materials. In his view, these people weren’t wildmen—not even as good as those wild boars with a bit of sentience.
