Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 25 The Direction from which the Disaster Came
Yun Ce had collected a lot of tree bark these days, and naturally made a lot of tree fiber. Unlike others who just took out the fiber and called it a day, he carefully washed and boiled it, and finally shaped the fibers of different lengths into a uniform shape before stopping.

His tree fiber hung on the long rope and looked very neat. Not only that, while other people's tree fiber was grayish-white, his fiber, because it was boiled with quicklime, was also better decolorized than others', and looked much whiter than their tree fiber.

Neat and clean, it separates into fine strands with a shake of the hand, unlike other fibers that are often tangled together and look messy.

Finally, it was tied up with greenish-blue reeds. This thing looks like a commercial product, not an agricultural product casually produced by farmers.

Yun Ce was confident that his clothing fiber could fetch at least a third more money than others.

The caravans that specialize in buying yew fiber never show up...

They stayed in Hekou Village for eighteen days. During this time, Yun Ce had long since stopped stripping the bark from the trees, mainly because he had stripped too much and the caravan wouldn't accept it, saying they didn't have enough green money to pay them.

Green coins have little use in Hekou Village because there's nothing to sell. If people want to exchange goods, they can barter.

The problem lies in this barter system. What Eji has, other families also have, and what Eji doesn't have, other families don't have either.

If you want salt, you have to collect salt grass. After collecting it, wash it clean, crush it in a stone mortar, wrap it in a cloth and squeeze it vigorously until the juice flows out. Then collect it and boil it in a pottery jar. After boiling off the water, you get a kind of green salt. Yun Ce has tasted it and the taste is quite pure.

If you want to drink vinegar, go to the wild and find a kind of sour grass with big leaves. After collecting it, wash it clean, crush it in a stone mortar, and filter it with a cloth to get a greenish sour water. Yun Ce tasted it and found that apart from not having the aroma of vinegar, it tasted very sour.

If you want something sweet, you need to go to the wild and find something called sweet root with a thick root. After finding it, bring it back and crush it in a stone mortar, then filter it with a cloth, and finally boil it in a jar. After the water evaporates, you will get a greenish crystal. It is sweet, but not very noticeable.

As for wanting to eat spicy food, it's even easier. There's a plant called fire grass in the wild. Just pick a leaf, put it in your mouth, and your whole mouth will swell up quickly. It won't go down for more than two days. After Yun Ce got this plant, he used the water from the leaf to make a soup.

The yam tree provides starch, and in the wild there are patches of something called bean pods. When these pods grow, they are as long as Yun Ce's arm, and they contain many beans, which are about the size of ping-pong balls. After being boiled in water until soft, they are full of bean flavor.

After Yun Ce soaked the pods in salt water for two days and then stir-fried them in sand, they became fragrant and delicious. From then on, E Ji only ate the pods and stopped eating the tree stumps.

He also thought this thing should be able to make tofu, but he didn't have a stone mill on hand, so he planned to wait until Zhao Jin got the stone mill he needed before making a decision.

It was noon again, and the caravan that Zhao Jin had always promised was never late still hadn't arrived, much to the disappointment of the hardworking Yun Ce.

Eji took out a bean from the cloth pocket she was carrying, crushed it in her hand, and put it into her mouth piece by piece, glancing every now and then at Yun Ce, who was sitting at the door carving a tree trunk with a knife.

This was already the third tree trunk that Yun Ce had shaved. The trunk, which was as thick as a hand, had now been shaved into three thin slices. After Yun Ce used a sticky liquid that emitted a strange smell to glue the three slices together, he placed them on a wooden board, bent them into a bow shape, and fixed them to the wood, then left them there.

Zhao Jin said that Yun Ce knew how to make bows and was very skilled at it, which shows that Yun Ce was from a prominent family, and probably a family of considerable importance.

Now he just hopes that Eji can take good care of Yun Ce, so that when Yun Ce stops throwing tantrums at home, he can come home and bring all of them back to serve as his retainers.

Now, we don't know whether Yun Ce's family is in Chang'an or Luoyang.

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 running in from outside the village, chattering away as she ran.

"The caravan is here, 98% certain."

Yun Ce looked down at the new clothes that E Ji had made for him. The clothes were made from fabric spun from the third batch of tree bark. They were light and breathable. Apart from the ugly color and the loose threads, they were rare and good clothes, much better than what Zhao Jin was wearing.

A black line snaked down from the distant hill. His eyesight was excellent; he glanced at what looked like a carriage in the distance and sighed softly.

The animal pulling the cart had horns on its head, large and gnarled, as if they had been growing for many years. Moreover, this creature was tall, not much smaller than an ox or a horse.

Yun Ce first ruled out the possibility that it was a red deer, because the antlers of that thing were more like those of a goat. As the caravan got closer, Yun Ce became certain that the animal pulling the cart was a goat or something similar.

Goats have one of the most frightening faces of all animals, and their grayish-white eyes give them a sinister look when they look at people. This alone is enough to prove that they are not benevolent creatures.

There were many people following the caravan, but Yun Ce didn't really like watching them. He thought that humans were good at disguising themselves, and if he wanted to get more information from the caravan, he would rather look at what they brought.

There were over sixty guards riding sheep that resembled argali sheep. They wore armor, most of which was worn out, and the armor worn by about twenty of them was clearly not a complete set, but rather pieced together from various parts.

The bearded man at the head of the guards was probably the core of the bodyguards. His armor was also worn and tattered, covered with marks from knife cuts and axe chisels. Yet, it was this man wearing such armor that inexplicably gave people a sense of security.

Everyone else carried their bows on their backs, but his bow, though unstringed, was held in his hand the entire time. The quiver rested on his thigh, secured by a strap, unlike the others whose quivers hung loosely on their buttocks. This man must be a skilled archer. Yun Ce concluded this entirely because the bow in his hand was exceptionally fine; it was a long-pointed composite bow made of horn, wood, and sinew, with long, thin tips, the thinnest of which was only as thick as a thumb. It appeared dark and reflected a dim light, unlike wood.

His weapons were all in convenient positions, especially the short sword tucked into his waistband with the hilt facing down... This guy must be a true professional samurai, the kind who specializes in killing.

Yun Ce had seen many people like this. When he lived with Yun Linchuan, these kinds of people often came to their house. Even though he was just a child, he couldn't be lively or happy when those people came.

Zhao Jin stood guard at the entrance of the village to welcome the caravan. The people in the caravan didn't even bother to look at this person who came to greet them with two small stools, and went straight into the village.

Hundreds of carriages entered the village, and the guards took over the village's defenses. Almost half of them climbed onto the village walls, with only a few warriors guarding a sheep-drawn carriage that looked sturdy.

The professional warrior had already strung his longbow and was hiding in the shadow of the sheep cart, seemingly wary of someone.

The people on the sheep cart didn't seem to intend to stay in Hekou Village any longer. They didn't even get off the cart, but simply instructed Zhao Jin to bring some water for the tall sheep to drink.

Eji has the most tree fiber, so it takes a long time to get hers. When she has nothing to do, she sits next to Yun Ce and they eat beans together.

"Our crop fiber content is too high; people might not accept it, at 93%."

Yun Ce nodded and squeezed out a few words: "I will accept it."

This was the first time Eji had heard Yun Ce speak to her, and she said happily, "You can speak now? 98%."

"Ok!"

Just as Yun Ce and E Ji were having a nonsensical conversation, Zhao Jin moved over with a gloomy face and handed Yun Ce a wooden tablet.

"The sixth carriage was very light and had the most guards, so it must have carried the most valuable goods. As for the eighth carriage, the contents were strange; I think they contained dead people."

"A horse-drawn carriage? It should be a sheep-drawn carriage, right?"

Zhao Jin was already used to Yun Ce's strange focus and continued writing on the wooden tablet: "I used to be a corpse collector in the army, so I am very familiar with the smell of corpses."

Yun Ce wrote: "Why is it called a carriage? Horses aren't like that."

Zhao Jin wrote angrily, "This is a horse."

Yun Ce looked up and carefully examined the tall sheep, then shook his head and wrote, "What do the corpses have to do with us?"

Zhao Jin wrote: "The corpse tasted sweet!"

Yun Ce had only been in this world for less than a month, so he naturally didn't understand the local trope of corpses turning sweet. Seeing that the wristband wasn't reacting at all, he gave Zhao Jin two beans, indicating that he should eat them together and mind his own business.

Seeing that he couldn't persuade Yun Ce, Zhao Jin angrily returned the two beans to E Ji, then hurriedly left, leaning on two stools, as if he had something of paramount importance to attend to.

Eji's face was somewhat pale. Seeing Zhao Jin leave, she chattered on and on to Yun Ce, saying, "The corpses of people bitten to death by the Red Beast are sweet, 95% of the time."

Yun Ce had never heard of a red beast before. Seeing his bewildered expression, E Ji continued, "Red beasts are wild animals kept by savages. 95%"

Yun Ce looked up at the anxious E Ji, then at the caravan that was orderly receiving the goods, still not understanding the connection between them. However, a feeling of gloom had already settled over him.

"Whoosh!"

An arrow landed very close to Zhao Jin, who, seemingly unfazed by the caravan, roared, "Are you trying to kill our entire village? 97%!"

The archer warrior emerged from the shadows of the sheep-drawn cart and knelt before Zhao Jin, saying, "The Crimson Beasts have all been killed by us. 91%."

Zhao Jin's neck veins bulged as he glared at the warriors, saying, "The Red Beasts are all gone, so what about the savages? Are you carrying the corpses of those killed by the Red Beasts to lure all the savages to River Mouth Village? 97%!"

The archer chuckled and said, "You are from the Martial Guard, isn't your duty to quell injustices throughout the land?"

(End of this chapter)