Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 29 The water is too shallow to hold the big turtle.

Wild men are terrifying; they are savage, vulgar, and bloodthirsty, willing to risk their lives for a bite of food.

Savages who cooperate with nobles are not so scary; even if there are many of them, they are just a rabble.

The lower the social class, the greater the need for justice. Without justice as a yardstick, savages will starve to death, and savages will be used as spice ingredients.

Yun Ce hoped that the corpses outside the village would scare away the savages. Of course, if they didn't, Yun Ce didn't care, as he felt he was capable of escaping with E Ji.

No one can guarantee the perfect success of a scheme or plan. On the contrary, there are more failures than successes. If this one fails, the cost could be the lives of hundreds of people in Hekou Village. But that's just how cruel the struggle for survival can be. Who told them to face such a certain death situation? It's already quite an achievement that they've managed to survive until now.

Yun Ce understood this, and Zhao Jin understood it too, but the rest of the villagers didn't quite understand.

Today, the villagers had a great harvest. Although twenty-two people died, they gained five giant bears, five wild boars, a lot of armor and weapons, and more than one hundred and twenty sheep—or rather, horses—that was enough to send the entire village into a frenzy of celebration.

Eji liked to eat meat, so Yun Ce used a clay pot to cook pork and bear meat for her. How to cook it? He would put the pork in a clay pot with a little water and simmer it over a low flame. After the water evaporated, the fat in the pork would be rendered out. This fat would slowly render out most of the fat from the pork. Once the pork was fried until golden brown, it could be poured out, salted, and stored in another clay pot. The fat only needed to cover the meat.

Pork and bear meat prepared in this way can be stored for a long time, and will not spoil for a year.

Yun Ce used chopsticks to scoop out a piece of pork with alternating layers of fat and lean meat, let it cool slightly, sprinkled it with some green salt, and then fed it to E Ji, who was standing guard to the side.

The crispy pork rolled around in Eji's little mouth a few times before disappearing. She closed her eyes happily, opened her mouth wide, and waited for Yun Ce to feed her again.

Because Eji brought back a lot of pork and bear meat, it would take Yun Ce a long time to help her prepare the meat. That night, Yun Ce was busy by the fire pit for a long time.

After the last pot of cooked meat was placed into a large earthenware jar, Zhao Jin pushed open the door and walked in.

This time, he didn't write on the wooden tablet, but said directly to Yun Ce, "The savages came, stayed outside for a long time, and then left. 96%"

Yun Ce nodded, indicating that he understood.

Zhao Jin said in a low voice, "You can understand what we're saying, but you just don't want to speak the same language as us, right?"

Yun Ce looked up at Zhao Jin, shook his head, picked up his pen and wrote on the wooden tablet: "It's not what you think. I can understand, but I can't speak."

A smile appeared on Zhao Jin's face as he continued, "Now that the savages are gone, we can finally live in peace."

Yun Ce shook his head and wrote on the wooden tablet: "There are too many people in the savage tribe. Eji just told me that their people have filled an entire hillside. If you want the Hekou Village to continue to multiply, you should take this opportunity to kill them all."

Zhao Jin frowned and said, "We can't beat them."

Yun Ce continued writing: "They came from the wilderness and will definitely spend the night there. There has only been one light rain in the wilderness recently, and the grass there has withered. Tonight is the crescent moon, and the wind is blowing from Hekou Village towards the wilderness. When the crescent moon reaches the mountain peak, that is when the wind is strongest. If you catch up with them now, set fire to the savages' campsite in the windy position, and all the savages will be burned to death."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Jin stammered, "There's no need, the savages won't come. 98%"

Yun Ce smiled and wrote, "I'm just giving you a suggestion. Whether you go or not is up to you."

Sweat immediately beaded on Zhao Jin's forehead. He said with difficulty, "Let me think. 97%." Then he left.

With plenty of grease, Yun Ce naturally made an oil lamp. It wasn't that Hekou Village didn't have oil, but rather that they lacked it. E Ji watched the small flame slowly illuminate the wooden house, her eyes filled with joy.

Yun Ce hid where the oil lamp couldn't reach and began having the dog record his social practice activities.

Overall, this social practice activity was a failure. At the very least, the idea that hard work leads to wealth is not very realistic in this society. Caravans will not buy more of your products just because you produce more yak fiber, even if your yak fiber is of very high quality.

It seems that society is deliberately keeping places like border villages in a state of poverty for a long time.

Logically speaking, such policies and the environment could easily incite popular uprisings and lead to a revolution. Unfortunately, the people here are not yet enlightened and cannot understand such complex matters. If a revolution is forced, its failure is inevitable.

However, judging from the goods obtained by the caravan, whether wild boars or giant bears, they all had one thing in common: they were all alive.

Neither of these two animals tastes very good once they reach adulthood, so the caravan must have had another purpose in sending these adult wild animals to the Izumo Colonel. The most valuable cargo was naturally the small beast with a certain level of intelligence. This small beast had a tendency to leak its spiritual power, something Yun Ce had only ever seen in fantasy novels before.

If we make a bold guess, we can draw a conclusion from the fighting state of the wild boars and giant bears: the small beast, along with the five wild boars and five giant bears, should actually be a complete fighting team.

A single knight of the highest rank, with a hundred or so guards and men, was able to wipe out this beastly fighting group, thus thwarting any attempts by those who wanted to use this team for assassination or to create chaos.

What if it's for entertainment purposes?
Yun Ce put himself in Yun Ce's shoes and thought about it that way.

The little beast that was captured alive by the samurai is now in Eji's house, locked in a wooden cage, clutching its severed tail, staring hatefully at Yun Ce who is deep in thought in the darkness.

Today, it witnessed its fellow beasts being skinned, dismembered, boiled, and eaten by humans. As one of the few beasts with a modicum of intelligence, it is only natural that it would hate humans.

Yun Ce felt that this guy was faking it. Faking hatred was more believable than faking obedience, but unfortunately, Yun Ce didn't believe him.

He moved the cage containing the small animal from the darkness to the fire pit, removed half of the animal's short tail, and prepared to have Eji make it into a pennant to hang on his waist.

This thing is very important to a samurai. When there's nothing else to do, he can use it to wipe the blood off his weapons. If too many arrows are shot out of the quiver, the rest of the arrows will wobble. Putting this thing in the quiver can stop the arrows from wobbling.

Eji took away the short tail and began to use a knife to break off the remaining bones inside the tail. The little beast began to squeak and cry, its voice so sad that it was unbearable to listen to.

Yun Ce stared into the little beast's eyes, hoping to elicit a counterattack, like the mental attack he had launched during the day, but to no avail.

Yun Ce pulled a burning piece of firewood from the fire pit and pressed it against the little beast's hind leg, which had been pierced by an arrow. The little beast's already wide-open eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. At this moment, Yun Ce felt a wave of dizziness, and the earth seemed to move. But in an instant, this feeling disappeared.

Yun Ce shoved the burning firewood into the little beast's injured leg again. This time, the dizziness was even stronger. The little beast's eyes seemed to see through his secret of originating from Earth, and even a bunch of dragons appeared in space...

Seeing that the small beast's wound had not yet closed from the heat of the fire, Yun Ce found a fresh, burning piece of firewood and once again pressed it against the small beast's penetrating wound...

Yun Ce found himself gradually growing to like this dizziness. Every time he woke up from the dizziness, he felt as if he had just had a good sleep, and his whole body felt inexplicably comfortable.

Later, however, the mental pleasure that the little beast gave him became weaker and weaker. The last time, the little beast only let out two weak groans and then remained silent.

Eji ran over and touched the little beast's head. Finding that it seemed to be dead, she happily took it out of the cage and went outside to skin it.

Yun Ce also went outside. The gate of E Ji's house had been damaged and there was no time to clean it up today. Seeing E Ji peeling skins under the eaves, Yun Ce habitually sat on the threshold and looked up at the starry sky.

To see a perfect starry sky, one must wait for a crescent moon night. Yun Ce's mood immediately soured when he couldn't see the Milky Way.

It's peak season for viewing the Milky Way on Earth right now, but you can't see it here. Aside from one unnamed star cluster after another, there's really nothing to see.

The best way to appreciate the starry sky is to combine it with legends and astronomical knowledge; without those, it's meaningless.

Yun Ce didn't feel that the dragon had taken him away from the Milky Way; this had become his obsession with looking at the stars.

Eji had already skinned the little animal. As she was hanging it up to dry on sticks, she thought the little animal was very cute and that it would make a beautiful hat.

The temperature drops and there's always wind on the night of the crescent moon. The wind blows from the plateau over Yun Ce, where it should be snowing. I wonder if those birds that look like phoenixes will still be flying in flocks at dawn.

It seemed that a fire had started downwind of Hekou Village, forming a line of fire. Soon, with the help of the wind, the fire gained momentum and rolled forward with the wind.

Eji watched with great interest, while Yun Ce found it very boring. He found it boring not only about scheming against the savages, but also about Hekou Village. It was too far away from the economic and cultural center of this world, making it too difficult to know the full picture of this world.

Yun Ce said to E Ji, who was leaning against his back and squirming, "I want to leave."

This was the second time Eji had heard Yun Ce speak to her, and she exclaimed with delight, "Great! Great! Let's leave tomorrow!" (98%)

(End of this chapter)