Translator: Exodus Tales
Editor: Exodus Tales
The chief’s face was rather grim as he waved over a Warrior and whispered some orders to him.
The Warrior accepted the order and ran to the cave.
The chief put a smile back on his lips, as if nothing had happened, and said to Still Perch, “I’ve sent someone into the cave to prepare the things. Honored guests, please wait a few moments.”
The eyes of Still Perch and the other three Yellow Bear Warriors flashed.
A bag of inferior salt in exchange for nine hundred catties of fresh meat was an unfair trade, but the Mud Mountain Tribe had still been forced to accept it.
In a wonderful mood, Still Perch naturally didn’t mind waiting. Smiling and waving his hand, he said, “Mud Mountain Chief is too polite.”
A few moments later, four Warriors walked out of the cave, each one carrying a bundle of beast hide on their shoulder.
Ye Xi knew that it was fresh meat inside.
He mentally sighed. The Warriors of the Mud Mountain Tribe had risked their lives, exchanged their blood and sweat, for these nine hundred catties of meat, but it was all being traded away for a bag of salt.
Still Perch looked at this meat and just barely managed to stop his lips from curving upward, holding onto his indifferent attitude.
Chief: “I am terribly sorry for the wait.”
Still Perch politely replied, “It’s fine, fine.”
“Chief,” one of the Warriors suddenly called out.
“What’s wrong?”
The Warrior stammered, “Our tribe doesn’t have nine hundred catties of meat, not even if we add in the dried meat.” The voice was neither too loud nor too soft, just enough so that the Yellow Bear Tribe members could hear.
“Oh?” Still Perch frowned. Looking at the hide bundles on the ground, he turned to Nine Bear. “Untie them.”
Nine Bear came up and untied the bundles.
Upon untying the thick beast hides, he could see that there really weren’t nine hundred catties of meat. It was more like seven or eight hundred catties, and there was even some dried meat mixed in.
Still Perch’s eyes coldly flashed and his face chilled. He turned on the chief. “Mud Mountain Chief, what’s the meaning of this?”
The chief had an awkward expression. “These last two days, the hunting team hasn’t been able to bring in much, so we don’t have much fresh meat. But I didn’t think that we couldn’t even make nine hundred catties.”
The hunting team hasn’t been able to bring in much the last two days? Ye Xi recalled the saber-toothed tiger, longhorn deer, and the other game that had been brought back yesterday and found himself praising the chief for his ability to so brazenly lie.
The cold-faced Still Perch wanted to say something more when the chief immediately added, “Why don’t we do this!? We’ll use fresh water to trade with you!”
Ye Xi immediately realized that this was the chief’s real goal! The resource the tribe lacked the least at this moment was none other than water! If they used water to stand in for meat, they wouldn’t suffer the slightest loss.
Ye Xi couldn’t help but view the chief in a new light. The Warrior who had said that there was not enough meat had probably been ordered ahead of time by the chief to say such things.
When Still Perch heard that they would use water, his anger faded, and he hesitated. “Fresh water?”
“Yes!” The chief clenched his teeth, a pained look on his face.
He waved his hand at a Warrior. “Go; take out the tribe’s reserve of water.”
“Chief!” the Warrior yelled in reluctance.
Ye Xi’s mouth twitched. This Warrior was also quite the actor. He was a member of Courage’s hunting party and went by the name of Pestle, if he remembered correctly.
“Silence! Go!” the chief angrily said.
Pestle had a helpless look of heartache on his face, but finally, after savagely kicking at the ground, he ran into the cave.
Ye Xi: “…”
A little while later, Pestle came back with a small wooden barrel.
Pestle offered the wooden barrel to the chief.
Still Perch’s eyes flashed when he saw the barrel, and his feet shifted. He just barely managed to stop himself from rushing up to see how much water was inside.
The chief paused for a moment, and then he carefully offered the wooden barrel to Still Perch.
Still Perch glanced inside, and happiness bloomed on his face. The barrel was more than half full with fresh water!
Still Perch struggled to restrain his joy. “The meat on the ground and this water is enough to trade for the salt.”
But the chief frowned. “What are you saying?! If we add in the water, we naturally can’t give you all this meat!”
“Then what is it you want?”
“Five hundred catties of meat plus this water should be enough.”
Still Perch’s eyes flashed, and he appeared to ponder for a moment before he finally spoke, feigning reluctance in his tone. “…Fine, out of consideration for our past relationship.”
The chief emotionlessly nodded. Saying no more, he ordered the tribe members, “Pack up the meat for them.”
Still Perch was very satisfied with the result of this trade. He had the three Warriors behind him carry the meat while he personally hugged the wooden barrel and seated himself on the back of the giant bear.
Before leaving, Still Perch sighed and commented to the chief, “I didn’t think you would be willing to use fresh water for this trade.”
The chief appeared helpless. “If we gave you all the meat, our Warriors would go hungry, but if we lack water, we can use blood to barely struggle on. After all, it’s the Warriors that are important!”
Still Perch gave an understanding nod. “Yes, the martial might of the tribe is always the most important.”
“Well, farewell. Give my respects to the honored shaman!”
The chief escorted them to the sentry post and watched them leave.
Once the Yellow Bear Tribe was gone, the Mud Mountain Tribe members placed the salt on a rock and happily danced around it.
“Heavens! So much salt, and only for five hundred catties of meat!”
“Did you forget about the water? Without the water, would they have been willing to make that deal?”
“What does that water matter to our tribe? If we need more, we can just make a trip to the lake.”
“True, true, so we basically used only five hundred catties of meat to get this much salt. We got a great deal!”
“Right, and it’s all thanks to our chief’s wisdom, using water to make up the number!”
Ye Xi was speechless. It was three catties of low-quality salt for five hundred catties of meat, but everyone was acting like they had gotten a wonderful deal.
The salt on the rock really didn’t seem like anything much. It was yellowing and mixed with dirt, but the tribe members treated it like a treasure.
But it truly was a treasure. Ye Xi internally sighed. Even he was unwilling to sprinkle too much salt over the things he ate.
Was there a way of resolving this problem? Where did the Yellow Bear Tribe get its salt from? Ye Xi began to think.
“What are you thinking?” The chief had returned from the sentry post.
The chief stood next to Ye Xi, calmly watching as the tribe members danced around the salt. Unlike them, he did not appear happy over the ‘great deal’ they had gotten.
And Ye Xi was the only other member of the tribe who did not appear happy.
“I was thinking about how the Yellow Bear Tribe gets their salt.”
“They…” As the chief thought of something, his eyes oozed contempt. “They say to outsiders that their shaman uses shaman arts to produce it.”
“Produced by a shaman?” This explanation was too absurd.
From what Ye Xi knew, there were generally four kinds of shamans: medicine shamans, curse shamans, divining shamans, and blessing shamans.
Ye Xi wasn’t sure of their exact abilities, but they had to remain in the general fields of healing, cursing, divination, and blessings. As for shaman arts being used to produce salt, Ye Xi found this explanation very lacking.
“Is the Yellow Bear Tribe the only one of the surrounding tribes with salt?”
“Yes,” the chief sighed. “So we can only let them exploit us.” As he thought of something, a melancholy look appeared in the chief’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
The chief raised his chin at the salt on the rock as he bitterly smiled, “Did you know? The salt the Yellow Bear Tribe offers for trade gets worse every year.”
Ye Xi didn’t know what salt had been like in the past years, but this year’s salt truly did seem very poor.
The chief’s eyes were tinged with cold as he continued, “Not only do they know that we can only trade with them for salt, they also know that no matter how angry our Mud Mountain becomes, we can’t do anything to the Yellow Bear, because our tribe is weaker than their tribe.”
Ye Xi was quiet for a few moments, and then he slowly said, “…The problem of the tribe’s strength isn’t something that can be solved in a day or two, but there might be a way to solve the problem of salt.”
The chief trembled, believing that his ears were playing tricks on him. He stared at Ye Xi with wide eyes and blurted out, “You said that you had a way to resolve the salt problem?!”
Seeing the normally-composed chief so agitated, Ye Xi helplessly nodded. “There’s a way, but we need to find the right things in order to get salt.”
When the chief received an affirmative answer, his face turned red and his heart began to fiercely thump. He compelled himself to calm down and asked, “What is this thing? No matter what it is or how difficult it is to find, we’ll get it!”
Ye Xi creased his brow as he thought back to the raw material used to create salt. “…Any dirt or rock that has a salty flavor is fine. Those that have a salty and bitter taste will do as well.”
Salty soil or rocks could be used to produce salt? The chief frowned. Would that really work?
If some random bystander had told him this, he would think that he was being played for a fool, but if it was Ye Xi… He recalled the strange method used to obtain water… Perhaps there was a chance.
“Okay, I’ll order the hunting team to keep an eye out for these salty rocks or soil while they’re hunting.”