LSLFBW: Chapter 98

TL Note: Sorry, with sub-beastmen, sometimes it is really hard to tell whether they are male or female. This might cause a mix-up of pronouns sometimes, as I forget which one I have used. I try to fix it when I can catch it, but I am a bit busy sometimes.

In this chapter, it is confirmed that Quan Nan is female. I have previously used male pronouns for her (I think), but will now be using female).

Chapter 98

Niu Xi nudged Hu Xue with her arm and winked at her. Hu Xue followed Niu Xi’s gaze and saw Qi Bai holding a small bamboo tube. He would steal a glance at it from time to time, trying hard to suppress the curve of his mouth.

Hu Xue smiled and shook her head. These young beastmen never seemed to feel tired. They could always find interesting things even during a hard journey.

The equally young sub-beastman, Quan Nan, wasn’t as gossipy as Hu Xue and Niu Xi. She grabbed her two messy braids and approached Qi Bai curiously. “Bao Bai, why are you holding a water tube in your hand?”

As if waiting for someone to ask, Qi Bai immediately raised his hand and said to Quan Nan with a smile, “Quan Nan, have you ever seen fireflies?”

Quan Nan was puzzled. “What type of insect is a firefly?”

Qi Bai casually pulled off a piece of animal skin and waved to Quan Nan. “Come here, I’ll show you.”

Quan Nan moved over from the edge of the cart. “Okay, okay.”

Covering his head with the animal skin, Qi Bai opened the lid of the bai tube. The twinkling fireflies in the tube illuminated a small area of light.

The other three people on the cart couldn’t see the scene under the animal skin. But just by listening to Quan Nan’s exclamations, they knew that these two people would probably continue to do it for a while.

Niu Xi’s expression was horrible. It was so hot now, and these two people had to cover themselves with a piece of animal skin. Just looking at them made people feel hot.

Quan Nan said with envy, “Did Lang Ze help you find this?”

Qi Bai nodded and closed the lid of the small bamboo tube.

The lifespan of fireflies on Earth was very short, and they could only emit light for a very short time. However, this obviously wasn’t the case with the fireflies of the Beastman Continent. These fireflies were larger in size, and could still emit a faint light after a whole night. It was very interesting.

Quan Nan sincerely praised it. “You two have such a good relationship.”

Qi Bai looked up. “Of course. We are best friends.”

The moment Qi Bai said this, it wasn’t just Hu Xue and Niu Xi, but even the seemingly thick-headed Quan Nan laughed mercilessly.

Qi Bai saw everyone’s reactions and was about to retort when he felt the cart under him slow down.

Qi Bai put away his playful thoughts, stood up, and looked forward.

He saw the giant wolf stopping at the forest, searching for something on the ground.

Qi Bai looked around intently, but found nothing unusual for the time being.

Soon, the giant wolf turned around and gave a short whistle to the team.

Xi Zhou, who was pulling their cart, looked up and responded. Then he moved forward again.

Quan Nan looked around and asked, “What happened?”

Hu Xue patted the back of Quan Nan’s head and said, “Have you forgotten all the whistles that Lang Ze taught you before we left?”

Quan Nan held her head and frowned. She thought for a long time before pointing in realization. “This is the signal for the team to change direction.”

“But why are we suddenly changing directions?”

Quan Nan’s question was soon answered. Niu Xi pointed to the muddy ground where the cart passed by and said, “Are these the footprints of beastmen?”

Qi Bai nodded. “Such regular footprints should belong to beastmen. Judging from the number, the other party should be a group of more than ten people.”

It must’ve rained in this forest a few days ago. This group walked in the rain and left such obvious traces.

However, now the footprints on the ground had completely solidified. This meant that it had been at least two or three days since the team passed.

Qi Bai continued, “After the Xishui Tribe asked us to cross the Xishui River, we should head toward the highest mountain on the road. We haven’t encountered any high mountains yet, but looking at the direction these footprints are heading, I think we aren’t far from our destination.”

There was a sudden silence on the cart.

Everyone was looking forward to the trading day, but at the same time, everyone was always full of fear and uneasiness about the trading day and other unknown beastmen tribes.

Qi Bai smiled and comforted everyone. “There will be many tribes participating in the trading day. We are the same as other tribes. We are all here to exchange supplies. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

Even though he said this, the atmosphere of the entire group became more tense as they moved toward the heart of the continent. Even Hu Huo and Quan Nan, who always smiled, no longer had the mood to play around.

This tense atmosphere continued until the eighth day after the trading team crossed the Xishui River.

Everyone stood on top of the mountain, looking at the towering mountain in the distance and the one-horned beings moving toward them. They knew that under the high mountain was the destination of their trip.

The Xushan trading day.

This trading day was right in front of them, but they couldn’t rush in rashly. At the very least, their carts must be hidden in advance.

The fifteen members of the trading team gathered together. Xiang Yu spoke first. He looked at Qi Bai and asked, “Bao Bai, what do you think we should do?”

Qi Bai looked around. “Bury them.”

To be honest, the other tribes definitely didn’t have carts like this. It would be a good business if done properly.

You know, fair trade was the principle that beastmen believed in.

Of course, the premise for abiding by this rule was that the two tribes must have similar strengths. Otherwise, nothing could be more profitable than turning the beastmen of a weak tribe into slaves and using them as free laborers.

Therefore, most of the supplies prepared for this trip were salt, and not even a lot of pottery was brought. After all, salt was needed by all tribes. At the same time, it was a material whose origin was the most difficult to trace.

“Okay.” Lang Ze nodded. Then he picked out a few people from the team and asked them to follow him to find a place to dig a hole.

The others took the rattan baskets off the carts. Excluding the two large rattan baskets that were originally mounted on the saddles of each beastmen, there were still fifteen rattan baskets on the cart. These rattan baskets weren’t completely full. Some were even empty.

Some of these empty rattan baskets were originally used to hold food and had been almost eaten during the journey. Others were specially prepared to hold supplies obtained on the trading day.

However, Qi Bai didn’t plan to bring these rattan baskets into the market. Instead, he decided to make animal skin bags to carry the supplies, just like the other tribes in Mao Bai’s memory.

Everyone spread out all the animal skins they brought from the tribe and collected along the way. They put as many supplies as possible on the skins, sewed them up with bone needles, and tied them to the saddles of the horned beastmen.

Some of the animal skins hadn’t been completely tanned. Not only did they emit a foul odor, but they were also somewhat soft and didn’t look very strong. However, since everyone would reach the destination soon, there was no need to worry about the supplies inside falling out.

Under the cover of the night, members of the Black Mountain Tribe’s trading team absentmindedly ate the barbecue in their hands. Not far from them, a piece of renovated soil was covered with dead grass and fallen leaves, burying all traces of anything beyond this era.

Qi Bai clutched the animal skin on his back and looked up at the sun, which was already setting in the west.

The destination was close, but the journey was much longer than it seemed.

There was nothing wrong with this statement. Even though everyone had seen the shadow of Xushan yesterday, the trading team set out at dawn, and it wasn’t until the evening that everyone finally saw the full picture of the trading day.

On the plain at the foot of Xushan, there were wooden fences made of huge logs. From time to time, a small group of people could be seen walking outside the wooden fences. They seemed to be on patrol.

Qi Bai was shocked by this scene for a moment. Rather than saying it was a trading day, it was more like an ancient, temporary military camp that Qi Bai had seen in a book.

“What tribe are you from?”

A somewhat old voice came from the side of the group.

Qi Bai turned around and saw two old men, one tall and one short, standing not far away and looking at them. The one who had just spoken was the shorter old man.

Qi Bai narrowed his eyes slightly. It was simply because the two old men were both wearing dark brown short robes.

If Qi Bai wasn’t mistaken, this fabric… should be relatively rough linen.

Qi Bai quickly restrained his expression and said arrogantly, “We are from the Black Mountain Tribe. We came here to find the Xushan trading day.”

Hearing this, the tall old man sighed. “It is another new tribe.”

Qi Bai raised an eyebrow slightly. “Why? Are there many new tribes like us?”

The tall old man snorted with disdain, as if he looked down on these foreign tribes.

Even so, he didn’t directly answer Qi Bai’s question but observed the old man beside him. It seemed that the short old man was the one who could really make the decision among the two of them.

The short old man looked at the attire of Qi Bai’s group, a gleam of light flashing in his eyes. His opinion wasn’t completely consistent with that of the tall old man.

There weren’t many people in this tribe, but every beastman was very strong. Each of them carried three large animal skin bags on their backs, which was much better than many impoverished tribes that had fled here.

In addition, the attitude of the sub-beastman leader was quite arrogant. It seemed that his status in the tribe shouldn’t be too low.

However, these animal skins look very new and weren’t considered good things in his eyes. Of course, it would be a different story if these bulging animal skins were filled with more valuable supplies.

The short old man retracted his gaze. “Friends who have come from afar, this is the Xushan trading day. This year’s trading day is hosted by our Linen Tribe. I am Wa, this is my tribe member called Zhuang.”

Wa pointed to the wooden fence behind him. “If you want to enter the trading day, you need to exchange salt for a trading sign. As long as you have this sign, you can enter and exit freely during the trading day. In addition, you can get a piece of open space as a temporary camp. In this camp, you can put out your supplies for other tribes to choose from, and you can also make deals with other tribes.”

Qi Bai asked, “This is our first time here, and we don’t know when the trading day will start. Have we missed many tribes?”

“You came at the right time. In previous years, the trading day would start at the end of autumn, but after the heavy rain last year, winter suddenly arrived. This made this year’s trading day start much earlier.” Wa adjusted his short robe and said with a half-smile, “But there aren’t many good positions left. Why don’t you hurry up and pick one?”

Qi Bai certainly understood the almost obvious hint. “Of course. I wonder how much salt we need to pay.”

Wa was very satisfied to see Qi Bai so considerate. He gestured to Zhuang, and Zhuang took out five animal skin bags the size of two palms.

Zhuang shook the bag in his hand. “We only use salt as exchange. If you fill an animal skin bag, you can only be at the innermost part, squeezed in with other tribes. If you can fill all these bags, you can set up a stall on the outskirts of the trading day. Next to you will be powerful tribes such as our Linen and Xushan Tribe.”

Wa obviously knew that it wasn’t easy to fill these animal skin bags. He pretended to block it and said, “For a small tribe like yours, there is no need to fight for the best position. Two or three bags of salt will be enough.”

Wasn’t this collecting a stall fee? The more money they paid, the better the stall they could get.

Qi Bai remembered his character. He casually reached out and took an animal skin bag. “Then let’s fill four bags first.”

Then he glanced at Wa again. “Don’t try to use some hidden tricks to embarrass our Black Mountain Tribe.”

A sincere smile finally appeared on Wa’s face. “Of course.”