Chapter 174 – The slave owner
Translated by Lee
Shao Xuan lifted the large boulder up from the river bank and briskly walked to the front of Yan Shuo’s house. He kicked the pieces of wood on the ground aside and casually threw the boulder on the ground.
Boom!
Even those standing far away could feel the ground shaking, let alone Yan Shuo’s family.
Their wooden house wasn’t even sturdy to begin with. Adding on the vibrations right next to it, more pieces of the house started falling off.
…It seems he went too far with the pretentious act.
Shao Xuan scratched his nose and laughed apologetically towards Yan Shuo’s family.
“Err, about that, I’ll help you fix up your house in a bit.” Shao Xuan said. Back at his tribe, it didn’t take that long to build a big house. He was only squeezing in with the other travel team members because it was too bothersome otherwise; what with them only staying for 2-3 days, building a house was unnecessary. Not only that, they were in an unfamiliar place with strangers. For their own safety, they were better off staying at their arranged quarters.
But now that he ran into someone from the same tribe, it was a different story.
Rather than being angry, Yan Shuo’s family was staring at Shao Xuan with a gleam in their eyes. Shao Xuan was so strong, his tribe must also be very strong! The stronger a tribe is, the more likely they can survive in this world and last for a long time.
No wonder their ancestors kept insisting their descendants remember their tribe and wait for the day they can finally go back. It seems that all of their sacrifices were worth it!
Shao Xuan jumped up and sat on the boulder he just threw down. He waited for Yan Shuo’s family to come back to their senses before starting to discuss with Yan Shuo. As for the whole moving the boulder in front of everyone business, that was just to intimidate the others. Maybe that stunt wouldn’t have been a big deal somewhere else, but it was effective here.
Watching the happy reunion in front of him, Li tried what he could to reduce his presence, hating that he couldn’t run as far away as possible. All of Shao Xuan’s actions already scared him witless.
Li sneaked a glance at his superior still painfully kneeling on the ground and the bitten off snake head next to his foot. He took a deep breath and turned to run away.
But just as he took the first step, a wooden rod whistled through the air and went through his chest. Neither ends of the rod were sharp, but it still managed to forcibly pierce through. By the time Li sensed the attack, he was already hit.
Li sank to his knees and mustered all his strength to check who had attacked him. All he could see was a golden ball of light slowly approaching from the distance.
This so-called golden light wasn’t actually coming from any light-emitting object. Instead, it was the slave owner adorned in golden fur.
Shao Xuan saw this slave owner wearing black spotted animal skin yesterday, now he had changed to a different one today. Sunlight reflected off the golden beast fur, making the slave owner rather conspicuous.
It seemed the slave owner liked to use this method to show off his grandeur and elite status. Having considerable amount of slaves and financial power, he definitely wasn’t lacking in something like animal skins.
Shao Xuan got some information from the Pu tribe members on the slave owner. His name was Shi Shu and he came to the area a few years ago. Sometimes he would stay for a while and sometimes he wouldn’t show up for a long time. He had plenty of people under him, so he didn’t have to personally manage the slaves.
They say the Pu tribe’s travel team was only able to get some special treatment because the team leader and Shi Shu’s relationship wasn’t bad. But if you ask Shao Xuan, Fan Ning wasn’t acting that natural in front of Shi Shu and was even cautious.
Shi Shu was a very dangerous person. Everyone knew, without saying, about a slave owner’s cruelty; they may be smiling on the surface, but don’t be so easily convinced – there may be a knife hidden in that smile.
The sparkling golden Shi Shu slowly walked over with a smile on his face. He acted like he didn’t just throw the rod that killed Li.
There were also two other of Shi Shu’s slaves standing next to him. Out of all his slaves, these two held a relatively high position, nothing the likes of Li and the snake slave could compare to.
While everyone else was looking at Shi Shu’s sparkling body, Shao Xuan was looking up at the air. When that slave owner threw over the wooden rod, there was actually more than one.
A long shadow rapidly fell from high above.
Pff!
The slave that Shao Xuan had beaten into kneeling still wasn’t able to get up from the ground. All of a sudden, the second rod hit him from behind and pierced through his throat at an angle.
He watched as his blood flowed down the rod. He struggled to speak but no sounds came out of his throat. The chain tattoos on his neck faded, spreading from the wound outwards.
He stretched out his arm, wanting to grab onto the person passing by him. But he found that the distance that was less than 5 steps away stretched as far as the Yangtze river, unreachable and out of his grasp. He had no choice but to watch as the golden slave master walked slowly past him.
Before all this, he was someone who would always come to the wanderers’ area to run rampant. But now, as all the chain patterns finally disappeared, he could only lifelessly drop his hand and stop breathing.
The surrounding audience felt a shiver run down their spines, their dread of the slave owner only deepening from the scene.
Shao Xuan looked at the slave owner heading straight towards him. He was wearing clothes made of higher quality linen than the kind the Pu tribe could get their hands on. A finely polished stone battle axe hung on a leather cord on his waist. The stone axe wasn’t that big, with a flat body and a broad blade. The blade was dramatically curved and its edges slightly curved upwards. The engraved decorations on it were done with meticulous care. The axe clearly wasn’t for cutting down trees; this kind of primitive weapon could only be used as an accessory for the upper class.
Other than that, Shao Xuan also sensed the power of inheritance from Shi Shu. Slave owners were like a combination of a tribe’s chief and shaman; they have absolute authority over their people and some spiritual powers too. It’s just that their slaves aren’t as lucky as the warriors in tribes.
Shi Shu looked at Chacha and turned back to Shao Xuan to say, “Apologies, the slaves under me were disobedient.”
Clearly, this slave owner already knew the whole story. He didn’t attack Shao Xuan like everyone thought he would, but he wasn’t apologetic like he claimed to be either. On the contrary, he was rather engrossed in watching Chacha tear the snake apart.
Shi Shu watched for a bit longer and then finally took his people away. He acted like he was only there to take care of those two disobedient slaves of his. However, the way his gaze hovered over Chacha’s claws made Shao Xuan think otherwise.
Shi Shu probably noticed the tribe’s totem mark.
Could it be he knew about the Flaming Horns’ situation?
It wouldn’t be weird, as slave owners were known to travel to different parts of the continent before. Perhaps he really did know but he was keeping mum about it anyhow.
When Shi Shu left, the two slaves that followed him also dragged away the dead slaves. There were only two bloodstains left on the ground as evidence of what had happened.
After they left the wanderers’ area, one of the slaves asked about the now vacant positions.
“I killed them, so be it. I can just promote some new ones,” Shi Shu said nonchalantly.
The slave at his side respectfully bent his waist and made a sound of agreement. The slave owner’s response was just like he expected. Perhaps the owner didn’t even know the names of the two dead slaves.
Slaves were stratified into the ranks of “li”, “liao”, “pu”, “tai”, and so on. Slaves ranked below “tai” were the lowest of the low. The snake slave was only a little more powerful because he took care of the snakes for the owner. But in reality, he was still one level below “tai”, simply not worth it for Shi Shu to remember his name. He naturally wouldn’t care about the life or death of worthless slaves.
After Shi Shu left, Shao Xuan started chatting with Yan Shuo.
Shao Xuan was definitely going to take a trip soon to the central tribes to gather information. But with Yan Shuo’s current abilities, it was far too dangerous. It wasn’t like he could bring Yan Shuo’s wife and kids along either. Shao Xuan wasn’t familiar with the central tribes’ situation. He just knew that a lot of the people there were very strong. Before knowing more, it wasn’t convenient to bring them along.
Yan Shuo was also aware it wasn’t a good idea to follow to the central tribes and wanted to stay where he was. When Shao Xuan came back from the central tribes, then they could meet up and leave together.
Shao Xuan was planning on having Yan Shuo move to a different area. The slave owner clearly wasn’t the type to get along with others. But Yan Shuo turned down his idea.
“It’s okay, there’s no need. If that slave owner really wanted to kill us, he wouldn’t wait. He would have just killed us off right then and there like he did to Li. Since he didn’t take care of us earlier, he won’t make a move against us for now.” Yan Shuo said. He was somewhat familiar with how the slave owner acted.
“In fact, I’m pretty familiar with this area. I know what these people are like. But if I move someplace else, that won’t necessarily be true.” Yan Shuo added.
Shao Xuan gave it a thought. That’s true, he only knew the Drumming tribe and the Pu tribe. The Pu tribe didn’t allow outsiders to stay inside their tribe for long. As for the Drumming tribe, it was too far and out of the way. The road there would be too dangerous for Yan Shuo’s family to go by themselves.
After some consideration, Yan Shuo’s way of thinking was indeed more practical.
“Then you can just stay here for the time being, I’ll help you build a house.”
The new wooden house was built pretty quickly with Shao Xuan’s help. As for the person who came to find Yan Shuo last night, he was dizzy all night from his wounds. He got up really late and the first thing he heard about was Yan Shuo’s affairs. He hastily rushed over to find Yan Shuo.
He was once Yan Shuo’s comrade-in-arms, Yan Shuo also wanted to help him out. Since he hadn’t gone to find the slave owner yet, he might as well live together with Yan Shuo’s family.
The newly constructed house was considerably bigger than the previous one. Another person living in it was completely feasible.
Shao Xuan also thought it was a good idea since they could all look after each other.
“Wait for me to come back from the central tribes, I’ll bring you all back to our tribe.” Shao Xuan left some water moonstones with Yan Shuo. He also crafted some stone tools for them.
Yan Shuo’s strength had increased a bit compared to before. It was more than enough for his family to survive, and who knows? Maybe he would be able to hunt some prey too.
The day came for the travel team to set out. Shao Xuan said goodbye to Yan Shuo and his family for now. He left with the newly expanded travel team, continuing onwards to the central tribes.
According to Yan Shuo, he wasn’t clear on what had happened to the Flaming Horns tribe back then. But as far as he knew, there should be a lot more wanderers from their tribe like him.
If Shao Xuan could find these people, he could bring them back to the tribe as well.