'Golden House'

After returning to his room in Wildling Village, Bai Yang realized that, after all that running around, he was incredibly sleepy. He hadn't slept in over twenty hours without even noticing. He simply pulled the soft fur over himself and dropped like a corpse onto the bed...

He woke feeling refreshed. When he checked the time on his phone, he found he'd slept for nearly eight hours. But when he looked outside through the window, he sadly realized the dazzling white sun had only shifted a little.

"How long is daytime here, anyway?"

Rubbing his head, Bai Yang muttered as he opened the door. He didn't watch where he was going, tripped over something, and went sprawling. Then he felt himself land on something soft. A faint fragrance from some unknown plant drifted into his nose.

Their eyes met. They stared at each other, wide-eyed. There were no screams or slaps; the awkwardness seemed to freeze the moment in place.

"Why are you crouching outside my door...?"

Scrambling to his feet, Bai Yang spoke awkwardly, even though she couldn't understand him.

That accidental contact just now had felt pretty nice, though?

The girl whose name Bai Yang still didn't know blinked, then stood up from the ground. She chattered away in her language, gesturing as she spoke.

After a good while of piecing it together, Bai Yang finally understood. While he'd been sleeping, she'd worried he might wake up and find no one around, so she'd waited outside his door. Then she'd crouched down and dozed off. Finally, Bai Yang had opened the door, tripped, and fallen on top of her.

"That's not the point..."

Bai Yang muttered to himself. I mean, I didn't do it on purpose, but I still took advantage of you a little. Couldn't you react somehow? You're making me feel not even a bit guilty... Pfft, what am I thinking...?

With complicated feelings, Bai Yang gestured wildly. What should have taken a single sentence took him ages of frantic mime before she understood that he wanted her to take him to see the old man with the white beard.

When he found the old man, Bai Yang thought he sure knew how to enjoy his twilight years. He'd hung a soft hammock among the tree branches to bask in the sun. Swaying in the breeze, it looked more comfortable than any rocking chair.

After another round of wild gesturing and attempts to communicate in a language the old man couldn't understand, Bai Yang finally managed to explain that he wanted to stay here longer. He felt bad about continuing to live in the old man's home, and wondered if the villagers could help build him a little house. Of course, he'd pay them for their trouble.

It wasn't a big deal. Once he understood Bai Yang's meaning, the old man seemed quite pleased. He chattered away, and Bai Yang guessed his answer was probably, "No problem."

The girl who'd been at his side seemed to understand, too. She was even more enthusiastic than Bai Yang, hurrying down to the ground and excitedly chattering in her pleasant voice.

Next, Bai Yang watched in dumbfounded amazement as he learned the meaning of Barbarian efficiency.

A dozen or so hulking men quickly gathered, grabbed their broadswords, and headed into the woods. Before long, the sound of trees crashing to the ground echoed from the distance. Soon, they were carrying back enormous trunks, each two or three meters in diameter.

Wood chips flew as the hulking men used brute force to split the massive trunks into thick, rough planks. They carved hollows and notches into parts of the boards, then carried them up to a tree and fitted them onto its thick branches. The planks lined up to form a wooden floor, then more boards were joined together, and the shape of a little house emerged...

In less than two hours, a brand-new, three-room wooden house, at least eighty square meters in size, had appeared up in the tree. Bai Yang could only stare, stunned.

Then he let out a yelp and dashed down to the "construction site." He picked up a wood chip, studied the grain, and sniffed it. Then he picked up a fresh branch and examined it carefully. Finally, he plopped down on the ground and stared blankly at the new house, at least thirty meters above him.

"A Golden House is about what you'd get with something like this, isn't it? The whole thing's built from Red Sandalwood. How much must it be worth?"

Before coming here, Bai Yang had specifically looked up information. Now he was absolutely certain his house was made entirely of this wood. It was not only precious lumber; its sandalwood fragrance could refresh the mind, and it was resistant to insects, among many other benefits...

"No wonder you hardly see any annoying mosquitoes in the village houses, even in this heat..."

Bai Yang looked dazedly at every treehouse in the village, as if he could see each seemingly humble home glittering with golden light...

Then he looked at the hulking Barbarians staring at him in confusion. Each and every one of them seemed to radiate a blinding aura of nouveau-riche wealth...

"So having furniture made from Huali Wood and Red Sandalwood makes you a rich tycoon, a super-rich tycoon? My house is made entirely of Red Sandalwood...!"

Bai Yang had no idea how to describe his state of mind. The forest here was practically full of gold. All you had to do was be willing to haul it away.

"Stay calm, stay calm. When there's too much of something, it loses its value... To hell with staying calm..."

Coming back to his senses, Bai Yang hurried over to a muscular man who was chopping Red Sandalwood like firewood with a broadsword. He gestured wildly. After a great deal of effort, the man finally understood what Bai Yang meant, gathered some others, and headed back into the woods. Before long, they returned with more than ten Red Sandalwood trunks, each two or three meters thick...

"The information I found online said that Red Sandalwood grows very slowly and often ends up hollow even when it gets big. So why are the trees here so enormous?"

Bai Yang circled the freshly cut logs, frowning in thought. He stuck his butt out and counted the growth rings on a solid Red Sandalwood trunk. Never mind, there were so many they made his eyes swim. Judging by appearance, it was at least two or three hundred years old. He could only chalk up the trees' extraordinary size to the local environment.

At Bai Yang's gestured instructions, the newly cut, massive Red Sandalwood trunks were roughly chopped into three-meter-long square beams by a bunch of big men with muscles but no brains. They stacked them in the shade, and soon there was a big pile.

He wasn't stupid enough to take whole Red Sandalwood trunks back to Earth. Even ordinary trees more than eighty centimeters in diameter were considered ancient trees over there. If he took back precious Red Sandalwood this massive, he'd be practically asking for a bullet.

"Back in 2004, the top-grade Red Sandalwood from 'Ah San's' side was quoted at five to six hundred thousand per ton. It must be even more expensive now. There have to be twenty or thirty tons here, right? Doesn't that mean I've basically picked up several million for free? All I had to do was fool these big guys with some random stuff! And if I can have it made into finished goods, the price could go up tenfold..."

Staring at the pile of freshly cut Red Sandalwood beams, Bai Yang was stunned.

Sure, some Red Sandalwood bracelets sold for tens or even hundreds of thousands, but those were finished products, and most of the price came from hype. The raw materials themselves weren't nearly as valuable as people imagined.

After thinking it over for a long time, Bai Yang sadly realized that unless he wanted to start a furniture factory from scratch, taking precious lumber back to sell would be nothing but hard work for little reward. Other people would take the lion's share.

"Forget it. I reckon this wood's enough to drain Dad's pockets. Once he turns it into finished products and sells them, I'll bring him another batch and empty his pockets again!"

Bai Yang happily settled on that plan. As for working with other furniture factories? Not a chance. That'd be helping the enemy. Only an idiot would do that. He might as well spend that effort figuring out how to haul some radishes—no, ginseng—back here to sell.

Bai Yang had his own plans, too. Sooner or later, he'd meet people from the outside world. If he came across a skilled carpenter or someone like that, he'd open a furniture factory here and take the finished goods back to sell. Who cared where he got them? Buy them or don't!

Once he'd calmed down, Bai Yang looked up and saw the dazzling white sun near the horizon. He smacked his forehead, dashed out of the village, made a quick circuit, and returned to check the marks he'd made the day before.

"A day in this world is almost fifty hours long. That's more than two Earth days. Do they have years, months, seasons, and all that here? If I stay here long enough, I really might lose track of what year and month it is back on Earth..."

Back in the village, Bai Yang muttered to himself as dusk fell. When he returned to his own little house, he was dumbfounded to find that, somehow, nearly all the basic household necessities had been put in place. The girl who'd been following him was bustling about happily, helping him get settled.

"What's going on? Is she planning to live with me?"

Watching the girl make the bed, Bai Yang was completely floored...