By the time Bai Yang carried a huge bucket of salt into the treehouse bedroom, the sky was only just beginning to pale on the horizon.
"This time difference is unreal. It's high noon over there..."
Dawn was breaking, and the village was already coming alive. When he pushed open the window, he saw a crowd of adolescents in the clearing beneath the treehouse, lined up in crooked rows and following a burly man at the front as they grunted and threw punches.
What a passionate, inspiring sight: everyone exercising beneath the rising sun!
After watching for a few moments, Bai Yang found it incredibly boring. By comparison, even the military-style exercise routine he'd learned during high school training looked better...
He twisted open the bedroom door, carrying the plastic bucket of salt. He nearly yelped when he saw the girl, who had gotten up at some point and was standing there, looking at him with bright, blinking eyes.
You'd never have guessed she'd cried the night before!
Since he didn't understand the local customs, Bai Yang had no idea what the girl was thinking. Well, he faithfully followed the saying, "Never try to guess what a girl is thinking."
He greeted her with a cheerful "Good morning." Whether she understood him or not wasn't his problem.
The girl merely pouted without a word. She didn't seem the least bit surprised that Bai Yang had just carried an enormous bucket she'd never seen before out of an otherwise empty bedroom.
Any normal person would've been surprised, wouldn't they?
Carrying the salt into the kitchen, Bai Yang watched the girl stare, eyes wide and heartbroken, as he grabbed the fist-sized lump of brown salt in a wooden bowl and tossed it out the window.
"#￥...%%&**&"
The girl stood in front of Bai Yang, gesturing and chattering away, but he couldn't understand a word.
He grabbed her by the wrist. From the look of her, she was about to turn and run outside to retrieve the salt.
After stopping her, Bai Yang picked up the wooden bowl, rinsed it twice in the sink, and shook it dry. Then he scooped a bowlful of fine, snowy-white salt from the bucket.
"From now on, we'll use this," Bai Yang said, pointing to the salt in the bowl.
Something about that didn't seem quite right. He'd said "we" far too naturally...
The girl didn't understand. At Bai Yang's gestures, she pinched up a few grains of salt between two fingers and put them in her mouth. Her eyes widened at once. It was so salty it turned bitter, but she couldn't bear to spit it out. She even sucked on her index finger, staring at Bai Yang in utter amazement.
If he kept watching, he was going to embarrass himself. Bai Yang forced himself to turn away, hoisted the bucket of salt, and went to find the old man with the white beard.
Perhaps old people were light sleepers. By the time Bai Yang found the white-bearded old man, he was already sitting in a wicker chair, watching the crowd of adolescents fool around with a kindly smile.
The old man greeted Bai Yang with a smile, though Bai Yang had no idea what he was saying...
After another round of gesturing and confused pantomime, Bai Yang managed to make the old man understand that the white powder in the bucket was salt, a thank-you for the villagers' help building the house the day before. Then he gave him the whole bucket.
The old man reacted even more strongly than the girl. He grabbed a small pinch of salt and stuffed it into his mouth. Though the saltiness made his nose and eyes scrunch up, he couldn't bring himself to spit it out. Then he seemed to grow lighter by several pounds and hurried off with the bucket.
Bai Yang had grown up in the city and had no idea how important salt was to people doing heavy labor. If they went without salt for a long time, they'd become weak all over, their mental state would deteriorate, and they could even develop osteoporosis. The most obvious sign was that their hair would turn white...
"How low must the standard of living here be, for the villagers to get this excited over a little salt!"
Bai Yang was nearly driven to despair. If he started reselling everyday necessities, he reckoned he could fleece the villagers down to their trousers.
The sun rose, its light vast and brilliant. Mist drifted like smoke, and dewdrops glittered. Leaves rustled, plants breathed out their fresh fragrance, children played, and cooking smoke curled into the air. Sunshine, woods, breeze, laughter, and cheerful voices came together on this cool morning to form a peaceful, tranquil scene.
Bai Yang didn't have an artistic bone in his body. He just thought it was all very pleasant. He squatted on a big rock, bored out of his mind, watching a bunch of muscular men of all sizes show off their physiques and impressive tricks. He had no intention of joining them. Even the kids were in better shape than his scrawny self—he'd only make a fool of himself.
As he watched, Bai Yang spotted Number Three Barbarian sneaking over to him. While Bai Yang wasn't paying attention, Number Three "openly" snatched the Electric Rod from where it had been set down nearby...
"What's he up to now?"
Then Bai Yang laughed so hard he nearly fell off the rock.
Number Three Barbarian had somehow gotten hold of a battered suit of armor made from metal plates. He put it on over his body, which was as muscled as a stack of steel plates, then switched on the Electric Rod and pressed it against the armor...
This time was even worse. Metal conducted electricity, and Number Three dropped flat on his back, twitching for ages without getting up. The Electric Rod rolled far away...
"You'd have to be incredibly stubborn to keep picking a fight with the Electric Rod. Still, I admire your spirit of exploration."
With a sigh, Bai Yang picked up the Electric Rod and went back to the rock to watch the muscular men show off their physiques and impressive tricks.
One thing left Bai Yang completely baffled: he couldn't tell whether the villagers had slow reflexes or whether their ability to accept the unbelievable was through the roof. They showed no curiosity at all about the lumber that had disappeared the night before, the salt he'd brought, or the Electric Rod. They acted as if it were all perfectly normal, leaving Bai Yang utterly stumped.
"Here I am, wasting such a glorious morning doing absolutely nothing. It's downright outrageous!"
As he ate the roasted meat the girl carefully fed him, Bai Yang sighed inwardly. When the crowd of muscular men finally dispersed, he felt even more bored.
Boredom was an illness. It had to be cured!
He had to find something to do, or he'd die of boredom. When he saw the group of muscular men getting ready to head into the forest to hunt again, Bai Yang thought for a moment, then brushed himself off and hurried over.
He didn't approach anyone else. He went straight to the trio of Barbarians who'd brought him to the village. After all, he knew them a little better.
After a long bout of incomprehensible gestures and clumsy pantomime, he finally got them to understand that he wanted to tag along and have a look.
The three big men muttered among themselves for a few moments, but didn't refuse.
Then Bai Yang turned around and stared, eyes wide. At some point, the girl who'd been following behind him had changed into a different outfit and was still silently trailing him.
Leather armor, leather trousers, leather boots, and leather bracers outlined her figure to a striking degree. Her gear was crude and rough, but she had a wildness about her that hit him head-on.
A dagger was stuck in her boot, a soft whip was wrapped around her waist, a bow and arrows were strapped to her back, and she carried a three-foot-long, cold, broad-bladed sword in her hand. She was armed nearly to the teeth, wasn't she?
Looking at the girl dressed like that, Bai Yang couldn't help thinking that she could beat ten of him without breaking a sweat.
He was not only unashamed, but proud of it. No matter how absurdly strong they were, it couldn't hide the fact that this village was backward. A city boy's sense of superiority at getting to experience tribal life welled up inside him...
And then... off they went. Bai Yang wasn't unaware of how dangerous the forest was, but surrounded by these few people with explosively high combat strength, he felt completely safe.
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