Deyang's dock was incredibly busy. Rafts and bamboo rafts of every size darted back and forth, while a whole jumble of shouts and clamor made one's head spin.
If you didn't know the situation, you had no right to speak. Whether it came to the trade ahead or handing the bandits over to the so-called authorities, Bai Yang had decided that, whatever happened, he would just watch and keep his mouth shut!
Wherever you were, when a decision-maker spoke recklessly without knowing the situation, it often only made things worse.
Bai Yang noticed that there wasn't a single large boat to be seen on the busy dock. It was all wooden rafts and bamboo rafts, piled high with all kinds of mountain goods. The people aboard them dressed much like the villagers had back in the day.
That raised a problem: their group, all dressed in silver-gray Titanium Alloy Armor, stood out like a sore thumb!
We didn't think this through. The bird that sticks its head out gets shot. There's no way we can avoid attracting attention now. Who knows what might happen next.
Bai Yang thought this, but he wasn't worried. The villagers wearing Titanium Alloy Armor could probably cut their way through a ten-thousand-man encirclement, even if the enemy had equal numbers but far inferior equipment!
People on shore had already noticed them. A dozen or so Qing Yi stood along the bank, waving for them to pull in.
"Zhao Shi, you're in charge of everything from here on."
Bai Yang gave Zhao Shi a heads-up first, so he wouldn't cause trouble later.
"I understand, Young Master."
Zhao Shi nodded, then directed the villagers to bring several rafts alongside the bank.
Once the rafts had pulled in, more than ten Qing Yi came over. A short, fat, middle-aged man stepped forward, looked over Bai Yang and the others, and asked, "You are...?"
Bai Yang noticed that at least a thousand people in Qing Yi were scattered along the bank, directing the rafts of every size on the river. They shouted at everyone else, but when it came to his group, they were much more polite.
This outfit must count for a lot.
Bai Yang nodded to himself. The saying that clothes made the man had never been more clearly demonstrated.
Zhao Shi stepped forward and said, "We're villagers from Geduo Village, here to trade mountain goods. Please take stock of everything. Also, on the way here, we defeated a band of bandits and captured some prisoners. Please inform the authorities for us."
Geduo Village was the name of Little Cat and the others' village. Bai Yang didn't know what it meant, exactly, but the name had been rendered according to its pronunciation.
When the short, fat, middle-aged man heard Zhao Shi, he lifted his chin slightly. His gaze flickered, and he nodded to show he understood.
What happened next struck Bai Yang as bizarre, but he still didn't say a word, silently playing the spectator.
Under the direction of the dozen or so Qing Yi, the villagers unloaded all their goods at a designated spot on the bank. Someone on the other side held what looked like a ledger, pointing and making notes.
The ledger's made of some kind of very thin, treated hide, and the pen's a brush. So, do they have paper here or not?
Bai Yang wondered to himself.
Meanwhile, one of the Qing Yi left and hurried toward Deyang Town.
When the Qing Yi had nearly finished taking stock of the villagers' goods, a group of people appeared in a hurry from the direction of Deyang. There were thirty-four of them, all wearing red-and-black robes with long sabers hanging at their waists.
Bai Yang suspected these were probably the so-called authorities. That uniform was pretty ugly, too...
A group of constables arrived. One who looked like their leader exchanged a few words with Zhao Shi, then waved his hand. Someone pushed out more than ten handcarts from some corner and tossed Bai Yang's prisoners onto them as if they were trash. Then they threw a large bundle of something to Zhao Shi and left without another word.
The whole process seemed baffling and bizarre to Bai Yang, but everyone around him acted as if it were perfectly normal.
What am I missing here?
Unable to figure it out, Bai Yang kept watching.
Once the short, fat Qing Yi had finished taking stock, he asked Zhao Shi, "Everything's been counted: three hundred and eighty-four pelts of 'various' kinds, thirteen thousand four hundred jin of smoked meat, three hundred and twenty-four jars of fruit wine, and four hundred and fifty jin of assorted herbs. Is that right?"
Zhao Shi nodded, looking a little uneasy.
The short, fat man continued, "All right, everything's been counted. What do you want in exchange?"
"Half for salt, half for hemostatic powder."
Zhao Shi answered without even thinking.
The other man nodded, wearing an expression that said he'd known that was coming. "Mm. One jin of salt per pelt, and one jin for every ten jin of smoked meat. That comes to five hundred jin of salt. The fruit wine gets exchanged for hemostatic powder, one bottle per jar. The herbs go at one bottle per jin. That comes to three hundred bottles. Do the math. Is that right?"
Zhao Shi swallowed, looking lost, but still nodded.
At that moment, Zhao Shi's mind was probably going something like this:
"#$%^&&(*^&$^%#%$#U&%^$^%$"
Then the short, fat man nodded and turned to leave. Some Qing Yi carried over more than forty cloth sacks about the size of cement bags and tossed them to Zhao Shi. They also brought over three wooden crates full of fist-sized bamboo tubes, each plugged with something.
The sacks probably contained the so-called salt, and the bamboo tubes probably held that hemostatic powder. Bai Yang continued watching, silently playing the spectator.
Even a blind man could tell those Qing Yi were no good...
"Everything's been handed over. Don't block the way. Load up some wine jars and get moving. The other villages are waiting to come through."
After that, the Qing Yi who had brought the goods said impatiently.
Bai Yang was amazed. He'd thought the mountain of empty jars stacked to one side was for trading. He hadn't expected the other side to be giving them away for free...
The villagers loaded more than a thousand empty wine jars onto the rafts and tied them down. With the other goods they'd traded for, the rafts pushed away from the bank.
Bai Yang felt like dying...
Once they were some distance from shore, he asked Zhao Shi, "Is this how you've always traded?"
"Yeah, it's always been like this."
Zhao Shi looked at Bai Yang as if to say, What's wrong with that?
Sighing, Bai Yang asked again, "If we went ashore and chopped those Qing Yi to death, would that cause trouble?"
"Young Master, we absolutely can't! Forget killing them—even offending them means we'll never be able to trade for anything again. If we dare kill them, they'll bring people to wipe out the whole village. Even wearing the armor you gave us, we wouldn't stand a chance of surviving!"
Zhao Shi looked at Bai Yang in terror.
Bai Yang nodded. "Tell me, how much do you know about those Qing Yi?"
Zhao Shi thought for a moment. "They're servants of the Che family in Deyang Town. They represent the Che family in trading with all the mountain folk in Mihe Forest."
After waiting for a while, Bai Yang stared at Zhao Shi in surprise. "That's it?"
"That's it!"
Damn it, that was all the information he had? What the hell was the point?
So Bai Yang asked again:
"Is the Che family (what kind of pronunciation is that?) powerful in Deyang Town?"
"Very powerful. The Che family has real Martial Artists!"
Zhao Shi said this with utter fear.
Oh, thank heavens. He'd finally said something important, though it still wasn't much use...
"What kind of people are Martial Artists?"
"Very powerful, very strong people!"
After that exchange, Bai Yang looked at Zhao Shi as if life had lost all meaning, then glanced at the villagers. "Do you know you're a bunch of idiots?"
"What...?"
"Nothing. Anyway, what next? What do we do now?"
"Young Master, of course we go back. Otherwise, we won't make it home before dark."
Little Cat reminded Bai Yang, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Bai Yang: "..."
So they'd spent seven or eight hours traveling all this way, been butchered like pigs, and now they had to head home in less than half an hour?
"Wait, aren't you going to go into town and look around?"
He stared at them in disbelief.
"Why would we go in? We've finished trading. Besides, you need some kind of thing to enter town, and we mountain folk don't have one, so they won't let us in."
Zhao Shi said after some hesitation.
How the hell were they supposed to live like this? A whole bunch of pigs, aaaargh...
After finally calming down, Bai Yang asked again, "Do you always trade goods like this? And nobody asks for money or anything?"
"It's always been like this. By the way, Young Master, what's money?"
Damn it, Bai Yang wanted to jump into the river...
"Forget it. So, what was that lump of stuff the constables threw you just now?" Bai Yang asked, looking utterly despairing.
"Oh, that was a sack of salt. It's a hundred jin."
Hu Zi answered from nearby, out of nowhere.
You're telling me that lump weighs a hundred jin? It wasn't even fifty! And what the hell is wrong with your pig brains? How many years have you been getting ripped off? And you all act like this is perfectly normal...
"Damn it all! No wonder I'm going to get rich. A bunch of pigs—no, pigs are smarter than you mountain folk. Since somebody's going to cheat you anyway, you might as well feel lucky it's me doing it!"
Bai Yang stood at the front of the raft, his teeth grinding together with a clack.
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