Young Lord

Alas, this is too hard.

The youth by the river looked at the childish face reflected in the stream, at the azure sky rippling with faint waves.

Spreading his arms, the somewhat scrawny youth slowly lay down on the fresh green grass. He raised a hand, wanting to touch the sky, only for it to fall back weakly.

He had been in this savage world for twelve years already.

Twelve years!

Did you know how he had spent those twelve years?!

He!

"Young Lord!"

A rough shout suddenly came from nearby.

Within a radius of a hundred zhang around the stream where the youth lay, large numbers of burly men riding ice-blue, long-furred giant wolves patrolled back and forth.

An uncle clad in leather armor, built like a bear, saw the youth fall over and asked after him in concern with his booming voice:

"Are you all right, Young Lord?!"

The youth weakly waved a hand and replied listlessly:

"I'm fine. Let me rest for a while."

Just as he was about to play up his misery, he was ruthlessly exposed.

But was he, the Young Lord of the Bear Hug Tribe—one of the ten great clans north of Single Fox Mountain and the sole heir to the Clan Leader's position—really happy?

There was no internet here, no electronic entertainment, not even a few paper books!

Even as the Young Lord, though he had plenty of little tagalongs with runny noses and tattered leather armor, he did not even have a few pretty, soft little maidservants to talk heart-to-heart with at night and unwind!

Wu Wang had no idea whether Heaven letting him live again with the memories of that dazzling world from his previous life was a reward or a punishment.

The emptiness of personal entertainment was manageable. Given more time to adapt, he was not someone who could not endure loneliness.

The greater torment lay in matters between men and women.

Although everyone in the clan, from leaders to ordinary soldiers, practiced monogamy, this was ancient times, and everyone was relatively open-minded. Before marriage, young men and women could freely fall passionately in love.

Truly free love.

In the reed beds by the river, the little woods by the mountains, the huts for herdsmen in the grazing lands, and the ice houses beneath snowy mountains for keeping warm, one could easily find scenes of unmarried men and women splashing their youth about.

After marriage, on the other hand, everyone demanded wholehearted devotion from one another. After all, they bore considerable pressures of survival and needs of the heart.

Life, whether on the Blue Planet of his previous life or in the Great Wilderness of this one, had never been an easy thing.

Every three years, the clan held a grand marriage gathering. Young women who had yet to start families would bring carefully prepared wooden sticks, bone clubs, stone rods, and wolf-tooth maces, find the men they fancied, and quietly sneak up behind them...

Then give them a whack on the back of the head!

The crisper the sound, the finer the quality of that man's skull.

Of course, listening to the sound was not the point.

The women would sling the men over their shoulders and carry them back to their homes. After a night of strenuous cooperation, they would emerge from the house together the next morning and become husband and wife.

Pure marriage began with one blow of a club.

It had to be emphasized that while the Bear Hug Tribe was generally a little simple-minded, they did not forcefully knock people out and haul them away.

This custom had been passed down for so many years that most men and women now already had "partners" beforehand, and merely went through the process together at the gathering.

Although cases still occurred where people followed the ancient rites exactly, knocked someone out at the gathering because they liked the look of them, and carried them away, the men usually escaped in the middle of the night.

Wu Wang seriously suspected that the main reason most married men in the clan were simpletons with well-developed limbs was that they had failed to withstand that blow from their wives when getting married!

Of course, he was the Young Lord. Though he had no white horse and could only ride white wolves, he was, strictly speaking, still a prince.

When he married in the future, he would only symbolically be struck once by his beloved and could simply pretend to faint.

—That was how his beautiful mother comforted him.

But, but...

"Alas."

The youth's forehead was covered in black lines. He covered it with the back of his hand, utterly dispirited.

There was clearly nothing wrong with his body, nor anything wrong with his mind. His preferences were perfectly ordinary, and he often had all sorts of adolescent fantasies. So how had he contracted such a strange illness?

Was it because, when he was three years old, he had overheard a group of aunties discussing how to make simple wolf-tooth maces?

Or had he played too wildly in his previous life, and Heaven, having let him live again, deliberately decided to mess with his state of mind?

How had it become like this?

Wu Wang, Wu Wang, what sin did you commit to deserve this?

Fine then. The Great Wilderness was full of strange things, and he just happened to be one small "strange" point.

Before the age of seven or eight, Wu Wang had only wanted to become an ordinary, sturdy Young Lord of the Bear Hug Tribe. He did not need exceptional talent, nor did he have any inflated ambitions. He felt that peacefully living through a dull life of several hundred years would be enough.

—Humans of the Great Wilderness lived for three to five hundred years.

Back then, Wu Wang had always been happy, and he had also taken great care of the back of his head so that it could endure more beatings from life.

Then, at the age of seven or eight, everything changed.

That strange illness had appeared in his body without any warning...

Wuu—

A deep horn suddenly sounded from the distant horizon.

Wu Wang stopped grumbling inwardly. With a start, he flipped over and sprang to his feet, gazing toward where the horn had sounded. In the distance, he saw a straight plume of wolf smoke.

This Great Wilderness was far from peaceful, and humanity was not the ruler of heaven and earth.

On the contrary, humanity, created by the innate goddess Nüwa, had gained a foothold relatively late in this world called the Great Wilderness. Upon the vast grasslands north of the Cang Mountains, only two of the ten great clans were dominated by humans.

A hundred races lived in a muddled mix, and after gaining intelligence, most took human form.

Though the Bear Hug Tribe was strong overall, the dangers of the grasslands threatened the clansmen's lives at every moment. The threat of beast herds had always existed.

Horns and wolf smoke were both common warning methods.

At this moment, the horn was relatively unhurried, and there was only a single plume of wolf smoke. The patrolling scouts had likely discovered some abnormality that was not too serious.

"I thought some great ferocious beast had appeared."

Wu Wang yawned, smacked his lips in boredom, and was about to lie back down in the grass to enjoy this moment of peace when he said perfunctorily:

"General San, send someone to investigate what happened."

"Young Lord! We've already seen it through the eyes of the goshawks!"

The burly uncle who had shouted earlier waved an arm thicker than Wu Wang's body and called out eagerly:

"Would you like to go test your hand?

A group of Chujian Beasts, only a few hundred years old, were startled by someone and are chasing something a hundred li away. Our people have already circled in from both sides."

"No." Wu Wang yawned. "Boring."

General Xiong San scratched his head, jumped down from the giant wolf's towering back, took several strides to Wu Wang's side, rubbed his large hands together, and reminded him as quietly as he could in his rough voice:

"Young Lord, you'll be the leader of a great clan in the future. At your age, you should show off your martial prowess from time to time, or there could easily be trouble later.

We know how formidable you are, Young Lord, but those bear cubs don't! You need to make more moves and keep those bear cubs in line!"

Wu Wang: ...

If it was for the clan's stability, then there was no helping it. Though he could not muster any enthusiasm for managing the clan, he also did not want to disgrace his parents in this life.

"Bring my carriage over."

"Yes!"

General Xiong San agreed excitedly, thumped his chest, turned his head, and let out a series of roars.

Whoosh, whoosh—the sounds of air tearing rang out without end as the Giant Wolf Riders near the river moved in unison, swift as phantoms.

Thus, half an hour later.

A carriage lined with three layers of pure white Snow Bear pelts was pulled by four giant wolves with ice-blue fur. Its four rust-speckled wheels crushed through the somewhat muddy grassland, flattening flowers and grass and splashing mud all along the way.

Wu Wang wore a cloak sewn from precious Fierce Beast hide and a hat made from the upper jaw of a juvenile beast. He reclined amid the soft bear pelts, his body gently swaying with the carriage.

He held up an old piece of sheepskin, studying the crooked symbols upon it with considerable focus.

Before, behind, left, and right of the carriage, Giant Wolf Riders clad in fine armor and fully armed followed closely. Their gazes were even fiercer than those of the giant wolves beneath them, and their burly bodies held astonishing power.

General Xiong San rode his giant wolf over at high speed from ahead, circled halfway around, skillfully sidled up beside the carriage, and shouted at the top of his lungs:

"Young Lord! Those Chujian Beasts are chasing three cultivators from the Human Domain!

No mistake—they're dressed in all sorts of gaudy colors. The women even wear skirts when they fight, and they use those fancy, impractical spells! Tossing around a few toothpicks.

They aren't very strong. Their flying artifact seems to have been destroyed, and they run on the ground faster than big rats, but it looks like they can't hold on much longer.

Should we save them?"

"Father said that when we see humans in distress, we should save them if we can."

Without even raising his head, Wu Wang said, "General San, make the arrangements."

"Yes! Just watch!"

General Xiong San clenched his fist and pounded his chest hard, then threw back his head and let out a bear's roar:

"The Young Lord is making his move! Open your eyes and watch carefully! When you get back, give me every detail, and tell it a hundred times to everyone you meet!"

The Giant Wolf Riders around them instantly grew wildly excited, howling nonstop.

The convoy continued forward at a steady pace. A dense commotion had already erupted on the grasslands ahead.

Wolf howls, shouts, beast roars, the twanging of bowstrings, and great fires appearing from thin air filled the sky.

An ancient saying went: when prosperous, blanket them with firepower; when poor, weave through them with tactics.

By the time Wu Wang's carriage arrived, the dozens of Chujian Beasts had already been completely encircled by the Giant Wolf Riders.

Before such beasts came into their own, their appearance was already quite peculiar. They were as large as oxen and shaped like leopards, but their heads resembled those of humans. They had one eye, ox ears, and tails that made up half their body length.

They were savage by nature and mostly traveled in groups of three or five. They could release sound waves from their mouths and were a fairly common kind of beast herd in the northern region.

It was simply that...

Their meat was not very tasty.

A beast's strength depended first on its species, then on its age. Discussing combat power without considering its years was nothing but blind nonsense.

A thousand-year-old Chujian Beast could evolve its leopard body into humanoid limbs. A three-thousand-year-old Chujian Beast already counted as a Fierce Beast; one furious roar could shake beast herds to death a hundred li away.

The Bear Hug Tribe had once hunted a Fierce Beast-level Chujian Beast. Their casualties had been heavy, but their gains had been plentiful as well. One beast core had been traded for vast quantities of grain, feeding more people.

Back to the matter at hand.

The closer they came to the Giant Wolf Riders' encirclement, the more deafening the Chujian Beasts' roars became.

Wu Wang looked up and saw three figures separated from the wolf riders: two women and one man. The women wore form-fitting long dresses, while the man wore a blue-green robe. All three had already been injured.

This attire was commonly seen among human cultivators in the Human Domain.

They were nervously staring at the shadows circling endlessly around them. The man was rather responsible, gripping a longsword as he shielded the two young women behind him.

Ah, they should be called women.

By the Human Domain's customs, they were called men and women.

The Great Wilderness was divided into Nine Wilds, with the Human Domain in the south. It was where humans gathered and also humanity's largest settlement in this world.

The Bear Hug Tribe was in the northeast of the Great Wilderness, very far from the Human Domain. Encountering cultivators from the Human Domain here was quite a rare sight.

Wu Wang could not help looking at the two female cultivators a few more times.

Mm—

Sure enough, cultivation was quite helpful for whitening, smoothing, and giving luster to the skin. Most girls of the Bear Hug Tribe had a healthy flaxen complexion, while these two female cultivators were especially fair.

These two female cultivators from the Human Domain won in slender figures, possessing the delicate quality of willows bending in the wind, but they both lacked a little substance. The girls of the Bear Hug Tribe, on the other hand, were different. Most of them...

"Young Lord! Can you handle several dozen of these things by yourself?"

General Xiong San sidled over again and muttered quietly, "How about I arrange for a few priests to chant spells nearby and act together with you?"

"No need."

Wu Wang stood from the carriage and braced himself on the front railing.

The four frost-white giant wolves raised their heads and howled. The layers upon layers of Giant Wolf Riders advancing in staggered formation ahead withdrew like the tide, revealing the dozens of trapped beasts to Wu Wang's sight.

The carriage surged forward. Wu Wang's expression was indifferent, and the long hair beneath his Beast Bone helmet streamed in the wind.

He raised his left hand, palm aimed at the Chujian Beast herd.

The Chujian Beasts keenly sensed danger. They opened their mouths and roared at Wu Wang, layer after layer of sound waves pressing toward him like transparent walls.

Wu Wang's expression did not change in the slightest. Twelve stars appeared in his palm, their light linking together.

This was the Star Invocation Technique passed down in the Northern Wilds, a technique inherited generation after generation by the priests of the northern tribes, and one of the great pillars that allowed the Bear Hug Tribe to gain a foothold there.

In the sky, twelve stars shone across a hundred-li span.

The Chujian Beasts' cries weakened. Their single eyes held confusion and fear, yet they gathered toward the center.

They knew fear too?

Of course. In this Great Wilderness, beasts possessed intelligence. Across most regions of the Great Wilderness, humanity's status did not compare to that of beasts.

The light of human reason was still faint;

Human footprints had yet to reach the peak of this world;

The humans gathered in the Human Domain and those scattered across the Nine Wilds of the Great Wilderness had already embarked upon entirely different paths of development.

Laws, principles;

Star invocation, sorcery.

Wu Wang's gaze flicked toward the three figures encircled by the Giant Wolf Riders. His raised left hand clenched tightly, and Ice Shards suddenly appeared around the beast herd. Blossoms of ice lotuses bloomed in an instant, joining together in a sweeping expanse.

Star Invocation Technique, Great Ice Marsh!

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