Bluestone Tribe

Lin Yi followed Red Fox down the gentle slope. After passing through the last sparse patch of shrubs, the earth beneath his feet gradually became level and firm, bearing the marks of countless footsteps. At the end of the path, the tribe's entrance was right before them.

There was no gate at the entrance, only two thick log pillars standing on either side. Ancient patterns were carved into them, resembling some sort of totem or symbol.

Lin Yi's Super Brain instinctively swept over those patterns, attempting to extract some rule or information from them. Five

As he pondered the meaning of those markings, a figure suddenly sprang out from behind one of the pillars.

It was a little boy, no more than eight or nine years old by the look of him. He wore a loose gray linen tunic, went barefoot, and had closely cropped hair that revealed a dark, round little face.

His eyes were bright, carrying the purity and recklessness unique to his age.

The little boy spotted Lin Yi first.

Those eyes visibly froze for a moment as he looked Lin Yi up and down, taking in the thin, tall stranger wearing a grass skirt. A flicker of confusion crossed his gaze. He was probably wondering:

When had such a strange fellow arrived in the tribe?

Then he lowered his head and saw Red Fox walking ahead of Lin Yi.

That dark little face suddenly blossomed into a dazzling smile, bright enough to hurt the eyes.

"Little Flame!"

The boy let out a shriek and shot forward like an arrow loosed from the bowstring.

Lin Yi only saw a blur. The child, who had been standing several yards away just moments ago, had rushed before Red Fox in the blink of an eye, scooped it up from the ground, and hugged it close as he rubbed his face against it.

"You're finally back!"

Lin Yi stood where he was, the expression on his face frozen.

Wait. That distance, that sprinting time.

And that familiar Chinese.

Within a fraction of a second, Lin Yi's Super Brain replayed the scene from moments ago.

The distance from where the little boy had started to where Red Fox stood was roughly six or seven zhang by visual estimate. From a standstill to arrival, he had taken absolutely no more than a second and a half.

By Earth's standards, even the holder of the hundred-meter world record would need more than a breath or two to cover that distance. Yet this child, who looked no older than eight, had done it as easily as lifting a finger, without even panting when he stopped.

Lin Yi blinked, only then remembering the setting he had shoved to the back of his mind.

A world of cultivation.

This was a world of cultivation. There was spiritual energy, cultivation techniques, and all sorts of existences beyond common sense. And they even spoke Chinese.

So the little brat in front of him, hugging a fox and rubbing his face against it, was most likely a little monster ten times more capable in a fight than he, a modern office drone, was.

"...Fine, then." Lin Yi silently sighed to himself. He accepted reality faster than he had expected.

Over there, the little boy had already turned Red Fox over and inspected it from every angle. Both hands kneaded the fox's ears, paws, and tail while he muttered, "You ran off without saying a word," and, "Grandpa said you must have snuck off to play again."

Red Fox—or rather, Little Flame—had been kneaded until it narrowed its eyes. It wore the calm, accustomed expression of one who had long gotten used to this, while the tip of its tail gave a contented twitch.

The little boy's loud shouting quickly drew the attention of the others in the tribe.

Standing at the entrance, Lin Yi saw figures emerge one after another from the stone-and-wood houses, gathering toward them in twos and threes.

Every time another person approached, the corner of Lin Yi's eye could not help twitching.

These people... were all far too muscular.

The first to arrive were two middle-aged men wearing fur vests. Their exposed arms were as thick as Lin Yi's thighs, their muscles sharply defined, their shoulders broad and backs solid. They carried a steady, oppressive presence as they walked.

Several women followed behind them. They were somewhat slimmer, but only in the sense that they were "a little thinner than those burly men." On Earth, every one of them would have been fit to compete in powerlifting.

Even a young-looking girl had clearly defined muscles on her arms. Whenever she casually lifted an arm, those lines reminded Lin Yi of the biceps he had failed to build even after half a year of hard training at the gym.

And Lin Yi himself?

He was one hundred and seventy-eight centimeters tall, with the weight of someone who had spent years slumped before a computer. Without clothes, he was little more than a skeleton covered by a thin layer of flesh.

Standing amid these broad-shouldered, thick-waisted tribespeople, he looked like a malnourished bean sprout that had wandered into a herd of wild oxen.

Lin Yi felt the stares.

They came from every direction—curious, scrutinizing, wary, and simply eager to watch a spectacle.

As more and more people gathered, those gazes wove together into an invisible net carrying a heavy weight.

What made him even more uncomfortable was that, although these people merely stood quietly and observed him, he could vaguely sense a certain... presence radiating from them.

He could not describe it. It was like an invisible field of pressure pressing against his skin, his breathing, and even his thoughts.

His brain raced at high speed, trying to analyze the source of that oppressive feeling. In the end, he could only arrive at a vague conclusion.

There was a force flowing through these people's bodies that he could not perceive. The very existence of that force naturally suppressed someone like him, an "ordinary person."

Lin Yi swallowed and forced himself to stand straight, refusing to show weakness.

The crowd fell silent for several breaths, then slowly parted to form a path down the middle.

An old man emerged from behind the wall of people.

He looked very old. His gray-white hair resembled withered grass, the wrinkles on his face were deep as gullies carved by blades, his back was slightly bent, and his steps were slow.

But his eyes—at the instant Lin Yi met them, every hair on his back stood on end.

Sharpness gleamed through the cloudiness in those eyes. They were like an ancient well too deep to see the bottom of: no ripples showed on its surface, yet instinctively, one knew that something lay hidden beneath its waters.

The old man merely swept Lin Yi with a faint glance, and Lin Yi felt as though every little thought of his had been dragged into the sunlight and laid bare.

The old man stopped two steps away from Lin Yi, folded his hands into his sleeves, and looked him over from head to toe.

His gaze lingered for a moment longer on that absurd grass skirt. The corner of his mouth seemed to twitch almost imperceptibly.

"Young friend," the old man said. His voice was aged yet full of vigor, carrying a gentleness that made one want to answer instinctively. "Where have you come from?"

The familiar Chinese made Lin Yi's heart skip a beat.

How was he supposed to answer? Say that he had transmigrated from another world and be treated as a madman before being thrown out? Say that he was a lost traveler? But with nothing on him but a grass skirt, what lost traveler could possibly get this lost?

His mind spun at breakneck speed. At last, from the vast storehouse of memories, he dredged up a classic trope from the webnovels he had read who knew how many years ago.

"...I don't remember."

Lin Yi put on a blank, bewildered expression, letting his gaze lose focus by just the right amount.

"When I woke up, I was in the woods nearby. I had... nothing on me at all. I don't know how I got there either."

He paused, then added, "When I opened my eyes, I saw this little fox... uh, Little Flame. It led me here."

The old man did not reply immediately. He simply looked at Lin Yi, and within those ancient-well eyes flashed an exceedingly faint, unreadable glimmer.

Lin Yi could not tell what it meant—disbelief? Investigation? Or something else?

But he knew that the old man had seen through him. He had not told the truth at all.

The silence lasted around three breaths. Then the old man suddenly smiled, the wrinkles crowding together across his face and making him appear much more kind and benevolent.

"Since young friend was brought here by Little Flame," he said unhurriedly, "then you are a guest of my Bluestone Tribe. Wherever it lies within our power, we will naturally help you."

The old man glanced again at the leaf skirt on Lin Yi's body, which had already become somewhat crooked. After a pause, he said with a trace of laughter he could not quite suppress, "If young friend does not mind, please come inside so we may speak. You must first change into some proper clothes."

Lin Yi could feel the pressure in the surrounding stares gradually receding.

The crowd's hostility and wariness seemed to have quietly dissolved by more than half after the old man said, "Brought here by Little Flame."

Lin Yi secretly found it astonishing. Little Flame carried that much weight? What status could a fox possibly have in this tribe?

But this was not the time to delve into such matters.

Lin Yi cupped his hands toward the old man. "Thank you, Elder."

After he responded, the crowd around them indeed dispersed like a receding tide.

Some returned to their houses. Some shouldered the farm tools resting against the walls and headed toward the fields. Several women carried wooden buckets toward the well, as though the small commotion surrounding a strange visitor had never happened at all.

Only the little boy remained standing where he was, Little Flame in his arms, his sparkling eyes staring curiously at Lin Yi.

The old man turned and walked deeper into the tribe. His pace was slow, but his direction was clear.

Lin Yi took a deep breath and raised his foot to follow.

As he passed the little boy, the child looked up at him. Then he suddenly leaned closer and lowered his voice. "You're someone Little Flame picked up! Little Flame never brings outsiders back."

Lin Yi froze for a moment and lowered his head toward the red fox in the boy's arms.

Little Flame lay curled in the boy's elbow, its amber eyes calmly watching him. Its tail swept lightly once, its expression as indifferent as ever.

Yet Lin Yi caught something exceedingly faint and fleeting in those eyes—something like the composure of a plan finally reaching its second step.

His heart gave a fierce jolt, and he looked up at the old man's back ahead of him.

The old man's back was slightly bent, his steps neither hurried nor slow.

But Lin Yi noticed that the old man's right hand, folded inside his sleeve, seemed to be lightly moving something between his fingers—as if calculating, or perhaps fingering a string of invisible beads.

On the towering wooden pillar in the center of the tribe, a flash of metallic light glinted past like a cold gaze, landing precisely on the back of his head.

Lin Yi did not turn around.

But he knew that thing had been watching all along.