Guilty of Possessing a Jade

After returning from Wang Yan's crude yet momentous "salt-making workshop," Chief Jianshi felt almost as though his feet were floating as he walked back to his hut. His mind kept returning to that layer of yellowish-white crystals in the clay pot, and the pure, salty taste seemed to linger on his tongue.

Salt! Their Fire Tribe could make its own salt now!

The news excited him even more than their first successful firing of pottery had. Pottery improved their lives and made excellent trading goods, but salt was life! It was strength! It was the confidence that would let the tribe truly stand tall!

He could almost see the Fire Tribe trading its own pottery and salt with the Fish Tribe and tribes farther afield for mountains of food, sharp weapons, and warm furs... The tribe's children would never again grow weak from a lack of salt, and its people would be able to store enough meat for winter...

Immense joy and anticipation left him dizzy. The recent string of good fortune-plentiful food, successful pottery, the discovery of hemp, and now salt-had left even this normally steady chief feeling almost drunk.

"Big Brother, wait a moment."

A low voice sounded behind him. It was Jianya.

Jianshi turned around and saw little joy on the face of his usually resourceful younger brother. Instead, it held a rare solemnity. Jianya strode over, warily glanced at the tribespeople moving about in the distance, still excitedly discussing tonight's "miracle," and seized Jianshi's arm. "Big Brother, a word in private," he said quietly.

Jianshi's heart lurched, and most of his joy instantly cooled. He followed Jianya into a secluded patch of shadow at the edge of the tribe.

"What is it, Jianya? Has something happened?" Jianshi asked, puzzled.

Jianya drew a deep breath. His voice dropped extremely low, yet pierced Jianshi's ears like an icicle. "Big Brother, we must immediately silence every tribesperson who knows we can extract crude salt! No one outside the tribe can ever learn of this! Otherwise, a great calamity will befall our Fire Tribe. It might even mean... the extermination of our entire tribe!"

"The extermination of our entire tribe" poured over Jianshi's head like a bucket of ice water. He shuddered, and cold sweat instantly broke out across his back.

He snapped awake!

Yes! Salt! Pottery! Weren't both of these lifelines firmly controlled by the great tribes, used to control and exploit the smaller tribes? How had the Fish Tribe become the leader of this region? Wasn't it because they could obtain salt and pottery?

What did the Fire Tribe have now? Even counting everyone, they had only forty-odd men capable of taking up weapons, and a total population of just over two hundred. The Fish Tribe had over a thousand people! Not to mention the several tribes around the Fish Tribe with populations exceeding five hundred!

If outsiders learned that the tiny Fire Tribe had mastered both pottery-making and salt-making... how many greedy eyes would turn their way? What would those powerful tribes do? They would pounce like wolves scenting blood! They would either force the Fire Tribe to surrender its techniques and turn it into their vassal and slave workshop, or seize everything outright. To eliminate any future trouble, they might even...

Jianshi dared not think further. Cold sweat had already soaked the hide across his back. The recent succession of good fortune really had gone to his head, robbing him of the vigilance a chief ought to possess! He had been so busy rejoicing that he had forgotten: in this primitive wilderness where the strong devoured the weak, possessing treasures beyond one's strength to defend was itself the surest way to invite disaster!

"Jianya... thank goodness you reminded me!" Jianshi's voice trembled with lingering fear as he gripped Jianya's arm. "I nearly brought a great calamity upon us! If I'd kept thinking about taking salt to trade at the autumn market, our tribe really would have been finished!"

He remembered how excited he had just been at the thought of trading salt and pottery for vast quantities of supplies. Now, the idea seemed utterly foolish!

Seeing that his elder brother had come to his senses, Jianya breathed a sigh of relief, though his expression remained grave. "Big Brother, it isn't too late to realize it now. Yan is still young. His head is full of ideas about making life better for the tribe, and he may not yet realize how treacherous people can be. As his elders, we must guard this gate for him and for the entire tribe!"

"Yes! You're right!" Jianshi calmed down completely, his gaze regaining its usual sharpness and steadiness. "Not many people know about this yet. We must bring it under control immediately! Go quietly notify Dali, Dazhuang, Dabang, and Qingye. Tell them to come to my hut at once! Keep it quiet!"

"All right!" Jianya nodded, his figure swiftly disappearing into the darkness.

Soon, the Fire Tribe's most central figures gathered silently in Chief Jianshi's rather cramped hut. Flickering firelight illuminated their differing expressions: Qingye looked puzzled, Dali and Dazhuang had no idea what was going on, while Dabang maintained his usual composure.

Jianshi did not beat around the bush. In the plainest, most brutal terms, he laid out Jianya's concerns and the stakes involved.

At the words "the extermination of our entire tribe," Dali shot to his feet, the heavy flesh on his face twitching. "Damn it! If anyone dares come to rob us, I'll fight them to the death!"

Dazhuang clenched his fists as well and said in his deep, muffled voice, "That's right! Fight them to the death!"

"Fight? With what?" Jianya said coldly. "Another tribe would only need to send a hundred warriors to slaughter our entire hunting party! They might join forces with other tribes! What would happen to the women and children then? Would they just wait to be dragged away as slaves?"

Dali and Dazhuang looked as though someone had seized them by the throat. Their faces flushed red, but neither could speak. Cruel reality instantly cooled their hot blood.

Qingye's face turned deathly pale as well. She came from a large tribe and knew even better how those great tribes operated. Her voice trembled. "Jianya is right... this is far too hot to hold... I... I'm even worried that my brother's side... can't be trusted completely. The Fish Tribe isn't a solid slab of iron internally, either."

The atmosphere inside the hut grew unbearably oppressive.

Dabang, who had remained silent until now, spoke. "Chief, I understand what Jianya means. Since we can't protect this thing right now, we can't let anyone know about it. Here's what I think. First, every tribesperson who knows the salt-making process, including Aunt Luye and children like Gubang, must be warned immediately. Anyone who dares reveal so much as a word to outsiders is a traitor to the tribe and must receive the harshest punishment!"

Everyone nodded. That was the most basic requirement.

"Second," Dabang continued, "the salt-making site needs to be better concealed. Ideally, we should move it into a mountain hollow farther from the tribe, somewhere harder to discover. We must cut down the number of people involved even further. They must be absolutely trustworthy people of our own."

"Third, we must be careful when transporting the salt-bearing rocks we dig up and bring back. We can't leave overly obvious traces."

Jianya, their strategist, added, "There's also the pottery. We used to think we could trade it, but now it seems we can't take large quantities out either. We can only offer a small amount of relatively crude-looking pottery and pretend we were lucky enough to trade for it elsewhere, or that we stumbled upon a few successes while firing it haphazardly ourselves, with an extremely low success rate. We absolutely cannot let anyone know we can already fire pottery reliably, and on a considerable scale!"

As Jianshi listened to their suggestions, a decision gradually formed in his mind. He said solemnly, "Good! We'll do as you say! Starting tomorrow, we'll relocate the salt-making workshop. Jianya will have full responsibility for choosing the site and maintaining secrecy. You and I will personally approve everyone involved. The pottery workshop must also reduce its output, and most of the finished pottery will be hidden away. To outsiders, our Fire Tribe will remain a small tribe that barely manages to feed and clothe itself through luck and hard work!"

His gaze swept over everyone present, sharp as an eagle's. "Brothers, Qingye, our Fire Tribe is walking a path toward strength unlike anything we have known before, but that path is also strewn with thorns and traps! Until we have enough strength to protect ourselves, we must learn to hide! This concerns the life and death of every one of us, and the survival of our tribe! Do you all understand?"

"Understood!" they answered in unison, keeping their voices low.