Changes Within the Tiger Tribe

While the Fire Tribe was active in various places, the Tiger Tribe's dock was much quieter than usual. When the boats docked, the sound of the gangplank being set up carried far across the empty dock. There weren't many people standing on the dock, only some warriors responsible for receiving the ships. When they saw the fleet dock, they first straightened up, then their eyes swept from the Chuantou to the stern of the boats, as if they were counting the number of boats.

Tong Dachui stepped off the ship. After he stopped, he didn't rush forward. Instead, he looked up at the soldiers who were lined up on the dock. The soldiers stood in neat rows, but their eyes were not on Tong Dachui. Instead, they looked past him at the remaining soldiers who were disembarking one after another.

The leather armor of the Tong Dachui still bore the marks of arrows grazing it; a longer section of the seam at the shoulder plate had torn, the end of the thread dangling down, swaying slightly in the wind like a thread that hadn't been cut yet. His hair was much more disheveled than when he set out, a few strands slipping out from the leather cord binding his hair, clinging to his cheeks, casting intermittent shadows on his cheekbones as the wind blew. His right hand rested on the hilt of his sword at his waist, his fingertips tracing the curve of the hilt, not applying any force, just resting there, as if someone were confirming that their sword was still there, or perhaps using that curve to steady their posture, preventing their shoulders from completely relaxing. Behind him, Hu Wei Might stood at the edge of the gangplank, directing the soldiers to disembark, his voice lower than usual, lacking the booming tone of the departure.

Several people stood on the dock. At the front was Hu Zheng, the leader of the Tiger Tribe. He wore a long white linen robe, the fabric of which was fine and thick, gleaming softly in the afternoon sun. His hands hung at his sides, his gaze fixed on Tong Dachui. His face was expressionless, but his fingers clenched slightly at his sides before relaxing. Behind him stood several other leaders, all dressed in clean clothes. No one spoke; only the wind passed between them, causing the hems of their robes to flutter slightly before settling back into place.

Tong Dachui stood on the dock for a moment, then strode forward. He stopped in front of Hu Zheng, clasped his hands in a salute, and made a short, crisp sound as his palms closed, "Chief, I'm back."

Hu Zheng's gaze lingered on Tong Dachui's face for a moment, then moved from his disheveled hair to the gaping seams on his shoulder armor, and finally to his fingers gripping the hilt of his sword. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried a calm, measured tone, as if using that rhythm to steady the conversation. "It's good you're back. The Grand Elder is waiting in the council hall, and the leader of Hu Bashan is also there." He turned slightly and gestured towards the council hall. "Let's go."

Tong Dachui straightened up and followed Hu Zheng toward the council hall. His pace was slower than usual. Behind him, Hu Wei was arranging for the remaining troops to enter the camp. His voice was carried by the wind into the warehouses and sheds by the dock, transmitting instructions intermittently. The soldiers lined up on the dock began to disperse one after another. When some turned around, their shoulder blades twitched slightly, as if they were using the turn to cover up a silent shake of their heads, or as if they were using that movement to shift their gaze away from the tattered sails and sparse ranks.

The light inside the council chamber was dimmer than outside. Several oil lamps were already lit, casting a warm yellow glow on the walls. The Grand Elder, Tongding, sat to the left of the main seat. In front of him was a ceramic bowl, the water on its rim perfectly still, as if it had been there for a long time. The water reflected a small patch of light from the oil lamps, frozen in place. His hands rested on the armrests, his knuckles slightly raised. His gaze was fixed on the doorway, and when he saw Tong Dachui enter, his expression darkened slightly.

Hu Bashan sat to the right of the head of the table, dressed in a thick black linen robe. The collar and cuffs were edged with dark stitching, the stitches denser than usual, as if intentionally sealing off any gaps. A wide leather belt cinched his waist, from which hung a long sword, its scabbard gleaming. His arms were folded across his chest, his chin slightly raised. His gaze swept from Tong Dachui's feet to the top of his head, as if comparing the one who had gone to war with the one who had returned, tracing the outline of his figure to confirm that it was no longer the shape it had taken at the start. A slight smile played on his lips, a smile that was neither benevolent nor contemptuous, but something deeper—as if he were waiting for a pre-existing message, waiting for him to confirm it, waiting for him to utter those words so that everyone in the council hall could clearly hear their weight upon landing. His gaze lingered for a moment on the gaping seam in Tong Dachui's shoulder armor, then moved away, as if that seam was enough to tell him everything.

Hu Zheng sat down in his seat, the central seat of honor. His movements were slow; he bent his knees slightly before settling into the chair, his back making a soft creaking sound as he leaned against the backrest. His hands rested flat on the table, his fingertips tracing the grain of the wood, as if searching for a stable foothold. His gaze shifted between Tong Dachui and Hu Bashan before he spoke, his voice low but clear enough for everyone in the room to hear, as if someone had used a flat plank to gather the bowls, plates, and wooden tablets on the table to one side. "I've heard some of the details of this expedition from those who returned first. Leader Dachui, please recount the situation in detail, so that everyone present knows how many went out, how many returned, how many ships remain, and how many men are left. Make it clear."

Tong Dachui stood still, not sitting down. Fine sand from the riverbank still clung to the edges of his boots, shimmering faintly in the lamplight. His gaze lingered on Tongding's face for a moment, as if assessing his ability to bear the weight of his words, then shifted, sweeping over Hu Bashan before finally settling on Hu Zheng. His voice, hoarse from days of travel, seemed to be slowly pushing the words out of his throat. "This expedition went very smoothly in the early stages. The Valley Tribe's Little Valley Camp was successfully captured with the cooperation of the Wolf Tribe and Bear Tribe. The Valley Tribe's main camp had been besieged for many days and was on the verge of falling, but the Fire Tribe's reinforcements arrived at the crucial moment. Their fleet was far larger than we anticipated—more than seventy giant ships with a carrying capacity of 100,000 jin each. Our navy couldn't withstand them and had no choice but to break out and retreat."

He paused, as if giving his words a space to land. As he spoke, his fingers rested on the hilt of his sword, his fingertips slowly tracing the ridge of the blade before stopping again, as if using that gesture to steady himself before speaking, "The army also suffered heavy losses. Xiong Lie, the leader of the Bear Tribe, was unable to evacuate. The combined naval and land forces I brought back number less than five thousand." After saying this, he lowered his hand from the hilt, letting it hang at his side, his fingers slightly bent, as if he had already completed the necessary action and no longer needed to grip anything tightly.

A moment of silence fell over the council chamber. The flickering shadows of the oil lamps cast on the walls seemed to fill the silence with their own rhythm. Hu Bashan's fingers paused on his knees. After a while, his voice came from the right, not loud, but with a tempered sharpness. "Smooth sailing in the beginning, a rout in the end. More than ten thousand went, five thousand returned. The Bear Tribe chief was killed, Dachui Chief... This is not something that can be covered up with a simple ' Fire Tribe reinforcements have arrived'."

He tapped his fingers twice on his knee. "Now the southern gates of our Tiger Tribe are wide open, and the Fire Tribe's influence has extended from the upper reaches of the Fish River to the middle and lower reaches. If we don't take action soon, the Tiger Tribe will have no more barriers to the south." His voice lingered in the council hall for a while before falling back to its original place, like a Shitou that had been moved from the table and wouldn't be moved again, making a short, dull thud as its edge hit the table.

Tong Dachui didn't reply. He stood there, his gaze fixed on the ground, as if he were bearing the weight of those words in his own way, or as if he was waiting for them to land before seeing their boundaries clearly. His fingers twitched slightly at his side, as if he wanted to grip the hilt of his knife again, but then stopped.

Tongding spoke. His voice was lower than Hu Bashan's, but each word seemed to have been carefully crafted before being uttered, perfectly catching the gap in Hu Bashan's voice, as if he had been waiting in that gap all along. "This expedition was my decision, and I should take responsibility for it. Now is not the time to argue about who is right and who is wrong. The Fire Tribe has already threatened the survival of the Tiger Tribe. If we continue to fight, it will only allow the Fire Tribe to grow stronger." His gaze lingered between Hu Bashan and Hu Zheng, as if presenting his next words to both of them simultaneously, "I propose that we take out all the tribe's resources and allocate them uniformly—building ships, smelting copper, training troops—to deal with the Fire Tribe with all our might."

Hu Bashan's fingers paused on his knee. His gaze lingered on the Tongding for a moment, as if he were re-weighing the weight of those words in his own way, tracing their edges to confirm if their thickness and sharpness matched his expectations. When he spoke, his voice was lower than before, as if a string had been loosened halfway. "Unified allocation of resources is fine. But you can't be the one making the decisions."

Hu Zheng sat in the main seat, his gaze shifting between the two men before he spoke. His voice was low, but carried a sense of balanced equilibrium. "The allocation of resources will be decided jointly by the three of us. The Grand Elder, the leader of Hu Bashan, and I—all three must nod in agreement." His gaze darted back and forth between the Tongding and Hu Bashan, as if he were pushing a piece of wood from one end of the table to the other, making sure it wouldn't wobble in its new position. "That way, everyone can rest assured."

Tongding's gaze lingered on Hu Zheng's face for a moment. His fingers tightened slightly on the armrest and then loosened, like a thread that had been briefly clenched being released from his palm. Then he nodded slightly. "Alright."

Hu Bashan didn't speak, but he lowered his arms from his chest and placed them on his knees, his fingers interlaced, the pads of his fingers touching the knuckles of his other hand.

Three days later, activity began to stir in the Tiger Tribe's camp. The warehouse doors were opened, the hinges making a low, grinding sound as they turned, as if they hadn't been pushed open so thoroughly in a long time. Bundles of timber were carried out of the warehouse and piled up in the open space beside the dock, forming small, brown mounds. The edges of the timber gleamed lightly in the afternoon sun. New fires were lit in the bronze workshop, and smoke rose from the exhaust vents at the top of the workshop, stretching into a thin, gray line in the afternoon sky. The end of the line tilted downstream with the wind, then shifted with the wind... The wind swayed gently, like a wind map nailed to the sky. Several ships were under construction at the dock; the keels were laid, the ribs were being installed, and the sound of Tongchui striking wood echoed from morning till night, sometimes dense, sometimes sparse, as if someone were repeatedly checking the fit of each piece of wood with their own rhythm. On the training ground, newly recruited soldiers were lined up, and commands echoed throughout the camp, sometimes near, sometimes far, as if someone was measuring the penetrating power of the same instruction from different distances, or as if the commands were being carried by the wind back and forth in different directions.

Further downstream along the Fish River, changes were also taking place in the Wolf Tribe's camp. Since retreating from the Bear Tribe, Xueya had been working tirelessly. He first inventoried all the supplies he had brought back twice: cattle, horses, bronze weapons, leather armor, pottery, and cloth—everything was reclassified. Standing at the warehouse entrance, he watched as the supplies were neatly bundled and arranged in different areas according to size and type. He ran his finger along the markings on the supply list three times, as if using his sense of touch to confirm that the numbers hadn't changed due to the bumpy journey—whether the depth of each marking was consistent, and whether any newly cracked wood grain had seeped through the writing. Then he began to expand his forces.

The Great Boulder Tribe's camp had expanded considerably. New tents stretched out in an arc along the western side of the camp, flattening the slope that had previously been overgrown with weeds and shrubs. At night, the torchlight shone brighter than usual, forming a continuous band of light around the camp, illuminating the newly cleared area to the west and the un-camped riverbank in the distance. Xueya stood on a high point in the center of the camp, his boots planted firmly on a mound of earth. His gaze swept over the new warriors who were lining up. After a moment, he spoke, his voice low, as if afraid to break the Xueya of his count. "Chief, our warriors have grown to eight thousand. We have enough cattle and horses, enough weapons, and enough provisions to last a long time."

Xueya didn't answer immediately. His gaze shifted from the new warriors to the outline of the distant riverbank—the direction of the Great Greater Qing Tribe. He watched for a moment, his fingers pausing on the hilt of his sword. Then he looked away, his voice low, as if speaking to himself, yet also to the person standing beside him. "Eight thousand is enough for now. The Greater Qing Tribe on the other side of the river hasn't joined the Fire Tribe yet. They have provisions, horses, and a considerable number of people, but they've been guarding that area without making any major moves. If we act before they align themselves with the Fire Tribe, we can still make a fortune."

He turned to Yexiao, his gaze lingering on his face for a moment. "Send men to continue watching the other side. Send people to check every day to see if there are any changes on their side. If the Greater Qing Tribe starts contacting the Fire Tribe, we can't wait any longer."