Chapter 184

“We’re back, Wurao.”

A deep, thunder-like voice rang out first. Then, a large man wearing a beast-hide skirt stepped out from around the corner.

His body was built like an inverted triangle—broad and powerful. Muscles clung to his limbs like carved stone, giving him the presence of a walking mountain. Behind him followed a younger man, slightly smaller in build, with softer features.

The one called Wurao was an old man with white hair. He rested his hands on a strange, curved wooden staff and sat slouched on a smoothed boulder, his eyes drooping.

When he heard the man’s voice, Wurao raised his eyelids slightly. “They’re gone?”

The large man’s face brightened, his arms flailing in excitement. “Gone. Finally gone!”

The younger man bowed to the elder. “I escorted them out of the cave and handed them over to Wei and Peng. Wei and Peng will take those eight beastmen to the other side of the mountain.”

Wurao shifted the layers of wrinkles on his face. “How did they look?”

Zhi understood what he was asking and replied with a trace of admiration, “The three beastmen with broken bones are already able to walk on their own. It looks like they’ll be able to move normally again very soon.”

“Good. Gather the wooden splints they used on their legs and bring them to me,” Wurao said, stroking his long beard.

—

Meanwhile, in the depths of the forest, Qi Bai and Lang Ze were staring wide-eyed, at a loss for words to describe the scene before them.

Two giants, each six or seven meters tall, were tossing several beastmen wrapped in animal hide into a grassy ditch—like they were dumping out garbage.

One of the beastmen managed to crawl out of the ditch and grabbed onto the giant’s toe. “You saved us! How can we ever thank you?”

The giant quickly pulled back and shook his head vigorously. “Just go, go, go!”

Qi Bai’s mouth twitched. The rush of emotion he’d felt moments earlier—upon seeing tribe members seemingly resurrected from death—faded substantially.

Seriously, what the hell did you all do to make them hate you this much?

As the two members of the Giantwind Tribe prepared to leave, Qi Bai and Lang Ze exchanged glances and stepped out of their hiding spot in the grass.

“Lang Ze!” Lang Kuang was the first to spot them and called out joyfully.

“You’ve come to get us!”

While the rescued beastmen were thrilled, the two Giantwind men froze at the sudden appearance of Qi Bai and Lang Ze, their faces changing before turning to flee.

Qi Bai quickly called after them, “Friends of the Giantwind Tribe! We are beastmen from Heishan. You should know of our tribe.”

He called them by name. The slightly slower giant paused. “You know of the Giantwind?”

Qi Bai nodded eagerly, doing his best to look non-threatening. “Yes, we mean no harm. We only wish to speak with you.”

Seeing the hesitation, Qi Bai pressed on. “How about this—you return and pass along a message for us? We’ll wait here. Ask your chieftain or priest to come meet us. Look, there are only two of us… no, ten in total.”

The other Giantwind man, still keeping his distance, looked from Qi Bai and Lang Ze to the group behind them, then finally said, “You must not take one step further.”

“Understood,” Qi Bai agreed immediately.

The two giant figures quickly disappeared into the forest. This time, Qi Bai wasn’t as surprised—after all, he’d learned from Diao Lan that the Giantwind Tribe didn’t only have one form. Their true forms could shrink to resemble large humans. That made it much easier for them to move unseen.

Lang Ze was already helping the horned beastmen climb out of the grassy pit.

The giants clearly had no intention of keeping them. The pit was deep, with slick grass growing within. Without help from above, it would’ve been nearly impossible for them to climb out on their own.

Once everyone made it to solid ground, Qi Bai’s nose stung—three of the eight men had difficulty walking, obviously from severe injuries.

Worse still, both Quan Liu and Ma Chong had lost an arm.

Seeing Qi Bai’s heavy expression, Quan Liu waved his intact right hand. “We… we can still work…”

Lang Ze interrupted, clapping both men on the shoulders. “You were injured while hunting. The tribe won’t abandon you.”

In other tribes, severely wounded beastmen who couldn’t hunt or forage might be shunned. But not in Heishan. That would never happen.

After they were presumed dead, their mates and families had already received food as a death benefit. Now that they were alive, they would be welcomed home without question. Survival was what mattered most.

Seeing that their condition wasn’t dire, Lang Ze said, “Tell us everything that happened after you were separated from the hunting team.”

Quan Liu began. “When the avalanche hit, we were at the front. There was nowhere to hide. I got hit by snow and boulders. Lang Ji and Lang Kuang tried to save me and we all fell off the cliff together.”

The others had similar stories. Some were swept off by snow, others fell trying to save comrades. Buried under snow, with more falling by the minute, they’d all believed they would die.

But when they next woke up, they found themselves in a hidden cave on the cliff face.

“It was the giants who saved us. We don’t know how long we were in the snow. Everything was hazy. We weren’t conscious most of the time,” Niu Cheng said, rubbing his aching leg as he picked up the story.

“At first, they rescued nine of us. But they couldn’t save Ma Liao. He didn’t make it. They left him in the snow and took just the eight of us.”

Lang Ze asked, “Why were the Giantwind people on the mountain? What were they doing?”

Niu Cheng thought for a moment. “They seemed to be looking for a kind of grass that only grows in winter, but they didn’t find much.”

Qi Bai and Lang Ze exchanged glances. Could it be the same snow lotus the hunters had been gathering?

If so, the Giantwind must have arrived at night. That would explain the figures seen by Tun Quan and Lang Ze on separate occasions.

At that moment, Lang Ji, who had been silent, suddenly asked, “Bai, you just called them the Giantwind Tribe. Is that their actual name?”

Qi Bai nodded. “According to Diao Lan, the Giantwind Tribe originally lived on the prairie’s edge. After almost being wiped out, they migrated north.”

Lang Kuang, who had been visibly excited since spotting Qi Bai and Lang Ze, began calming down as he listened. He muttered, “So it really was them.”

Lang Ze, thinking of Diao Lan’s words and the parallel tragedies between tribes, turned to Lang Kuang with a frown. “Did the Silvermoon Tribe ever have contact with the Giantwind?”

Lang Kuang shook his head. “I only heard stories of giants from the elders. I never saw one myself, nor did I hear about their downfall.”

“But fifty years ago,” he continued after thinking a bit, “a major event occurred—an envoy from Shangcheng came to the western grasslands. Around that time, the Silvermoon Tribe migrated northward for a while. Not far, still within the prairie.”

In Heishan’s wolf clan, Lang Kuang and Lang Pu were the oldest.

Qi Bai and Lang Ze had already asked Lang Pu about the Giantwind Tribe, but Lang Pu had no memory of it—he was born after their destruction. Lang Kuang, a few years older, should’ve remembered, but still had nothing.

So either the Silvermoon and Giantwind Tribes really had no connection, or someone deliberately covered it up.

And now, the second seems more likely.

Envoy.

This was the second time Lang Ze had heard of an envoy in an elder’s memory. “How many times did envoys from the city come to the prairie?” he asked.

Lang Kuang didn’t even need to think. “Twice.” Something that big, he wouldn’t misremember.

He pointed to Lang Ji. “The second time, you were all there. You should remember.”

Lang Ze narrowed his eyes.

The first envoy came from Shangcheng. Not long after, both the Giantwind and Diao Lan’s tribes were destroyed.

The second envoy came from Xiaccheng. The year after he left, the Silvermoon Tribe was massacred.

In both cases, it was a joint strike from multiple tribes. The attacks were swift and brutal.

There were too many similarities between the fates of the Giantwind and Silvermoon Tribes. Lang Ze could no longer ignore the connection.

—

The group camped beside the grassy pit until the next morning. But there was no sign the Giantwind Tribe intended to meet them.

Qi Bai whispered worriedly to Lang Ze, “Do you think they ran away?”

“I can find them.”

Qi Bai jumped at the voice behind him. It was Lang Ji.

“After they brought us out, they took us on three big loops through the mountain,” Lang Ji said, hair still messy. He pointed to the towering stone forest behind them. “They live in the mountains.”

Seeing his serious face, Qi Bai asked cautiously, “Did… did they bully you while you were there?”

Why did this sound like someone going to settle a score?

Lang Ji pressed his lips together, then muttered, “No, they’re good beastmen.”

Lang Ze looked at the stone forest in thought. “You’re still injured. Return to the tribe.”

Lang Ji looked anxious. Based on his understanding of the Giantwind, they might actually run. “I’m already healed. I can go find them now.”

Lang Ze shook his head. “The Giantwind may know something. We need to become allies, not scare them off.”

Lang Ji clearly wasn’t satisfied. “But—”

Lang Ze cut him off, eyeing him from head to toe. “I’ll make them come to Heishan on their own.”

—

Given the Giantwind’s shapeshifting abilities and stealth techniques, it would’ve been difficult to find them in the vast forest.

But now that their general location was known, tracking their activity became much easier.

Though no one in the tribe had seen the Giantwind camp, Lang Ze had the hunting teams frequent the areas around the stone forest.

He also kept his promise.

That same day, Lang Ze began his plan—and it was surprisingly straightforward.

Each day, he left a small basket of sea salt outside the forest.

Living in the stone mountains, isolated from outsiders, the Giantwind Tribe naturally lacked salt. From Lang Ji and the others’ stories, it was clear they were given medicine and food, but very little salt. And what they had wasn’t pure sea salt—it was a yellowish-brown variety with an earthy taste.

At first, the Giantwind were cautious. But Lang Ze persisted, leaving a basket every day.

Within a few days, the salt was taken—and left in its place were a few wild animals.

Lang Ze accepted the exchange and left more salt.

This went on for ten days. Everyone got used to this faceless barter.

Then, Lang Ze stopped leaving salt.

Five days later, when Qi Bai saw the Giantwind appear near the farmland at the foot of Heishan, he wasn’t surprised at all.

He waved at them with a smile. “Would you like some tea? I’ve prepared fresh flower milk tea just for you.”