Chapter 229

“Kang! Kang! Kang!”

From outside the Sanghuo camp came the constant sound of axes chopping trees.

Xi Zhou felt a chill across his cheek. He set down his bone knife, touched his face with his fingers, then tilted his head back to look at the sky.

Above the clear blue heavens, soft flakes of snow slowly fluttered down.

“It’s snowing!” someone nearby called in surprise.

After nearly a year of drought in Beihuang, snow was finally falling again.

“Yun Jing is back! She brought the Xushan tribe with her!”

That shout instantly pulled everyone’s attention away from the weather. All eyes turned toward the caravan drawing closer.

The wagons came to a halt. Yun Jing was the first to leap down, followed by two towering horned beastmen.

The beastmen of Beihuang’s three tribes recognized them at once.

“The red-haired horned one on the left is Hu Yan. The one on the right is Hu Ran. They’re two of the strongest in Xushan,” Lu Teng explained to Lang Ze.

Hu Yan, with his bright red hair, laughed loudly as he strode toward Lang Ze. “Friends of Heishan! We’ve heard it was you who led the tribes to defeat Sanghuo!”

Lang Ze gave him a curt nod. “This is the price for angering Heishan.”

His tone was arrogant, but Hu Yan liked it—his laughter boomed even louder.

Meanwhile, Hu Ran bumped fists with Xiong Han. The two were old acquaintances. Back in Beihuang, their tribes had often clashed in duels. Among horned beastmen, friendship was forged through battle.

Hu Ran glanced around. “Where are the Sanghuo?”

At that moment, Ma Ling approached after settling the wagons and Xushan’s warriors. He gave Lang Ze a subtle nod, then discreetly hinted: you can raise the price.

Lang Ze turned. “The Sanghuo are on the west side of the camp. Come with me.”

The west side of Sanghuo—once used to pen slaves—was now filled with the Sanghuo people themselves.

As they drew near, nearly two thousand Sanghuo sat huddled inside the wooden enclosure. They themselves had built this pen to keep slaves from resting well. Now they suffered the same misery.

During the ten days Yun Jing was gone, the Sanghuo captives received only a little water and dry grass each day. Hunger had stripped most of their will to resist.

Hu Yan and Hu Ran circled the pen. Hu Yan asked, “None of them are fevered or mad, right? A while back, many slaves in Sunset City suddenly went crazy and bit people.”

Being bitten wasn’t much—beastmen healed quickly. But those slaves had all died foaming at the mouth.

They shared the same signs: high fever, vomiting—then madness. Stranger still, the closer to Sunset City, the more frequent the sickness became. Eventually, even ordinary beastmen were afflicted.

First the great earthquake, now this strange illness—the beastmen of Sunset City were terrified.

“In the end it was the Grand Priest who stepped in. He said the slaves had offended the Beast God. He held a ritual, burned them all, and only then did the madness lessen,” Hu Ran said with lingering fear.

For the first time, Xushan beastmen felt lucky not to live inside a city. Being far away meant those mad slaves never reached them.

But the lack of slaves slowed Sunset City’s reconstruction. It was said the city lord flew into a rage. So when Yun Jing brought news of captives, Xushan rushed here with goods to trade.

“During the earthquake, many must have died in Sunset City, right?” Lang Ze asked.

Hu Yan nodded. “Yes. Parts of the walls collapsed, crushing many.”

But if both Sunset and Beihuang lost many to the quake, why was the plague only in Sunset?

“Did you ever deal with those corpses?” Lang Ze pressed.

Hu Yan scratched his head—why would they deal with corpses?

Hu Ran frowned, then looked up suddenly. “Do you remember, after spring, that awful stench under the collapsed walls? Didn’t slaves clean that place then?”

Hu Yan blinked, then nodded slowly. “Now that you say it… yes, a few times. I smelled it myself when leading a team inside.”

The timing lined up. The sickness began not long after.

Both Hu Yan and Hu Ran swallowed hard, then nervously glanced at Lang Ze. Could it have been those corpses offending the Beast God—not the slaves?

They dared not speak it aloud. After all, the Grand Priest had judged otherwise, and rumor claimed he could commune with the Beast God. They would never question him openly.

Lang Ze lowered his eyes. The thought wasn’t his—it was Qi Bai’s.

Qi Bai had warned him before: disease. Whether dealing with crushed bison carcasses or now with Sanghuo corpses, Qi Bai always stressed this concept.

What Hu Yan and Hu Ran described matched it closely: fever, madness, death. A plague capable of wiping out whole clans.

Qi Bai had said: If you find a contagious sickness, the key is isolation. Cut off its spread.

The Grand Priest burning the sick and the slaves—whether through ritual or accident—had achieved exactly that.

But whether it was divine wisdom or dumb luck, no one knew. After all, offering slaves to the Beast God was standard ritual practice. Even Yin Yue’s old priest had done the same.

As for actual divine response? Lang Ze’s childhood memories held none.

Still—what mattered was clear. Sunset was desperate for slaves. No wonder Ma Ling urged him to raise the price. He must have picked up plenty of news along the way.

“A place like that—avoid it if you can,” Lang Ze warned.

He had never seen the city or the plague, so could only caution them. But he resolved: once back in Heishan, he’d thoroughly inspect the surrounding battlefields.

Hu Yan and Hu Ran nodded vigorously.

Had he said this to Sunset natives, they might have turned hostile. But Xushan’s tiger warriors were different. They couldn’t tell truth from falsehood, but they knew one thing: better safe than sorry.

With that matter raised, the trade went smoothly.

In the end, Xushan traded about twenty jin of meat for each adult sub-beastman, twenty-five jin for each adolescent horned beast child.

Nearly two thousand captives in total—yet Heishan and its allies gained only forty thousand jin of beast meat, roughly forty mid-sized game animals. Converted to salt, it would barely be two or three hundred jin.

This was only because Sunset was so short of slaves. Even so, it showed how worthless slaves were on the beast continent.

Once Sanghuo’s fate was settled, Ma Ling oversaw the handover with Hu Ran. Most of Xushan’s meat was tied to Heishan’s wagons already. They only had to unload the surplus.

Hu Ran eyed the meat, then glanced at the other slaves working nearby. “What about those? You’re not trading them?”

He meant the original Sanghuo slaves—many of them adult horned beastmen.

The first batch of slaves after a battle were always best—and worst.

Best, because they’d once been ordinary beastmen, stronger than those born slaves. Worst, because survivors were rarely adults. By unwritten law, victors usually killed grown warriors to prevent rebellion.

That’s why tribes often traded slaves: exchanging enemy children when grown, to erase future vendettas.

The slaves here, though, were docile. Days of obedience under four tribes proved they wouldn’t resist.

Sanghuo had been greedy—keeping adult slaves instead of trading them. That greed gave Hu Xiao his chance.

But Ma Ling refused bluntly. “They’re ours. We need them. Not for trade.”

Hu Ran sighed, disappointed. But then his eyes lit up again. “What about your wagons? Trade us a few.”

In Sunset, beastmen also used logs to move stones—rolling rocks forward. It saved effort, but compared to Heishan’s carts, it was pathetic.

Their chieftain had told them before leaving: if Heishan would trade, offer even five beasts’ worth of meat for one cart.

Ma Ling grinned, holding up five fingers. “Not impossible. One cart, five… tens of beasts.”

“What?! Five… tens?!” Hu Ran’s eyes bulged. A cart dearer than two thousand slaves!

“Our carts look like wood to you, don’t they?”

Hu Ran nodded. Of course—they’d examined them countless times.

Ma Ling beckoned him closer, rapped a wheel with his knuckles. Ding ding! Two crisp notes rang out. “See? Made from avian bone.”

Hu Ran’s jaw dropped. What?! You used bird bones—for this?!

And he was about to be shocked again.

As soon as Ma Ling confirmed the deal, Lang Ze ordered departure.

Over a hundred wagons rolled slowly from the forest. Each covered with hide, bound tightly with rope.

No wonder Xushan had seen only tattered tents on arrival—every usable hide had been stripped for the carts.

Hu Ran’s mind reeled. How? How do you have so many? Aren’t birds the hardest quarry on the continent? Aren’t their bones priceless? And yet you casually—

Ma Ling, face calm, oversaw loading slaves into the wagons. All sub-beastmen had to shift into beast form, crammed into wicker baskets.

Yes, one cart wheel truly was bird bone. But he hadn’t said all of them were. That part wasn’t his problem.

In truth, Heishan had only brought seventy wagons originally. Far from enough.

So while Yun Jing went to Xushan, everyone else chopped trees, carving dozens more. Crude, yes. Lang Ze never expected them to last—just enough to reach Xishui.

The snow, once a light flurry, thickened as Heishan’s force marched away.

Xushan’s warriors stood in the ruins of Sanghuo, watching the army fade into the storm.

Hu Ran’s mouth still hung open, snow piling on his head. He needed the cold to think.

Meanwhile, Hu Yan beamed, showing off his new hide coat.

Beihuang’s beastmen knew of hemp robes, two halves sewn together. They’d glimpsed city-dwellers in hide. But none compared to Heishan’s finely made furs.

For just five hides, Hu Yan had traded a warrior for one coat. To him, it was a bargain. He couldn’t wait to gift it to his sub-beastman.

Far ahead, on one of the wagons, Hu Qiao tied up a bundle of furs. He chuckled: “That coat? Barely half a hide’s worth. That Xushan fellow didn’t look very bright. Next time we meet tiger clansmen, we should prepare extra furs to trade.”