Volume 1: Farming Chapter 29 Iron Trading
Not only should you stretch, but you should also stretch out both hands - this is the most straightforward thought in Xiao Yun's mind.
I want iron farm tools, and I also want the minotaur... If I can trick a minotaur into following me, I'll make a fortune.
But then again, the biggest difference between adults and hairless kids is knowing when to be greedy and when not to be greedy. After all, there are only two parents in this cruel society who can tolerate you infinitely. None of us has the fate of a Japanese anime protagonist who can be forgiven as long as he sheds tears and apologizes after making a mistake, right?
Xiao Yun sighed and thought, forget it, let’s not think about swinging the hoe at the Tauren tribe. Even if you want to fleece the sheep, you have to abide by the basic laws.
"Why are you sighing, Ayun?"
Niu Jiao, holding a food bowl - wooden, shallow-bottomed, and piled high with food - came closer while chewing his cheeks.
In the Tauren tribe, of course you have to eat and drink what they give you. However, because all the grassland tribes except the Tauren are omnivores, the hosts will not dine with the guests... The food bowls for the guests are filled with meat.
The vegetarian Tauren raises sheep that are slaughtered when guests come to visit. He is a vegetarian himself but does not force others to be vegetarian. He even serves meat to guests when they come to visit. This is what a good vegetarian should do.
The Snow Wolf people were arranged to live in a smaller courtyard. The small courtyard surrounded by wooden fences was their private territory before they left. The host was kind and respectful. However, no matter how kind they were, their material conditions were limited. Therefore, the house they were assigned was a simple room with no bed, only a dining table and wooden stools... If they wanted to sleep, they had to sleep on the floor and take care of their own bedding.
It's still quite cold on the grassland in early spring without snow. Sleeping in a wooden house is warmer than sleeping in a tent. At least there's no night wind. And this wooden house is more sophisticated in shape than the one built by the Snow Wolf Man. For example, it has windows...
Xiao Yun dragged a wooden stool and sat by the window, looking out. He looked back at Niu Jiao, who was eating like a kindergarten kid, and sighed again: "...It would be great if I could trade you for a minotaur. Niu Jiao, any random person they picked out would definitely be smarter than you."
Niu Jiao: “?!”
The clan leader sitting beside the table looked over here with a dull expression.
"I was just saying that." Xiao Yun waved his hand. "Hey, Chief, do you think if we bring a few more exquisite pottery ornaments, can we trick a minotaur and leave with us?"
The patriarch looked at him in horror.
"I was just saying it casually." Xiao Yun said with regret.
Patriarch: "..." You really don't look like you are just talking casually...
Xiao Yun dragged the heavy wooden stool under his buttocks to the side of the table and said to the chieftain, "Chieftain, you also saw today that the minotaur has a lot of iron tools. Tomorrow you take out the flower fairy ornament and we will discuss with Saladin whether he can give us a few pieces of iron tools."
The patriarch looked pained and nodded solemnly.
"...If you keep holding back like this, I can at most make another one for you to play with when I get home." Xiao Yun's mouth twitched, "This thing is useless, and it's troublesome to make. It takes a lot of effort to apply the glaze, and you can't even hold water. It would be more practical to make a few more bowls."
The clan leader stretched his face and glared at him angrily: "Don't talk nonsense, you are still young and don't understand."
"Okay." Xiao Yun stared with dead fish eyes, paused, and then spoke again, "Chief, do you think we should trick some gray dwarves back?"
Everyone at the table, including Qingyan, stared at him blankly.
After finishing the dinner provided by the Tauren, Ah Shan prepared to make a bed with animal skins on the floor of the wooden house. There was no kang in the wooden house of the Tauren, so everyone had to sleep together to keep warm. Xiao Yun knew how the tribesmen slept, so he chose to sleep next to Qingyan.
Sitting on the floor and covering his feet with his clothes, Xiao Yun pulled Qingyan's hand and said in a low voice, "Go back to your tribe before dawn tomorrow morning and take the things I prepared for you... I will drag everyone to stay with the Tauren for five, six, or seven days before leaving. You have to hurry up and do what we agreed. If you succeed, you won't have to knit sweaters every day by yourself."
Qingyan's expression was extremely complicated... It made it sound as if he was plotting against his former tribesmen just to save himself from the trouble.
"If you fail, it doesn't matter. As long as you can escape unscathed, that's fine." Xiao Yun added, "The internal environment of the cat tribe is different from that of the snow wolf people and the minotaur. If you really fall into the hands of the people who exiled you, I don't think you will end up in trouble."
Qingyan's mood became even more complicated. Among the tribes on the grassland, even the Centaurs, whose numbers were very small due to their belligerence, were not like the Cats, who would fight among themselves to the point of endangering their lives. In the final analysis, the departure of the Tigers would be too stimulating to the Cats...
The grassland tribes do not have the strong reproductive ability like humans. The female human beings can reproduce before their bodies are fully developed, but the grassland tribes cannot. Even the cat tribe, which is the largest tribe, can only give birth to a few newborns every year. Under such circumstances, population loss is naturally something that all tribes try their best to avoid. Unfortunately...
"I will try my best. But I cannot guarantee that the plan will succeed." Qing Yan whispered, "In fact, I am still hesitating until now... Is this a good thing for my people?"
"So didn't I tell you that you don't need to make decisions for others?" Xiao Yun lay down and put his hands behind his head. "You just need to show your consideration for your people. Your people have the final say on whether to cooperate or simply refuse. I have repeated this many times. It doesn't matter if it doesn't work."
Qingyan glanced at this guy silently and said, "You also know that the word you used is "what if"!
The biggest difference between sleeping on a heated kang and sleeping on a cold floor is that your feet will be cold in the second half of the night... The older clan leader was woken up by the cold before dawn, shivered, and retracted his feet that had accidentally stretched out of the animal skin, and then... he found that someone had actually gotten up.
"Qingyan, Ayun?" The clan leader blinked a few times and saw clearly the people who got up, and was surprised.
"Clan leader?" Xiao Yun didn't expect the clan leader to get up so early.
"What are you doing?" The patriarch quickly sat up.
Xiao Yun handed the animal skin bag to Qingyan and said, "It's nothing. This place is close to Qingyan's tribe. He can go back and take a look."
"...Huh? Wasn't Qingyan exiled?" The patriarch was unable to react.
"So he sneaked back to see his people. Qingyan would miss home after being away for a whole winter." Xiao Yun said calmly, "He will be back in a few days. We have to stay in the Tauren tribe for a while anyway, so it's a good time to wait for him."
Chief: "...Aren't we going to go back after we exchange the seeds?"
"Of course not." Xiao Yun said seriously, "The Tauren gave us seeds and technical guidance, and we still have to ask them for iron tools. It would be rude to just pat our butts and leave. It would be fair for us to give them some of our unique technology in return."
"...Uh." The chief thought there was nothing wrong with this...but what could they use to teach the minotaurs? How to hunt?
After watching Qingyan disappear into the night with a hide bag on his back, the clan leader was silent for a while, then slowly turned his head and cast a solemn gaze at Xiao Yun.
The tribe leader stood up, walked around the snoring tribesmen, and went to Qingyan's bed and sat cross-legged. He stared at Xiao Yun who was lying back down with his bright eyes: "Ayun, are you planning something?"
Xiao Yun... Xiao Yun just wanted to sigh in his heart. Could it be that he had fooled the clan leader too many times and the clan leader had gained experience from being fooled by him?
"Don't worry, Chief. Don't think too much. Qingyan just went back to see his people. He was exiled because he failed in the competition for the chief position. He didn't do anything bad. There is naturally affection between his people and him."
The clan leader bent down silently and approached Xiao Yun, his expression more serious than ever before.
"I'm not talking about whether Qingyan can go back to see his people... What I want to say is, Ayun, you haven't given up on taking the minotaur back?" The chief stretched out his hands and grabbed Xiao Yun's shoulders. "Ayun, you can't do this. Stealing people from other tribes will cause eternal hatred between the two sides. We can't do this to the minotaur - do you understand, Ayun?"
"..." A drop of sweat slowly slid down Xiao Yun's temple. He had guessed the direction right, but he had guessed the target wrong.
The clan leader looked horrified: "No, no, Ayun, are you really going to do this?!"
"Calm down, I have no intention of poaching the minotaurs." Xiao Yun raised his hand and patted the nervous chief. "Which tribe on the grassland is willing to be hostile to the minotaurs? Yes, chief, do you think I am so stupid that I don't even know this?"
The clan leader thought about it and realized that Ayun was smarter than him now... so he let go of his hands.
"Actually, I want to poach people from the cat tribe." Xiao Yun said seriously. Qingyan had already run away, and there was no way he could save the situation by explaining it to the tribe leader now.
The patriarch's body swayed and he almost fell down.
"First, the cat tribe has a large population, so it doesn't matter if we dig a little. Second, there is indeed a small tribe in Qingyan's tribe that is not welcomed in the tribe because of its small population. They have a hard life. Since the cat tribe doesn't value them, why not let them go to us? Although the caracal tribe has little combat power, they are quite flexible and more dexterous than Qingyan of the black panther tribe... Chief?"
The clan leader struggled to get up, and once again grasped Xiao Yun's shoulders with both hands. He burst into grief as soon as he opened his mouth: "——Ah Yun!"
"Calm down, calm down." Xiao Yun patted the chief's arm again to comfort him. "I know that openly robbing other people's tribesmen will cause war, so I am working on it secretly. If it doesn't work, we will go back when Qingyan comes back. If it succeeds, we just need to pick up the caracals who were expelled by the cat tribe. It's very safe."
"Pick up? Exile?" The patriarch was shocked.
Xiao Yun then revealed a little bit of the plan that he and Qing Yan had discussed to the clan leader... It was fine for the other clan members, but the clan leader would have to cooperate with the plan when the time came. Xiao Yun believed that with the clan leader's experience, his acting skills would be above the passing line.
The clan leader's expression gradually changed from fear and anxiety to dullness...
"Is this really possible?!"
"Whether it works or not, just do your best. You won't get pregnant if you try anyway."
“…”
Uncle Ashan got up and counted the heads. He found that one person was missing. He scratched his head and counted again: "Hey, that's strange. Where's Qingyan?"
"Well... Qingyan has been away for a while and will be back in a few days." The chief said stiffly, "We just happened to stay in the Tauren tribe and wait for him."
"Ah, aren't we going back after getting the seeds?" Niu Jiao muttered, "I want to go back. The food in the tribe is still delicious, and the kang is comfortable to sleep on." The Tauren's cooking method is to stew everything in a big pot. The mutton that was not removed of the blood and foam had a strong smell. Niu Jiao felt a little disgusted after eating it.
"Of course we can't just leave like this. The Tauren have helped us a lot. Ayun wants to give them back some of our technology. We, the Snow Werewolves, are not a shameless tribe that takes advantage of others." The chief said with a straight face.
Xiao Yun gave a thumbs up to the clan leader behind his fellow tribesmen's back. The clan leader's acting skills could be rated 60 points.
Niu Jiao stopped talking. Uncle Ashan and A Yue were not the people who would think too much. They just followed the clan leader's arrangements. Only Hongye kept looking towards Xiao Yun with sharp eyes.
Xiao Yun was serious about the technical exchange with the Minotaur. After eating the big pot stewed breakfast prepared by the Minotaur, Xiao Yun went to find Elder Saladin with the patriarch.
The Tauren have formed the habit of living together in families. Saladin, his wife, and children live in a courtyard at the foot of the mountain near the market area. A spacious wooden house and two thatched warehouses are Saladin's home. There are also many furniture in the wooden house, including tables, chairs, benches, cabinets and other household items, as well as wooden basins, wooden barrels, iron farm tools and so on.
The minotaurs, with their strong physiques and thick dark brown skin, are more cold-resistant than the snow werewolves, but they are not cold-blooded animals that like low temperatures. When Xiao Yun and the patriarch arrived, Saladin was sitting cross-legged by the fire pit in the wooden house to keep warm. On the low table next to him was the two-color pottery bowl that he had exchanged with the snow werewolves yesterday... It seemed that the minotaurs divided the pottery immediately after the exchange, which was quite efficient.
"Welcome, friend of the Snow Wolf Tribe." Saladin's wife was of the same height as the patriarch, and slightly stronger than the 90-plus kg patriarch. Moreover, she had breasts... Her bulging breasts under the linen clothes were very curvaceous, which was completely different from the females of the Snow Wolf Tribe.
It's just too tall and strong, too healthy and beautiful, and the bull head is also super ferocious...
Sitting down beside the fire pit, Xiao Yun calmed down from being stimulated by the female minotaur and said to Saladin calmly, "Thank you for the seeds you prepared for us, Saladin."
Saladin glanced at the two-color pottery bowl on the low table next to him, then looked at Xiao Yun, his red bull eyes particularly calm.
After all, Xiao Yun had dealt with this Bull Demon King for quite a while and talked a lot with him. He knew immediately that what the elder meant was "no need to thank us, it's just a deal" or something like that... Perhaps because he had talked too much yesterday, the elder became even more frugal with his words.
"We Snow Werewolves have never farmed like the Tauren, so... I would like to ask if we can exchange some iron farm tools with you?" Xiao Yun said.
Saladin immediately showed a very ferocious and serious expression.
Xiao Yun took it as his agreement since he didn't refuse on the spot, and turned his head to look at the patriarch.
The clan leader... the clan leader took out a roll of animal skin from his clothes with a painful look on his face, carefully unwrapped the animal skin on the surface, and then unwrapped a layer of softened hay, revealing the exquisite seated statue of the flower spirit wrapped inside.
"Ah!" Saladin's wife exclaimed.
"..."Saladin looked at the statue of the flower fairy with a somewhat blunt look in his eyes.
This flower spirit statue, which can be sold as a handicraft for more than ten or twenty yuan in a modern flea market… is about the same size as the small plaster statues that children play with and paint, about fifteen centimeters in height. The figure is barely relatively delicate, but the color is not colorful enough. The wreath is actually mainly purple, and the lines that depict the facial features are not dark enough… Fortunately, Xiao Yun has some skills, and the figure he made is quite vivid and can be painted a few strokes - anyone who is caught by his sister to make polymer clay and helped by her many times will not be clumsy. Half of the cabinets full of figures in Xiao Yun's sister's bedroom were forced to be assembled and painted by him.
The tribe leader stared at the flower fairy statue, which Xiao Yun considered to be just "beginner's clay" but the aborigines considered to be "magnificent", and was unwilling to let it go. Xiao Yun was too lazy to say anything to him. His cherishing attitude could just be used to increase the value of the bargaining chip: "We want to exchange this flower fairy statue for some ironware. We don't want weapons, but farm tools."
Saladin showed an extremely ferocious and terrifying serious expression...
Xiao Yun would not ask for a huge amount of money just because the other party was interested. Doing so when making a deal with the Minotaur would only backfire.
Saladin made a scary face for a long time, turned to look at his wife, then stood up and walked out of the house.
"Saladin went to ask Chief Hor for help, and he will make the decision," the wife explained to the guest.
Xiao Yun: "..." He silently turned his head to look at the flower spirit statue he had made. It seemed that this thing really had some value?
Saladin soon came back leading a yellow cow... uh, a sturdy minotaur with thick black and yellow hair and braided braids. This guy had yellow skin and black eyes, which was quite different from the brown skin and red eyes of ordinary minotaurs. It was not known whether the minotaurs were also multi-racial like the cats or whether there were individual mutations or something.
When Chief Hall, the Yellow-skinned Bull Demon King, saw the flower fairy statue held by Chief Snow Wolf, he revealed a ferocious and shocked expression...
Then Chief Hall did not speak, but looked at Elder Saladin affectionately, and there seemed to be invisible radio waves passing back and forth between their black and red eyes.
Saladin's wife looked at her husband and the head of her family, then at the guest: "Chief Hall said that if the Snow Wolf Tribe does not require weapons, we can exchange them with iron farm tools."
The clan leader showed a look of pity and pain, Xiao Yun was shocked, wait, has Brother Huangniu spoken since he came in? !
"Well...we just want farm tools." Xiao Yun tried to remain calm.
Saladin's wife turned to look at Chief Hall, who stared at her with a deep gaze for a few seconds. Then she said to Xiao Yun, "Chief Hall said that we don't have many farm tools, so we may not be able to provide you with a satisfactory number."
——So all minotaurs are radio-type!
"There are only twenty adults in our tribe. It would be fine if we could exchange them for enough farm tools, such as hoes, sickles and the like." Xiao Yun tried to remain calm.
This time, Xiao Yun concentrated all his attention on observing Brother Huangniu's reaction, and saw that his pupils widened and his eyes became more ferocious when he stared at Saladin's wife.
Saladin's wife breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, "Chief Hall said that we can take out twenty iron hoes and ten sickles."
Xiao Yun looked calm on the surface, but in his heart he was moved to tears - the minotaur was really kind! He tried his best to control himself and not to stretch his hands too far, but the minotaur was so proactive in letting him take advantage of him!
The tribe had to give several bundles of furs to the human caravan in exchange for the palm-wide skinning knife given to Thrall!
"Thank you so much." Xiao Yun said sincerely. He snatched the flower fairy statue from the patriarch's hand and handed it respectfully to Saladin's wife.
Saladin's wife took the flower spirit statue with joy, stroked it carefully, and handed it to Chief Hall. Chief Hall did not take it, but glanced at her. Then, as if she had received some signal, she nodded to the guests, and ran out with the flower spirit statue in her hands.
"Ah..." The patriarch stretched out his hand in pain, towards the back of Saladin's wife... Xiao Yun was so angry that he slapped his hand down.
This deal made both parties very satisfied. Saladin reached out and held Xiao Yun's hand. Two streams of hot air blew out of his nose, and he held his strength for a long time before uttering two words: "Friend!"
Patriarch Hall still didn't speak, but just emitted radio waves with deep eyes...but Xiao Yun didn't have a receiver.
——So the higher your status as a Tauren, the worse your language skills become, right?
Xiao Yun knew that with the efficiency of the Tauren, they would probably prepare the hoe and sickle quickly. So after using this transaction to narrow the distance between the two sides, the next step would be to stay here for a dozen days. One was to wait for news from Qingyan, and the other was to find a chance to get close to the group of gray dwarves who were trying to take advantage of him. Xiao Yun couldn't bring himself to continue to fleece the Tauren, but he could still fleece a few of the gray dwarves.
"Thank you for being willing to exchange seeds and farm tools with us. I don't have anything else to give as a gift to express my gratitude, so I would like to share our experience of building houses with the Tauren tribe." Xiao Yun said very sincerely.
Chieftain Hall and elder Saladin both put on ferocious and shocked faces...Building a house? Snow werewolf? Are these two words ever connected together?!
"When we migrated to the southwest of the grassland to settle down, our tents were badly damaged. Even without snow, the nights were too cold to sleep. But we didn't have tools to process wood, and we couldn't build wooden houses like the Tauren, so we took the mud from the river..."
Xiao Yun talked freely, and immediately made up a folk story about a snow wolf who used his brain to invent a mud brick house in the cold autumn wind...
Pottery making and wool processing are the tribe's main export commodities in the near future. Xiao Yun will definitely not share them with others right now. Unless the Snow Wolf Tribe points out new skill points, Xiao Yun will use this backward technology to build relationships.
Now, there is no problem in sharing the mud brick house technology that does not require much technical skills and can be built by (Tauren) women and children. The Snow Wolf people will not suffer any losses, and the living environment of the Tauren will be safer and warmer. Wooden houses are beautiful but they are not suitable for the prairie with a cold temperate climate. There is a high risk of fire in a ground stove-like fire pit in a wooden house.
Well, the main reason is that he used a clay-fired flower spirit to cheat people out of thirty pieces of iron. Now, maybe the Tauren doesn't feel at a disadvantage, but if he sells more in the future, he's afraid that people will realize that the Snow Wolf Man is a rip-off... So he used the technology of mud brick houses to give back to these guys, thirty pieces of iron in exchange the technology of building a house plus a gift of a flower spirit statue. How can no one say that the Snow Wolf Man is not honest?
