Chapter 1034, A Young Girl’s Private Thoughts

Translator: Silavin

 

Under Cai Cai’s guidance, the people from the Wild Fox Tribe began making their way through the Flame Dragon Tribe, starting from the main gate and proceeding inward.

 

Ye Tu and the others simply could not stop staring at the umbrellas. One could say they had completely forgotten how to blink.

 

Had this been anywhere other than the Flame Dragon Tribe, they might well have reached out to take them by force.

 

Of course, that was nothing more than an idle fantasy. They had already been thoroughly overwhelmed before they had even stepped through the gates.

 

The inspection at the entrance had left them even more stunned, because the strange weapons seemed to be carried one per person, with additional different types of arms beyond that. Every single weapon had the look of something with tremendous lethality, making the whole display deeply intimidating.

 

The strength of a Tribe came down first and foremost to the number of its Warriors, and then to its weapons.

 

The number of Warriors went without saying, since more Warriors meant greater combat strength. But weapons were equally important, because not every Warrior was suited to close-quarters fighting. Some were naturally inclined towards different kinds of arms.

 

Take Shu Feng as an example. With wings that allowed him to fly, using a bow from the air gave him a clear advantage. Or consider the Rabbit Demi-Humans, whose natural leaping ability made them well-suited to a short blade. Then there were the Bull Demi-Humans, born with tremendous strength, for whom a great axe would be an ideal match.

 

“Where are we going now?” Ye Tu asked with curiosity.

 

“We’ll start from the main gate and head towards the Central Market, then I’ll take you to the food street, and finally to where you’ll be staying,” Cai Cai said directly.

 

“That’s strange.” Ye Tu muttered, having heard two terms he did not recognise.

 

He did not dwell on it, and instead began scanning the surroundings as they walked further into the Tribe. The deeper they went, the more things began to change.

 

The most striking change was the cement road. Ye Tu looked down at the wide path beneath his feet with wide-eyed astonishment. He stomped on it hard several times, trying to work out what it was made of.

 

The grey-black cement was something he had never seen before, and it felt extraordinarily solid.

 

“No need to be so curious. This is our Tribe’s stone road. Even on rainy days it isn’t affected at all, and people walk on it very steadily,” Cai Cai said, turning around with a look of unmistakable pride. “And when carriages travel along it, they move faster too. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

 

The outer regions of the Flame Dragon Tribe had not yet been paved with cement roads, and at present it was still mostly muddy ground and wooden houses scattered about. So when the Wild Fox Tribe’s people had first arrived, the Tribe had not seemed all that different from others they had known.

 

“A stone road? You mean we’re walking on stone right now? I don’t think that’s possible,” Ye Tu said, immediately dismissing the claim. “If we were standing on stone, why does this stone go on for so long?”

 

“Not only that,” Huang Ji crouched down to examine the cement road closely. “This stone looks perfectly smooth. How could an ordinary stone look like this?” He straightened up and continued, “And it’s remarkably wide too. This really doesn’t seem like what you’d call a stone road.”

 

“Exactly, exactly. Yes, it’s our first time at the Flame Dragon Tribe, but that’s no reason to make things up!”

 

“We’ve seen a fair bit in our time, and stones are everywhere. But we’ve never once seen a stone this long and this wide.”

 

“Quite right. And these stones look as though they follow some kind of pattern. It really doesn’t match what you’ve described.”

 

The other Warriors from the Wild Fox Tribe all voiced their agreement, none of them willing to take Cai Cai’s word for it.

 

Looking ahead, they could see the road stretched on at great width, and in the distance it intersected with other stone roads branching in different directions. The whole thing resembled an enormous net laid over the ground, nothing like the simple stone the young girl had described.

 

“This is nothing like the ordinary stone you’re imagining. This is something only our Flame Dragon Tribe possesses. Other Tribes don’t have it, no matter how much they might want it,” Cai Cai said, lifting her chin even higher, as though the road had been laid by her own two hands.

 

“That would explain it. I said it seemed different from ordinary stone. But this kind of road really is convenient.” Ye Tu murmured, eyes still fixed on the road beneath him.

 

And for good reason. Every rainy season, every Tribe’s ground turned into a churning mire, no matter how large or powerful the Tribe was. Sometimes one could put their foot down and sink all the way to the knee. It was a deeply unpleasant experience, and one of the main reasons nobody ventured outside during the rain.

 

“Walking on this, it feels like your feet actually stay clean. How is that even possible?” Huang Ji could not help but ask.

 

The thought had already taken root in him. He wanted the Wild Fox Tribe to have something like this too. A stone road like this was simply too convenient.

 

“That is a secret of our Tribe, and even I don’t know how it’s done, so there’s even less chance of me explaining it to you.” Cai Cai said, spreading her hands helplessly.

 

“Really? What a shame,” Ye Tu replied, though his expression made it quite clear he did not believe her for a moment.

 

He reasoned that laying a road like this must require enormous effort and the involvement of the entire Tribe. So, it seemed unlikely the young woman genuinely did not know. But there was nothing he could do about it. He simply filed it away in the back of his mind to revisit at a later time.

 

“See those? Those are the cement houses. Quite an improvement on wooden houses, wouldn’t you say?” Cai Cai said, pointing towards the cement houses now coming into view.

 

They had entered the part of the Tribe where cement houses stood, and the young girl was quite deliberately drawing attention to each one.

 

Of course, while Cai Cai said quite a lot on the surface, she was in reality giving nothing away. Everything she mentioned was hardly a secret to the Flame Dragon Tribe. Any Tribe, with a bit of reasoning, could work most of it out.

 

Su Bai’s thinking was that rather than letting other Tribes speculate and piece things together on their own, it was better to have the guides deliberately release certain pieces of information. That way it would pique curiosity in other Tribes and might even lead them into making mistakes, keeping the initiative firmly in the Flame Dragon Tribe’s hands.

 

“Are the cement houses made from the same material as this road? They look exactly the same colour,” Ye Tu observed.

 

“Probably, though I’m not entirely sure. What I do know is that living in these houses is very comfortable,” Cai Cai said, tossing her long hair back before adding, “Oh, and tonight you’ll be able to stay in one of the cement houses yourselves.”

 

She was referring to Restful Night Building, and she was deliberately dangling the prospect to whet their appetite.