Chapter 966
Important Matters to Discuss
The old woman's eyes flickered slightly, but her face remained expressionless. She simply said, "That's good."
Then he turned around and walked back, but after taking two steps, he stopped again.
"We'll talk about it tomorrow. Let them move their things and have some fun today."
The group worked together to unload the goods from the pack animals and pile them on the open ground in the middle of the camp.
Torches were lit, and the firelight illuminated the cloths, pots, and spices, drawing the attention of the tribe, young and old, who gathered around with wide, staring eyes. Several children squatted beside a bundle of fine cotton cloth, cautiously reaching out to touch it, then bringing their fingers to their noses to sniff, as if the cloth had some special scent.
"Why is this cloth so soft?" An old woman pinched a corner of a fine cotton cloth and examined it from all angles.
"It's for lining, it won't itch against the skin," Wu Chen explained as he squatted down.
"Liner? What lining?"
"It's the inner layer you wear. Then you put on a fur robe on top, which is both warm and comfortable."
The old woman didn't quite understand, but she felt that the piece of cloth in her hand was incredibly soft, so she carefully folded it and put it in her bosom.
On the other side, Yan'ao was sharing an iron pot with several hunters.
"This pot is much lighter than our stone pot!"
"Handle this carefully, don't break it. This pot is worth a whole sheepskin!"
The hunters immediately softened their movements, carrying the pot away as if it were a precious treasure.
Chiya was surrounded by a group of children, who asked him all sorts of questions.
"Red Fang, Red Fang, what is this black thing?"
"Spices, added to stewed meat."
"what about this?"
"Needle and thread, for sewing clothes."
"Where is this little pot?"
"For decocting medicine," Chi Ya thought for a moment, then added, "It can also be used to fry eggs."
The children didn't know what an egg was, but they thought the word "fry" sounded impressive, so they all nodded.
Zheng Yi stood outside the crowd, watching everything without saying a word.
The Bone Woman had somehow walked up to him.
"Aren't you afraid that letting them divide it so haphazardly will cause chaos?"
"I'm not afraid," Zheng Yi said. "We can put things back together tomorrow after one night of chaos."
The bone woman glanced at him sideways.
"Have you learned something new in the city?"
Zheng Yi thought for a moment and said, "I've learned a lot. But the most important thing is that I know what they want."
"Who?"
"Those people in the south."
The next morning, Zheng Yi gathered Wu Chen, Yan Ao, Gu Po, and several skillful clansmen together.
"For the next batch of goods, in addition to leather, tendons, bones, and herbs, I'd like to add one more item." He recounted the market prices for bone ornaments he had seen in Beining City: "The materials are ordinary, the workmanship is ordinary, but the price is not low. Our bone materials are much better than theirs. If we can make something similar, we should be able to sell it."
Yan'ao was the first to frown.
"Why bother with that? Wouldn't it be better to use that time to make a couple more skins?"
“You can’t compare how much a piece of leather can sell for versus how much a piece of bone can sell for,” Zheng Yi said. “Leather is sold by the piece, while bone is sold by the piece. Less material is used, but the price is not low.”
Yan Ao still didn't understand, but he didn't argue anymore—before going to Beining City last time, he also didn't understand why he had to bring those Cold Bones, but the Cold Bones sold better than he had imagined.
The Bone Woman didn't immediately object, but instead asked, "What kind of thing do you want to do?"
"Let's see what we have on hand first."
Zheng Yi had everyone bring out all the bone materials they had accumulated. Some were from hunted animals, with the meat removed and stored away; some were leftover scraps from making utensils; and a lot were specifically saved for the Bone Granny to slowly test medicines with.
These things are never lacking in the tribe, but most of the time, the good ones are picked out and made into tools or sacrificial objects, while the inferior ones are thrown into a corner to collect ashes, or simply put into the fire to burn as firewood.
Zheng Yi looked over at each item, and his brows gradually furrowed.
It's not because there's too little stuff, but because too much good stuff is being thrown away.
He picked up a dark gray bone from the corner. The flesh and marrow had long been removed, leaving only a bent joint, shaped like a ball of fire blown askew by the wind.
"What kind of bone is this?"
The Bone Woman glanced at it and said, "Last year, the Firemane Tribe hunted an old wolf. The upper leg bone was removed. The meat was taken out, the marrow was extracted, and the rest was not of much use, so it was thrown away."
Zheng Yi examined the bone piece several times, turning it over and over.
The surface of the joints has naturally formed patterns, rough and irregular, yet possessing an indescribable charm. It's not the kind of beauty that comes from meticulous carving, but rather like the wind, snow, and wilderness of the North, standing there firmly and giving the impression that this is how it should be.
He rummaged through the pile of discarded bones again.
A broken corner tip, cracked by the frost, resembled a dried-up riverbed.
Several animal teeth, whose marrow had been removed, had a warm, lustrous sheen worn from their roots.
A thin slice of scapula, gnawed away by wind and time, leaving only the hardest layer, as translucent as a piece of cloudy jade.
The more Zheng Yi looked at them, the more he felt that these bones, which were discarded as "useless," were precisely the most honest things about the North.
“Not the kind from the south,” he suddenly said.
Wu Chen was taken aback: "Not that kind? Then what you just said..."
“The bone ornaments I’m talking about aren’t the kind that’s finely crafted and polished to a glossy sheen like those made by people from the Central Plains.” Zheng Yi looked up, his eyes brighter than before. “Make this. Use the natural color of the bone.”
The old woman narrowed her eyes: "You mean, use these unwanted scraps?"
"Correct."
"Then it'll be even harder to sell!" Yan Ao's voice rose several octaves. "Something nobody wants to begin with, you think you can just string it together and sell it?"
Zheng Yi didn't rush to explain. Instead, he placed the bones on the stone slab in front of him, arranging them one by one as if they were some precious artifacts.
“Look,” he said, pointing to the wolf bone, “this shape, doesn’t it look like a fire blown askew by the wind?”
Wu Chen looked down.
He had never thought about "what it resembled." In the tribe, bones were just bones; useful bones were kept, and useless bones were thrown away. But when Zheng Yi pointed at it, he suddenly felt that the crooked bone joint did indeed have a strange quality—not that it was beautiful, but rather...something that made people want to look at it a little longer.
Zheng Yi then pointed to the animal teeth.
"The polished shine of this is no less than that of the jade beads from the south. Moreover, jade is inanimate, while this is alive—it's something a wild animal carried with it while it was alive."
Upon hearing this, the Bone Woman finally spoke.
"Are you trying to sell 'wildness'?"
Zheng Yi glanced at her: "I guess so."
The old woman remained silent for a while, then slowly squatted down, picked up the thin piece of scapula, and examined it against the light.
In places where light shone through, it was as if mist was hidden within the bones. "I used to deal with merchants from the south," the Bone Granny said slowly. "They collect things that are 'refined.' Yours has nothing to do with refinement."
“I know,” Zheng Yi said, “that’s why we don’t compete with them for elegance. The bones of the North are inherently not meant to be elegant. But it has its own unique flavor.”
The old woman didn't say whether it was good or bad, but simply said, "Then let's make a few and see."
She stood up and gestured with her chin toward the few skillful tribespeople.
“You guys, try doing what he says.”
The clansmen looked at each other in bewilderment.
I've made things my whole life, but I've never made anything that I'd actually sell to someone else. And I always use scraps that nobody would normally want.
But since the Bone Witch had spoken, they dared not disobey.
A woman in her forties was the first to squat down, pick up the wolf bone, and try to thread it around with a thick hemp thread.
She was very skillful. Although she didn't know how to turn the bone into something "marketable," she could do things like drilling holes, threading rope, and polishing the edges with her eyes closed. Before long, the wolf bone was strung into a pendant—the hemp rope was rough, the bone was rugged, and there were no extra decorations. It was simply hung on the rope.
Zheng Yi took it and glanced at it.
It was better than he had imagined.
It's not the kind of "exquisite" good, but rather—this thing is clearly not from the South. It carries the scent of the North, like an old object dug out of frozen soil, every line saying, "I am wild."
Wu Chen leaned closer for a look, his brow furrowing slightly: "It's that simple?"
"Simplicity is key," Zheng Yi said.
Another young hunter also tried to make something. He strung together the polished animal teeth, interspersed with a few small bone beads, to make a bracelet. The bracelet was irregular, the animal teeth were of different sizes, and the bone beads were of different shapes, but it swayed on his wrist with an inexplicable sense of freedom.
Chiya, watching from the side, was itching to try it out. He picked up a piece of bone, but when he tried to drill a hole, he used too much force, and the bone cracked in two. He sheepishly hid the bone fragments behind his back, pretending nothing had happened.
In less than an hour, several clansmen had made five or six bone ornaments.
There are animal tooth bracelets, wolf bone pendants, tags made from thin slices of scapula, and small pendants pieced together from several broken horns. None of them can be described as "exquisite," and some are even rough, but each one carries the unique flavor of the North—hard, cold, and untamed.
Zheng Yi laid these items out in a row and examined them for a long time.
“This is it,” he said. “The next shipment will include these.”
Yan'ao squatted down beside him, picked up the string of animal teeth bracelet and weighed it in his hand.
"Can this be sold?"
"can."
Are you so sure?
Zheng Yi didn't answer directly, but took the bracelet from his hand and held it up to the light.
The animal teeth gleamed with a faint yellowish-white luster in the sunlight, and the patterns on their surface resembled fine rivers that ran from the root to the tip.
"You don't think this thing is good-looking?" Zheng Yi asked.
Yan'ao looked at it, hesitated for a long time, and then said, "It's not ugly. But... who would spend money to buy something we see every day?"
Wu Chen stared at the bone ornaments, remaining silent for a long time.
He admitted that these things had an indescribable smell, but Yan'ao's words also made sense. In the tribe, these things were indeed "unwanted"—the good bones were made into tools, and the inferior ones were either thrown away or burned; no one ever thought of stringing them together and selling them to others.
Moreover, as Zheng Yi just mentioned, the bone ornaments from the south are "exquisite" and "smooth and glossy." Theirs are rough, primitive, and wild; would people from the south like them?
The Bone Woman seemed to sense his doubt and slowly began to speak.
“Don’t look at me. I’ve never been to the south, so I don’t know what they like.” She paused, then added, “But I never guessed any of the things this kid has accomplished along the way.”
Zheng Yi carefully put away the bone ornaments, wrapped them in a soft cloth, and stuffed them into his leather pouch.
"Keep this safe. Next time you go to Beining City, take it with you to test the waters."
Chiya leaned closer and whispered, "What if we really can't sell them?"
Zheng Yi glanced at him and smiled.
"If we can't sell them, we'll wear them ourselves. You guys can each wear one, so it won't be a waste of time."
Chiya looked down at his empty neck and suddenly thought—if he really couldn't sell it, it wouldn't be a loss.
That night, Zheng Yi sat by the fire and took out the bone ornaments again to look at them one last time.
The old woman came over and placed a bowl of hot soup next to him.
"Still thinking about those bones?"
"Ah."
Do you think it can work?
Zheng Yi was silent for a while, then said, "I saw something in Beining City. A shop had a piece of jade from the south on display. The carving was very fine, the material was good, and the price was very high. But after looking at it for a long time, I felt that it was too 'clean'. So clean that it was meaningless."
The Bone Woman didn't speak.
“The bones from the North are different,” Zheng Yi said slowly. “They have traces of use, wind marks, and cracks from frost. These aren’t flaws, they’re stories. People in the South are too far removed from these things, so they find them fascinating.”
After listening, the old woman didn't comment, only saying, "You should drink the soup; it's getting cold."
Zheng Yi picked up the bowl and took a sip, then hissed as it was scalding hot.
The old woman had already turned and left, leaving behind a single sentence before she went.
"If you can really make money selling these unwanted bones, I'll admire you."
Zheng Yi held the bowl, watching the flames dancing in the fire, and a slow smile curved his lips.
He also wanted to see if anyone in the south would want these things that the northerners considered "waste".
Meanwhile, in a tent not far away, Yan'ao was examining the string of animal teeth beads over and over.
He said, "Will this sell?" but his hands never put it down.
Wu Chen saw it when he passed by, but didn't say anything; his lips just twitched.
When Yan'ao noticed his gaze, he immediately stuffed the bracelet into his pocket and put on a stern face.
"What are you looking at? I'm just checking to see if there are any other problems with them."
Wu Chen gave an "oh" and left.
He took two steps, then looked back once more.
Yan'ao had already taken out the bracelet again and was holding it up to the firelight to examine the patterns on the animal teeth.
They were watching quite attentively.
Seven days after returning from Beining City, Zheng Yi sent Wu Chen and Yan Ao separately to deliver a message.
Please invite the leaders of the three tribes to gather at the Black Anvil Tribe's headquarters; we have important matters to discuss.
Wu Chen left before dawn, riding a hardy dwarf horse, heading north along the snow line to find the Hanling tribe. Yan Ao, on the other hand, headed west to the Huozong tribe. Although he himself was from the Huozong tribe, this time he wasn't going back to visit relatives, but to deliver a message for Zheng Yi. This made him feel awkward the whole way—when did the people of the Huozong tribe have to run errands for a kid from the south?
But when he thought of the goods he brought back from his trip to Beining City—the cloth, the iron pots, the spices—and the looks in Steward Lu's and the head manager's eyes as they inspected the goods, he suppressed his awkwardness. (End of Chapter)