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Soon, someone came to pick them up with a few bamboo rafts. The rafts were barely big enough for horses to stand on, but carts could not go on them. So they left the carts here, carried the goods on large pieces of fur, and led the horses onto the rafts.

The bamboo raft swayed towards the tribe. Wu Yue was curious about how they made the bamboo into a raft. After studying it for a while, he found that they did not use ropes. The frame was built with a mortise and tenon structure, and the places that needed to be tied seemed to be made of flexible bamboo strips.

They probably didn't have any metal tools, but they were able to use stone knives to split such thin bamboo strips, which shows their craftsmanship is quite good.

The bamboo raft soon stopped on the other side. Several people led their horses down. Shan was the first to speak and ask the woman, "Thank you. What is the name of this tribe? What is your name?"

"This is the Shui tribe. I am Chief Azhu, the same name as this plant." Chief Azhu introduced himself and pointed to the bamboo raft that brought them here.

"Hello, respected chief. We are from the Sharp Fang Tribe. I am Shan, and these are Xiao, Yue, Ying, and Ma Zong." Shan bowed slightly to her and introduced himself and his group. However, they had already agreed to pretend to be ordinary tribesmen and not reveal their identities.

Wu Yue held the little fox in silence. Although he had studied hard for a period of time, his local dialect was not very good at the moment. In order not to expose his amazing communication ability, he had to speak less.

Fortunately, there was Shan, a man of good conversation, who immediately opened the fur bag and displayed the goods one by one.

Ah Zhu, however, ignored these fresh goods and slowly walked up to Wu Yue.

Wu Yue thought the girl was here to see the baby, so he looked up and smiled at her friendly. He had his eyes on the bamboo forest in the distance and definitely didn't want to offend the female chief at this moment.

Ah Zhu didn't care about the little fox at all; she was after the man. Seeing the man's beautiful smile, she liked him even more and reached out to touch Wu Yue's face.

However, before Wu Yue could react, he was pulled away by Xiao.

Xiao frowned and glared: "Don't touch him!"

Azhu withdrew his hand as if nothing had happened and looked at Xiao's exposed arm. This man was not bad and was the strongest among these people.

She smiled and winked: "Then can I touch you?"

Xiao said coldly: "No."

Ah Zhu shook his head and chuckled to Wu Yue, "You are Yue, right? This is your brother? Can he make decisions for you?"

Wu Yue now understood what the other person meant. He scratched his head awkwardly and said in his broken native language, "He, I, partner."

"Partners?" Ah Zhu's eyebrows knitted together, her gaze darting between the two men with a mixture of suspicion and disdain. In their tribe, there were more women than men, and they had only ever seen two women become partners, find a man to sleep with for one night, have children together, and raise them together, but they had never seen two men become partners.

After all, men can't have children.

Wu Yue hadn't seen this kind of look in a long time, but he could sense that she didn't mean any harm, so he pointed to the goods on the ground and reminded her, "Chief, let's exchange."

Ah Zhu said uninterestedly: "We have salt." Salt is probably the most precious item among the supplies these people brought.

Shan then came over and enthusiastically introduced the pottery, saying it could be used to hold water, cook food, and store things. However, Ah Zhu pointed to the bamboo forest in the distance and said, "You can use bamboo for all these things. There's plenty of it. Just chop it down."

Shan paused and quickly introduced the linen cloth, telling her that she could wear it when the weather warmed up. It would be very comfortable and cool. Ah Zhu took a look and was interested, but said, "It's too little. Not enough to share, and it's still very cold now."

Compared to these things, she was more interested in the few pieces of fur. There were few men in their tribe, so there was less prey. The main food was fish, bamboo shoots and some aquatic vegetables, so fur was not enough.

So they went out with a bunch of goodies, but in the end, the most popular item was the least valuable fur. Zhu had to bargain hard for pottery, linen, and salt before he could accept them.

Unable to store his belongings in front of them, Wu Yue had no choice but to accept the situation and traded with the Water Tribe for some dried bamboo shoots, fish, and shrimp. Luckily, the quantity wasn't large, so it wasn't too bad. Furthermore, Wu Yue had found the bamboo he'd been looking for the most, so everything else didn't matter.

After failing to hook up with his favorites Wu Yue and Xiao, Azhu lowered his standards and set his sights on Ma Zong.

"Are you going back now, or do you want to stay with us for one night? Don't worry, we will provide food and shelter." Azhu put her hands on her flexible waist, puffed out her chest, looked at Ma Zong and asked.

Shan glanced at Wu Yue quietly, and seeing him nod, he said, "Since Chief Azhu has invited us, let's rest for a night."

Ah Zhu smiled brilliantly and went to make the arrangements.

Being willing to stay and rest in a tribe means being willing to have children with people from that tribe. Although this world is still a primitive society, most tribesmen know that they cannot only have children with people from their own tribe, as this will result in the inability to produce healthy children in the long run.

Of course Wu Yue and Xiao would not betray each other. Ma Zong looked cold and sullen and it was hard to tell what he was thinking. However, Shan and Ying were very much looking forward to tonight.

There are so many women in this tribe, and they are all very beautiful!

Although he was a bit reluctant to accept this kind of openness, since it was a mutually agreeable situation, Wu Yue had no objections. Ah Zhu quickly arranged for the group to stay in a small room partitioned off from the bamboo building. Wu Yue and Xiao, the "couple," had one room, and the other three had their own rooms.

Wu Yue inspected the bamboo building. It was an exquisite structure constructed with a bamboo frame, and the walls and floor were woven with dense bamboo strips. It was a bit drafty in the winter, but it would surely be comfortable in the summer. While admiring the exquisite craftsmanship of the Shui people, he also worried about the sound insulation.

As it was getting dark, Ah Zhu treated them to a dinner that included grilled fish, dried bamboo shoots and fish soup cooked in bamboo tubes, eggs cooked in the fire, and a small barbecue that looked like a bamboo rat.

He originally thought it would just have the bland taste of salt, but when Wu Yue tasted it, he discovered it had a slightly fermented sour taste. After asking haltingly, he learned that the Shui people actually knew how to make simple sour bamboo shoots. They just put the peeled and diced fresh bamboo shoots into a bamboo tube, sealed it with water, and placed it in a cool place to wait for it to ferment.

Wu Yue also noticed that they had many weapons and tools made of bamboo, simple bows and arrows and harpoons, thin bamboo knives that could be used to cut food, bamboo hammocks, and low tables, all of which looked quite delicate.

Wu Yue was so jealous that he just wanted to move all the bamboo back to the Liya tribe immediately.

He was jealous of other people's things, and others were jealous of him. There were many women in this tribe, and now these five people were being stared at by a group of women, and someone came up to chat with them from time to time.

Shan and Ying were both quite pleased. They weren't particularly popular in the tribe, but now, surrounded by women, they were grinning from ear to ear. Xiao, with a fierce look on his face, ignored them. Wu Yue was also completely blocked by Xiao, so he didn't need to worry about him. Ma Zong, on the other hand, remained stern and ignored everyone, even Ah Zhu's advances. Ah Zhu hadn't been successful with any of the three people she'd liked, and was too embarrassed to try to flirt with Shan and Ying again. She gave up with a cold snort and went back to sleep.

Wu Yue found the food of this tribe very tasty and ate a little more. When he came to his senses, everyone had gone back to rest and there were not many people around.

He stretched himself, feeling somewhat sleepy, but considering the situation in the bamboo house, he decided it would be best not to return. With the fire in front of him and the Xiao behind him, he wasn't cold.

"Yue..." Xiao rested his chin gently on Wu Yue's head, "Tell the chief today that we are partners."

Wu Yue yawned. "I don't speak the language well, but your language is really hard to learn. There's no written language, so you have to rely on rote memorization..."

"Hmph." Xiao was unhappy for not getting the answer he wanted. He snorted and bit his ear. He really bit it, and it hurt so much that Wu Yue elbowed him hard.

"Are you crazy again?!"

Xiao anticipated his attack, grabbed his hand, and bit his ear all the way to his neck: "...Yue, go back to sleep?"

No, no, no, even though he was indeed sleepy, this was absolutely not possible!

He was afraid that the noise others made would be too loud for Xiao to control himself, and then he would lose his integrity.

"Hey, Xiao, while everyone's asleep, why don't we go dig some bamboo?" He abruptly changed the subject for the sake of his integrity. Actually, there was no need to rush. Tomorrow, he could find an excuse to continue south. Once he got far enough, he could openly start digging. He could then store the bamboo in a space where no one would notice.

Xiao knew he was looking for an excuse, so he bit the back of his neck hard, but still accepted it: "Okay, let's go."