But no one was aware of this. After all, in this primitive society where few people live, the greatest enemy of mankind is the beast, not man. So after landing, everyone hid the raft according to Qiao Yu's instructions and searched for a place to hide along the way, without even thinking about leaving any traces.
Seeing Qiao Yu's serious words, Man also realized the seriousness of the problem. He nodded solemnly and said, "Don't worry, Yu. I will bring people to erase the traces tomorrow."
But most people didn't take it seriously, thinking Qiao Yu was being overly cautious. Who would come after them? Even if they did, they wouldn't have to wait until they stole the iron ore. Now that no one knew about their group, why would they search for them in this desolate and uninhabited mountain forest?
However, due to Qiao Yu's prestige in the tribe, even if everyone didn't care, they didn't dare to speak out in rebuttal, let alone take her words lightly.
Qiao Yu came out of the cave and took down all the white vines along the way, leaving only half a vine to mark the river bank.
After paddling the raft upstream, Qiao Yu returned to the river bank near the Sifang tribe and went ashore. After lifting the raft ashore, she looked around and felt uneasy. Finally, after some effort, she lifted the raft onto a big tree and hid it among the lush leaves.
After doing all this, she did not leave, but rested on the tree next to her for one night. At dawn the next day, she first came down from the tree to check the raft she had hidden yesterday. She found that when she looked up from a certain direction, the leaves in some places were not dense enough to cover it. So she went to the tree next to her and broke some branches to block it until she could no longer see the raft.
After doing all this, she ran to the stream, used the water as a mirror, and cleaned herself up.
This time she came to the Sifang tribe, because she wanted to find out the strength of the tribe, she made full preparations. She not only brought mud of different colors, but also prepared dressing supplies.
Yesterday, she had simply smeared a layer of black and yellow mud on her skin without any other adornment. Today, she wanted to do something completely different, so she first melted the black mud and smeared it on herself, then used charcoal to draw her eyebrows. Finally, she took out a fake beard made of black pig hair, used a fire stick to heat the fish glue on the pig skin, and then glued it to her mouth and jaw.
The pig wasn't white, but black. Qiao Yu shaved the pig's skin thinly, then glued the black pig's hair on with fish glue. Her skin was smeared with black mud, turning her whole body black. Then, she applied a fake beard made of black pig skin, and the beard obscured the skin, making the seams almost invisible.
Anyway, hunting in the wild in the summer is a daily routine these days, and the men in the tribe all have dark skin, so it doesn't look out of place for her to paint her skin like this.
After finishing her face, she carefully applied the paint to the exposed parts of her neck and hands until no trace of it could be seen. Then she changed into a fur coat, let her hair down, and tied a headband on her forehead with a thin vine, so that the half-letted hair could cover half of her face and neck.
After tidying himself up, Qiao Yu looked into the water and found that he had turned into a big man with an unshaven beard.
She had grown a bit taller in the past six months, and nowadays, even among men, she wasn't considered short. The dark-skinned, bearded man in the water had nothing wrong with him except that he was a little thin.
After finishing her preparations, she carried the wicker basket out of the woods. When she reached the market, she observed from a tree for a while and found that people from the four tribes began to come over one after another. She took advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention, climbed down from the tree, and blended into the crowd.
She first replaced all the dried meat in the wicker basket with salt, then she retreated back to the woods and hid the wicker basket filled with salt together with the raft.
Her mission today wasn't to exchange items. She planned to circle the area surrounding the Sifang Tribe and return in the evening to chat with the two people from the Jiangyuan Tribe who understood the Sifang Tribe's language and gather intelligence.
So after hiding her things, she did not return to the market but ran outside.
Qiao Yu circled the Sifang Tribe a mile outside it, following the frequent footsteps of people. Whether mining salt or copper, the people of the Sifang Tribe frequently traveled back and forth between the mines and the tribe, leaving obvious traces. The path between the copper mine and the tribe was particularly marked by the presence of many ore deposits, making Qiao Yu easily locate these two locations.
The tribe held a market, and the people from the mine also had to go to the market. Perhaps because they didn't want to be discovered by the people from the Jiangyuan tribe, both the copper mine and the salt mine stopped working, and there was no one there. This greatly facilitated Qiao Yu.
These two mines are near the Sifang Tribe, which is a behemoth that the Dragon Tribe cannot afford to offend. Even if Qiao Yu knew the location of these two mines, it is impossible for him to bring people here to mine.
She wanted to find these two places because she wanted to see what the mine was like and what its characteristics were. She also wanted to see if she could use her observations to explore the area near the Dragon Tribe and find a mine there.
After visiting both mines, it was already evening and Qiao Yu returned to the market.
The people of the Sifang Tribe were busy packing up and heading back to their tribes. Qiao Yu was standing among them, about to head to the Jiangyuan Tribe, when he heard the two stall owners who had enjoyed gossiping yesterday say, "Look, Manager Ji Er's slave hasn't been replaced again today."
Qiao Yu turned to look at the place where the slaves were being held and saw several slaves being pushed out and heading this way. Compared to yesterday, there were two fewer people. It seemed that the two young and strong men had been replaced.
She was a little puzzled and asked the gossip vendor in a low voice, "Why was it a man who was swapped out? Shouldn't it be easier to swap out a woman?"
She had a good talent for languages, and after spending the day here yesterday, she had already changed most of her accent. She spoke less and more slowly, so it wasn't hard to tell she wasn't from the Sifang tribe.
The gossip vendor glanced at her, seeing she was a stranger, and wasn't surprised. He didn't know everyone in the tribe. But the questions the man asked were ones he was happy to answer.
He curled his lips and said, "Don't you know? Women are weaker and can't work as well as men. If they are exchanged, they can only give birth to children. But the children born by slaves are also slaves and will be looked down upon. Which man in the tribe wants his child to be ridiculed? It's better to spend more dried meat or money to exchange for a woman from the Jiangyuan tribe than to exchange for a slave to give birth to a child."
He nodded with his chin at the slaves about to approach them. "Look at these slaves. Not to mention their age and gender, it's still unclear whether they can be supported if we take them back. If they can't be supported or can't do the work, wouldn't that be a waste of money?"
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