Chapter 22

Lu Yu turned his head and looked at Tai Lie, who had walked to his side at some point, and asked in confusion, “What… enough…”

Tai Lie pursed his thin lips tightly and did not answer.

Cha Zhe withdrew his close-up face, sat up straight, and the sunshine smile on his face seemed a bit stiff.

He gave a fierce glance at the slender and white wrist that was caught, revealing his white teeth, “Why did the Chief come over? The witch was just feeding me…”

Tai Lie glanced at him indifferently.

Cha Zhe’s pupils contracted, and he suddenly couldn’t say the rest of his words.

This man’s aura was too terrifying. Just now, that glance was like a sleeping lion suddenly discovering someone intruding into its territory. However, because he didn’t think much of the opponent’s strength, he only showed a bit of momentum to suppress them.

Cha Zhe knew that in any aspect, he still couldn’t compete with Tai Lie now, so he could only silently bite back all the words.

The secretly observing Matais: The Chief is really amazing!

Lu Yu felt that the atmosphere was a bit strange, so he chuckled awkwardly and pulled his wrist, “Tai Lie, let go of me first.”

This man’s grip was too strong, and it hurt.

Tai Lie glanced at the leaf in his hand and slowly released it.

Lu Yu rubbed his wrist and asked puzzledly, “What’s wrong, exactly?”

“You’re the witch, you don’t need to do these things,” Tai Lie said expressionlessly, “Shan Pu.”

Shan Pu, who was hiding among the onlookers, heard the call and reacted quickly, jumping up and loudly saying, “Here!”

Tai Lie took the soft leaf from Lu Yu’s hand and threw it to Shan Pu, “You wipe, you feed.”

“Huh?” Shan Pu was stunned for a moment, then quickly reacted and happily responded, “Yes!”

The Chief is really smart!

“Eh?!” Lu Yu reached out to the leaf that was taken away from him, but saw Shan Pu hugging it to his chest like a treasure. He turned his head to look at Tai Lie and said dryly, “Isn’t this inappropriate…”

Tai Lie’s voice was slightly cold, “Why?”

Because I’m doing a favorability task, why do you think I’m willing to feed this brat! And you, aren’t you too biased? When you let me feed you, why you didn’t say that I’m a delicate witch? And if it weren’t for you changing your mood all the time, would I need to go to Cha Zhe for favorability?

Thinking of favorability, Lu Yu opened the game panel with a snort, and saw that the progress bar was already complete. He was overjoyed. Just now, he fed for half a day, and the harvest was not bad. Indeed, the first upgrade is relatively simple.

Lu Yu stood up, patted the dust off his butt, and said, “That’s enough feeding.”

Lu Yu walked to a place with few people and opened the game panel.

[Guidance system upgraded]

Lu Yu studied it. After the system upgrade, the classification of weapons became single-handed and double-handed, and the classification of armor became handheld and worn, with no other changes.

Not only that, but the interval has also been shortened to once every three days, and it can also accurately search for weapons and armor of grade E and below.

After considering for a while, Lu Yu chose to precisely search for wearable armor.

—

By following the guidance function, they found a group of black and white leopards. Lu Yu used the game panel to check and found that the armor dropped by these leopards was [F-grade ironwood breastplate].

There weren’t many of these leopards, probably only about forty.

Lu Yu was somewhat disappointed. According to the touching drop rate of the game panel, getting three or four pieces would be considered lucky.

However, perhaps it was the luck he had accumulated from not getting drops for a long time before. These leopards actually dropped a total of six breastplates for them.

These six breastplates were allocated to the larger and less agile Matai mens.

Lu Yu stored the leopard corpses in his ring. When he looked up, he saw Tai Lie distributing all the breastplates to others without leaving any for himself.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, he didn’t.

Although Tai Lie always treated him with a poker face, Tai Lie’s character was impeccable. Unlike other leaders who stayed in the safest place during battles, he always rushed to the forefront except for that time when he protected him and the little Matais in the cave.

When it came to distributing food, he never favored anyone just because he were the Chief. And now with weapons and armor, he always considered who was most suitable for it.

Sigh… So why did Tai Lie treat him like that?

With their armor ready, the Matai man who were scouting also saw someone from the Blackwater Tribe going out to hunt. Lu Yu and Tai Lie hurried towards the Blackwater Tribe together.

Shan Pu looked at Lu Yu anxiously and said, “Witch, you shouldn’t go. What if we can’t protect you…”

Lu Yu smiled, “I already discussed it with the Chief last night.”

After dinner yesterday, he took the opportunity to talk to Tai Lie about his thoughts. Although Tai Lie’s attitude remained the same, they could still communicate properly when it came to important matters.

“Eh?” Shan Pu turned his head and looked at Tai Lie.

Tai Lie nodded slightly.

Shan Pu was puzzled. Why did the Chief let the witch go to the battlefield, and what could the witch do when he went…

Lu Yu patted his shoulder, “It’s okay. When you guys are fighting, I’ll just find a place to hide. As for why I have to go, you’ll know when the time comes.”

“Alright, let’s not talk anymore. Let’s set off!”

—

Blackwater Tribe.

Jiao Feng asked his confidant with a serious face, “How is it?”

The confidant frowned, “I went to several tribes stationed in the Beast Plain, but only one said they could provide manpower, but their reward demands are very high…”

“How high?”

The confidant hesitated for a moment and replied, “They want ten wild boars, thirty baskets of wild fruits, thirty pieces of wood, and besides that, they also want ten women…”

Jiao Feng threw the animal bones he was playing with to the ground angrily, “They want so much, aren’t they afraid of starving us to death!”

The confidant dared not speak.

Jiao Feng paced back and forth in place, stopped, gritted his teeth, and said, “Give it to them.”

“But, we don’t have so much food reserves at all, and there isn’t much wood…”

Jiao Feng waved his hand indifferently, “Then let those slaves eat less and work more!” He added gloomily, “Whoever slacks off, I’ll deal with them severely.”

“Yes!”

After receiving the order, the confidant turned and gave instructions.

“Today, those responsible for gathering must hand in ten wild fruits, and those responsible for chopping wood must each hand in a piece of wood.”

Hearing this command, the slaves wearing tattered beast skin skirts couldn’t help but speak up, begging, “This is impossible. We can only find up to five wild fruits a day at most. Where can we find so many? Please reduce it a bit.”

“Yeah, yeah, we chop trees from morning till night, and it takes us three days to chop down one tree. How can we give you…”

“Please, give us a little more time…”

With his hands behind his back, ignoring these humble pleas, the confidant sneered, “How to complete it is your business. If you can’t hand it in, just wait to be whipped!”

Thinking of the whip made of salt-water-soaked flexible willow branches, everyone shuddered and dared not say more, only burying their heads to work.

But suddenly doubling the tasks, how could it be easily accomplished?

As the sun was setting, nearing the time to hand in the items, a thin and weak boy held four fruits and said fearfully to the old man in front of him, “Grandpa, I only found four…”

The old man touched the boy’s head, “Don’t be afraid, grandpa has a way.” The old man avoided others and quietly walked to a large tree, dug through the piled leaves underneath, and took out three hidden fruits. Then, he gave the boy three fruits he had found today, “Look, this should be enough.”

The boy exclaimed anxiously, “But grandpa, what about you? This won’t do, this won’t do.” As he spoke, he tried to return the wild fruits in his arms to the old man.

The old man blocked his hand and smiled, “Grandpa is still healthy, a few lashes won’t hurt.”

The boy saw the kind smile on the old man’s face, his eyes brimming with tears.

The boy’s real name was Shu Tai, and he was only twelve years old today. A year ago, the small tribe where he lived was attacked by wild beasts. His parents died, and only he and his grandfather escaped because they were washing fur by the river. Afterwards, they were captured by people from the Blackwater Tribe who were tracking the wild beasts.

Since then, they became slaves of the Blackwater Tribe, not only doing heavy work but also having to hand over the food they found. If they worked slowly or didn’t provide enough food, they would be whipped.

Shu Tai grabbed his grandfather’s hand, which still bore the whip marks from before, and choked, “Grandpa, let’s run away.”

“Don’t talk!” The old man covered his mouth with his hand, looked around to make sure no one was nearby, and then relaxed, “Xiao Tai, do you remember what happened to the last person who wanted to run away?”

The old man sighed, “Besides, where could we run to? If we encounter wild beasts, it’s death. Here, at least we have a relatively safe place to sleep at night.”

Shu Tai took off the old man’s hand covering his mouth, feeling angry, “But last time when the wild beasts attacked, the ones who died the most were us laborers. How can we sleep peacefully here?” Those people didn’t care about their lives at all.

“Grandpa, if we stay here, even if we’re not eaten by wild beasts, we’ll eventually be beaten to death by them.” Shu Tai’s eyes were filled with hope, “Why don’t we go find a better tribe…”

“Where are there any good tribes?” The old man said helplessly, “They’re all the same. Small tribes can’t resist wild beasts, and big tribes won’t treat us as human beings…”

Hearing his grandfather’s words, Shu Tai’s eyes gradually dimmed.

Are there really no good tribes?

When it was time to hand in the supplies, Shu Tai wanted to secretly place the fruits in front of his grandfather, but before he could do so, several inspectors walked over with whips. One of them said viciously, “Are these wild fruits you collected?”

Before Shu Tai could react, the old man spoke first, “These are all collected by this child.”

The man showed a sinister smile, “So you mean, you didn’t collect any?”

The old man clenched his teeth, trembling slightly, “N-No.”

Upon hearing this, the man raised the whip without hesitation.

Shu Tai shouted in horror, “Grandpa!”

Just as the whip was about to fall on the old man’s back, a muscular young man suddenly emerged from the woods behind them. He moved so fast that people couldn’t see him clearly, and in a flash, he reached out and grabbed the whip.

Afterwards, he even said with envy, “Wow, this deer skin glove from Chief is quite useful.”

His manner was relaxed, completely ignoring the Blackwater Tribe warriors holding the whips.

Shu Tai was dumbfounded.