"You two wanna play a new game?" Jack asked in an excited voice.
Shen Xianshu and Song Farong exchanged a doubtful look and Shen Xianshu asked in a half-interested and half-dreading tone "What kind of game?"
Jack gave them a friendly smile "One where we compete on who can throw a rock the farthest and most accurate."
The two boys relaxed visibly. To them every time Song Tanda suggested playing a new game usually meant getting hurt, getting cut and bruised happened more often than not.
Shen Xianshu picked up a few stones from the ground and asked "What are we aiming for? How do you win?" while looking around for a decent target.
Song Farong complained in his nasal voice "I don't like this game. You guys always play something that I can't win in."
Jack gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder "Don't worry, Farong. This time you might just win." He looked to Shen Xianshu and told him "We can't start the game yet. First, we need the correct too… the correct toys." he corrected his slip of the tongue quickly and looked expectantly at his little friends.
Both of the boys immediately looked a lot more cautious. Things always got a lot more complicated when Tanda said he needed something extra.
It didn't take long for curiosity to win over trepidation and for Shen Xianshu to ask "What kind of toys do we need?"
Jack laughed as he said "I thought you'd never ask. We don't need much. All of us have some Xiezhi goat wool lying around the house. Just grab as much as you can without getting noticed and bring it back here tomorrow. I'll take care of the rest."
Xiezhi were short goats with long black wool that dragged on the ground if people didn't sheer it frequently. Most of the villagers wore clothes made from it. When he was younger Jack managed to spy on his mother when she taught his fourth sister, Yuening, how to make string and rope from it. After a few secret trials, he had confidence that he could make rope out of it.
The boys paled and Song Farong squeaked "I can't do that! My mom will kill me. She needs that wool to make clothes."
"Relax, you don't have to rob your homes, just take as much as you can without making your parents suspicious." Jack said in a calming voice. After a few more similar exchanges where he had to soothe their worries, he finally managed to persuade them.
They played around a bit more until the time came for Jack to bring the Kui back home. The two boys went to their homes as Jack herded the cattle into their pen. He sent them off with a reminder of their duty and laughed at how they looked like they were about to go and fight the last battle of their lives.
When he finished taking care of the animals he went back to the family home and was surprised to find his whole family gathered in the kitchen, along with the Village Chief and an unfamiliar handsome young man.
"Ah Tanda, come here." Su Meimu beckoned at Jack when she saw him.
Jack acted a bit suspicious of the young man as he went to his mother and stood slightly behind her.
"Don't be scared." Su Meimu laughed and gestured towards the young man "This is mister Hao Tiankai from Green Wood village; he came to ask for your second sister's hand. Go ahead and greet him properly."
Su Meimu nudged Jack forward and he politely bowed with cupped hands while he looked at his second sister Song Fenlan from the corner of his eye. From the look of her, she wasn't displeased with the situation as she couldn't stop blushing and glancing at Hao Tiankai.
'Good for her.' Jack thought with a small smile tugging at a corner of his lips.
"Yuening, take Tanda outside and let the grownups talk." said Song Fengtian as he looked at Jack's fourth sister. She nodded silently, took Jack's hand in hers, and led him into the yard outside.
Jack looked at this serious sister of his and said "I can't believe that Fenlan's getting married. That just leaves the three of us in the house. At least you'll have more room to yourself now."
Song Yuening stood with her back towards Jack for a while before she spoke "I'm never getting married, I'd rather die… And grandma snores so it won't be that much of a change."
Jack stared at her silhouette for a while, shook his head a little, and thought 'Me too kid, me too.'
After almost an hour of loitering in the yard, Su Meimu called Jack and his sister back inside the house.
When they came in she said in an excited voice "Come you two, greet your new brother-in-law." as she gestured towards Hao Tiankai.
Jack looked at the handsome man, bowed once more and said "Brother-in-law."
Song Yuening took a few seconds extra, but under her mother's glare, she did the greeting, albeit begrudgingly.
Due to the celebratory mood the house was in that day, Jack managed to stash away a large amount of Xiezhi wool in the Kui pen, he also packed a few pieces of tanned Kui leather.
Jack's parents arranged for the wedding to take place in a couple of weeks in their village, due to the Green Wood village being too far away for the whole family to leave the animals on their own. After the ceremony in Raging Ox village ended, another would be held in the Green Wood village for Hao Tiankai's family and friends to enjoy where they would build the married couple a house of their own.
From the whole ordeal, the only thing that concerned Jack was that half of his Kui herd would go with Hao Tiankai to Green Wood village as dowry for Song Fenlan.
The next morning Jack did his chores as usual. When he took the Kui cattle out for grazing he secretly carried a bulging pouch under his shirt.
When he got to the pasture he proceeded to start making thin strands of rope from the Xiezhi wool. By the time he was almost done with his batch, his two friends showed up with their own little pouches.
Song Farong gave him a wide smile "I managed to grab a bunch, mom and dad weren't home for most of the day." he said as he offered his bulging pouch to Jack.
Shen Xianshu gave a jealous look at Song Farong's pouch as he handed over his visibly smaller haul "I couldn't manage to grab much. My mom guards that stuff like a Red-Tailed Hawk."
Jack gave them both a reassuring smile and said "Great job guys. We have more than enough now. Give me some time to get this ready and we'll start playing with the new toys tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" they both yelped at the same time. "I thought we'd be done today. What if mom figures out what I did?" whined Song Farong.
Jack furrowed his brows a little in displeasure "Don't worry, just act like nothing's out of the ordinary and she won't figure it out. It's not like you haven't done something like this before." He lowered his gaze back to the wool and continued his rope making.
The two boys knew that when Tanda decided on something they couldn't change his mind so they sighed, shrugged at one another, and went off to play somewhere else.
On the next day, Jack finished off the last of the Xiezhi wool ropes. He made each rope length out of a number of thinner rope strands. Jack didn't have a measuring tool so he had to eye the length of the ropes, but generally, they looked about even so he shifted his focus on to the leather.
He used a sharp rock to cut the leather into vaguely rectangular shapes and drilled a hole on two parallel sides of the rectangle. He tied a length of rope to each side of the leather rectangle. On one end he made a small loop that could fit over a finger, on another he made a couple of knots that a person could hold onto.
Jack slid the loop end over his middle finger and grabbed the knotted end with his thumb and forefinger. He bent down and dug out a decent sized stone from the earth and placed it in the pouch in the middle of the two ropes.
'Now to go and find myself a Goliath.' Jack thought to himself and laughed out loud.
He had made an ancient weapon used by generations of sheepherders all across the Earth, the sling. It was light, portable, and anyone could learn to use it with a bit of practice. He only needed to bend down and pick up a rock to turn it into a dangerous weapon.
With his heart beating faster he spun the sling a few times and released the knotted end. The rock flew high into the air, and about ten meters to the left of where he wanted it to go.
'Well, a bit more than a bit practice, I guess.' Jack thought with chagrin as he bent down to search for a new rock.