The dock was extremely busy, the larger and smaller rafts passed by each other as the people traded, the shouts were all cramped together that they easily disrupted one's mood.
Being unfamiliar with the situation, Bai Yang found himself to be unrightful to speak, so be it the trading or the handing of bandits to the officials, Bai Yang decided to only observe.
No matter where and when, when the one making the decision recklessly commented anything in an unfamiliar situation, it would only result in a negative impact.
Bai Yang also noticed that on this busy dock, there was no sign of larger boats or ships, there were only rafts made of wood or bamboo, and on them were all kinds of goods from the mountains and jungles. As for those people on the rafts, their attire was similar to the villagers back in the village.
This raised another problem, the silver-grey armored villagers were really stood out among these people!
Sigh, this can be quite a hassle, guns are only pointed at the bird that dares to show up first. It is probably wishful thinking that we don't attract attention now, I hope there wouldn't be much problem later…
While thinking of this in his heart, Bai Yang was not really worried, however. When the villagers were all donned in armor, they would be fearless. Even if they were surrounded by men 10 times their number, with the equipment from Bai Yang, the villagers would be able to dive in and out of the enemy ranks freely like fish in the water!
There were already people that noticed them on the land, 10 green-shirted guys waved at them and signaled them to stop over the designated area.
"Zhao Shi, you're in charge now."
Bai Yang gave Zhao Shi a heads up so that he could prevent any unnecessary problems.
"Understood."
Zhao Shi nodded and started organizing the villagers to stop at the pointed area.
As the rafts reached the land, the green-shirted guys came forth, a short and fat middle-aged man approached them and with an interrogating look, he asked Bai Yang and the others, "You are….?"
This was when Bai Yang discovered that there were at least a thousand of these green-shirted people aiding in the traffic control; they were shouting at the others, but they were much more polite when talking to them.
Probably because of the armors and weapons….
Bai Yang nodded silently; the saying of one's appearance could decide a lot of things was shown clearly in this situation.
Zhao Shi got up and said, "We are villagers from Ge Duo Village, we are here to trade our goods, they are there for inspection. We also defeated a batch of bandits on the way, captured some of them so if you could, please help us contact the officials."
Ge Duo Village was the village where Xiao Mao and the others came from, what the meaning of the name was, Bai Yang did not know. But it sounded exactly like that after translating.
The middle-aged man nodded, his chin raised a little after hearing Zhao Shi's explanation and his eyes blinked.
What happened next gave Bai Yang a weird feeling, but he remained silent and carried out his role as an observer.
Under the green-shirted guys' lead, the villagers unloaded the goods at the specific area on the dock, then one of the guys started writing down notes on an object that looked like a ledger.
Hmmm, the ledger looks like its some kind of thinned hide? The pen is a feather pen so why is there no such thing as paper?
Bai Yang thought.
Meanwhile, there were also a few of the green-shirted guys that left the scene and went straight into De Yang Town.
Just when the green-shirted guys were about to finish their job on checking on the goods, from the direction of De Yang Town came a group of men, about 34 of them, each wearing a robe mixed with red and black, and a saber on their waist.
Bai Yang deeply suspected that these guys were the officials, but their uniform was a little dull….
The official guards arrived soon, and the one that looked like the person in charge talked to Zhao Shi for a while, before he waved and men came out from nowhere, push out a dozen of carts, threw the bandits onto them like garbage and threw a huge sack containing something to Zhao Shi and left.
The whole process appeared to be strange and spontaneous, but everyone around him acted like it was nothing out of the ordinary.
There must be something that I don't know.
Unable to figure anything out, Bai Yang continued his observation.
Seeing that the goods were checked, the middle-aged man nodded and asked Zhao Shi again, "Done, 384 various animal's hide, smoke meat of 13400kg, 324 jars of fruit wine, plants and herbs about 450kg, is that correct?"
Zhao Shi nodded, with a slightly unnatural expression.
The middle-aged man then said again, "Good, now that we are clear, what do you guys want in exchange?"
"Half for salt, the other half for blood stopping medicine."
Zhao Shi replied without even thinking.
And with an expression that knew that Zhao Shi would say this, the man nodded, "Ok, a hide for 1kg of salt, 10kg of meat for another 1kg, so altogether it would be 500kg of salt. The fruit wine will be used to exchange for the medicine, a jar for a bottle of medicine, 1kg of herbs for another bottle, that will be 300 bottles. Please check on your side, is this correct?"
Zhao Shi gulped mindlessly but still nodded.
What was going on in Zhao Shi's mind right now was, "I!@#) *UIVGH??"
After that, the middle-aged man nodded and left, while the green-shirted guys brought forth about 40 large sacks and threw them to Zhao Shi. There were also three wooden crates, inside were one after another fist-sized bamboo tube, stuffed with some kind of thing.
Inside the sacks was the so-called salt, and within the bamboo tube was the medicine, Bai Yang continued his observation and played his role as an observer.
At this point, even a blind man could tell that these guys were not something good….
"Now that you have your things already, stop occupying this area, take the jars with you and leave right away, there are people that need to use the area!"
After passing Zhao Shi and the others the thing they requested, the green-shirted guys said impatiently.
Bai Yang was a little dumbfounded, he thought that the piled up empty jars were used for trading, but they were actually given out for free….
The villagers quickly transported about a thousand of the jars onto the rafts, tied them up along with the items they acquired from the trade and left.
And Bai Yang felt like he was about to die….
After leaving for some time, he asked Zhao Shi, "Is this how you've always traded?"
"Yeah, it's always been like that."
Zhao Shi replied as if it was reasonable and justified.
With a sigh, Bai Yang asked again, "Will there be trouble if we kill all the green-shirted guys?"
"Young master, you can't! We won't be able to trade anymore if we even dare to offend them, let alone killing them all! If we kill them, the whole village will be slaughtered, even if we are all equipped with the equipment you brought us!"
Zhao Shi looked horridly at Bai Yang.
Bai Yang nodded and said, "So tell me, how much do you know about these guys?"
Zhao Shi gave this a thought and said, "They are the servants of De Yang Town's Che Family, they represent Che Family to trade with everyone from the Lost Forest."
Bai Yang waited and waited, for further explanation and he asked again after receiving none later, "Is that all?"
"That's all!"
Holy shit, what the hell? This little information is useless!
So he asked again, "Che (What's up with this weird-ass pronunciation?) Family, are they really powerful?"
"Very, they have true martial artists in their family!"
When saying this, the horror in Zhao Shi eye's became obvious.
Oh my god, finally something! But still useless…..
"What are these martial artists?"
"Individuals that are really really really strong!"
After some conversation, Bai Yang looked like he was about to pass away anytime and he looked at Zhao Shi, before turning to the villagers and said, "You are all idiots, do you know that?"
"Eh, what?"
"Nothing, okay, what's next? What are we gonna do now?"
"We are going back, of course, if we don't hurry up, we won't make it back before dark."
This time, it was Xiao Mao that replied his question, as if everything was normal.
Bai Yang, "....."
So we traveled so many hours just to be scammed like fools by these people, and now we are heading back after being in this town for no more than half an hour?
"Wait, no. Are we not going to enter the town?"
Asked a stunned Bai Yang.
"Why go in? We're already done with the trade, besides, we need something. What's that called? Anyway, we need something to get into the town and none of us have it."
Zhao Shi replied, after struggling to come up with an explanation.
What the freak, are you all pigs!!!!!!
Struggling to calm himself down, Bai Yang asked again, "Is this how you all trade all the while? Do you not ask for something else, like money?"
"Yeah, it's always been like this, by the way, young master. What is money?"
FRICK!
Bai Yang had this urge to just kill himself by jumping into the river.
"Forget it, that…. What did the official guards give you just now?" asked Bai Yang with a hopeless face.
"Oh that, that is a bag of salt, it's about 100kg!"
Hu Zi replied heartlessly and carefreely on the side.
Are you seriously telling me that bag of shit is 100kg? I will eat them all if that thing is even 50kg heavy! And what is your brain made of? Pig poop? How can you be so stupid still after being scammed so many times! And you even think that this is reasonable!
"Freak freak freak, no wonder I managed to make money out of you! You are all pigs! No, even pigs are smarter than you jungle dwellers! Whatever, instead of being scammed by others, it would be better that you are scammed by me!"
Bai Yang stood at the front of the raft with his fist clenched….