Chapter 210 Trade complete
When Ren Xiaosu looked at the Wolf King’s strange expression, he said, “If you don’t want the Lord of Wolves of Mount Kun, I still have other things that I can offer you.” He took out a pistol and asked, “Do you want this?”
The Wolf King kept quiet as it reverted back to its calm expression.
Ren Xiaosu put away the gun. A man and a wolf were sitting next to each other on this mountain path with the moonlight shining down upon them. It was an atmosphere that could only be described as exceptionally harmonious.
“Do you want this?” Ren Xiaosu took out a bottle of antibiotics Old Wang gave him before they parted ways. Although he did not fall sick as often now, he could use it to save the students in case they fell ill.
However, the Wolf King still did not respond.
Ren Xiaosu pulled out a dazzling array of items like a hammer, shovel, pot, etc., but the Wolf King still remained unmoved. Ren Xiaosu sighed, “If you are gonna be so picky, I won’t be able to return your favor.”
Wait a minute! He still had one item he didn’t take out. At this moment, Ren Xiaosu brought out a vial of black medicine from his storage space. “Do you want this?”
When Ren Xiaosu said this, he did not hold any high hopes while pulling the stopper off the vial. But when the Wolf King sniffed and caught a whiff of the smell in the air, it suddenly nodded to Ren Xiaosu.
Ren Xiaosu was momentarily taken aback as he did not expect the Wolf King to really understand human language.
He threw the vial over and the Wolf King picked it up with its mouth as it got up. Ren Xiaosu could finally let out a sigh of relief. It looked like they were not going to be lacking any meat from now on. “I never expected that you’d need something like this while in the prime of your life.”
When the Wolf King heard that, it looked a little confused. It didn’t seem like it realized what Ren Xiaosu had just given it. It was just that there was an inexplicably attractive smell emanating from the vial into the air. It was not the smell of the medicine that attracted it, but a smell of mystery that originated from the palace.
Then the man and the wolf parted ways. After a brief exchange, Ren Xiaosu felt that his relationship with the Wolf King had become a little closer. At the very least, they were now trading partners or something like that. As long as they were not enemies, anything was fine.
In the wee hours of the same night, everyone at the outpost was jolted awake by the noisy howling of the wolves. Everyone put on their clothes as they walked out of their houses and looked towards the mountains. They could not tell where the howling was coming from.
Li Qingzheng was wearing a military overcoat and wondered, “What’s the matter with those wolves in the middle of the night? They’ve been howling for over an hour already. Are they out on a hunt?”
Ren Xiaosu felt a little guilty. “They probably are. Who knows?”
“Could they be gathering their allies to attack the outpost?” someone wondered.
“That’s unlikely. They wouldn’t need to gather their allies to attack our outpost. We’ll all be dead if just a few hundred of them came to attack us,” someone said.
“Aren’t we putting ourselves down too much by saying that?” a soldier said.
Ren Xiaosu said in seriousness, “That’s what you call self-awareness....”
However, Ren Xiaosu felt a little guilty because he suspected it might have something to do with the black medicine he had given the Wolf King that caused the wolves to behave so abnormally.
For the next two days, the Wolf King did not send any additional game from their hunts to the outpost. After they cut off the dirtied part of the roasted goat, Li Qingzheng and the others continued eating it with relish. However, Ren Xiaosu did not have any appetite for it anymore.
It was not a matter of whether the meat was dirtied or not, but in Ren Xiaosu’s opinion, that spit represented an insult from the high and mighty family members of the organization.
But of course, it was mainly because he was not hungry.
Li Qingzheng lamented as he sat at the edge of the campfire and looked at what remained of the goat, “I wonder what happened to the wolves. Why aren’t they sending us food anymore?”
“They’re probably exhausted.” Ren Xiaosu sighed. He was thinking about if he should have clearly explained the effects of the medicine to the Wolf King. After all, there was quite a difference between using it externally and internally.
Seeing how the Wolf King did not send them any more game after taking the medicine, could it bear a grudge against him now?
But when Ren Xiaosu was sleeping that night, he suddenly heard something that sounded like goods being unloaded coming from outside the house. When Ren Xiaosu looked out the window, he saw the wolves dumping several goats, boars, pheasants, and whatnot on the ground! It was quite a selection of different wild animals!
Just looking at the quantity, they not only made up for not bringing any game over for the past two days, but they also brought a lot more than that! After the wolves left, everyone at the outpost was in shock. A soldier looked at Li Qingzheng and said, “Are you really the Lord of Wolves?”
Even Li Qingzheng was also shocked at this. “Could I really be the Lord of Wolves of Mount Kun?”
Those who did not know the truth felt a sense of respect for Li Qingzheng. But the students who knew better all looked at Ren Xiaosu with complicated expressions on their faces.
A student asked, “Monitor, how did you manage to do that?”
“The Wolf King probably knows that my master is ill, so it decided to send over more game for his recuperation,” Chen Wudi said with a sigh.
“There’s nothing wrong with my brain,” Ren Xiaosu snapped at him.
He reckoned the Wolf King had sent over all this game mainly because it wanted to thank him. He could have never expected that the Wolf King had an underlying condition.
At this moment, someone said, “How long will it take for us to finish eating all this? Fortunately for us, it’s winter now, so we can store them for a longer time.”
“But we can’t just leave it there like that. Why don’t we make it into cured meat?” Ren Xiaosu sighed and said, “If we make it into cured meat, it wouldn’t even be a problem to keep them until the start of spring.”
The group started busily skinning and cutting up the meat. However, they did not have enough salt to start curing the meat, nor were there any seasonings and spices.
Cured meat was usually made by cutting the meat into strips before rubbing the surface with salt and drying it. There wasn’t a need to worry about wasting salt, since the salt needed by the human body would be present in the cured meat. By eating it, it would be as good as replenishing the body’s salt content.
Ren Xiaosu said, “In another two days, we can trade for some salt and seasonings with the meat we have during the supply run. We won’t be able to finish this much meat anyway.”
“Don’t do that.” Li Qingzheng said softly, “You’ll suffer a huge loss if you barter with those ruffians. We might as well sell them in town. Not only can we buy more salt that way, but we can also earn quite a bit of money. We can then afford to buy more things so that it won’t get too miserable in the mountains during winter.”
Ren Xiaosu looked at Li Qingzheng, who seemed to be very familiar with the private troops’ behavior. He heard Li Qingzheng say, “We’ll sneak back to town in another two days. Don’t you still have some friends in town? We can bring some of the cured meat to them. It can be a little difficult to get by winter without having some meat to eat.”
“Sure.” Ren Xiaosu nodded in response. This would also be his chance to go back to town to visit Yan Liuyuan and the others. If they’d encountered any difficulties, Ren Xiaosu would be able to help them to resolve them as well.
Everyone was working outside in the open ground in front of the outpost. Li Qingzheng weighed the fleshy meat in his hand and said with a sigh, “This feels more blissful than the days I spent in town.”
“Master, what does ‘blissful’ mean?” Chen Wudi asked Ren Xiaosu.
Li Qingzheng was amused. “Wouldn’t having meat to eat already count as blissful?”
Ren Xiaosu gave Li Qingzheng a look and said softly to Chen Wudi, “Everyone’s definition of bliss is different. Are you happy when you’re subduing demons and monsters?”
“Yes, I am!” Chen Wudi said.
“Well then, that’s what bliss means to you.” Ren Xiaosu said.
“I get it!”