Shao Xuan was studying hard in the house.
He recorded the language used by the slave masters, which he had learned during this time. Every time he understood something of his own, he would also write them down.
Tuo and Lei were also forced to learn the language by Shao Xuan. Even if they couldn’t fully learn the language, it would be better if they could understand it to an extent so that they don’t get fooled by the slaves and slave masters. In the territory of slave masters, learning more of this language would help a lot.
As the saying goes, more preparation may quicken the speed in doing work. They now had enough food. Not eager to do other things, they planned to understand this basic thing first.
When Su Gu came, Lei and Tuo were tired from studying the complicated words and they were glad that they could finally take a break.
Shao Xuan glanced at Su Gu who had rushed in. He stopped writing in the hide papers, which were filled with words, and rolled them up.
“What’s the matter?” asked Shao Xuan.
Su Gu, who had rushed into the house, strode towards Shao Xuan. He tapped the table with his palm and said, “I wanna ask you…”
Bang!
The mud table, which was not so st.u.r.dy, collapsed as it could not even withstand the power of a palm tap.
Seeing that the three people were staring at him, Su Gu waved his hand and said, “I’ll ask someone to build another table for you later!”
Without a place to sit, Su Gu just stood there.
“I have something to ask you.” Su Gu looked at Shao Xuan, “Are you the Shaman?”
*The Shaman?* Lei and Tuo were somewhat confused. *Why did Su Gu think Shao Xuan was “the Shaman”? Besides, the Shaman would not come to such a place.*
“No,” said Shao Xuan.
“But in the morning you said…” Su Gu’s expression changed and he stopped himself. *The matters happening in the palace should not be told to others*. However, thinking of the miraculous correlation between Shao Xuan’s words and the things that happened, Su Gu took a deep breath, calmed himself down. Staring straight into Shao Xuan’s eyes, with a low voice he asked, “You knew what was about to happen here, before itself?”
“We’ve come here for the first time. We know nothing about the things that are happening here,” said Shao Xuan.
Su Gu kept silent for a while and didn’t focus on this question anymore. Whether Shao Xuan knew about the a.s.sa.s.sination plans long ago or had the ability to predict, Su Gu really wanted to form an alliance with the Flaming Horn tribe at the moment. Moreover, he pretty much had no other choices.
“Did you think more about forming an alliance with me?” asked Su Gu.
“We can form an alliance with you. But before that, I want to know what benefits we can gain from being your ally.” said Shao Xuan.
Su Gu stood upright. As a slave master, he would be able to provide many things.
“I can order the slaves to build a bigger house for you, give you a pa.s.s token, and provide you with food and water.” said Su Gu.
Shao Xuan nodded. These were necessary for them but not what he wanted the most. “I want to know something about the other slave masters.”
Su Gu frowned and said, “I can tell you all the information I know, but you must come up with something worthy in return as an equivalent exchange.”
“Of course.”
“So, does this mean we have a deal?”
“Yes, I hope we can cooperate amicably.”
There was no formal, mutually signed contract. In a cooperation between the slave masters and the tribes, under normal circ.u.mstances, there would be no fixed contracts – unless there were some important matters involved. If both parties were quite familiar with each other, they would make another plan to make the cooperation official.
Succeeding in forming an alliance with the tribe, Su Gu’s mood was getting better. Remembering Shao Xuan’s reminder in the morning, after leaving the tribal area, Su Gu ordered the palace slaves to send some stones, that are used for building houses, to Shao Xuan. These stones were all transported from the rocky region of the desert while being guarded by specialized slaves. Since Shao Xuan and the other two couldn’t go to this rocky region at will, Su Gu’s facilitation of these resources had helped them a lot. They only needed to wait for the stones to be transported to their house.
Shao Xuan had noticed an open s.p.a.ce in the tribal area and knew that no other tribe would build houses there. Then he began building the residence together with Tuo and Lei. The slaves sent by Su Gu also helped.
Two days later, another big house in the tribal area was built, which was not in any way smaller than the ones built by the other tribes. The only difference was that there were dozens of people living in each emba.s.sy residence of the other tribes, but only three people were living in the “emba.s.sy residence” of the Flaming Horn tribe.
In order to show his sincerity, Su Gu had specially carved out a wooden board from a Sunset Tree and hung it on the door of the “emba.s.sy” of Flaming Horn tribe. He also wrote some words with golden paint, but it was put aside by Shao Xuan.
Shao Xuan polished a board by himself and hung it on the door, on this board the words “The Flaming Horn tribe” in tribal writing and the totem of the Flaming Horn tribe were engraved.
The words written by Su Gu on the wooden board were in the common text used by the slave masters. Two boards engraved in two different languages were hung in the doorway. The board carved out by Shao Xuan was at the main entrance, and Su Gu’s board was next to it.
“Now this looks like a proper emba.s.sy!” said Shao Xuan, looking at the newly built house.
In the perspective of Shao Xuan, this building was neither gorgeous nor prominent, but it served its purpose. If more people of the Flaming Horn tribe came there in the future, they could expand it after their group became stronger. Now, it was enough to have a house similar to that of those other tribes.
The three people had been living in a ruined mud hut – but now that they had built a new emba.s.sy, each person had a large room of himself, and the camel was tied in the backyard. Shao Xuan also specially built a shed for it.
Others in the tribal area knew that the drastic changes in the living conditions of Flaming Horn tribe was because the Flaming Horn tribe had formed an alliance with the third young master of the Fallen Leaves City. *What were they thinking? Why choose the third young master? Even if they had chosen the two royal sisters, it would have been much better. The third young master didn’t even own a slave.*
He She also couldn’t figure out their behavior. *I specifically told that guy, if he wanted to form an alliance with a slave master, then it’d be better to choose either of the other two young masters instead of the third young master. Why didn’t he listen to my suggestion? What a pity! This promising young man who came here for the first time turned out to be impulsive and short-sighted.*
Regardless of what other people thought, Shao Xuan and the other two were quite satisfied with their alliance with the third young master.
On the second day after the house was built, Su Gu came to look for Shao Xuan again.
This time, the two met in the chamber of Shao Xuan. Lei and Tuo were not there and Su Gu did not bring Wu Shi either.
“Here you go, the token you were looking for….” Su Gu handed the token to Shao Xuan.
Shao Xuan took the token which was carved out from the Sunset Tree’s wood. On one side of the token, the words “the Flaming Horn tribe” was written in the language of the slave masters and on the other side was the sign of Fallen Leaves City.
Putting away the token, Shao Xuan looked at Su Gu, who appeared to be struggling to voice the real reason for his appearance – he seemed to be having a silent tug of war between hesitation and having the urge to blurt out.
“What’s the matter?” asked Shao Xuan.
Su Gu scratched his head irritably. In addition to helping Shao Xuan get a pa.s.s token, in the past few days, Su Gu also asked someone about the Shamans of the tribes. The more he thought about it, the more confused he became.
After a while, Su Gu once again asked, “Aren’t you a Shaman?”
“No. If you study or gather information about the tribes, you would know that the Shamans of the tribes usually wouldn’t leave their respective tribes,” said Shao Xuan.
“Are you the heir to the Shaman?” asked Su Gu, thinking of the other possibility.
“No,” replied Shao Xuan.
“Then how did you predict the ‘water’ thing?” asked Su Gu.
“The person who can predict doesn’t necessarily have to be the Shaman.”
Hearing these words, feeling disheartened, Su Gu sat on the stone bench depressedly.
Thinking for a while, Shao Xuan asked, “Is there no Shaman in the city?”
“Many cities don’t have a Shaman,” said Su Gu, “As far as I know, there are no more than three cities which have their own Shamans while there are, in total, more than twenty cities in the desert!”
For the slave masters, the Shaman was not necessary. A city only needed an owner.
“The power of tribesmen comes from the inner flame, while our strength exists in our blood.” said Su Gu, stretching out his hand.
Shao Xuan saw a blue flame appear on Su Gu’s hand.
What surprised Shao Xuan was that when Su Gu triggered these blue flames, a flame suddenly appeared in his mind at the edge of the “egg sh.e.l.l”. This flame was not big but it was very obvious.
Upon seeing this flame, at first sight, two words popped up in Shao Xuan’s head – *Inner Flame!*
However, this was somewhat different from the inner flame of the tribes.
Shao Xuan suddenly had a hunch that, the reason why the slave masters did not need inner flame (similar to that of the tribes) was because the power of their inner flame existed in their own bodies instead of being in the outside world?
In the “egg sh.e.l.l” within Shao Xuan’s mind, the flame suddenly appeared. The red flame and the blue flame mixed together, which looked a bit confusing.
Su Gu looked at the blue light that came out of his hand and said, “A successful slave master must have the ability to enslave people. This kind of ability does not mean to control slaves, but to form a bond (of enslavement) with people whom the slave master has had no relationship so far. The stronger the ability, the more slaves the slave master could own.”
As the Lord of a city, the Great Slave Master had the highest enslavement ability and thus owned the highest number of slaves. As a rule, even if other slave masters could enslave many people, this number should not exceed the number of slaves owned by the Lord of their city, otherwise they would be regarded as traitors. With such a rule, in Fallen Leaves City, all Slave Masters owned a fair number of slaves except Su Gu. Su Gu was the only slave master who hadn’t even enslaved a single person – so, in the eyes of other slave masters, he was a loser.
Su Gu didn’t tell Shao Xuan how they enslaved people. However, based on what Su Gu had said so far, Shao Xuan speculated that the slave masters’ enslaving ability was similar to that of the Flaming Horn tribe’s ability of engraving beasts – but the enslaving ability was a lot more overbearing.
The blue flame on Su Gu’s hand also reminded Shao Xuan of the situation where they used the secret engraving technique to engrave on Caesar.
Su Gu was staring at the blue flame on his hand, wondering about something, while Shao Xuan was studying the flame that appeared in the “egg sh.e.l.l”, which existed in his mind.
The red and blue flames were more ordered than before, and the scattered blue flame was gradually gathering.
“Forget it, you won’t understand it. You tribesmen don’t have to worry about it.”
Su Gu extinguished the flame on his hand, and the strange flame within Shao Xuan’s mind also gradually disappeared.
Leaving the tribal area with regret, Su Gu returned to the palace. After having a meal, he stayed alone in his room and began his daily practice of enslaving.
Maybe it was an illusion, but, Su Gu felt that his power to enslave felt more natural and stronger that day. Although he still could not enslave people, compared to the day before, his ability had indeed improved a lot.