Chapter 32 - The Cold Stream Valley
“What do you mean “don’t talk to me like that”? Look what you’ve done!”
“It has been nearly two months since you’ve been given this job! The Mountain of Springs, where you and these slaves have come from, is only hundreds of miles away from here. And these slaves haven’t even built their own shelters as of yet!”
“You had plenty of time and all these people! But you didn’t even start to build a mineshaft! What have you been doing all these days?”
“I’m not finished yet. Could you please tell me where the food for these slaves is? Where is the meat for our companion beasts and beasts that were carrying our stuff? Where are all the equipment we are going to need for exploration and mining work? You just wasted a whole two months here!”
Under the starlight, Ji Xia was waving his arms and yelling at two men, who seemed lazy and haughty.
The two men were wearing metal armours, which were very rare in the Southern Wasteland. After Ji Hao heard Ji Xia’s voice, he stopped walking, and watched quietly from the shade of the cave. He could sense strong powers coming from the heavy swords that they had worn around their waists. Faced with Ji Xia’s complaints, the two men showed arrogant faces, and didn’t seem to take Ji Xia’s words seriously at all.
“Ji Xia, you can say whatever you want. We have sent the five thousand slaves to you as we’ve been told. From now on, you’re responsible for the mining work in the Cold Stream Valley, as well as all other affairs around here, which have nothing to do with us.”
The two men laughed out loud and whistled sharply. Two Iron Clawed Bald Eagles with wingspans of tens of feet, landed not long after in front of them. The two man hopped on the backs of the eagles; the eagles then rapidly rose high into the air, hovered around, and flew towards the Gold Black Mountain.
Ji Xia raised his right arm angrily, but then stopped; his arm froze in the air.
If it had been as before, any man that Ji Xia discovered to be muddling through their work, would be slapped hard in the face by Ji Xia, without hesitation. However, precisely as those two men had said, he was no longer the leader of the Holy Land’s warriors, which meant he had no right to do so anymore.
Mr Crow abruptly landed on Ji Hao’s shoulder.
Ji Hao then walked up to Ji Xia, looked at the two eagles which were gradually becoming smaller and smaller in the sky, and said: “Abba, are they Ji Shu’s people? Do you want me to shoot them down?”
Mr Crow cawed aloud, spurted wisps of fire from its beak.
Qing Ying quietly showed up beside Ji Hao. He pulled out an arrow and started yelling excitedly while he was waving that arrow.
“Yes! Hao’s right! Let’s shoot those bastards down! I only need a single shot for them from this distance!”
Ji Xia put his arm down, tapped Ji Hao’s head, and said smilingly: “Don’t. It was their fault for not doing their job well. But, we can never violate the rule of our clan. We can never take the initiative to hurt our own people.”
Ji Hao gazed at Ji Xia’s pallid face. His mind flashed back to what he had seen during his time in coma. He clearly remembered that Ji Xia had blocked that attack with his own chest; the boiling hot blood of Ji Xia had splashed on his body and face. Ji Hao would never forget that.
“Sure, I won’t do anything to them. Unless they do something to me first.” Ji Hao smiled to Ji Xia then turned around and started to observe this valley carefully.
The starlight was bright and clear. Where Ji Hao was standing at, was the center of the valley. This valley was tens of miles long and miles wide; a stream with a width of thousand feet was flowing rapidly through the middle of the valley. At the sides of the stream there were piles of gold and jade pieces.
The water of the stream was ice cold. Though Ji Hao was a mile away from the stream, he could still sense the chill coming from it. Ji Hao could hear the swishing and gargling sound of the water washing out those gold and jade pieces at the sides of the stream; those gold and jade pieces were shining alluringly.
“Such an amazing lode!” Said Ji Hao.
“Indeed, it’s a surprisingly large and rich lode. After we got here, your Amma did some exploration; she discovered that the mineral resources here are buried relatively less deep, which will be easy to dig. We can easily get a hundred thousand pieces of gold and tens of thousand pieces of jade from this valley.” Ji Xia then frowned and continued: “But those bastards from the Mountain of Springs only sent us five thousands of slaves with nothing else.”
All kinds of knocking noises were resounding through the valley. Thousands of slaves were singing their working songs, while being busy with building their shelters. On the other side of the valley, tens of cabins on stilts had already been built.
On the cliff, tens of Fire Crow Clan warriors were working hard on building the watch post. A few long vines were dropped down from the cliff, and were used to pull thick logs up the cliff from time to time.
Near the entrances, on both sides of the valley, a group of warriors were supervising hundreds of slaves building the fence wall. The slaves laid the foundation of the fence wall with thick logs; then filled two lines of logs with rocks and clay. This kind of fence wall would be firm enough to block the attacks from beasts.
The Cold Stream Valley was in the extreme North of the Fire Crow Clan’s territory. The valley was surrounded by primitive jungle. A lot of dire beasts were living in the surrounding jungle of the Cold Stream Valley. That added with other unpredictable dangers, if this fence was not build as quickly as possible, the lives of all these slaves would be in constant peril.
Qing Fu came with a few warriors.
She smiled when she saw Ji Hao and intimately rubbed his head. Qing Fu then handed a fist-sized piece of red jade to Ji Xia and said: “Xia, this lode not only produces gold and jade. I asked these warriors to dug dirty-feet deep and we found this.”
Ji Hao looked at that piece of red jade curiously. That red jade was translucent and possessed great heat; there seemed to be some kind of liquid flowing inside it. Under the starlight, this red jade piece was shining with a bright fiery light.
“Hmm? Fire Jade Pith? This is a treasure that can largely and rapidly improve the power of a Senior Magus with the natural abilities of controlling fire, and is also a kind of excellent material for making magus tools.” Ji Xia popped up his eyes and said delightfully. “If this is send to the clan as tribute, one piece of Fire Jade Pith can be worth more than thousands of gold and jade pieces of gold!”
“We have to let those elder Maguspriests know that we have found the Fire Jade Pith here, as quickly as possible. Tell them that they should send more warriors to guard this valley. And, Xia, you need to start hunting with Ying after the sun has risen. Those people of the mountain of Springs didn’t bring any food for these slaves,” said Ji Fu in a low voice.
Ji Hao took the Fire Jade Pith from Ji Xia’s hand, after which he sent his spiritual power into it. He suddenly sensed a great power gushing into his body from his palms. He felt as if he had been drawn into a lake of lava, and almost screamed out.
Ji Hao was half shocked and half surprised. This piece of red jade was not a Fire Jade Pith, but a piece of Fire Essence Crystal. In Ji Hao’s previous life he had seen hundreds of powerful warriors fighting for a small piece of Fire Essence Crystal that had been less than one percent in size compared to the one he was holding right now.
This was truly precious. The Cold Stream Valley was a great treasure trove indeed.
No matter who it was that guarded this valley and was sending the gold and jade pieces, as required from him, he would be rewarded and earn credit from the clan. Would Ji Shu be kind enough to let Ji Xia earn such credit?