Yang Bairao had originally intended to burn the village to the ground, but looking at the vast expanse of the prairie, he understood why those bandits had not set fire to the place before leaving.
Once a fire started on this prairie, let alone himself, probably no one would survive.
After working hard all night, he found the deep pits used for raising Steppe Deer quite useful, though the deer themselves were naturally gone.
After dragging the villagers into the deep pits, Yang Bairao initially wanted to leave them be, but looking at the numerous corpses, he gritted his teeth and slowly began to shovel the piles of earth around the pits that hadn't yet been carted away, throwing the dirt into the pit to cover the bodies.
"Hmph, carrying bricks at construction sites, time-traveling to dig dirt—I suppose my lot in life is just hard labor. But you lot have it even harder, suffering such an unprovoked disaster. I hope in your next life you're reborn in my world; carrying a mortgage and a car loan is nothing compared to this. At least life is comfortable there, you won't starve to death, and no one dares openly shake you down for protection money."
Muttering incessantly, Yang Bairao had witnessed this many corpses for the first time in his life—and buried them with his own hands, to boot. That his mind hadn't completely broken was a testament to his strong psychological resilience.
Working until the sun was directly overhead, he threw down his stone knife, collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion, and wanted nothing more than to just lie down and rest.
Yet the current situation did not allow him to linger. He stood up, searched the village for anything useful, and found a grass sack to pack a few books illustrated with pictures.
The pages were very thick and few in number, made of animal hide—completely different from the books Yang Bairao was familiar with.
The illustrations in the books were all pictographs. Although he couldn't parse ancient texts, being well-versed in various paintings, classical Chinese, and traditional characters meant he could still understand some of it.
"Thank goodness our script originated from pictographs; the pictures in this book aren't hard to decipher."
Packing the books into the grass sack and carefully retrieving his power bank to pack alongside them, he followed the riverbank and embarked on the next leg of his journey.
Walking along the river meant no worries about water or food.
Having stayed in Xiang Village for nearly a month, he had long since memorized which wild vegetables were edible.
Though the taste was strange, as long as it filled his stomach and kept him from starving, it would do.
Sometimes, relying on his own wits, he managed to catch wild birds and plunder bird eggs, using this meat to supplement his body's salt intake and prevent any health complications.
After walking and stopping for some ten days, aside from one book that remained uncrackable without a guide, the others were mostly records of various matters.
For example, there were records of edible wild vegetables, non-aggressive beasts, and medicinal herbs.
The records of medicinal herbs were concise and effective: the corresponding herb was drawn next to the human body, with marks made on the corresponding body parts.
If marked on the abdomen, Yang Bairao understood it was for treating stomachaches; if marked on the head, it treated headaches.
The beasts were also analyzed briefly, focusing mainly on memorizing the carnivorous and aggressive predators of the prairie, so that if he ever encountered them, he could give them a wide berth.
After familiarizing himself with the books on herbs and beasts, he used his mobile phone to photograph and catalog them. Lugging such thick books along the road was indeed exhausting, and Yang Bairao planned to burn them whenever he next lit a fire.
As night fell, the air turned slightly chilly. Yang Bairao was terrified that starting a fire might ignite the grassland and accidentally burn himself to death—that would be a dark comedy indeed.
Yet spending the night without a fire made it difficult to ward off the cold. He used his stone knife to clear a patch of grass, tore up the pages from the beast and herb books, and tossed them into the newly ignited fire pit.
"Power banks are truly wonderful; just shorting the wires generates heat and starts a fire."
Munching on a raided bird egg along with some wild vegetables, Yang Bairao swallowed them whole.
Paper after paper was tossed into the fire, the orange flames licking the pages and consuming them rapidly.
Yet as they burned, certain remnants refused to be completely consumed and fell back into the fire.
Finding himself bored, Yang Bairao used a grass stalk to fish out these unburnt remnants. By the firelight, he could see that some twisting lines were drawn upon them.
Figuring he had nothing better to do anyway, he picked up the unburnt fragments, inspected a few pieces, and felt a sudden surge of astonishment.
"These patterns look just like the puzzles my little girl plays with!"
Once this thought took hold in Yang Bairao's mind, he could no longer suppress it. He began throwing paper into the fire sheet by sheet.
As more fragments accumulated, he aligned the drawn lines with the overlapping edges of the remnants. Before long, a complete puzzle presented itself before his eyes.
"Compared to Hanhan's Maneki-neko puzzle, this is mere child's play."
A wave of pride washed over him as he looked at the winding lines within the puzzle.
To Yang Bairao, these lines closely resembled the monsoon zone topographic maps from his middle school geography classes—upon closer inspection, they were practically identical.
After analyzing the flow of the arrows within that monsoon topographic map, Yang Bairao discovered that the wind directions ultimately converged on a single point, forming the eye of a windstorm there.
"This defies geographical principles. What on earth is this?"
Yang Bairao truly couldn't make heads or tails of it. He was ready to throw it away, but before discarding it, he casually snapped a photo with his phone.
Even though he still didn't understand the remaining book, he photographed every page with his phone just in case, then tossed it casually into the fire pit.
Seeing that the burning paper left nothing extra behind, he poked at the fire, ringed the hearth with a circle of dirt, and immediately went to sleep.
When dawn broke, after a quick, casual wash, he continued his exploratory journey.
Proceeding along the river was not entirely aimless. Based on the experience he had gathered in Xiang Village, he knew that settlements were invariably established near water sources and were never too far away.
If he could just find another village and make inquiries there, combining that with the information gathered from Xiang Village, he could gain a general understanding of this East Wasteland Prairie.
After another half-month of walking and stopping—making it about a month in total—he finally spotted traces of human activity along the riverbank.
Over the past half-month, Yang Bairao had muttered and rambled to himself continuously; the sheer loneliness of traveling alone had nearly driven him mad.
Spotting traces from afar, he finally located a village situated about three kilometers from the river. Filled with excitement and agitation, Yang Bairao quickened his pace.
As luck would have it, right at the entrance of this village—also built of thatched huts—that squad of East Wasteland Cavalry riding Flat-beaked Beasts was currently levying grain from the village.
Catching sight of them from a distance, Yang Bairao recalled his encounter at Xiang Village. Then, watching these East Wasteland Cavalrymen—who only collected grain without resorting to violent plundering or intimidation—he suddenly felt the entire troop looked rather refined and pleasant.
"Hurry up and bring out the military grain! We frontline cavalry are fighting tooth and nail against the bandits for your sakes. If the cavalry have no meat to eat, how can we have the strength to protect your vast prairie villages?"
It was the very same squad leader, employing almost the exact same tone—brimming with majesty and shouting commands, yet without aggressively overpowering the locals.
This village was larger than Xiang Village. Looking at the numerous thatched huts and the open spaces between them, the area was crowded with onlookers watching the spectacle. The playing children paid no mind to the cavalry's grain collection, and the cavalry, likewise, paid no attention to the children's frolicking.
Yang Bairao's opinion of the cavalry improved even further!
"Reporting to the commander, the grain collection is too early this year. Might we be granted a few days' grace? Times are pressing, and the village hasn't yet managed to gather the full amount of grain the commander requires."
Standing at the very front, a grey-haired elder bowed slightly, staring at the mud on his knees—he had evidently knelt just moments before, though he had similarly been ordered to stand back up by the commander's reprimand.
"If you don't have it, go borrow it! Tiny Xiang Village, over a thousand miles away, delivered their grain early and even had a surplus. Your village is three times the size of theirs; why can't you scrape it together?"
The commander's voice was resonant and laced with irritation, yet he showed no intention of heavy-handed coercion, nor did he plan to resort to violence or plunder the village. Clearly, the chieftain he frequently mentioned had issued strict directives to them.
"A thousand miles? Have I walked that far? I walk nearly twenty-some kilometers a day; in a month that's well over six hundred kilometers. According to what they say, their 'li' isn't all that different from our units of measurement."
Observing from a distance, Yang Bairao acted merely as a spectator. Doing nothing and saying nothing was the wisest course of action.
"Xiang Village paid in full?"
The elder was somewhat skeptical, but dared not raise objections.
Still keeping his head lowered and his back hunched, he directed the strapping men of the village to haul over three heavy grass sacks and hand them to the cavalrymen nearby.
A cavalryman stepped forward to take them, dumping all three sacks onto the ground. Looking from afar, Yang Bairao saw that they were likewise filled with prepared jerky.
"Only three sacks? Every year you've provided five!"
A cavalryman spoke placidly, showing no intention of taking over the commander's stern reprimand of the villagers.
Yet when that placid voice reached the commander's ears, it only deepened his incomprehension: "Xiang Village delivers three sacks every year, yet this time they sent four portions of military grain. Are you people hiding something?"
The commander's tone, stern and brimming with distrust toward the village, finally snapped his patience. With a wave of his hand, he signaled the cavalrymen behind him to scatter. They vaulted down from their Flat-beaked Beasts and charged into the village, clearly intending to conduct a personal search.
Panic finally gripped the villagers. Children shrieked as they ran toward their elders, who pulled them tightly into their arms. Not a single soul in the village dared to utter a sound.
Witnessing this scene, Yang Bairao thought of Xiang Village, and then of the desperate struggle put up by the people of Xiang Village before their deaths. He felt that if he continued to maintain his indifferent, bystander attitude, this village would likely meet a grim fate right before his eyes.
"To hell with it! I've been stuck here for over two months with no way to contact the modern world, and no clue how to go back anyway. Maybe dying will time-travel me home?"
Yang Bairao, who had been watching from afar, broke into a light jog. Before he even drew close to the cavalry, the guards stationed on either side of the commander barked a warning at the conspicuously slender Yang Bairao: "Who is that puny fellow? Do not attempt to approach! Attacking the cavalry is a crime of varying severity."
The commander had little desire to busy himself with extraneous matters beyond collecting grain, but upon hearing the guards' shouts, he followed their gaze and looked over. A flash of surprise crossed the commander's face, though it vanished as quickly as it came.
"It's him."
The commander was no fool; otherwise, he wouldn't have been trusted to lead a detachment out alone to levy grain.
Catching sight of Yang Bairao from afar, he recalled that peculiar young man from Xiang Village a month ago—the one who stood tall and proud, showing not a shred of fear in the face of their cavalry troop.
Why call him a peculiar youth? Because the young man was handsome and refined, looking at a glance like someone with delicate skin who had rarely known hardship—a stark contrast to the rough appearance of the prairie folk. One glance was all it took to leave a lasting impression.
The youth possessed a bizarre temperament, eyeing people with an unmistakable air of neither servility nor arrogance. Clearly, he was accustomed to interacting with superiors on a daily basis; otherwise, such an innate bearing was something ordinary people simply could not fake.
Yang Bairao had no idea what was going through the commander's head. Had he known, he could only have covered his mouth and snickered—his lack of servility or arrogance was entirely the product of modern education; when on earth had he ever rubbed shoulders with superiors?
Hearing the guards' shouts, Yang Bairao calculated his escape route and kept a safe distance.
"May I ask the General, does this military grain levy carry a stamped voucher or receipt? Must advance grain collections be paid in full?"
Musterring his courage—and fully prepared to turn tail and run the moment the other party charged—he shouted the words out. Because he was standing quite far away, his cryptic, high-flown phrases came out practically at the top of his lungs.
"Audacious!"