Ancient Ruffians

Wu Dongfang sat at the edge of the forest by the river, able to do nothing but sit quietly. Any movement could cause his broken bones to misalign again.

Around nine in the morning, the woman who fished in the river came ashore and left. Today, she didn't catch any fish but took away several frogs instead.

Wu Dongfang had been by the river for three days, or more accurately, he had been waiting for three days. From the first day, he knew that the people he was waiting for would not appear. He wasn't waiting for a result but was gradually accepting the cruel reality: he was completely disconnected from his previous world and was now in another world, a world completely unfamiliar to him. If he wanted to survive here, he had to become familiar with and adapt to this place.

To survive, he needed to eat. Three days without food had left Wu Dongfang hungry. With his extensive wilderness survival experience, hunting with a limp wasn't difficult. If he couldn't catch fast prey, he could catch slower ones. There were snakes here, venomous ones, but with their heads and tails removed, and their blood washed away, they were edible.

He didn't make a fire; he ate them raw. He wasn't familiar with the surroundings, and making a fire would produce smoke, which would expose him. He couldn't be sure what the consequences would be if his location was exposed.

The woman came to fish every day, but her fishing skills were nothing to praise. Coupled with her rudimentary tools, her so-called fishing mostly resulted in catching a few frogs and toads to take home.

She didn't speak to him, and Wu Dongfang didn't try to please her. He didn't know who she was or if she had any companions.

Just as Wu Dongfang was tearing into the snake meat, screams came from not far south. Wu Dongfang turned his head at the sound and saw the woman running towards him, her face filled with fear.

Thinking that a wild animal was chasing the woman, Wu Dongfang turned alert, scanning the surroundings. However, the woman rushed up and snatched the snake meat from his hand.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Wu Dongfang tried to snatch back the snake meat.

The woman threw away the snake meat and urgently repeated a phrase in the local dialect, sounding like "mu xu" or "mu xiu."

Although Wu Dongfang couldn't understand her words, he guessed that she was trying to stop him from eating the snake meat. Unable to express his thanks due to the language barrier, he could only smile and nod at her.

While speaking rapidly, the woman took a barely-dead frog from her waist and stuffed it into Wu Dongfang's hand. Then, she turned and ran away quickly with her stick.

"This thing might have parasites," Wu Dongfang said helplessly, holding the still-kicking frog.

Watching the woman run into the forest, Wu Dongfang threw away the frog and picked up the snake meat. Although the venomous snake could kill, its meat was not poisonous. The woman probably didn't know this.

Before he could finish the snake meat, the woman came back, holding a bunch of plant leaves. Seeing Wu Dongfang still eating the snake meat, she showed a look of anger on her face. However, this time she didn't come forward to snatch it, instead, she threw down the leaves and walked away.

"Although you don't understand what I'm saying, I still want to thank you," Wu Dongfang said.

The woman didn't look back, walking quickly into the jungle.

Wu Dongfang naturally didn't die from the snake bite. Due to proper handling, the swelling around his broken bones had reduced, and he didn't develop a fever.

In the following period, the woman didn't appear again. This valley was very secluded, and besides the woman he had encountered before, Wu Dongfang didn't find anyone else nearby.

Half a month later, Wu Dongfang saw the woman again. She seemed very surprised to see that he was still alive and ran over to examine him closely.

Wu Dongfang was most concerned about which era he was in. He tried to gesture and ask, but the woman didn't understand his meaning at all, so he had to give up.

As usual, the woman went to the river to catch fish, while Wu Dongfang sat on the bank alone, worrying. The area he was in was located on the southwestern border, far from the Central Plains. In ancient times, it had always been a desolate and remote area, and even the indigenous people here might not know what era it was now.

In the past few days, which might have been the time for fish to spawn, the woman had a particularly large catch today. Her method of fishing was simple: she used a sharp stick to poke at the fish, chasing away more than she killed.

Just as she was about to leave with her catch, several men quickly ran up from downstream and blocked her path.

The woman seemed very afraid of these men, screaming and trying to escape. However, there were three men, all strong adults, and they quickly caught up with her. One of them swung his wooden club and knocked her down, then got on top of her, tearing at her already scant clothing.

The woman screamed loudly and struggled to resist. Despite being weaker than the men, she fought back fiercely, kicking and biting, preventing the man from succeeding. The other two men, seeing this, laughed and came to help, trying to restrain her flailing limbs.

While the woman was being overpowered, Wu Dongfang had quietly risen and moved closer. With an injury, he had intended to sneak attack, but the men were undressing her too quickly. With a few more seconds, they might have succeeded. In desperation, he could only shout loudly to attract their attention.

Hearing Wu Dongfang's shouts, the two helpers grabbed their clubs and charged towards him, while the other man continued to press down on the woman, using his legs to keep her legs apart.

Wu Dongfang was not in a position to move easily, but he didn't see these two opponents as much of a threat. Given enough time, he might have considered subduing them, but the situation was dire. He had to act quickly. He dodged a swing from one of the men's clubs and quickly stabbed his dagger into the man's heart. Then he withdrew the dagger and slashed the throat of the other man, throwing the dagger at the third man's head before he hit the ground.

Wu Dongfang's position on the ground allowed him to observe some details. Seeing that the others were still outside, he breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it was close.

The woman, still in shock, pushed away the body lying on top of her and crawled to the edge of the riverbank, fleeing into the forest.

"Your fish," Wu Dongfang shouted to the woman.

The woman turned her head at the sound of his voice and looked at the fish left on the riverbank by the men. She looked at the fish, then at the three bodies, and finally back at Wu Dongfang. After hesitating for a long time, she turned and walked back, picking up her torn clothes to cover herself.

"You haven't seen anything new," Wu Dongfang said, stripping a piece of clothing from one of the bodies and tossing it to the woman.

After stripping off the clothes, he unexpectedly found a strange tattoo on the man's chest, about the size of a palm, shaped like flames.

Looking at the other two bodies, he saw identical tattoos on their chests. This tattoo could be the totem of their ethnic group or the symbol of a sect, if there were such sects now.

While Wu Dongfang was examining one of the bodies' tattoos, the woman had already dragged the other two bodies into the water, where they floated away instead of sinking.

Aside from their wooden clubs and hemp clothes, these people didn't carry anything else. The clues were very limited and still not enough to determine which dynasty it was currently.

After the woman dragged the last body into the water, Wu Dongfang asked, "Why did they attack you?"

The woman guessed what Wu Dongfang was asking and gestured to explain. Wu Dongfang vaguely guessed the general idea after her gestures. These three men belonged to a different ethnic group than the woman, and this river was in the territory of the men's ethnic group. She had come here to fish secretly.

"So, you're a thief," Wu Dongfang chuckled.

The woman naturally didn't understand what Wu Dongfang was saying. After some more gestures indicating that they had killed someone and couldn't stay here, they needed to leave quickly.

Their conversation was useless, but gestures were useful. Wu Dongfang signaled for her to go first, but after hesitating, she picked up the fish she had caught and dragged him towards the forest.

"Where are you taking me?" Wu Dongfang asked.

The woman didn't answer, just walked ahead with her head down. Wu Dongfang didn't ask again, using a branch as a crutch to follow behind. Although the woman occasionally stopped and waited for him, it was still very difficult for Wu Dongfang to keep up, especially climbing with only one leg was tough.

Finally reaching the mountaintop, Wu Dongfang was sweating profusely and was about to sit down to catch his breath when he noticed an area in the valley to the north where no grass or trees grew. Many bare-chested men were digging there.

"Is that your village over there?" Wu Dongfang pointed to the north and asked the woman.

The woman shook her head, pointing to the northwest and said something, urging Wu Dongfang not to dawdle and to hurry up.

The change in location was not reflected on the positioning device; it still showed his last landing location. Its only function now was as a clock.

At half past twelve, the woman led Wu Dongfang to a village. Seeing this village, Wu Dongfang felt a lot more relieved. Although the houses were simple and dilapidated, they were much more advanced than he had imagined, enough to confirm that he was definitely not in primitive society.

The woman's house was on the southeast edge of the village. Two six or seven-year-old children greeted her as she returned, calling out "Mother" to her.

The woman handed the fish she had brought back to the two children to drag into the house and then led Wu Dongfang towards the center of the village.

Since the men were working in the mountains, there were mostly women and children in the village. Wu Dongfang's arrival aroused great curiosity among them. They chatted loudly with the woman and looked him up and down.

Wu Dongfang also looked at them. Although these women were also wearing hemp clothes, they were neater than the woman beside him. Their houses were also much sturdier than the woman's house, indicating that the woman's status in the village was relatively low.

The village was quite large, but the houses were relatively sparse, with distances of more than ten meters between them. Perhaps it was to guard against snakes and insects. The houses were not built on flat ground but supported by several wooden pillars about a meter high.

The woman stopped in front of a house in the center of the village and turned to talk to a middle-aged man sitting in front of the house. The middle-aged man was missing both arms and was currently using his feet to roll a mortar, crushing the herbs inside.

Seeing the mortar, Wu Dongfang felt a bit enlightened. The mortar was a metal object, and from its color, it should be a copper tool. Besides the mortar, the tattoo on the middle-aged man's chest also caught his interest. The tattoo on this person's chest was in an irregular cross shape, with a small sword hilt at the top and a small sword pointing down.

The middle-aged man without arms seemed not to be the owner of the house. After listening to the woman's story, he turned to look at Wu Dongfang before standing up and using his feet to push open the door of the house, walking in.

The woman stared at the door intently, appearing very nervous. On the other hand, Wu Dongfang was quite relaxed. The woman obviously came to ask the village's leader to take him in. If the leader agreed to keep him, he would stay here for a while. If not, he would just leave...