Chapter 101: Master

Wangzuo was also startled by Baifeng's sudden excitement, thinking that Baifeng had a grudge against the Fuxi Clan. He only felt that he was done for; whenever he had pretended to be a descendant of the Fuxi Clan in other tribes before, hadn't people always been respectful? But upon arriving at this Zhi Tribe, they not only kept staring at his treasures, but it also seemed they had a grudge against the Fuxi Clan.

Baifeng asked again, "Are you truly a descendant of the Fuxi Clan?"

Wangzuo bit the bullet and said, "Uh, yes... I suppose so."

"What do you mean by 'suppose so'? Either you are or you aren't. I admire Fuxi the most; I never expected to actually meet his descendant. This is truly a great fortune!"

Perhaps a living Fuxi would become his enemy, because unification is accompanied by war, but a Fuxi who had already become a god was an object of worship for Baifeng. He, Baifeng, also hoped that Xuanyuan would soon become a god alongside his wife Leizu, so as not to affect their Baifeng Tribe.

Hearing that this Zhi Tribe had no grudge against the Fuxi Clan, Wangzuo finally breathed a sigh of relief, muttering to himself that he had been scared to death. Then he straightened his posture: "I am indeed a descendant of the Fuxi Clan, that is certain. Since you say you admire my ancestor, I will reluctantly perform a divination for your tribe."

"Great, great!" Baifeng was very willing. As a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, he actually understood divination as well; for instance, he knew the Six Yao Plum Blossom method. However, he wanted to see how the Fuxi Clan's heritage actually performed divination.

Baifeng waited for him to begin, but Wangzuo did not move at all, just sitting there like that.

"Then when will you begin the divination? Do you need anything?"

Wangzuo was speechless. Other tribes would treat him with good food and drink; the people of this tribe didn't understand any etiquette at all. Didn't they know to provide some food first?

"I have walked for too long and am somewhat fatigued. Let me rest a while first, then we shall talk."

Only then did Baifeng catch on; sure enough, everything had a price. He immediately had people go and prepare a meal. Meat and fish were a must; a Sage, especially a descendant of the Fuxi Clan, how could his treatment be the same as that of a wandering savage?

He then invited Wangzuo into the tribe; he couldn't let him sit on the ground next to the city wall. However, he wouldn't let him enter the core area either. The space next to the warehouse where firewood was stacked was quite good; it had a house so it looked like a living space, and since it was filled with firewood jars and the like, Wangzuo would have no way to judge the true strength of the Baifeng Tribe.

The food prepared was very sumptuous; at least three jin of meat were roasted, along with a large fish, fresh bamboo shoots, and wild vegetables. After being blanched, they were dressed with salt and seasoning powder. The fruit was wild apricots in season. Even though Baifeng was the Tribal Chief, he couldn't eat meals like this every day.

When the food was neatly sliced and placed on plates, served on the table, and Wangzuo was given a pair of exquisite chopsticks, even Wangzuo, who often scrounged for food in various tribes and felt he had seen the world, was no longer calm.

Who went to such trouble to eat? Shouldn't one just roast a pile of meat and tear into it directly? Wild vegetables could just be boiled into soup, but why bring out wild vegetables to entertain a guest? And what were these two wooden sticks for? Why not provide a Bronze Knife and Fork?

Wangzuo did not touch the chopsticks. Although he was very greedy and hungry, he was now at a loss as to how to start with the food on the plate. Baifeng picked up his chopsticks, picked up some bamboo shoots to eat, and then urged Wangzuo to start eating as well.

But how would Wangzuo know how to use them? He thought Baifeng was intentionally humiliating him. He wanted to curse him out and get up to leave, but he couldn't bear to part with this table of food.

Seeing that he wasn't eating and seemed somewhat angry, Baifeng thought he hadn't entertained him well. But seeing him raise his hand and then stop, and the untouched chopsticks, he realized he hadn't prepared the right tableware for his guest. The entire Baifeng Tribe had only been using chopsticks for half a year; other tribes didn't even know what chopsticks were.

So he hurriedly found a set of Bronze Knife and Fork for Wangzuo. Only then did he forgive Baifeng's rudeness and begin to gorge himself.

Originally, Baifeng had wanted to accompany his guest and eat a little, but firstly, every time Baifeng moved his chopsticks, Wangzuo's expression would turn strange, as if this table of food was meant only for him. Baifeng realized that in the concepts of people in this era, it should be just like that. Furthermore, Wangzuo's yellow teeth and spraying saliva made Baifeng completely lose the desire to eat this meal.

By the time Wangzuo was stuffed, the meat on the table hadn't been finished, and the wild vegetables and fruit hadn't been touched at all. That one piece of meat alone had been enough to satisfy Wangzuo.

Baifeng was just about to have someone clear the leftovers, but Wangzuo looked unhappy again and said directly: "Since this food was made for me and I haven't finished it yet, I will eat it later. Does your tribe only know how to let a Sage eat such a small amount?"

Although Baifeng didn't have that thought and just felt that the next meal should be freshly made, Wangzuo's words made his face burn with shame. He couldn't treat people of this era with the hospitality of later generations. Baifeng apologized repeatedly, which finally made Wangzuo's anger subside.

Afterwards, he did not break his word and took out the Yarrow to perform divination for the "Zhi Tribe". Baifeng asked if he could ask a precise question for the divination, but Wangzuo retorted directly that whatever was calculated was what it was, and told Baifeng, who didn't understand anything, not to talk nonsense.

Then Wangzuo began to fiddle with the Yarrow, placing five in the middle, then separating some on both sides, taking a few from the left to the right, and a few from the right to the left. Baifeng watched, completely bewildered.

He also knew the theory of Yarrow Divination: fifty stalks of Yarrow represented the Great Knife, and one was taken from the middle to represent the "escaped one". But Wangzuo's Yarrow, which only had thirty-some stalks, and the number taken from the middle, were not what he knew. Could it be that it had been passed down incorrectly or altered in later generations?

After a long while, Wangzuo finally finished organizing the Yarrow and said with feigned profundity, "I have divined that a great disaster is coming to your tribe!"

These words gave Baifeng a big scare: "Master, what great disaster? Could you explain in detail?"

Wangzuo was choked up by Baifeng calling him "Master". Although he didn't understand what it meant, he felt that the term seemed to have a high status. From now on, when he went to other tribes, he would call himself Master.

"I asked the gods through divination, and the spirits told me that a tribe called Zhi will face a great disaster. The spirits did not tell me the specific nature of the disaster, but you need to hold a grand sacrifice and offer four pairs of men and women to the spirits, and the more meat and grain, the better. Only then will the spirits help you avert the disaster."

Hearing this, the tribesmen nearby were about to cry, and they all begged the Tribal Chief to quickly ask Wangzuo to perform the sacrifice so the tribe could survive this disaster.

Baifeng had been a bit worried at first, but upon hearing this clumsy excuse—divining by asking the spirits directly, and saying "Zhi Tribe"—where did a Zhi Tribe come from? Baifeng had made it up on the spot. He had originally wanted to say the Zhique Tribe, but he was afraid others knew the Cannibal Tribe reputation of the Zhique Tribe, so he said Zhi Tribe instead.

Even if what Wangzuo said was true, it would be the Zhi Tribe that suffered, so what did that have to do with their Baifeng Tribe? Now that he thought about it, in every respect, this Wangzuo really looked like a "Master".