Chapter 374: The Thief in the Farmland

The crops of the Xuanyuan Tribe were growing exceptionally well, and it looked like this year would be a great Harvest, but Heaven seemed unwilling to let the Xuanyuan Tribe obtain enough food so easily; just as the crops they had planted on the plains were about to be harvested, countless animals of all kinds came to their fields to participate in this feast.

Everyone inspected the fields every day, watching the wheat stalks turn yellow day by day, and soon the wheat ears would be dry; everyone saw the hope of not starving to death during the Winter and looked forward to starting the harvest immediately.

But when they went to check the fields the next day, they discovered that in many places, the wheat ears had vanished into thin air, and they had disappeared in a very orderly, patch-by-patch fashion.

The person in charge of the farmland collapsed to the ground in terror on the spot; if anything happened to this food, then, barring any accidents, he would be the one to meet with an accident.

He was eventually helped up by his clansmen to go and see the location of the stolen farmland, but they only saw empty wheat stalks; the wheat ears had been neatly cut off and taken away.

The first thing they thought of was that wild people had stolen them, or more likely that people from the Lieshan Clan had come to steal them, but they searched everywhere and did not find a single footprint.

This was even more terrifying than finding footprints, because if there were footprints, they would know who had stolen them and still have a chance to take them back, but now, they didn't even know who had stolen them, so there was absolutely nothing they could do.

Just when he was at a loss, Limu, the person actually responsible for this grain field, arrived; Limu usually stayed on Qingqiu Mountain to help Xuanyuan handle affairs, but this field had been assigned to his charge.

However, he only came to check every few days and would not actually go down into the fields to work; these operational matters were still left to the people below to manage.

Limu saw the wheat field that had already been neatly harvested in one section, but he felt that it was not yet the optimal time for harvesting because it was not yellow enough, so he loudly demanded to know who had ordered the cutting.

But everyone was trembling with fear and dared not speak; finally, a small Leader lay on the ground and said while crying: "Lord Limu, this was not harvested by us; this patch of grain was stolen!"

Limu's expression darkened, and without giving him a pleasant look, he kicked the man away and strode over to inspect, but the more he looked, the more panicked he became, because there were truly no footprints visible on the ground, only those just stepped on by the few of them.

He did not believe that anyone could fly in to cut away their wheat ears, so he squatted on the ground to examine it carefully, wanting to find some clues.

Sure enough, he discovered many dense, tiny claw marks in the field, as well as scattered wheat that had fallen to the ground.

He looked at the wheat stalks more closely and discovered that the broken ends had not been cut; because they used either bamboo knives, Wooden Blades, or Stone Knives, the cuts would not be too sharp and would have friction-like marks, and the stalks would certainly be bent to a certain degree, but there were no such corresponding marks here; instead, it looked more like they had been bitten off by teeth.

Limu's expression grew increasingly grave, so he stopped caring whether the wheat was fully ripe and immediately notified people to start harvesting now, to continue day and night.

The other small Leaders asked Limu what exactly was going on, and Limu sighed and said: "I fear it is things like rabbits that came out at night and stole the ears; if we don't hurry and harvest now, they will certainly come again tonight."

The expressions of the few people turned ugly upon hearing this; if people came to steal, they could fight to the death to protect the food, but if those little things came, even driving them away would be a struggle.

However, now that Limu, who could make decisions, had spoken, all they could do was execute; so once the task was issued, several hundred people took their homemade wooden-blade knives and bamboo-blade knives and began to harvest.

But there was simply too much grain they had planted on this plain, and with so few people harvesting, the speed was not significant, so Limu had people go to Qingqiu to request men to come and support them immediately.

After the Soldier received the order, he set off at once; whenever he encountered a Village on the road, he would notify them to hurry and help with the harvest; before he even reached Qingqiu, the number of people participating in the harvest in the farmland had already exceeded a thousand.

At night, no one was allowed to rest, and after eating a little something haphazardly, they began to continue harvesting, but the moonlight was not bright enough, so their harvesting was still quite difficult.

A few people took it upon themselves to light Torches and stick them at the edge of the field for illumination; Limu was not there at this time, as he was searching for the tracks of those thieves.

After others saw this, they followed suit one after another, finding wood themselves to use as Torches to light up and provide illumination for themselves.

A Harvest is always something that makes people happy, and everyone was talking and laughing; even though they had already worked for a whole day in Baifeng, they still had the energy to busy themselves now.

Suddenly, a person screamed, stomped their feet repeatedly, and ran frantically toward the outside of the field because they felt something pass over their foot; they thought it was a snake and fled in terror.

Everyone was startled by this sound, and upon hearing there was a snake, they all ran out to hide in the open space; even Limu was startled and turned his head quickly, but the first thing he saw was the roaring Torches standing in the dry and flammable farmland.

At this moment, a sharp-eyed person saw something running across the ground, let out an "ah" cry, and then took a Torch and went into the field, even placing the Torch toward the ground to see more clearly; he was the famous "Fool" of the Xuanyuan Tribe, who was bold but slow-witted and always did silly things.

With this, before others could stop him, as soon as the Torch leaned low, the fire immediately ignited the wheat stalks, and under the influence of the breeze, it began to gradually expand.

Everyone was scared out of their wits and could not care about anything else; someone rushed over, pulled the Fool out of the field, threw him to the ground, and then frantically stomped on the fire with their feet.

Others also immediately joined in the firefighting effort, disregarding their own safety, and began to use their bodies to extinguish the fire.

When Limu saw this, he only felt as if his own head were about to catch fire, but the fire was not being contained and was still spreading continuously.

Limu hurriedly had people pull up all the wheat in the path of the fire in the downwind direction to create an empty space.

Over a thousand people acted simultaneously, pulling constantly with their hands, while inside the fire zone, some people desperately used their hands to dig up soil, hoping to extinguish the fire with dirt, not caring at all that their own hair had already caught fire.

A gust of wind blew, and the fire instantly turned into a fire tornado, counterattacking the people extinguishing it; their bodies were instantly scorched by the fire, and dozens of people were burned, but those who were not burned continued to extinguish the fire.

When the Fool saw this scene, he was not afraid and charged directly in, rolling in the fire, wanting to press it out, but after rolling only a few times, he began to scream, and before long, he perished in the sea of fire.