We made you the chief, and now you've become the world's chief?

Chapter 120 The Chaotic Da Clan
The reeds grew denser and denser, followed by a variety of different marsh vegetation.

Xia Minghao stood up on the wooden boat, and only then could he see the shore, which was not far away.

"Keep going, don't stop."

Even after they reached the shallow water area—which was actually caused by heavy rain that had spread the swamp into the forest—Xia Minghao still didn't tell them to stop.

In the end, they weren't even rowing, but rather using oars to propel the boat forward.

This was to ensure that no one would wade into the muddy water. They had heard from the Da clan that the swamp, especially after a heavy rain, was full of poisonous snakes and deadly insects.

"Jump over here!"

Xia Minghao leaped up and jumped over a piece of ground that looked solid, but he still sank in a large chunk of it.

The people of the Xia tribe were originally from a barbaric background and had prior hunting experience, so their physical fitness was naturally better.

They all jumped farther than Xia Minghao, except for Li Ba who fell and rolled forward, while everyone else landed safely.

They pulled on the bow rope and together hauled the stranded wooden boat ashore to prevent the rising waters at the edge of the swamp from washing it away, otherwise they wouldn't be able to get back to the Xia tribe.

After counting the number of people, Xia Minghao repeated a few hand gestures to make sure everyone remembered them before heading towards the Da clan.

The Da clan's settlement was not far from the riverbank, but now the torrential rain had obscured their vision, making it impossible to see the road ahead.

He took out a compass, locked onto a direction, and then raised his hand to signal the people behind him to follow.

Thunder rumbled continuously, but fortunately, we had already been taught hand gestures, so we didn't need to communicate verbally.

Then, the dozen or so people, relying on their senses, stumbled along the way, heading towards the Da clan.

After walking for a while, Xia Minghao finally saw something.

But it wasn't the wooden barrel house typical of the Da clan; instead, there were several hazy figures.

On rainy days, the Da clan people have no means of sheltering from the rain, so shouldn't they stay obediently in their wooden houses?
Xia Minghao became suspicious and immediately waved his arm behind him.

Liba immediately held up the bronze artifact in his hand, and the others also took out various bronze artifacts wrapped around their waists.

Although these people were skilled craftsmen of the Xia tribe and did not participate in the battle, the bronze saws and bronze axes in their hands were not to be underestimated.

Everyone became incredibly tense. Rainwater streamed down the bark caps covering their heads and onto their anxious eyelids, and they gripped their hands even tighter.

After careful observation, the first thing I confirmed was that this person was definitely not from the wolf tribe.

The swamp stretched for an unknown distance. For the wolf tribe to reach the clan, they first had to cross the river, and then they had to traverse the swamp.

Blackfish and giant crocodiles are no joke, especially giant crocodiles, which can even kill rhinoceroses. Even if the wolf tribe continues to maintain their human-wolf form, they will probably still die.

So what's going on?
Since it wasn't the wolf tribe, Xia Minghao felt much more at ease and simply led everyone forward to check the situation.

They pulled their feet out of the mud pit and stepped back in, everyone walking very cautiously because they were unsure of what was going on.

Xia Minghao's hand was touching the wooden box hanging on his chest, ready to activate the power of the wolf totem should any unexpected danger arise.

As they drew closer, the figures in front of them became clearer.

Once he could see the situation clearly through the rain, Xia Minghao finally relaxed.

It turned out to be a false alarm; there were two men fighting over a basket from a young girl's hands.

The girl was exhausted after struggling for a long time and could no longer hold onto the basket, which was then taken away by the two men.

A dozen or so small taro roots fell to the ground and into the mud.

The two men quickly squatted down and began picking up the food, while the girl lay motionless on the ground, her body already weakened by hunger, and she had probably exhausted all her strength.

The two men, carrying baskets, ignored the girl lying on the ground and were about to leave, laughing and joking.

But then, as if suddenly remembering something, after a brief conversation, a troubled look appeared on their faces.

"I have no wood, so I can't burn it."

"I do not have either."

As soon as they finished speaking, they seemed to have thought of the key question at the same time.

Taro cannot be eaten if it is not cooked thoroughly, otherwise it is poisonous. On a rainy day like this, eating it would almost certainly lead to death.

Then the two looked at the frail girl who was still unable to get up, and a thought simultaneously entered their minds.

He braved the heavy rain to come looking for taro, so there must also be wood to burn.

He then came back and forcibly pulled the frail girl up.

"Take me to the cabin, your cabin!"

Just as they finished speaking, a bolt of lightning suddenly streaked across the distant sky. The crowd was drawn to it by the light and saw that the lightning illuminated more than a dozen figures.

They were all dressed in strange-looking tree bark, as if the trees had come to life.

Boom!

"Uh-huh!"

A thunderclap followed, completely startling the two, who fell to the ground, their baskets flying away, and the taro completely gone.

Seeing the taro disappear, the girl wanted to pick it up, but she was too exhausted to move at all.

"What are your names?"

"Chief of the Xia tribe!?"

It wasn't until Xia Minghao and his men continued to approach that the two of them realized what was happening and exclaimed in surprise.

"We are the hunting team of the Da tribe."

The two people, perhaps startled, forgot their own names and simply blurted out their identities.

Upon hearing their conversation, Xia Minghao's eyes narrowed.

Surprisingly, they haven't changed their way of addressing themselves yet. They still say they belong to the Da tribe and refer to themselves as the chief of the Xia tribe.

The wise man's announcement last time was indeed the first step for the Da tribe to join the Xia tribe, but it was only the first step. They should take this opportunity to consolidate their power.

Hunting team...

Thinking about their self-introductions, Xia Minghao suddenly remembered Daka, who had been beaten black and blue back then.

It seems that the person who robbed him was also from the hunting team.

This hunting party members usually couldn't catch any prey, so they used their strength and violence to commit crimes and became a destabilizing factor.

Moreover, the wolf skin was the captain of the hunting team, and the wolf skin clan had always wanted to gain control of the tribe.

After a moment's thought, Xia Minghao had already come up with a plan for the first step of the power containment: to cancel the hunting team of the Da tribe.

"leave."

There was no point in getting involved with those two men any further; in fact, even if they were punished on the spot, it wouldn't have made a difference.

The hunting party wasn't just these two people, and they weren't the only ones running rampant in the Da tribe.

The two men were already terrified when they saw the gleaming bronze artifacts in the hands of Xia Minghao's men. Upon hearing this, they felt as if they had been granted a pardon and hurriedly left.

Xia Minghao then went to the girl's side and helped her up.

The girl was indeed very thin; Xia Minghao felt that she weighed less than 40 kilograms. With just a little effort, he pulled her up.

"My taro..."

Seemingly oblivious to Xia Minghao's presence, the girl's eyes were still fixed on the spot where the basket had fallen, but the taro had long been washed into the soil and could not be found.

Where is your cabin?

The sound of rain was too loud, so Xia Minghao leaned close to the girl's ear and asked her a question.

The hot breath he exhaled enveloped the girl's earlobe, causing her body to twitch and her eyes to snap towards Xia Minghao.

"Are you the chieftain of the Xia tribe?"

Hearing the girl call him the chief of the Xia tribe instead of the chief, Xia Minghao didn't blame her.

"Yes, where is your cabin? I have some food here, not taro."

"Eating..."

Only then did a hint of relief appear in the girl's eyes, and she let go of her obsession with taro.

Led by the girl, the group walked through the rain and soon arrived at a wooden house.

The room was quite small, and it was clear that it couldn't accommodate so many of us.

Xia Minghao then turned around and found a man from the Da tribe who had been specially brought along, and asked him to lead the others to inform the wise man and Damon.

Only Liba and himself remained in the girl's house to rest for the time being.

The room was damp and cold, and there was no fire to keep warm. Xia Minghao, who always wore a nettle robe inside and a raincoat outside, also felt a chill at this moment.

Besides, if I hadn't brought this girl back, she would probably have slept in the downpour and definitely developed hypothermia.

Besides the girl, there was another person lying in a haystack inside the house.

Xia Minghao already knew that the lower class of the Da tribe practiced a pairing system, while the upper class practiced a polygamous marriage system.

Is this the girl's counterpart?
This was my first time truly stepping into the real lives of ordinary people in the Da tribe, a native primitive tribe, and my curiosity naturally arose.

But instead of asking directly, he first had Liba take out a dried fish and hand it to the girl.

"Blackfish!"

Upon seeing the fish, the girl's eyes widened immediately, and she took it right away.

There's no such thing as politeness or refusals. Primitive people, still struggling to survive, didn't care about such formalities. They only knew that as long as there was food, they wouldn't be hungry.

Just as he was about to ask the girl's name to start a conversation and learn more about the Da tribe, he realized that...

Only in this way can we further plan the subsequent transformation of the Da tribe into the Da clan, making it part of the Xia tribe.

But the girl actually resisted her hunger instincts and didn't take a single bite of the blackfish. Instead, she went to the man lying in the pile of straw.

Seeing this, Xia Minghao felt it was time to start a conversation, so he asked directly.

"What's your name?"

"My name is E."

婀, just one character? And doesn't it start with the character 达?
Xia Minghao immediately understood that it was probably a small tribe that had later integrated into the Da tribe.

Is this the person you sleep with?

When he asked again, he saw that E suddenly blushed.

In primitive times, before the advent of civilization, shyness was often reserved for those of the same bloodline.

This is a primal form of shame that naturally evolved in the process of resisting inbreeding.

Seeing E's reaction, Xia Minghao already had a guess in his mind.

E's words soon confirmed this conjecture.

“He is my younger brother, Chi.”

After E finished speaking, a trace of pain appeared on her face again. As she stuffed the dried black fish into her younger brother's mouth so that he could taste the meat, tears fell from her eyes.

“My younger brother, last time it rained, I was robbed, so I went to get revenge on them, and then I got beaten up like this.”

"them……"

Xia Minghao's eyes flickered slightly, and he began to ask about the specifics.

(End of this chapter)