"There are five tribes on this island complex." Luo He continued, as though the tension in the room was beneath his notice.
"This tribe numbers approximately two thousand five hundred warriors. The two middle tribes are smaller. The fourth is larger. And then there is the fifth."
He paused, and something shifted in his expression. "A cannibal tribe. Nearly four thousand warriors. They are the dominant force and the primary obstacle." He added calmely.
Xu Mun leaned forward from where he sat. "And the disease? We carry it still. Can't we use it against them?" He asked. "We won't be using it," Luo He said simply.
Silence. Xu Mun blinked. "Are you certain?" He asked confused. "The disease was an effective solution." He added.
Luo He said, his tone measured and almost reflective. The tone of a man reassessing his own methods honestly. "Genuinely effective. But effectiveness is not the only measure of a good strategy."
He lowered his gaze for a moment. "Using innocent people who have done nothing wrong is unacceptable unless we have no other choice." He said calmely.
"We are not in that position. There are other methods available to us." He straightened and looked ahead.
"Tonight, I will return the vial to my laboratory. We proceed differently." He said confidently.
Su Kim, who had been watching him carefully, spoke quietly. "Who are you and what have you done with my 'He'?" She asked jokingly.
The corner of his mouth moved. "Don't push it." He said calmly.
Later that evening, when the others had moved away to their respective corners of the chief's house, Luo He found Shirshir sitting alone near the fire.
She was braiding the end of her long brown hair with practiced fingers. He sat beside her. She looked up, and in the firelight her deep brown eyes were warm and steady.
But underneath the warmth, Luo He could see something watchful. Something that had been waiting. "There is something I need to tell you," he said softly.
Shirshir set down her braid slowly. "Then tell me." She said calmly. "I am not your brother." He said in a quiet tone. The fire crackled between them. Shirshir did not move.
"I am an outsider," he continued. "I found your brother during the trials and I offered him an alternative. He is alive and well." Luo He said softly.
"I want you to understand that first. He will return." He held her gaze steadily. "I took his place because, I wanted to lead your people." He said calmely.
"Not to exploit them. Not to use them. I wanted to bring something new to this place. A different kind of leadership. A different future." He paused.
"I am telling you this because you deserve the truth. Even if the truth costs me your trust." He said solemnly.
Shirshir was quiet for a long moment. The firelight moved across her face, illuminating emotions she made no effort to conceal.
The sting of the deception, the anger that flared briefly before settling into something more complicated.
She thought of her brother. Quiet, gentle and destined to die in the trials. She had known it even if she could never say it aloud.
She thought of the man before her, who had walked into their village carrying a dead bear as though it weighed nothing.
Who had spared the former chief's children, who had given the slave a name.She thought of the way she had felt.
The feeling she had never experienced toward her actual brother, the feeling that had appeared suddenly and powerfully the moment this man looked at her.
She leaned forward and kissed him. It was brief and certain. A kiss that communicated a decision rather than a question.
When she pulled back, her eyes were clear. "You lied to me," she said simply. "But you told me the truth when it would have been easier not to." She said softly.
"And I have seen your eyes." She touched his jaw lightly. "Whatever you are. Wherever you came from."
"I knew you were not my brother the moment I saw you." She said with cold certainty in her eyes.
"Yet I choose to trust you anyway." She said with a quiet voice. Luo He regarded her with something that was perhaps the closest expression to genuine surprise that his face was capable of producing.
"You are either very wise," he said quietly. "Or very foolish." He said jokingly. "In my experience," Shirshir replied. Settling back against the wall.
"With men like you, it is usually both." She said softly.
At late evening, Luo He announced he was going to explore the surrounding forest to assess the territory.
Xu Mun accepted this without question. Su Kim accepted it with narrow eyes that suggested she believed approximately none of it. She was right not to.
The Black Cloud shuttle waited where he had hidden it, camouflaged in the high branches of the largest tree at the forest's edge.
As always, its dark wooden lamina and copper scaled underbelly made it nearly invisible against the night sky. And in the evening shadows of the forest canopy, it was utterly undetectable.
He was back in his laboratory on the Prosperous Silk Isle, within the hour. The vial of the bacterial colony went back into its locked cabinet with no ceremony.
Luo He looked at it for a moment before turning the key. This thing he had cultivated so carefully, this elegant and terrible solution he had almost unleashed on thousands of people.
"Not today," he said to no one in particular, and turned away. From the second cabinet, he withdrew something different. A vial large than the previous one.
Containing a luminescent liquid that shifted between different colours, depending on the angle of the light.
A Bloodline Evolution Catalyst.
The most potent substance in his collection. Capable of taking a dormant or low-grade bloodline and forcing it into rapid evolution.
The process was agonizing, he knew it. The body essentially rewrote itself at the cellular level. But the result was extraordinary.
He was back in the shuttle within minutes. The vial secured in an inner pocket, the mansion dark and silent behind him. He had not woken Jin Mulan. He had not woken Ning Jia.
This errand required no witnesses. The island where the boy waited was a thirty minute flight North east from the mansion.
The boy young, half-starved, wearing the expression of someone who had been surviving on sheer willpower looked up from his fire when a figure descended from the sky.
The deer skin coat. The faceless visage. The antlers spreading wide against the stars. "You..." The boy scrambled to his feet. Shock and reverence fighting for control of his expression.
"Forest God, it has only been two days!?" The boy asked suprised. "You have already proven your worth." Luo He said casually. Yet his voice distorted through the mechanisms in his armor.
Turned into something ancient and resonant. "I have been watching you. Your spirit is stronger than your body suggests. Thus trial is complete." He said with absolute certainty.
The boy fell to his knees. "I am honored." He shouted. "Rise." Luo He uttered. Then a pause, letting the word carry weight.
"I told you there would be a reward. I was not lying." He withdrew the vial of Bloodline Evolition Catalyst from his inner pocket.
And in the darkness the liquid inside glowed with soft violet light. Eerie, otherworldly, exactly the kind of visual that made people believe in gods.
"This is power. Real power. Your bloodline is not nothing, it is simply sleeping. This will wake it with added power." Luo He said calmely. The boy's eyes were fixed on the glowing vial.
"What will it do to me?" He asked curiously. "It will hurt," Luo He said honestly. "I will not deceive you about this. The transformation is not gentle." He said softly.
"But when it is finished, you will be stronger than most your village has ever produced." He said with confidence.
With this conversation the shuttle had already arrived at the village.
"If you don't wish to be rewarded, then you can walk back to your village as you are. I will not force you." He extended the vial calmely. "It is your choose." He said patiently.
The boy reached out and took it. "Listen carefully," Luo He continued. "If the power begins to fade, and it will fade eventually if you do not maintain your righteousness.
Go to the roots of the great tree at the northern edge of your village. Offer prayers and apologies. Show humility. Your strength is a gift, not a right. Always remember this." He said firmly.
The boy nodded, clutching the vial. "One more thing." Luo He's voice dropped lower. "Your new chief, he is a good man.
Perhaps the best leader your people have ever had. You will serve him loyally. You will tell your people that the god of the forest has blessed his reign.
And I commands that you cooperate with the outsiders who came to your village. Will you serve my will?" He asked gently. "I swear it on my life." The boy said, without hesitation.