Doing this is extremely vicious and highly inappropriate, but Ethan Brooks believes it is the right thing to do. Only by enduring so many hardships to marry Sarah Miller will Charles Bennett truly cherish her.

This is something that cannot be helped. A mature twenty-eight-year-old young man, just about to be put in an important position in a prosperous society, is suddenly taken by time to a world completely unfamiliar to him.

If it were only this, Ethan Brooks would not lack the courage to start over. However, when he discovered that he had become a baby who could only cry, the intense contrast completely changed his original personality.

The long infancy left him with nothing but endless time to think and wait.

Such a long period did not teach him compassion; it only allowed him, from a baby's perspective, to see enough of the ugliness of this world.

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Chapter 10: A Peaceful Transfer of Power

The old wolf was gone. This creature could never be tamed into a dog. In the final moments of its life, it still chose to die as a wolf, rather than continue to survive as a dog.

Sarah Miller held Emily Clark and fell into a deep sleep. Ethan Brooks stared wide-eyed at the bright moon over the Tianshan Mountains, unable to sleep.

Just like that day, it was very quiet and peaceful here by Grasshopper Lake, while fierce fighting raged on at the tribal camp.

Tonight, many, many small tribes must be experiencing the same kind of battle, because a new king is about to ascend the throne.

At dawn, Ethan Brooks grilled some more fish. Bar-headed geese swam leisurely in the lake, looking very relaxed.

“Nothing happened last night?” Sarah Miller squatted by the lake washing her face. She also liked living by Grasshopper Lake.

“We can go back now. If Charles Bennett becomes the Great Apo, I’ll have to leave the tribe. If Charles Bennett dies, I’ll stay.”

“Why would Charles Bennett die?” Sarah Miller was a little alarmed.

Ethan Brooks smiled and handed the grilled fish to Sarah Miller, saying, “Because he wants to be the Great Apo. When you want to stand out, you always have to pay a price.”

As for whether Charles Bennett would die, Sarah Miller was only startled for a moment. For Sairen men, fighting was an everyday occurrence. If you were lucky, you survived; if not, you died. She had seen this many times—it was even a part of her life.

“You’re going to look for Old Sheepskin, aren’t you?” Sarah Miller was again concerned about Ethan Brooks’s future.

On the grasslands, the Gobi, and the desert, there were many cattle and sheep traders. These traders were very important to the herders. They could bring high-quality cattle and sheep from afar, and also take good local breeds to distant places for crossbreeding.

In this way, the diversity of the herders’ livestock was ensured, and the breeding of cattle and sheep would be continuously optimized, rather than gradually declining due to overly single bloodlines.

Where there are cattle and sheep traders, there are naturally also human traffickers!

Old Sheepskin was the most famous human trafficker in this area.

His work was actually not evil at all.

If a tribe had too many women and too few men, Old Sheepskin would take the women to a tribe with more men than women, and bring back men to the tribe with too few men.

He made a living by buying and selling people and taking a certain profit from it. He was an indispensable figure on the grasslands, the Gobi, and the desert.

Ethan Brooks did not plan to sell himself to Old Sheepskin, nor did Sarah Miller intend to sell Ethan Brooks. She just hoped that, through Old Sheepskin’s connections, Ethan Brooks could go to a place he wanted to go.

On this grassland, only Old Sheepskin might have a way to get Ethan Brooks to the Tang people’s camp he had always wanted to visit.

“Old Sheepskin is not just a simple human trafficker. I might go directly to the city of Kucha where the Tang people live and try my luck.

Sarah Miller, you should know, I’ve always been pretty lucky.”

“Mom, brother, the tent is on fire.”

Emily Clark, who had gone out to pee, came back and brought a not-so-surprising problem.

Ethan Brooks climbed onto a big rock and looked toward the tribal settlement, finding that many tents had been burned and were still smoking.

The tribespeople were gathered together in the open space, doing something unknown, but it seemed the fighting was over.

Ethan Brooks and Sarah Miller packed up briefly and prepared to return.

On the way, they got two marmots from David Bennett. After killing them, they strung them on a stick, pretending they were last night’s catch.

Charles Bennett was very excited. When he saw Sarah Miller and Emily Clark, he hugged the mother and daughter tightly, showering Emily Clark’s little face with kisses like raindrops, making Emily Clark dodge left and right.

Ethan Brooks glanced at the wounds on Charles Bennett and, seeing that he probably wouldn’t die, went to tidy up his own tent.

There were many strangers in the tribe now, all looking fierce and menacing.

The ground by the water trough was wet—not from water, but from a large amount of blood soaking the area. Flies kept flying over from afar, landing on the ground and rubbing their legs.

Curly-haired William Harris sat by his own tent, staring at the outsiders. His fur coat was torn to shreds, his face covered in bruises—he must have just been beaten up. In less than an hour, both his eyes would be swollen, and his whole face would look like a pig’s head.