Wu Liang's voice reached everyone clearly, including Akomann inside the stone hut.
'Choose: eat this bowl of meat that stands for prosperity and a future, or cling to your pitiful pride and starve.'
'Her choice will decide the fate of you all.'
With that, Wu Liang turned and left.
He had handed the choice to Akomann, yet used the future of every Bloodfang tribesman to deliver the final stab.
An older woman, hands trembling, held up the bowl of braised pork, crawled on her knees to the stone-house door and raised it high.
'Chieftain… please… choose a future for us!'
'Chieftain!'
Every kneeling Bloodfang shouted in unison, their voices pleading and resolute.
Inside the stone hut, Akomann slid slowly to the ground against the cold wall.
The voices of her people, Wu Liang's words, crushed her will at ever-accelerating speed.
[Ding! Target Akomann's will detected wavering, impacted by her people's desire; Submission +15%!]
The system's prompt echoed in Wu Liang's mind.
The corner of his mouth curved slightly.
Soon, very soon.
This fiercest mare would soon be completely tamed.
Akomann sat on the floor, tears sliding silently down.
She knew she had no other choice left.
She reached out, pushed open the unlocked stone door.
The firelight outside lit up her pale, hopeless face.
Akomann surrendered, yet the Tribe showed little commotion.
Everything seemed calm and natural.
When she stepped out of the stone hut and, before all her people, silently ate the bowl of braised pork,
the women of the Bloodfang Tribe burst into relieved cheers right in front of her.
The women of the Black Rock Tribe answered with smiles of deserved victory.
To them, submitting to the omnipotent Lord Wu Liang was only right.
Wu Liang did nothing to Akomann at once.
He simply had her placed in a clean brick house, released her bonds, and granted her the same treatment as any Black Rock tribesman.
He did not even visit her room.
Wu Liang knew clearly the time was not yet ripe.
Though her mental defenses had collapsed, complete submission of body and heart would take longer and more methods.
With the vital matter of food settled, the Tribe's development surged even faster.
Wu Liang, not one to idle, turned his attention to everyone's clothing.
At present, the women of both Black Rock and Bloodfang still wore rough hides.
Even Wu Liang himself was no exception.
Such garments were stifling, uncomfortable, and if poorly cured bred parasites.
It was time for a change!
'Grain keeps us alive, but clothing lets us live like human beings.'
One morning Wu Liang summoned Eliza and Wei Xian.
He also gathered several core managers and announced his new plan.
'We are going to grow things and make clothes ourselves.'
'Make clothes?'
Wei Xian looked puzzled.
'With what? Isn't hide good enough?'
'No.'
Wu Liang shook his head.
'We will make garments a hundred times better than hide.'
He drew several packets of seeds from his bosom.
'These are flax seeds.'
'These are ramie, and this is cotton.'
'What they yield can be spun into thread and woven into cloth.'
'With cloth we can fashion light, soft, breathable garments.'
As he spoke he pointed to a slope in the distance.
'Over there I'll have mulberry trees planted.'
'Mulberry leaves feed silkworms; the silk they spin is the finest textile on earth.'
Eliza and Wei Xian listened, stunned.
Plants could become clothes?
Worms' spit could make garments?
These ideas lay far beyond their understanding.
Yet, trusting Wu Liang absolutely, they voiced no doubt, only curiosity and anticipation.
'Then… what do we do?'
Eliza asked.
'Very simple.'
Wu Liang was confident.
He stepped before Eliza and lightly touched her smooth forehead.
'Eliza, relax, don't resist; I'm about to teach you!'
Eliza nodded obediently.
Wu Liang poured into her mind every scrap of knowledge from the system on cultivating those fibre crops,
as well as basic sericulture.
Eliza swayed, then her eyes lit with delight.
Her mind was suddenly filled with knowledge of soil selection, sowing, fertilising, pest control, harvesting.
'I… I know it all!'
Eliza gazed excitedly at Wu Liang.
Wu Liang said calmly:
'Eliza, the Ministry of Agriculture now adds cash-crop cultivation to its duties.'
'I leave the matter entirely in your hands; pick more helpers to share the load.'
'I understand; every task you give me, I will fulfil with all my heart!'
Eliza gazed at Wu Liang with tender, sparkling eyes.
She thrust out her full chest, brimming with drive.
With technical guidance secured, only labour remained.
Wu Liang assigned the task to Kaila.
'Kaila, take the Bloodfang people and clear those hillsides.'
'Plant each crop in the plots Eliza designates.'
'Tell them these plants decide whether they'll wear new clothes—urge them to be diligent.'
'Yes, Lord Wu Liang!'
Kaila departed with the order.
The women of the Bloodfang Tribe, hearing the new task, burst into unprecedented enthusiasm.
Partly to show loyalty and win Wu Liang's approval,
partly because they would earn, through their labour, garments they had never imagined.
With such conviction they tilled the soil a hundred times harder than ever before.
This time they worked for themselves,
for a future they could see and touch.
'For Lord Wu Liang—everyone, work with all your might!'
Akomann walked the fields, watching her people sweat, her feelings mixed.
Wu Liang had assigned her a task, but an easy one: merely strolling the fields each day.
It was, of course, deliberate.
He wanted her to watch her clansmen forget hatred and gladly labour for him.
Each day she walked the ridges in silence, observing.
Eliza directed sowing and watering.
Kaila acted as overseer, keeping her people in line with carrot and stick.
She watched the newly sprouted seedlings grow at amazing speed under Wu Liang's occasional blessing of the land.
She saw the whole Black Rock Tribe change day by day.
More brick houses rose, roads grew wider, lambs and calves were born in the pens.
Everyone was busy, yet every face bore smiles and hope.
And she, once chieftain of the Bloodfang Tribe, felt like an outsider—superfluous.
Everything she had known, everything she had clung to,
looked pale and ridiculous before this ever-renewing new world.
By day she watched the Tribe build;
at night she returned to her room to face empty walls.
Now and then Wu Liang sent special food or novel trifles:
a comb polished smooth from bone, a cake of faintly fragrant soap.
He never came himself, never spoke.
But this silent infiltration unsettled her more than any words.
The man was like the most skilful hunter,
weaving a gentle net of good food, comfort, and just enough care, drawing it ever tighter around her.
She felt herself sinking bit by bit, powerless to resist.