The Demon Lords-Chapter 779 - 170: Drunk _4

Because this wasn't the normal process of haggling. Typically, the seller states their terms, the buyer bargains. What truly mattered was mutual agreement and, most importantly, whether the buyer genuinely wanted what's being sold.

However, it was clear from Zheng Fan's tone that he was demanding the Wild People King give *him* a reason to 'buy' *him*.

This immediately lowered the Wild People King's baseline by several levels.

The old adage was 'even if a deal falls through, goodwill remains.'

But now, Zheng Fan's unspoken terms were: "If you can't persuade me to buy you, then you die."

This wasn't about the Wild People King giving Zheng Fan a reason to acquire him; it was about giving Zheng Fan a reason not to kill him.

"Sir, I, Little Dog, sincerely believe you are a wise master, so I willingly revealed my identity to serve you…"

"Stop, stop," Zheng Fan interrupted. "Please don't say that. I can't bear such a compliment."

At this point, a smile appeared on Zheng Fan's face. He said, "You revealed your identity to the Eldest Prince, not to me. If you wanted to serve me, you could have revealed your identity much earlier, but you didn't. You were seeking to cling to the Eldest Prince in the hope of, by extension, gaining my Yan Emperor's favor, right?"

Choosing to reveal his identity on the night the eunuch delivered the imperial edict was a clear attempt by the Wild People King to leave with the Eldest Prince.

Unfortunately for him, the Eldest Prince had just formed a partnership with Zheng Fan and didn't hesitate for a moment to sell him out.

In truth, it couldn't be said that the King of the Wild People's move was stupid. Rather, their current situations meant they weren't negotiating on equal footing at all.

This man had been willing to savagely cut his own face again to hide his identity. Having been in a prisoner of war camp for so long, the information he could gather was truly limited.

All he knew was that the Southern Army had captured "him" and was escorting "him" to the capital. That "him" must be A'lai.

"Do you think that after the fake 'you' is publicly beheaded upon arrival in the capital, the Eldest Prince would welcome you into Yanjing? And that the Yan Emperor would then employ you?"

The King of the Wild People hesitated before ultimately nodding his head.

"Then you are truly naive. Our Yan Emperor would never employ you."

"Sir, you are not an emperor, so you might not understand how broad-minded an emperor can be."

"It's different, completely different. My Yan is not like Qian State, Chu State, or Jin State. The Shanyue people of Chu State have been all but annihilated. The Jin people drove your wild people out long ago. Even if Jin State were divided among three great families, any one of them could still keep your wild people suppressed. But my Yan is different. The threat from the wilderness always exists. No one here would lower their guard."

For Yan State, the very foundation of its establishment is the irreconcilability of the Xia and foreign peoples. For hundreds of years, it was by gritting their teeth to this principle that they withstood the peak of the barbarian tribes' power. Now, they even use this as the political doctrine to annex other states.

For a ruler, his political doctrine is often more important than his own life.

Would the Yan Emperor dare to use the King of the Wild People? The answer is certainly yes.

But the problem is, employing the King of the Wild People would put him at too great a loss.

The King of the Wild People suddenly let out a couple of dry laughs. He said, "Actually, Sir, I understand all these principles too. My Holy Tribe…"

"Say 'wild people'," Zheng Fan corrected.

"We, the wild people, were driven from our homeland by the Jin people and have suffered in the snowy plains for hundreds of years. In truth, we wild people submitted long ago and are willing to remain subjects.

Many among us are learning the Xia language. We want to trade with the Jin people, reconcile with them, and even integrate with them.

We are striving to change ourselves. We are learning and applying the rules of the Jin people as much as possible, hoping that by doing so, they will abandon their prejudices against us.

Over hundreds of years, many far-sighted individuals among our wild people accepted titles from Jin State. They persisted in promoting these things.

They believed that one day, when we had completely adapted to all things Jin, the Jin people would finally accept us.

We no longer dream of driving out the Jin people and reclaiming our homeland. We only hope that they would acknowledge us.

But later events proved these visionaries among the wild people wrong.

No matter how hard we wild people tried, no matter how humbly we bowed, no matter how much we catered to the Jin people's demands, no matter how much we debased ourselves to become what the Jin people wanted us to be—the Jin people still wouldn't accept us."

Saying this, the King of the Wild People pointed to his own face, then to his body. "Our skin color, our features—we wild people have too many physical differences from the Jin people, from you Xia people. You think you've offered every ounce of your sincerity. You believe you've cast off your original self. But when you've painstakingly removed every obstacle you can find, you're finally left shocked, speechless, even despairing, to discover that skin color and appearance are the ultimate barriers preventing you from ever truly integrating with them. Everything you worked so hard for, every barrier you thought you'd dismantled—they were all just deliberate deceptions, smokescreens erected solely because of your skin color!!!"

Hearing these words, Zheng Fan found he could truly empathize.

They give you countless reasons. You try your utmost to address every single one. But in the end, you realize with stark clarity that all those reasons were false. Only when no supposed reasons remain between you do you finally see the undeniable, fundamental truth: racial discrimination.

"So, I raised an army!" the King of the Wild People declared. "I wanted to shatter all of it! Because I knew then, as I know now, that we wild people have no other way out!"