“Huff... huff...”

The shaman was gasping for air inside the dim granary, his chest heaving with the effort.

The granary was shrouded in darkness; during the intense "battle" earlier, the oil lamp Shaman had brought in had been extinguished by the gusts stirred up in the chaos.

“Die! Die!”

Breathing heavily, Shaman, filled with frustration, continued jabbing randomly into the crevices with his bronze dagger.

Unfortunately, those infuriating little creatures were far too cunning. If they could be dealt with so quickly, they wouldn’t have become one of humanity’s "three plagues" in later eras.

Shaman’s frantic attacks couldn’t harm the pests in any meaningful way.

As time passed, the rats, growing accustomed to his attacks, stopped reacting.

At first, they had scurried about in a frenzy, squeaking noisily. But now, despite Shaman’s furious jabs, they remained silent and hidden in their corners.

Sweaty and exhausted, Shaman finally stopped his futile assault. He wanted to find better tools to kill these pests.

Yet halfway through leaving, he paused, realizing there might not be any tools to deal with them effectively.

Frustrated, Shaman stood there racking his brains for a solution while the granary, which had been in chaos earlier, grew eerily quiet.

“Squeak, squeak...”

After a while of silence, faint sounds broke the stillness, followed by the soft rustling of movement.

Shaman gripped his bronze dagger tightly, quietly waiting, his eyes fixed on a gap in the granary.

“Die!”

Shaman lunged with the dagger at just the right moment. But the blade struck the granary walls in the dim light, thwarting his attack. The ensuing chaos left him empty-handed once again.

“Die!”

“Squeak, squeak...”

The cycle repeated: brief silence followed by sporadic disturbances within the granary.

“#￥%!”

The rats had thoroughly infuriated Shaman, driving him to curse in the tribe's primitive tongue—words he hadn’t spoken in ages.

“Bang!”

The granary door slammed against its frame as a sweaty and exasperated Shaman stormed out.

Still fuming, he raised the bronze dagger and axe in his hands, almost ready to throw them to the ground in frustration. But halfway through, he hesitated, his heart aching at the thought of damaging his precious tools, and reluctantly held onto them.

“Fu Jiang! Fu Jiang!”

Spotting Fu Jiang nursing her pups nearby, Shaman’s eyes lit up with a new idea.

“Bite them! Bite them to death!”

A bewildered Fu Jiang, along with a few of her pups—likely descendants of earlier generations of dogs—was dragged into the granary by Shaman.

Gritting his teeth, Shaman passionately encouraged Fu Jiang and her pups, explaining the task before stepping out of the granary.

Shaman shut the granary door to prevent the wretched little creatures from escaping, leaving only a small crack open.

Then, throwing all decorum aside, Shaman crouched by the door, peering through the crack with clenched fists, muttering darkly under his breath.

“Woof, woof...”

“Squeak, squeak...”

“Bite them! Bite them to death!”

After a long period of silence, noise finally erupted from the granary. Fu Jiang and her pups had launched their attack on the pesky intruders.

Holding his breath and clenching his fists, Shaman muttered encouragement to the dogs as they carried out their assault.

Meanwhile, Han Cheng and Shi Tou returned, carrying empty winnowing baskets. They could hear the commotion from a distance and spotted Shaman crouching by the granary door.

“What’s going on here?”

Even someone as experienced as Han Cheng was momentarily dumbfounded by the sight.

“Shaman, what’s...”

After exchanging bewildered looks with Shi Tou for a moment, Han Cheng walked up to the granary door and asked, “What’s going on here?”

“Bite them! Bite them to death! … Divine Child…”

Shaman, wholly focused on exterminating the rats, murmured for a while before noticing Han Cheng’s arrival.

The usually composed Shaman now looked toward Han Cheng, and his somewhat clouded old eyes glistened with tears.

What on earth could reduce Shaman, usually so steady, to near tears?

Han Cheng was taken aback.

Once he grasped the situation, Han Cheng leaned closer to the crack in the door and peered inside. In the dim light, he could make out the blurry figures of Fu Jiang and the other dogs.

The corner of Han Cheng’s mouth twitched involuntarily. This is dogs chasing rats.

Life was truly hard for the domesticated animals in the tribe. Most of them had to juggle multiple roles.

Deer were used to pull sleds and drag seeders and plows, taking on the jobs of oxen, horses, and donkeys simultaneously.

Fu Jiang and the other dogs were no less impressive. They guarded the tribe, hunted, and protected the deer herd, and now they were taking on tasks typically reserved for cats.

After a brief period of chaos, the granary quieted down. Shaman couldn’t wait to open the door. After lighting an oil lamp with a firestarter, he eagerly stepped inside to inspect the battle results.

However, no rat carcasses were found. Instead, Fu Jiang and the other dogs looked disheveled and utterly defeated.

One particularly unlucky dog was stuck in a crevice, its furry backside sticking out while it whined helplessly.

“Useless…”

Shaman forgetting how he had implored the dogs to come in earlier, angrily tapped each of them on the head.

As for the unfortunate dog stuck in the crevice, Shaman—who had developed a bad habit of plucking fur to make wolf hair brushes—grabbed a handful from its backside without hesitation.

The sight was so absurd that Han Cheng couldn’t help but laugh.

Seeing that the poor dog was in real trouble and fearing Shaman might strip it completely, Han Cheng quickly told Shi Tou to fetch a stick.

Inserting the stick into the crevice, they leveraged it against the wall to widen the gap.

Once the crevice was expanded, the traumatized dog wriggled free bolted out of the granary and didn’t look back.

The other dogs, perhaps recalling their own experiences of being plucked by Shaman, also slinked away quietly without a sound.

“Divine Child… Divine Child…”

Shaman turned to Han Cheng with a face on the verge of tears. Today, the rats had truly driven him to his wits' end.

Han Cheng, meanwhile, was reflecting on himself. He hadn’t expected that these pests would already find their way into the granary after only two years of surplus grain storage.

Does this mean the tribe has unintentionally “domesticated” yet another creature?

Despite the faint amusement in his thoughts, Han Cheng wasn’t about to let these intruders off the hook.

Not only did they waste precious food, but they were also disease carriers.

The mere thought of plague, a nightmare in any era, was enough for Han Cheng to resolve and eradicate them.

If only it were colder. He imagined catching them, dragging them outside, prying open their jaws, pulling out their tongues, and sticking them onto bronze surfaces to “enjoy” the bitter chill of winter.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a solution,” Han Cheng said with a smile.

As someone who had set countless mousetraps before, he knew how to deal with these uninvited guests.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay