"Making Mahjong tiles."
"Mahjong?" Hunter Arno grew even more interested. He watched Zheng Yichen’s manual work, as a piece of fine-quality wood was divided into many small blocks. With the help of a ruler, these small wooden pieces were then cut into uniformly sized rectangles.
The backsides bore no marks, but the fronts were carved with different symbols, including bamboos and dots, likely representing numbers, with four tiles of each kind, including the ones representing directions.
However, by looking at the quantity, it appeared that Zheng Yichen was only about halfway through the task.
"Let me help you." Hunter Arnol pulled out his dagger and began to assist Zheng Yichen with the small wooden blocks.
His actions were swift and decisive. After quickly measuring the dimensions with the ruler, he rapidly cut the blocks to the required size. Seeing this, Zheng Yichen focused on the carving work. With his help, the remaining parts were soon completed.
A set of hand-made Mahjong tiles, though a bit light in the hand, were now serviceable for play.
"I’ll explain the basic rules to you," said Zheng Yichen to an expectant Arno.
"It’s quite a novel thing. Although it’s somewhat cumbersome to carry around, I think I’m going to like it," noted Hunter Arnol, after learning about the rules. He raised his eyebrows slightly and naturally shifted the conversation back to Zheng Yichen, "It seems you’ve been through a tough fight."
Zheng Yichen glanced at his left arm, "I encountered a Longhorn Mule, wait for a second."
He retrieved the crudely preserved mule head from the church’s storage. Looking at it, Hunter Arnol wasn’t overly surprised, "Didn’t you sell this thing to some research institute? Do you want to use it for yourself?"
"Yes, but I’m personally not adept at dealing with these." Zheng Yichen did not conceal his intentions.
Arno inspected the mule head, "The most valuable parts are probably its horns and tongue. The meat isn’t of much use, and the skull and brain would have been of interest to some particular individuals, but it’s been kept for too long; only the skull is still usable."
As a more professional hunter, Arnol quickly identified the valuable parts, "Conventional processing would waste such material. I recommend you remove the flesh and preserve the rest."
"I can process the tongue for you but there will be a charge."
The mule head and horns could last a long time, but the tongue, being flesh, albeit tough like sinew, would need proper treatment to be of good use. Although he knew Hunter Arnol, their acquaintance was not deep, so it was natural to expect a fee.
"As long as the price is acceptable to me, please go ahead."
Arno nodded, quoting a price that Zheng Yichen found quite fair, fifteen thousand.
After stating the price, he added, "This is no ordinary tongue, so processing it properly is rather troublesome. What I will do is just the basic treatment; perhaps in the future, if you find a better craftsman, it could be put to good use."
"You should know that it’s rather short."
According to Zheng Yichen’s account, the mule’s tongue was very long, almost half a meter when stretched out normally, but it could extend only about a meter at most. Such a length was difficult to fashion into a whip, and not quite suitable for a bowstring.
Arno was not a Hunter skilled in crafting artifacts himself. All he could do was rough processing, preserving the nature of the object to be used as an everyday tool... like a belt.
At least this item was much more durable than the belts on the market.
As for the horn, it could be simply processed into a short spike that wasn’t metallic, yet its strength was comparable to metal. This enabled it to be secretly carried into certain places, provided that one’s concealment techniques were clever enough not to be detected by scanners and avoided being found by a physical search.
"This thing seems to have some other uses." Hunter Arno said with a hint of surprise as he was processing the tongue. He shook the tongue in his hand, and a faint hissing sound filled the air. Hearing this noise, he immediately stopped.
"It seems that besides using it as a belt, you can also use it as a tool for disruption. I feel like I’m charging too little, but then, we had a deal, didn’t we?"
Zheng Yichen felt that after gifting that set of mahjong tiles to Hunter Arno, he had become a bit more talkative. Arno used some unknown solution while handling the tongue: "Okay, just let this sit for a few hours now. There isn’t much skin on its head, but it’s still useful. I’ll handle the head for you, and keep the skin."
Zheng Yichen had no objections: "That’s fine."
He had originally wanted to keep only the horns, but now having an extra tongue to preserve was also good. Everything else was purely a bonus.
Compared to the troublesome steps needed for processing the tongue, the mule’s head was much quicker to handle. Soon, Arno returned with a skull stripped of flesh, his voice brimming with anticipation: "Let’s try out the tiles you made, I need to get familiar with the rules of ’mahjong’."
Having finished the real work, Arno seemed eager to play cards. Zheng Yichen told him, "Actually, it’s most interesting when four people play."
Arno glanced at the other people in the church and rubbed his chin lightly: "The people I know aren’t here, let’s pull in two willing citizens instead."
"That’s possible?" Zheng Yichen looked at the tranquil atmosphere pervasive in the church and then nodded: "I also think that could work. Do you think we could invite two nuns to play?"
Playing mahjong with nuns, especially in a church, made Zheng Yichen suspect that if the church really worshiped a god, the deity might smite him with divine punishment on the spot.
However, the deity worshiped here was ’Dusk’.
"You could try," Arno said, subtly arching an eyebrow, finding Zheng Yichen’s suggestion quite audacious, yet intriguing. After all, he wasn’t the one who had to do the inviting.
But... the nuns refused, including Prioress Tia, whom Zheng Yichen had approached.
When he returned a bit disappointed, Arno looked at Zheng Yichen with a trace of surprise, making Zheng Yichen feel somewhat uncomfortable: "What’s wrong?"
"You actually know a nun’s name?"
"Huh? Does that have some special meaning?" Zheng Yichen asked, feeling quite puzzled.
Arno shook his head: "The nuns here answer questions when asked, but truly getting to know them is not easy, since you know a nun’s name, perhaps spend more time talking to her."
What in the world was this riddle?