Most cultivators would have put up boundary flags and fed a shield with spirit stones. Pei Jing knew what that would tell the men coming down the alley. A Layer Three cultivator could feel an ordinary array humming under his boots from twenty paces away.
Pei Jing wanted the workshop to feel as cold as it looked. The dormant charms he’d taken from Gui’s stores would stay quiet until he woke them. The Ledger was tracking stages of the defense plan separately from his daily practice.
Through the slit in the front shutter, he saw five men gather by the tavern eighty paces away. Scarface Meng wore swamp-rhino hide over his chest and carried a two-handed cleaver. He was Layer Four. Iron Vulture Li, from Qian Tong’s Red Mist Mutual Aid Guild, was Layer Three, with spiked gloves and an iron mace. Two Layer Two scavengers had crowbars and repeating crossbows. The fifth man wore a ragged wolfskin and carried a recurve bow.
Five men, about eight hundred and fifty pounds between them. Pei Jing had seen enough.
He spent the afternoon preparing four parts of the workshop. He left the latch on the front shutter bent so it looked as if someone had forced it on the way out. He set aside a sealed Sunflare Charm for whoever tried it. Farther inside, a chalk mist ward waited beneath a slate panel. He left two more wards among the herb racks and fuel bins, where the aisles narrowed. The twelve…
