CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA! WHOOOOO-WHOOOOOOO!
Under the bright midday sun, the ten Ironclad Paddle-Wheel Steam-Spirit Ships plowed across the vast, glittering expanse of Silver Lake, towing the fifty captured Iron-Beak Warships behind them like a string of giant ducklings.
At the very center of the twenty-mile-wide lake rose a steep, rocky island surrounded by thirty-foot stone walls and iron watchtowers. Seen from above through Pei Xuan’s Farsight Spirit-Mirror Hawk, the entire island was carved into the shape of a giant rectangular counting board—Golden-Abacus Island, the secret headquarters and central vault of the Southern Canal Guild!
Up on the foredeck of Dry-Well No. 1, Guild Master Qian stood shivering in the warm lake breeze.
His treasured eight-hundred-pound Rank 4 Black-Gold Turtle Armor had already been pried off with crowbars by General Tie Zhan and locked in the ship’s armory. In its place, Guild Master Qian was wearing three standard-issue yellow Dry-Well Debtor Vests stitched together with hemp twine so they could barely button across his massive, trembling belly.
Across his chest, Hong Ling had used thick black ink to write four huge words:
NUMBER ONE RIVER LEECH!
“Speak louder into the megaphone, Master Qian!” General Tie Zhan nudged the fat warlord’s ribs with the flat of his broadsword as the steamships approached the heavy iron water-gates of Golden-Abacus Island. “If your island guards shoot a single crossbow bolt at our ships, Abacus Su says he’ll charge you fifty silver taels per bolt for ‘Airspace Trespassing,’ and Inspector Ye will slice your island down to water level!”
Beside them, Ye Guhan casually drew his black-iron sword half an inch out of its scabbard.
SHING!
A cold ray of Rank 5 Mid Sword Qi flashed across the water and neatly shaved the stone dragon-head ornament off the top of the island’s left watchtower, sending it plunging into the lake with a massive SPLASH!
Guild Master Qian nearly wet his trousers. He grabbed the Brass Thunder-Megaphone with both chubby hands and screamed at the top of his lungs toward the island’s iron water-gates:
“DON’T SHOOT! PUT DOWN THE CROSSBOWS, YOU IDIOTS! IT’S ME—GUILD MASTER QIAN! OPEN THE MAIN IRON GATES RIGHT NOW AND SURRENDER TO LORD PEI XUAN, OR THAT WHITE-ROBED SWORD MONSTER WILL CHOP US ALL INTO FISH BAIT!”
Up on the island walls, the two hundred remaining Guild treasury guards took one look at their invincible Guild Master wearing a bright yellow Debtor Vest—and then looked at the ten smoking iron steamships and the sliced watchtower roof.
CLANG-RATTLE-RATTLE!
Without a single word of argument, the guards dropped their crossbows, cranked the iron winches as fast as their arms could spin, and raised the heavy iron water-gates wide open!
Dry-Well No. 1 glided smoothly into the massive inner harbor carved into the heart of Golden-Abacus Island.
However, the moment Pei Xuan stepped down the steel gangplank onto the stone quay of the inner harbor, the smile faded from his face.
Along the eastern side of the island harbor stood twenty long, low wooden sheds surrounded by spiked iron fences.
Behind those fences stood ten thousand gaunt, barefoot boat-pullers, lumberjacks, and iron-smelters, along with fifty thousand ragged women, elderly parents, and skinny children huddled around cold mud stoves. Every single worker had deep, calloused rope-scars cut half an inch deep into their shoulders and heavy iron ankle-shackles chained in groups of ten.
When the ten thousand shackled workers saw Guild Master Qian being marched off the iron ship in chains, a low, trembling murmur swept through the iron fences.
“It’s Guild Master Qian... Somebody actually captured the River Leech?!”
“Who is that young lord in the gray robe? Look at his soldiers—none of them are carrying whips!”
Pei Xuan walked straight up to the spiked iron fence of the first work-camp. He didn’t even ask for a key. Circulating his newly upgraded Rank 4 Mid Furnace-Blood Qi into his right hand, Pei Xuan grabbed the wrist-thick iron padlock on the gate and squeezed!
CRUNCH-SNAP!
The heavy iron lock crumpled like dry clay in Pei Xuan’s bare palm! He kicked the spiked iron gate wide open and looked at a tall, broad-shouldered boat-puller in the front row whose gray hair was matted with sawdust and sweat.
“Uncle,” Pei Xuan asked gently, “how did ten thousand of you end up locked on this island?”
The gray-haired boatman—Old Master Lu, the former head shipwright of Silver-Fork County—dropped to his knees as tears carved clean tracks down his soot-stained cheeks.
“Young Master! Three years ago, Guild Master Qian blocked the upper tributaries of the Silver River and flooded our ten riverside villages!” Master Lu choked out, holding up his shackled wrists. “When we came to Silver-Fork Port to borrow two sacks of grain so our children wouldn’t starve, he made us sign loans at twenty percent monthly interest! Within half a year, none of us could pay the interest, so his thugs dragged all ten thousand of us—and our families—onto Golden-Abacus Island to pull his cargo barges and cut timber for the rest of our lives!”
“Twenty percent monthly compound interest on famine grain?” Pei Xuan’s eyes turned as cold as desert winter ice. He turned his head and looked at Guild Master Qian, who was trying to shrink himself into a ball behind General Tie Zhan’s legs.
“I-it was completely legal under my Guild rules!” Guild Master Qian whimpered, trembling under Pei Xuan’s gaze. “All the noble families in the Great Yan Kingdom do it—”
“Not in my land they don’t,” Pei Xuan said flatly. “Old Wei, General Tie! Have the Furnace-Blood soldiers strike the iron shackles off every single worker on this island! Old Guo, bring fifty cauldrons of hot spirit-rice porridge, braised pork, and steamed meat-potatoes off the ships right now—make sure every man, woman, and child on this island eats until their bellies are round!”
“My Lord! Come look at the mountain vault!”
Up on the stone steps leading into the hollowed-out granite cliff at the center of the island, Abacus Su’s voice cracked with sheer, unbridled ecstasy.
Pei Xuan, Hong Ling, and Ye Guhan walked up the steps to the massive twelve-inch-thick bronze vault doors. Abacus Su had just inserted the foot-long Golden Abacus Key into the central lock and turned it with a heavy KA-CHUNK!
As the twin bronze doors swung inward, a blinding golden-and-silver glow lit up the faces of everyone outside!
Carved deep inside the belly of the island mountain was a cavern the size of five football fields.
On the left side of the cavern sat neatly stacked wooden crates overflowing with fifty-tael snow-silver ingots and ten-tael gold bars, piling up into glittering mountains that reflected the torchlight like stars!
On the right side of the cavern sat colossal dry-storage warehouses packed floor-to-ceiling with eighty thousand tons of seasoned hundred-year pine timber, refined pig-iron ingots, copper plates, and two hundred thousand bolts of soft southern cotton and raw silk!
And right in the center of the vault sat ten black-iron chests filled to the brim with red-stamped Indenture & Slave Contracts!
“Five million taels of silver! Eighty thousand tons of timber and iron!” Hong Ling jumped straight into the air, hugging the nearest crate of silver ingots and rubbing her cheek against the cold metal. “Young Master! We’re rich! We can build roofs for fifty thousand new houses, forge ten thousand more Spirit-Rifles, and sew two sets of new cotton clothes for every citizen in Dry-Well City!”
Abacus Su was already flying through the cavern like a windstorm, slapping white Dry-Well Municipal Treasury paper seals onto every single crate and timber stack while muttering blissfully, “Mine... all for our municipal budget... not a single splinter wasted...”
“Leave the gold, silver, iron, and timber in the vault for loading onto the cargo barges,” Pei Xuan ordered, pointing at the ten black-iron chests in the center of the floor. “General Tie, carry those ten chests of paper contracts out to the central harbor square!”
Five minutes later, in the middle of the wide stone square outside the broken work-camp fences, all sixty thousand freed boat-pullers, shipwrights, and their family members stood holding steaming bowls of Old Guo’s braised pork rice, staring in terror at the ten black-iron chests dumped on a high stone platform.
“Those are the ten Blood-Seal Contract Chests...” Master Lu whispered, his hands shaking around his rice bowl. “Our thumbprints and our children’s names are locked inside those chests! As long as those papers exist, any magistrate in the Great Yan Kingdom will arrest us as runaway slaves!”
Pei Xuan stepped up onto the stone platform beside the ten open chests.
He didn’t read a single line of the contracts. He didn’t ask anyone to pay a single copper coin to buy back their freedom.
Instead, Pei Xuan raised his right hand, summoned a blazing, basketball-sized sphere of golden-red Rank 4 Mid Furnace-Blood Fire, and tossed it straight into the center of the ten open chests!
FWOOSH—BOOOOOOOM!
A thirty-foot pillar of roaring golden fire shot into the sky, consuming all ten thousand blood-stained indenture contracts and fake debt ledgers in a single heartbeat! Black ash swirled upward into the lake breeze and scattered harmlessly over the water.
“FROM THIS MOMENT ON, EVERY DEBT AND SLAVE CONTRACT OF THE SOUTHERN CANAL GUILD IS ASH!”
Pei Xuan’s clear, warm voice echoed across the entire island harbor:
“IN DRY-WELL TERRITORY, NO HUMAN BEING IS PROPERTY, AND NO CHILD WILL EVER BE SOLD FOR A BAG OF RICE! YOU ARE ALL FREE CITIZENS!”
He pointed out toward the harbor, where the ten Ironclad Steamships, fifty Iron-Beak Warships, and three hundred captured River Galleys sat gleaming in the afternoon sun.
“HOWEVER—OUR NEW DRY-WELL MUNICIPAL SHIPPING FLEET JUST ACQUIRED THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY SHIPS AND EIGHTY THOUSAND TONS OF CARGO! WE NEED TEN THOUSAND EXPERIENCED CAPTAINS, PILOTS, BOATMEN, AND SHIPWRIGHTS RIGHT NOW! ANYONE WHO STAYS TO WORK FOR THE DRY-WELL FLEET WILL RECEIVE FIVE SILVER TAELS A MONTH IN CASH WAGES, FREE FAMILY HOUSING WITH RUNNING WATER, THREE MEALS OF MEAT AND SPIRIT-RICE EVERY DAY, AND FREE ADMISSION TO OUR FURNACE-BLOOD CULTIVATION NIGHT SCHOOL!”
For three seconds, the square was silent except for the crackling of the bonfire.
Then—
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Master Lu and all sixty thousand freed boat-pullers, carpenters, wives, and children dropped to their knees on the stone square at once! They kowtowed toward Pei Xuan until their foreheads knocked loudly against the stone tiles, weeping tears of overwhelming gratitude and joy!
“Five silver taels a month! Free houses! And our children can go to school and learn Immortal Cultivation?!”
“Lord Pei saved our lives and burned our slave papers! My life and my sons’ lives belong to Lord Pei Xuan forever!”
“Long live Lord Pei! Long live Dry-Well City!”
Above the sea of sixty thousand kneeling people, a blinding golden ocean of Loyalty numbers shot straight past 90/100—with Master Lu and the ten thousand veteran boatmen hitting 98/100 [Die-Hard Loyal] on the spot!
While the crowd cheered, Abacus Su stepped forward to the edge of the platform, dragging the weeping Guild Master Qian by the collar of his triple-wide yellow Debtor Vest.
“Qian Baifa!” Abacus Su barked, adjusting his brass spectacles and holding up a twenty-foot-long audit scroll. “After seizing your five million taels of illegal monopoly silver, eighty thousand tons of hoarded materials, and three hundred and fifty ships to offset your ten-cart salt loan and your fifty years of river extortion, our Dry-Well Municipal Audit Office has determined that you still owe a remaining balance of one million two hundred thousand silver taels!”
“I don’t have a single copper coin left!” Guild Master Qian wailed, patting his empty pockets. “You even shook the chicken leg out of my armor!”
“Which is why,” Pei Xuan smiled coldly, tossing a heavy iron wire brush and a wooden scraper at Guild Master Qian’s feet, “you are hereby sentenced to twenty years of mandatory labor as Dry-Well Fleet’s Chief Hull-Barnacle & River-Moss Scraper! At fifty coppers a day, if you scrub thirty boat bottoms every day without slacking off, you might even earn enough work-points for a bowl of pickled turnip soup by tonight! General Tie—take him down to the dry-dock!”
“Nooooo! My soft, pampered hands!” Guild Master Qian’s cries faded down the dock as two burly boatmen whom he used to whip happily dragged him away to scrape barnacles off the bottom of a toilet barge.
DING! DING! DING!
Pei Xuan stood on the high stone platform of Golden-Abacus Island, looking out over the sparkling waters of Silver Lake and the endless convoys of cargo barges already being loaded with timber and iron ore for the trip back up the Grand Desert Canal.
With the Southern Canal Guild’s fleet and treasury in his pocket, the entire Silver River waterway now belonged to Dry-Well City!