Ten minutes after midnight, inside the gatehouse war room of Dry-Well Village, Captain Hu stood respectfully in front of a wooden sand-table map.
Even though he was still wearing his bright yellow DEBTOR #131 vest and had to stand with his legs slightly apart because of his cactus-stung backside, the fierce Rank 2 Peak mercenary commander was pointing at the eastern corner of the map with a bamboo stick like a devoted vanguard general.
Above his head, his green Loyalty bar had already climbed from 66 to 74/100 after Hong Ling handed him a jar of Jade-Clear Healing Soap that cooled the cactus swelling on his buttocks in five minutes flat.
“Lord Pei, look right here,” Captain Hu said earnestly, tapping a walled compound on the northern side of Salt-Pool Town. “Everyone in Salt-Pool Town thinks Boss Qian keeps his silver and grain inside his main courtyard by the three brackish wells. That’s a decoy! When he hired my Black-Arrow Company last week, he took me to his real vault—the Old Salt-Brick Granary in the north alley!”
“How much is stored inside?” Pei Xuan asked, leaning over the table while Hong Ling pulled out her abacus with shining eyes.
“At least twenty thousand catties of winter millet and wheat flour, three hundred barrels of clean winter rainwater that he refuses to sell to the poor townsfolk, and an iron chest containing five thousand silver taels!” Captain Hu said, slapping his thigh—then wincing slightly as he remembered his sore backside. “Even better, Boss Qian thought my two hundred Black-Arrow mercenaries would crush your village before sunset today. Tonight is his fourth concubine’s twentieth birthday! He invited all the wealthy landlords of Salt-Pool Town to a midnight drinking banquet at his main manor, and he only left thirty sleepy house guards watching the Old Salt-Brick Granary!”
Clack-clack-clack!
Hong Ling’s fingers danced across her brass abacus so fast they left afterimages. “Five thousand silver taels and twenty thousand catties of fine grain! Young Master, yesterday Steward Liu left Boss Qian with a fifty-four-silver horse-poop debt, and today Captain Hu’s company ran up a three-thousand-silver wall-damage bill that Boss Qian ordered! With overnight compound interest and our Late-Night Debt Collection Travel Fee, Boss Qian owes us every single copper coin and grain sack in his warehouse!”
Old Wei nodded with deep conviction. “Hong Ling is right. Going to collect a lawful debt at midnight so the debtor doesn’t have to worry about his debt tomorrow—the Young Lord is truly considerate.”
Pei Xuan smiled and turned to Batu. “Batu, how fast can a hundred of your Rank 1 nomad scouts make the twenty-mile run to Salt-Pool Town if they ride the Giant Sand-Wolves and lead fifty empty ox-carts and mule wagons?”
“With the sixteen siege mules we captured from Captain Hu today plus our thirty-four fastest oasis oxen and sixty pack-camels, we can reach Salt-Pool Town in less than two hours!” Batu grinned, thumping his wolf-skin chest. “And the thirty house guards at Boss Qian’s granary won’t even hear our wolves’ padded paws on the sand!”
“Wait,” Pei Xuan held up a finger. “Salt-Pool Town has twelve hundred ordinary townsfolk living tightly packed around the north alley. If we clash swords with thirty house guards in the middle of the night, the shouting and clanging might cause a fire or scare the innocent families next door—after all, those twelve hundred townsfolk are going to be our new citizens tomorrow morning.”
Captain Hu blinked in surprise. “Lord Pei, how can we take down thirty armed guards inside a locked stone granary without clashing blades or making a single sound?”
Pei Xuan walked over to a corner basket filled with two dozen fist-sized, hollow yellow gourds that grew wild near the dry gullies—[Dry Puffball Melons]—and a bundle of grey desert weeds called [Drowsy-Sheep Grass].
Normally, Drowsy-Sheep Grass only gave sheep a mild yawn if they chewed a whole bush of it, while Dry Puffball Melons just popped with a puff of harmless dust when stepped on.
Pei Xuan opened his Fusion Cube and dropped both items inside.
Confirm Fusion!
[ Balance: 5,520 LP -> 5,420 LP ]
With a flash of soft silver light, the fifty ugly dry gourds in the basket turned into smooth, plum-scented grey melons marked with dreamy cloud swirls.
Pei Xuan tossed one of the fused [Sweet-Dream Smoke Melons] to Captain Hu. “Throw twenty of these over the granary wall before we go in. Within ten seconds, all thirty guards—and even their watchdogs—will be sleeping like babies without letting out a single peep.”
Captain Hu weighed the cool, cloud-patterned melon in his palm, his eyes widening in awe. Even in Black-Rock Border City, knock-out incense that worked in two breaths on Rank 1 and Rank 2 martial artists cost fifty silver a stick and smelled like rotten sulfur! Yet Lord Pei pulled a basket of fifty odorless, sweet-plum sleeping melons out of thin air like magic!
[Citizen: Hu Biao (Debtor #131) | Rank 2 Peak Martial | Loyalty: 74 -> 85/100!]
[Current Thought: No wonder I lost in one move today! Lord Pei isn't an exiled mortal brat at all—he is blessed by an Immortal Master! Following a lord like this is ten times better than working for a fat miser like Boss Qian!]
“Move out!” Pei Xuan waved his hand. “Old Wei, Batu, Captain Hu, and a hundred wolf-riding scouts come with me! One-Eyed Jack and Lieutenant Ma, stay behind to guard the Elastic Wall and keep the canal digging going!”
“YES, LORD PEI!”
Under the bright silver desert moon, the weirdest raiding party in the history of the Red-Sand Wastes glided out of the eastern gate of Dry-Well Village.
At the front rode Pei Xuan on the back of Old Yellow—who had mutated into a tall, gleaming Rank 2 Golden-Hump Beast that loped across soft sand at thirty miles an hour without spilling a drop of tea from its rider’s cup.
Flanking him were Old Wei, Captain Hu, and a hundred Rank 1 nomad scouts riding hundred-and-fifty-pound Giant Desert Sand-Wolves, followed by fifty oiled-axle ox-carts, mule wagons, and sixty pack-camels whose hooves had been wrapped in thick cloth rags to muffle every sound.
Cruising at top speed along the packed salt road, the twenty-mile distance vanished in just an hour and a half.
By two o’clock in the morning, the dark, crooked mud walls of Salt-Pool Town rose up ahead against the starry sky.
Unlike Dry-Well Village—which smelled of sweet spring water, cool stone, and roasted lamb potatoes—Salt-Pool Town smelled of stale sweat, brackish salt-mud, and misery. Through the cracks of the low mud shacks lining the outer streets, Pei Xuan could see skinny families of salt-miners and water-carriers huddled together under thin, patched blankets, their lips cracked and bleeding from chronic dehydration because Boss Qian charged ten copper coins for a single ladle of muddy water.
Even the town’s main well in the center square was locked inside a spiked iron cage with two iron padlocks the size of fists!
“What a parasite,” Pei Xuan said softly, his eyes turning cold as he looked at the iron cage over the town well. “Locking up the groundwater in the middle of a desert while hoarding three hundred barrels of clean rainwater in his private warehouse.”
“This way, Lord Pei,” Captain Hu whispered, leading the silent column down a dark back alley behind the northern wall to a massive compound built of thick grey salt-bricks.
From the main manor half a mile south, the faint sound of drunken singing and clinking wine cups still drifted through the night air—Boss Qian and his wealthy guests were completely wasted at his concubine’s birthday party.
Here at the Old Salt-Brick Granary, thirty burly house guards armed with iron halberds were leaning against the courtyard pillars or pacing slowly around the three huge storehouses, yawning and swatting at desert mosquitoes.
“How many guards are Rank 2?” Pei Xuan asked after scanning the compound with his RTS mini-map.
“Only the guard captain sleeping in the gate-room is Rank 2 Early,” Captain Hu whispered back. “The other twenty-nine are all Rank 1 Early and Mid thugs.”
“Batu, have twenty wolf-scouts toss the [Sweet-Dream Smoke Melons] over all four walls on my count,” Pei Xuan ordered softly. “One... two... three—toss!”
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Twenty grey, cloud-patterned melons sailed silently over the fifteen-foot salt-brick wall like night birds and landed on the flagstones of the granary courtyard.
Pff! Pff! Pff!
There was no loud bang—just twenty soft puffs like someone stepping on dry mushrooms.
Instantly, a thick, velvety cloud of white mist smelling faintly of sweet iced plums rolled across the entire courtyard!
“Huh? Who’s cooking sweet plums at two in the morning?”
A house guard leaning on his halberd took a deep, greedy sniff of the sweet mist.
Before he could take a second step, his eyelids turned as heavy as lead weights. His knees went soft, he slid gently down the wooden pillar onto a pile of straw, and he let out a loud, whistling snore:
Zzzzzzz—purrrrr!
Across the courtyard, all twenty-nine patrolling guards—and even the Rank 2 Early guard captain inside the gate-room—breathed in two mouthfuls of the sweet mist, yawned happily, and flopped onto the floor like thirty sacks of flour!
Three fierce mastiff watchdogs tied by the vault door wagged their tails twice in the sweet plum mist, curled up into furry balls, and started chasing rabbits in their dreams.
In less than ten seconds, the entire heavily guarded warehouse compound was dead asleep!
Captain Hu swallowed hard as he climbed over the wall and unbolted the wide double cart-doors from the inside. “Not a single blade drawn... not a single dog barked!”
“Quickly and quietly,” Pei Xuan rode into the courtyard on Old Yellow and pointed his fan at the three massive storehouse doors. “Old Wei, cut those iron padlocks off! Everybody load the carts—grain in the first thirty wagons, clean rainwater barrels in the next fifteen, and all the salt-cured meat, cloth bolts, and iron tools on the sixty pack-camels!”
CLANG-SNIP!
Old Wei’s Rank 2 Blood-Iron Mechanical Arm didn’t even need a key—his iron fingers pinched the thick brass padlocks on the three storehouses and twisted them off like soft clay!
When the heavy wooden doors swung open, even Old Wei and Batu gasped at the sight inside.
While the twelve hundred poor residents of Salt-Pool Town were drinking salty mud-water by the drop and eating chaff cakes mixed with sand, Boss Qian’s private storehouses were stacked to the rafters with twenty-two thousand catties of golden winter millet and white wheat flour, three hundred sealed oak barrels of sweet winter rainwater, two hundred bolts of thick cotton cloth, and five hundred iron pickaxes and shovels!
And inside the inner stone vault, after Old Wei sliced the iron lock-box open with one silent press of his Rank 2 Heavy Mountain-Cleaver Saber, five big wooden chests gleamed under the moonlight—packed full of five thousand four hundred silver taels, plus a thick red ledger titled:
[Salt-Pool Town Blood-Interest & Water-Slavery Contracts].
Pei Xuan picked up the red ledger and flipped through the pages. Inside were the thumbprints of nearly four hundred poor families in Salt-Pool Town who had borrowed ten ladles of water during last summer’s heatwave and were now forced to pay Boss Qian eighty percent of everything they earned for the rest of their lives!
“Load every last sack of grain and every single silver coin onto our wagons,” Pei Xuan said, tucking the red ledger into his sleeve as a cold glint flashed in his eyes. “Leave twenty barrels of clean water in the town square for tomorrow morning. As for Boss Qian himself...”
Pei Xuan looked toward the drunken laughter coming from Boss Qian’s main manor down the street and smiled.
“Old Wei, Captain Hu—we still have ten [Sweet-Dream Smoke Melons] left in the basket. Let’s go pay Boss Qian’s birthday banquet a personal visit and help him settle his account.”
Down along the torchlit perimeter of Dry-Well Village, the night watch guards marched past in crisp formation, their heavy boots thudding against the packed roadbed in a steady, reassuring rhythm. Inside the warm kitchen yard, Old Guo scraped the bottom of the giant iron soup cauldron with his long ladle and banked the red-hot coal embers with grey ash so the morning broth would stay piping hot until sunrise. Beside the stone counter, Hong Ling carefully tied a red cotton string around her thick stack of charcoal-written work ledgers, counting the neat rows of copper coins and silver bits one last time before locking the heavy iron cashbox with a satisfied click. Even the yellow-vested debtor laborers stretched out on their clean straw mats inside the wind-sheltered barracks let out long, grateful snores, their bellies full of hot meat-potato stew and sweet well water as the desert stars glittered peacefully overhead.