When Pei Xuan walked into the Town Hall courtyard, he found forty burly foremen—including Chief Bricklayer One-Eyed Jack and Road Team Leader Scarface Wolf—standing in a neat line with sweat dripping down their noses.
Sitting behind a long oak desk under the shade of a young willow tree was Su Suanpan (“Abacus Su”).
He was wearing a crisp new dark-blue auditor’s robe that Hong Ling had found for him, with his Crystal-Clear Spectacles perched on his nose and a steaming clay pot of Sweet-Spring Tea at his elbow. His left hand flipped through stacks of wooden tally boards at blinding speed, while his right hand danced across the ninety solid gold beads of the Nine-Ring Gold-Iron Abacus.
Clack-clack-clack-clack-TING!
Every time his fingers finished a row of numbers, the gold-and-iron abacus let out a sharp metallic ring that made the scarred ex-bandit foremen flinch as if someone had flicked their ears.
“Foreman Jack of Bricklaying Crew #1!” Abacus Su called out without looking up from the ledger.
“Present, Auditor Su!” One-Eyed Jack—a ferocious ex-bandit who used to rob desert caravans with a spiked club—stood up straight with his straw hat held nervously against his stomach.
“On the fourteenth day of the month, your crew drew four hundred and twenty barrels of lime mortar from Kiln #2 to build sixteen Cool-Breeze Stone Houses on East Willow Street,” Abacus Su said, pushing his glasses up with his middle finger. “According to standard Dry-Well Town brick dimensions, sixteen houses require exactly four hundred and eight barrels of mortar. Where did the remaining twelve barrels of mortar go?”
One-Eyed Jack scratched his bald head and grinned sheepishly. “Well, Auditor Su, you see... Grandma Zhang said the dirt floor behind the kitchen pigpen was getting muddy when they washed the big woks, so the boys and I used the leftover twelve barrels after work to pave a little patio for the kitchen aunties! And then Old Guo gave us each two fried scorpions as a thank-you!”
Hong Ling gasped from beside the desk. “So that’s why twelve barrels were missing! I spent three hours last night recounting the lime sacks!”
“Unrecorded municipal construction and unauthorized snack bartering!” Abacus Su slapped his palm on the desk, then immediately softened his tone as his fingers clicked three beads on the abacus. “However, paving the kitchen wash-yard prevented mud contamination and saved approximately four hours of daily dish-carrying labor! Therefore, instead of a fine, Bricklaying Crew #1 is retroactively awarded twenty-four Municipal Work-Points, and Grandma Zhang’s kitchen account is debited twelve barrels of mortar! Sign your thumbprint here!”
One-Eyed Jack blinked his single eye in amazement. “Wait—we don’t get yelled at, AND we get twenty-four Work-Points? What do Work-Points do, Auditor Su?”
“You will find out tomorrow morning at five o’clock!” Abacus Su said mysteriously, waving his brush. “Next! Deputy Toilet-Scrubber #4, Qian Duo—formerly known as Boss Qian of Salt-Pool Town!”
At the back of the line, a fat man wearing a bright yellow Debtor Vest and holding a long-handled wooden toilet brush shuffled forward with a bitter face.
Just ten days ago, Boss Qian had been the richest water merchant in Salt-Pool Town, sleeping on silk pillows and drinking cold wine. Now, after sending two hundred mercenaries to scratch Pei Xuan’s mud wall, he was working off a fifty-thousand-silver property damage fine by scrubbing the town’s public latrines.
“Auditor Su...” Boss Qian whined, rubbing his pudgy back. “My lower back has been aching terribly these past two days. I still scrubbed four latrines this morning! Surely that counts for a full day’s debt reduction?”
Abacus Su slowly lifted his head. Behind the Crystal-Clear Spectacles, his eyes narrowed like two razor blades.
“Four latrines?” Abacus Su tapped his golden abacus. Clack-clack-clack! “According to the water-pipe flow meter at Public Latrine #3 and the lime-powder consumption box in the corner, you only used half a scoop of deodorizing lime today, and through my spectacles I can see three dry mud spots on the bottom of your boots from sitting behind the hay-shed in the shade for two hours and fourteen minutes!”
Boss Qian jumped three feet in the air, looking down at his boots in horror. “How... how can you tell where I was sitting from the dirt on my shoes?!”
“Because the hay-shed is the only place in town with red clover seeds mixed in the dust!” Abacus Su snapped, writing rapidly in red ink on Boss Qian’s debt ledger. “For slacking off for two hours and fourteen minutes while on debtor duty, your daily wage credit of two silver taels is canceled, and a Lazy-Bone Penalty of five silver taels is added to your total bill! You now owe Dry-Well Town forty-nine thousand, eight hundred and eighty-five silver taels! Furthermore, your evening ration is reduced from two Meat-Potato buns to one bowl of plain cabbage soup!”
“No! Not my evening Meat-Potato buns!” Boss Qian wailed, dropping to his knees and hugging his toilet brush. “Auditor Su, have mercy! I’ll go scrub Latrines #5, #6, and #7 right now! Just don’t take away Old Guo’s lamb-fat buns!”
Standing by the courtyard gate, Pei Xuan watched the scene with a wide grin while Hong Ling looked at Abacus Su as if he were a god descended from heaven.
“Young Master!” Hong Ling ran over to Pei Xuan, her eyes sparkling with worship. “Where did you find this treasure?! In just two hours, he balanced every single salt-mine cart ticket, caught six lazy prisoners who were hiding behind the brick kiln, and figured out a way to save three hundred catties of charcoal a day by linking the bathhouse chimney to the brick-drying shed!”
Pei Xuan looked at the floating system notification above Abacus Su’s head.
That night, long after the rest of Dry-Well Town had gone to sleep, the oil lamp inside the Town Hall office stayed lit until dawn.
Abacus Su didn’t feel tired at all. Between sipping buckets of stamina-restoring Sweet-Spring Tea and clicking his mind-refreshing Nine-Ring Gold-Iron Abacus, he was in accountant heaven. Never in his life had an official given him total freedom to organize an entire town without corrupt nobles trying to cook the books!
At midnight, Pei Xuan stopped by the Town Hall to check on him—and found Abacus Su directing four night-shift carpenters to set up a massive, thirty-foot-wide wooden billboard right in the middle of the central Town Square, directly opposite Old Guo’s breakfast stalls.
“My Lord! You’re just in time!” Abacus Su’s glasses gleamed in the lamplight as he pointed proudly at the giant wooden board. “When I was auditing the town today, I noticed a fascinating phenomenon. In other cities, laborers work only because they fear the whip, and prisoners try to escape at every chance. Here in Dry-Well Town, because Your Lordship feeds everyone meat buns and teaches them the Iron-Anvil Body Art, even the former bandits and salt smugglers are well-fed and proud of their strength!”
“And how do you make proud, well-fed roughnecks work twice as fast without whipping them?” Pei Xuan asked with a chuckle.
“Competition and face!” Abacus Su held up a basket full of small, bright red paper flowers cut out with scissors, along with rows of painted wooden name-tags. “I have divided all four thousand five hundred citizens and four hundred debtor-prisoners into thirty-six Work Squads! Every time a squad lays an extra hundred bricks, mines an extra ton of salt, or has a member break through a martial sub-realm, they earn Work-Points. Every ten Work-Points earns their squad one Little Red Honor Flower pasted right next to their name on this central square board!”
Abacus Su pushed up his glasses with a sly grin that looked positively demonic.
“At the end of every week, the Top Three Squads with the most Little Red Flowers get to wear a Red Honor Sash, sit at the front VIP tables with Commander Tie, and get an extra bowl of Old Guo’s Spicy Deep-Fried Scorpions! Meanwhile, the Bottom Squad with the fewest Little Red Flowers has to wear a Green Turtle Hat for a whole day while cleaning Old Yellow’s camel stable!”
Pei Xuan burst out laughing. “A Red Flower leaderboard and a Green Turtle Hat penalty? Auditor Su, if the Immortal Sects knew how you play with men’s hearts, they’d call you the Sect Master of the Demonic Path!”
To make Abacus Su’s masterpiece even better, Pei Xuan walked up to the thirty-foot wooden billboard, placed his hand on the frame, and spent 100 LP in the Fusion Cube to merge the [Wooden Billboard] with [Luminous Glow-Stone Dust] and [Red-Iron Paint].
DING!
At five o’clock the next morning, before the sun had even peeked over the desert horizon, the first group of yawning workers walked into the Town Square to line up for morning wash-water.
It was Scarface Wolf and twenty former horse-bandits from Road-Paving Squad #2, followed closely by the former Sand-Viper Smuggler Boss leading Mining Squad #5.
Suddenly, Scarface Wolf stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the glowing thirty-foot billboard in the center of the square.
“Hey! What’s that shiny board?” Scarface Wolf squinted at the neat rows of names—and his jaw dropped.
Right at the very top of the board, in big golden letters, was written:
1st Place: Bricklaying Squad #1 (Foreman: One-Eyed Jack) — ✿ ✿ ✿ (3 Little Red Flowers!) (Note: Awarded for paving the kitchen wash-yard ahead of schedule!)
And right below it: 2nd Place: Road-Paving Squad #2 (Foreman: Scarface Wolf) — (0 Little Red Flowers) 3rd Place: Salt-Mine Squad #5 (Foreman: Viper Liu) — (0 Little Red Flowers) ... 36th Place (DEAD LAST — GREEN TURTLE HAT WARNING): Latrine Squad #4 (Boss Qian) — (-1 Red Flower!)
At that exact moment, One-Eyed Jack swaggered into the square with his chest puffed out like a rooster, pointing his thumb at the three bright red paper flowers glowing next to his name on top of the board.
“Hahaha! Morning, Little Wolf!” One-Eyed Jack laughed loudly so the whole square could hear. “Look at the big board! My Brick Squad #1 already has three Little Red Flowers from Auditor Su! Your Road Squad has a big fat goose egg! Watch out, brother—if you guys don’t hurry up today, you’ll be wearing the Green Turtle Hat and shoveling camel poop on Sunday!”
Scarface Wolf’s scarred face turned as red as a cooked lobster.
Back when they were bandits in the Sand-Jackal Gang, Scarface Wolf was the big brother and One-Eyed Jack was his deputy! How could he let One-Eyed Jack beat him by three Little Red Flowers in front of four thousand people?!
“Three lousy paper flowers?! Who’s afraid of who?!” Scarface Wolf roared, tearing off his vest to show his Rank 2 muscles and grabbing two heavy iron shovels at once from the tool rack. “Road Squad #2, wake the hell up! Nobody eats breakfast sitting down today—grab a bun in your teeth and run to the South Highway! If we don’t lay half a mile of stone curb before noon and get FIVE Little Red Flowers on that board, I’ll kick your backsides myself!”
“WAIT A SECOND!”
Next to them, Viper Liu—the former boss of the four hundred Sand-Viper salt smugglers, who still wore a yellow Debtor Vest—slammed his fist against his chest, his Loyalty bar jumping from 68 straight to 78/100!
“Scarface, don’t get cocky!” Viper Liu yelled to his four hundred former smugglers. “Did you boys see the board?! If we get five Little Red Flowers at the salt mine today, Auditor Su cuts three days off our debtor sentence AND gives us a bucket of fried scorpions! Who said bandits dig faster than us smugglers?! Get on the Scorpion Buses! Move, move, move! Hey, Bus #4, hurry up, don’t let Road Squad #2 beat us!”
Within five minutes, the entire town went completely crazy over Little Red Flowers!
At the tool shed, tough scarred men who used to rob caravans at knife-point were practically wrestling each other at five in the morning to grab the biggest iron pickaxes and wheelbarrows. Over at the public latrines, fat Boss Qian was running from bathroom to bathroom with two brushes tied to his hands and one brush tied to his foot, scrubbing the stone tiles until they sparkled like mirrors while crying:
“I don’t want the Green Turtle Hat! Auditor Su, look at Latrine #4, you could eat soup off this floor! Please give me half a red flower!”
Up on the balcony of the Town Hall, Pei Xuan stood beside Abacus Su and General Tie Zhan, watching thousands of workers and guards sprinting enthusiastically to their posts while singing work songs.
On Pei Xuan’s RTS screen, the territory efficiency meter was glowing bright green:
[Territory Work & Training Speed: 130% -> 145%!]
[80 Freed Prisoners (from Ch.42) -> All crossed 70+ Loyalty!]
[150 Guards broke through to Rank 1 Peak / Rank 2 Early during morning drills!]
[Daily Income Updated: +17,500 -> +19,200 LP / day!]
“Brilliant,” General Tie Zhan muttered in awe, chewing on his third morning pork bun while watching fifty former bandits jog past carrying five-hundred-pound stone rollers on their shoulders without being told. “In the Northern Army, if I asked soldiers to haul stones at five in the morning, half of them would pretend to have stomach aches. Auditor Su gets them fighting over shovels with three pieces of red paper that cost half a copper coin!”
“Half a copper coin?” Abacus Su adjusted his glasses indignantly. “Commander Tie, I used scrap red paper trimmed from wedding lanterns! The material cost was zero point zero coppers!”
Just as Pei Xuan laughed and raised his teacup to toast his two new specialists, the sharp sound of a bone whistle echoed from the South Gate.
TWEEEEET!
A dusty gray Desert Sand-Wolf galloped down the main street at top speed. Nomad Scout Chief Batu leaped off the wolf’s back before it even stopped and bounded up the steps of the Town Hall, his face grim.
Behind Batu, two local town merchants who had gone south three days ago to buy cotton cloth and iron plowshares were limping in with bruised faces and empty carts.
“My Lord!” Batu dropped to one knee, his voice tight with anger. “Trouble in the south! Thirty miles down the road at Green-Willow Oasis, the town lord—Lord Zhao, cousin of the Iron-Wolf Marquis’s wife—just locked his gates against us!”
“Oh?” Pei Xuan’s eyes narrowed slightly as he set down his teacup. “My stepmother’s cousin, Zhao Kuan?”
“Yes, My Lord!” one of the bruised merchants cried out, touching his swollen cheek. “That fat slave-trader Boss Ma arrived in Green-Willow Oasis yesterday afternoon and sold those two bags of Snow-Crystal Salt to Lord Zhao! The moment Lord Zhao heard that you now have four thousand people, sweet water, and snow-white salt in Dry-Well Town, he flew into a rage! He beat us with clubs, threw us out of the market, and posted an official decree on his city wall!”
“What does the decree say?” Pei Xuan asked calmly.
“Lord Zhao announced a Total Trade Embargo against Dry-Well Town!” Batu growled, clenching his fist. “Any merchant who sells a single pound of iron, a single bolt of winter cloth, or a single bag of seeds to Dry-Well Town will have their family thrown into prison! Worse yet, to stop his own townspeople from trading with us, Lord Zhao locked the gates of Green-Willow Oasis and raised the price of water and coarse bread inside his town by three hundred percent!”
General Tie Zhan slammed his half-eaten bun onto the railing, his Rank 3 Grandmaster aura flaring up like a sandstorm.
“My Lord! Give me five hundred guards and six Scorpion Buses!” Tie Zhan roared, reaching for his heavy iron halberd. “I’ll ride thirty miles south right now, smash Green-Willow Oasis’s gates into kindling, and drag that fat pig Zhao Kuan back here by his ears!”
Pei Xuan didn’t get angry. Instead, he looked at his RTS mini-map toward the south, then turned to Abacus Su with a slow, wicked smile.
“Wait a second, Commander Tie,” Pei Xuan chuckled. “Why waste energy smashing down the walls of Green-Willow Oasis when Lord Zhao just raised his own town’s food and water prices by three hundred percent? Auditor Su—what happens when a greedy merchant locks four thousand hungry customers inside a hot box, and someone opens a One-Copper Discount Night Market right outside his front window?”
Abacus Su’s crystal spectacles flashed with a blinding white light as his fingers clicked all ninety golden beads at once!