The sand plain north of Green-Willow Oasis shook under the pounding feet of nearly four thousand desperate people.
Leading the charge across the five-hundred-yard gap were Master Lu and his hundred and twenty burly blacksmiths, right alongside Captain Meng and the two hundred former gate guards who had just thrown off their black Zhao Family vests. Behind them ran weavers carrying toddlers, carpenters pushing handcarts, and gray-haired elders leaning on their grandsons.
Seeing four thousand people sprinting straight toward the ten Scorpion Buses like a stampeding herd of wild horses, General Tie Zhan instinctively stepped forward on the roof of Bus #1, his hand resting on his heavy iron halberd.
“Relax, Commander Tie,” Pei Xuan smiled, waving his folding fan as he watched the sea of floating green Loyalty bars already rising above the running crowd. “They aren’t coming to fight us. They’re coming for lunch.”
“Kitchen Corps, hold your ground and man the ladles!” Old Guo bellowed happily from Stall #1, banging a giant brass gong with his iron spoon. “Line up at all fifty stalls! Children, elders, and mothers with babies to the front! Nobody push—we brought ten thousand meat buns, twenty roasted sheep, and two hundred barrels of ice water! Everyone gets a full belly today!”
When the first wave of runners skidded to a halt in front of the fifty red-and-gold stalls, they could hardly believe their eyes.
There were no soldiers pointing spears at them. Instead, fifty smiling village aunties in clean white aprons were scooping big wooden bowls of crystal-clear Sweet-Spring Spirit Water and ruby-red Chilled Sweet-Plum Soup out of frost-covered barrels, while stacking fist-sized Lamb-Pork Steamed Buns onto clean bamboo plates!
Master Lu’s hands trembled as he held out two sweaty copper coins to Grandma Zhang at Stall #1.
“Ma’am... is it really one copper coin for a bowl of ice water and one copper for a giant meat bun?” Master Lu asked in a shaking, raspy voice, afraid that if he blinked, the whole market would vanish like a desert mirage.
“One copper each if you’re just buying!” Grandma Zhang boomed with a warm smile, pushing a huge wooden bowl of ice-cold Sweet-Spring water and two steaming meat buns straight into the old blacksmith’s calloused hands without even taking his two coins. “And completely FREE if you walk ten steps over to Auditor Su’s desk and sign your thumbprint to move to Dry-Well Town! Drink up first, old brother—look at how cracked your lips are!”
Master Lu didn’t wait another second. He handed one bun and the first sip of water to Auntie Chen’s little six-year-old granddaughter beside him, then tilted the big wooden bowl back and gulped down the ice-cold Lv.2 Sweet-Spring Spirit Water.
GULP! GULP! GULP!
The cool, sweet liquid slid down Master Lu’s burning throat like heavenly nectar.
Within three breaths, the blinding headache from two days of heatstroke vanished completely. Even more miraculous, the old burn blisters on his blacksmith’s hands cooled down, and the stiff, aching joints in his fifty-year-old lower back let out a series of comfortable pops as a warm stream of pure vitality spread through his limbs!
“Heavens!” Master Lu stared down at the empty wooden bowl in shock. “Little Hammer wasn’t lying! This isn’t ordinary well water—this is sacred spring water that washes away sickness and fatigue!”
Beside him, he took a huge bite out of the hot Lamb-Pork & Meat-Potato Steamed Bun.
Rich, savory meat gravy burst across his tongue. For a man who had been chewing on sandy, bitter eighteen-copper bran cakes for months, the fluffy white potato-flour dough and juicy spiced lamb tasted like a banquet from the Emperor’s own kitchen!
All down the five-hundred-foot line of fifty stalls, the exact same scene played out four thousand times over.
Weavers wept openly as their crying children drank cold, sweet plum soup and giggled with red-stained lips. Carpenters and farmers stuffed whole roasted lamb ribs and crispy deep-fried scorpions into their mouths, feeling hot strength surge straight into their tired muscles!
Even Captain Meng and his two hundred former gate guards stood in a circle by Stall #50, each man holding a giant meat bun in both hands while tears ran down their dusty cheeks into the dough.
“Six years...” young guard Zhao Er sobbed around a mouthful of lamb bun after feeding his little sister a bowl of plum soup. “I stood on Lord Zhao’s wall in the boiling sun for six years, and he never once gave us a single piece of real meat! Lord Pei doesn’t even know us, and he’s feeding my little sister ice soup and lamb buns for free!”
In Pei Xuan’s vision, a tsunami of green and gold system notifications scrolled so fast they blurred into a solid ribbon of light:
Striking while the iron was hot, Abacus Su climbed onto a wooden table between Stall #25 and Stall #26, holding the brass Thunder-Conch Megaphone in one hand and his gleaming Nine-Ring Gold-Iron Abacus in the other.
“Attention, everyone! Once you have had your first bowl of soup and two buns, please listen carefully!”
Abacus Su’s voice rang out clearly over the happy crowd.
“Some of you are asking: ‘If we go back inside Green-Willow Oasis tonight after eating at Lord Pei’s market, won’t Lord Zhao punish us tomorrow?’ That is an excellent question! And our Lord Pei Xuan’s answer is simple—why go back inside at all?!”
Abacus Su pointed north toward the wide six-lane paved highway leading to Dry-Well Town.
“Sign up at the ten Citizenship Desks right now to become official citizens of Dry-Well Town! Every family that signs up today receives: One: A brand-new, two-bedroom Cool-Breeze Stone House that stays cool in summer and warm in winter—rent-free! Two: Zero Water Tax forever, plus three hot meat meals a day from our public canteens! Three: For Master Lu’s blacksmiths, Auntie Chen’s weavers, and Master Mu’s carpenters, we have already prepared brand-new workshop plots by the Sweet-Spring Canal, plus twenty copper coins a day in base wages and Little Red Flower Work-Point bonuses! And Four: You don’t even have to walk thirty miles! Our ten giant Armored Scorpion Buses will carry your elders, your children, your anvils, and your weaving looms straight to your new front doors tonight—and everyone gets two more free meat buns for the bus ride over!”
For two seconds, the four thousand people stared at Abacus Su in stunned silence.
Then, Master Lu slammed his empty soup bowl down on the counter, raised his blacksmith hammer into the air, and roared at the top of his lungs:
“Why the hell would we ever stay under Lord Zhao’s whip when Dry-Well Town treats craftsmen like human beings?! Blacksmith Guild—ten steps left to Auditor Su’s desk! We’re signing up for Dry-Well Town right now! Wait—My Lord Pei!”
Master Lu turned toward Pei Xuan on the roof of Bus #1, his eyes burning with eagerness. “All of our heavy iron anvils, forging hammers, bellows, and three tons of pig-iron ingots are still inside our shops on Blacksmith Street! And Auntie Chen’s three hundred wooden weaving looms and cotton bales are inside the Weaving Quarter! If we leave them behind, that greedy dog Lord Zhao will seize them all!”
Pei Xuan leaped lightly down from the roof of Bus #1, landing in front of Master Lu with a bright smile.
“Leave your tools behind for my stepmother’s cousin?” Pei Xuan laughed and shook his head. “In Dry-Well Town, we never leave a single nail behind! Since you paid for those anvils and looms with your own sweat, they belong to you!”
Pei Xuan turned to General Tie Zhan, Old Wei, and Chief Foreman One-Eyed Jack.
“Commander Tie, take Captain Meng and our two hundred Rank 2 guards into the town and surround the inner wall of Lord Zhao’s manor! If Lord Zhao or his fifty house retainers stick their noses out the door tonight, shoot an arrow in front of their toes to keep them inside!”
“Yes, My Lord!” Tie Zhan grinned fiercely, hefting his heavy iron halberd. “I hope that fat pig tries to come out—my halberd hasn’t tasted blood since noon!”
“And Foreman Jack, Auditor Su!” Pei Xuan pointed his fan toward the fallen North Gate of Green-Willow Oasis. “Drive all ten Armored Scorpion Buses and two hundred ox-carts straight down the main street of Green-Willow Oasis! Help every single family pack up their blankets, their pots, their chickens, their blacksmith anvils, and their weaving looms! Before the sun comes up tomorrow morning, we are moving the entire town of Green-Willow Oasis lock, stock, and barrel to Dry-Well Town!”
“OPERATION OVERNIGHT TOWN-MOVE—BEGIN!”
Abacus Su blew a sharp brass whistle, his fingers flying across his golden abacus as he assigned loading numbers to all ten Scorpion Buses and thirty-six work squads.
What followed over the next six hours was the fastest, most organized mass relocation in the history of the Red-Sand Wastes!
Inside the inner manor of Green-Willow Oasis, Lord Zhao Kuan had fled back behind his private stone walls with his fifty personal house retainers and Slave-Trader Boss Ma, barring the inner courtyard gate in terror when the three thousand seven hundred townspeople broke the North Gate.
Looking out from his second-story balcony at the torches moving through the outer town streets, Lord Zhao sneered nervously while holding a cup of wine:
“Hmph! Don’t panic, Boss Ma! Those four thousand mud-legs are just going outside to gorge themselves on that idiot Pei Xuan’s one-copper buns! Once they finish eating and come back to sleep in their houses, they can’t carry their heavy blacksmith anvils or weaving looms across thirty miles of soft desert sand! Tomorrow morning, once Pei Xuan runs out of buns and leaves, I’ll arrest the ringleaders and double their taxes to get all my money back!”
“Of course, of course! Lord Zhao is wise!” Boss Ma nodded, though he kept wondering why the outer streets sounded like a giant construction crew was marching through them.
Neither of them knew that outside the inner manor wall, ten twelve-foot-long Rank 2 Armored Scorpion Buses—each capable of hauling ten thousand pounds at forty miles per hour—were rolling right down Blacksmith Street and Weaver Alley!
“Squad #1, lift Master Lu’s eight-hundred-pound main anvil onto Scorpion Bus #2! Watch your toes—if we finish loading Blacksmith Street in twenty minutes, Auditor Su promised us two Little Red Honor Flowers on the big board!” One-Eyed Jack bellowed, carrying two three-hundred-pound iron anvils under his arms like two loaves of bread!
“Don’t let Brick Squad #1 beat us!” Scarface Wolf roared from across the street, leading twenty Rank 1 Peak ex-bandits into the Weaving Quarter. “Boys, carefully unbolt Auntie Chen’s wooden looms! Carry the cotton bales on your backs! Even the iron hinges on the workshop doors—Master Mu paid for those hinges himself, unscrew them and throw them on the cart!”
Even the townspeople themselves were stunned by the terrifying strength and polite efficiency of Dry-Well Town’s workers.
Four burly Rank 2 guards would walk into a carpenter’s shop, lift a thousand-pound timber bench onto their shoulders with a cheerful “Excuse us, Grandpa!”, and jog out to the Scorpion Bus faster than a horse!
Back and forth along the thirty-mile paved highway between Green-Willow Oasis and Dry-Well Town, the ten Armored Scorpion Buses ran four round trips through the night at forty miles per hour!
Every forty-five minutes, another wave of eight hundred cheering new citizens stepped off the buses at Dry-Well Town’s brightly lit South Square, where Hong Ling and the night-shift clerks handed them brass keys to freshly swept Cool-Breeze Stone Houses, soft cotton winter quilts, and bowls of hot midnight mutton soup!
By the time the first golden rays of dawn touched the eastern horizon at six o’clock the next morning, the last Scorpion Bus rolled out through the open North Gate of Green-Willow Oasis.
Not only were all three thousand seven hundred citizens and two hundred town guards gone—every anvil, every hammer, every weaving loom, every sack of coal, every chicken, every donkey, and even the wooden signboards of the blacksmith shops had been packed up and moved to Dry-Well Town!
In the entire outer town of Green-Willow Oasis, not a single person—not even a stray barking dog—was left behind.
DING! DING! DING!
As the morning sun rose over Dry-Well Town thirty miles north, Pei Xuan’s RTS Territory Screen refreshed with a glorious golden chime:
Meanwhile, back at Green-Willow Oasis, the morning sun shone down on silent, empty mud streets.
Inside the Zhao Family Manor, Lord Zhao Kuan yawned, stretched his fat belly, and walked out through his inner manor gate with Boss Ma and his fifty personal retainers—ready to go collect the morning’s tripled water tax from his four thousand subjects.
“Captain Meng! Bring me the morning water-tax silver!” Lord Zhao shouted into the outer street.
Only the hollow desert wind whistling through empty doorways answered him.