A dry tumbleweed rolled lazily down the middle of Green-Willow Oasis’s main street, bumping against the stone well before blowing away in the morning breeze.
Standing outside the gate of his inner manor, Lord Zhao Kuan blinked his small, puffy eyes once. Then twice.
“Captain Meng?” Lord Zhao called out again, his voice echoing strangely off the empty mud-brick houses on both sides of the street. “Master Lu? Where the hell are the blacksmiths? Why isn’t there a single puff of smoke coming from the chimneys at six in the morning?!”
Behind him, his chief manor bodyguard—a scarred Rank 2 Peak Martial fighter named Zhao Hu—frowned and kicked open the doorway of the nearest blacksmith shop.
Wait—he didn’t even have to kick the door open, because Scarface Wolf’s crew had unscrewed the wooden door and taken the iron hinges with them!
Inside the blacksmith shop, the floor was swept cleaner than a bald man’s head. The eight-hundred-pound iron anvil was gone. The brick forge had been dismantled for its fire-bricks. Even the iron hooks on the walls had been pulled out and packed onto the Scorpion Buses!
“My Lord!” Bodyguard Zhao Hu ran back out into the street, his face pale as a ghost. “The blacksmith shop is completely empty! Not even a single iron nail is left!”
“What?!” Lord Zhao’s fat face trembled. “Check the Weaving Quarter! Check the Carpenter Street! Check the North Gate barracks!”
Five minutes later, his personal house retainers came running back from all four corners of the town, gasping for breath and soaked in cold sweat.
“My Lord! All three hundred weaving looms in the Weaving Quarter are gone!”
“My Lord! All three thousand seven hundred townspeople—even the chickens in the coops and the donkeys in the sheds—have vanished without a trace!”
“My Lord! Captain Meng and all two hundred gate guards are gone too! Only the two broken doors of the North Gate are lying flat in the sand!”
CLANG!
The silver wine cup in Lord Zhao’s hand fell to the cobblestones.
For ten full seconds, Lord Zhao stood frozen in the middle of the deserted street like a fat purple statue. Yesterday morning, he had been the wealthy ruler of a bustling market town of four thousand people, collecting hundreds of silver taels in water and bread taxes every single week.
Today, after locking his gates for just one day, his entire population of four thousand people had vanished overnight like water poured into desert sand, leaving him the ruler of four hundred empty mud shacks!
“PEI XUAN!”
Lord Zhao let out a shrill, pig-like shriek that nearly cracked his own throat, his fat cheeks shaking with madness and humiliation.
“That little bastard from Dry-Well Village stole my whole town in one night! Look outside the North Gate—one of his red-and-gold stalls is still parked by the boundary stone!”
Five hundred yards outside the open North Gate, nine of the ten Night-Market Scorpion Buses had already finished moving the townspeople north. Only Lead Scorpion Bus #1 remained parked peacefully behind the white boundary stone.
Under a red silk canopy beside Bus #1, Pei Xuan, General Tie Zhan, Abacus Su, Old Wei, and Old Guo were sitting around a clean wooden table, leisurely enjoying a morning breakfast of hot Braised Scorpion-Beef Noodles and Lamb-Pork Steamed Buns.
Inside the empty town, Slave-Trader Boss Ma—who was still staying in Lord Zhao’s manor waiting to collect the rest of his silver—ran out holding his bullwhip.
“Lord Zhao!” Boss Ma yelled, pointing through the open gateway at the lone Scorpion Bus outside. “Look! Most of Pei Xuan’s men went back north with the carts! That young bastard only kept one giant scorpion and a handful of servants behind to pack up the last food stall! You have fifty elite manor retainers led by Rank 2 Peak Master Zhao Hu, and I have my forty armed slave-caravan guards! That’s ninety mounted fighters against ten people!”
Lord Zhao’s bloodshot eyes lit up with vicious greed and fury.
“That’s right! Ninety against ten!” Lord Zhao bared his yellow teeth, pointing toward the North Gate. “If we ride out right now and capture Pei Xuan alive, not only will I force all four thousand townspeople to crawl back on their knees, I’ll take Dry-Well Town’s Snow-Crystal Salt Mine and Sweet-Spring Well for myself! And my cousin Madam Zhao at the Marquisate will reward me with ten thousand gold pieces!”
“Mount up!” Bodyguard Zhao Hu roared, drawing a thick, forty-pound ghost-head broadsword as his Rank 2 Peak iron bones crackled loudly. “Ninety riders—take fire-torches and iron spears! Burn that food stall to ashes and bring Pei Xuan’s head to Lord Zhao!”
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!
Ninety warhorses and desert mules thundered out through the fallen North Gate of Green-Willow Oasis, kicking up a rolling cloud of red dust!
At the front of the charge rode Rank 2 Peak bodyguard Zhao Hu, followed closely by Lord Zhao Kuan in bronze scale armor and Boss Ma cracking his long leather bullwhip. Behind them, ninety elite retainers and slave-guards held burning pitch-torches in their left hands and long iron-tipped spears in their right, howling like hungry jackals as they galloped across the five-hundred-yard sand plain straight toward Stall #1!
“Little bastard Pei Xuan!” Lord Zhao screamed at the top of his lungs from a hundred yards out. “You dare steal my four thousand taxpayers?! Burn his stall! Smash his bones into—”
At the breakfast table under the red silk canopy, Pei Xuan didn’t even put down his porcelain soup spoon.
He took a slow sip of rich beef-and-scorpion broth, wiped his mouth with a clean napkin, and glanced sideways at the six-foot-six giant sitting next to him.
“Commander Tie,” Pei Xuan said mildly. “Those ninety horses are kicking up dust toward our noodle pot. Also, please try not to kill the horses or the men—Auditor Su says our new Southern Highway project is still short ninety stone-roller pullers.”
Sitting on a reinforced oak bench beside the table, General Tie Zhan was halfway through his sixth fist-sized Lamb-Pork Steamed Bun.
Hearing Pei Xuan’s order, Tie Zhan swallowed the mouthful of warm meat bun, licked a drop of gravy off his thumb, and stood up slowly.
He didn’t even put on armor. Wearing only his simple dark-blue Dry-Well Town martial uniform, Tie Zhan reached out with his right hand, lifted his one-hundred-and-twenty-pound black-iron halberd from the sand, and took three calm steps forward until his boots stood one inch behind the white Imperial Boundary Stone.
Fifty yards away, charging at full gallop on a foaming warhorse, Rank 2 Peak bodyguard Zhao Hu saw the gray-bearded giant step out alone while still chewing on a bun.
“Die, old fool!” Zhao Hu laughed savagely, standing up in his stirrups and channeling all his Rank 2 Peak strength into his forty-pound broadsword to cleave Tie Zhan’s skull in two!
Tie Zhan looked at the ninety charging riders as if he were looking at ninety buzzing sand-flies.
“A bunch of Rank 1 and Rank 2 backyard thugs,” Tie Zhan rumbled, his deep voice shaking the very sand beneath the horses’ hooves, “dare to kick dust into my Lord’s breakfast bowl?”
BOOOM!
Inside Tie Zhan’s dantian, the vast, surging ocean of a Rank 3 Early Martial Grandmaster’s Internal Qi erupted!
His dark-blue sleeves inflated like iron drums. Behind his towering back, the faint, terrifying phantom of a roaring northern mountain tiger seemed to rise into the morning sky!
Without even using both hands, Tie Zhan held the hundred-and-twenty-pound iron halberd in his right hand and swept it horizontally across the air from left to right!
“IRON-WALL SLASH—DISARM!”
SHING—ROOOOOOAAAAR!
A blinding, thirty-foot-wide crescent of dazzling silver-white Rank 3 Internal Qi Blade-Wave tore loose from the edge of the halberd!
It didn’t just fly—it screamed across the sand plain like a silver hurricane, slicing straight through the front ranks of all ninety charging riders at a precise height of five feet six inches off the ground!
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-SHING!
Ninety crisp metallic rings sounded together like a single giant bell!
In the span of half a blink: * Bodyguard Zhao Hu’s forty-pound ghost-head broadsword snapped cleanly in half two inches above the hilt! * All fifty Zhao Family retainers’ iron-tipped spears and forty slave-guards’ steel sabers were sliced cleanly in two! * Every single burning wooden torch was shaved off right above their knuckles, extinguishing all ninety flames in midair! * Boss Ma’s braided leather bullwhip was cut into six neat three-inch sausages! * And right atop Lord Zhao Kuan’s fat head, his gold-and-jade nobleman’s hairpin—along with the top two inches of his oiled hair bun—was sliced cleanly off, sending his hair tumbling down over his face like a wet mop!
Not a single drop of blood was shed. Not a single horse was scratched.
Yet the terrifying shockwave of Rank 3 Grandmaster Internal Qi swept past the ninety riders and slammed into the sand dunes behind them, carving a three-foot-deep, hundred-foot-long trench straight across the desert!
THUD! THUD! THUD! WHINNY!
Struck by the overwhelming beast-king pressure of a Rank 3 Grandmaster, all ninety warhorses and mules went weak in the legs at the exact same instant, dropping straight to their front knees in the sand!
Thrown forward by the sudden stop, Lord Zhao Kuan, Boss Ma, Bodyguard Zhao Hu, and all eighty-seven guards flew over their horses’ necks like ninety fat dumplings, landing face-first in the dirt right at the foot of the white boundary stone!
Dead silence fell over the plain.
Bodyguard Zhao Hu spat out a mouthful of sand, trembling violently as he stared down at the mirror-smooth cut on the half-hilt of his forty-pound broadsword.
“Internal... Internal Qi Outward Release over thirty feet?!” Zhao Hu’s voice cracked in sheer terror as he looked up at the giant holding the iron halberd. “A Rank 3 Martial Grandmaster?! You... you’re ‘Iron-Head’ General Tie Zhan of the Northern Army?! How are your legs healed?!”
Beside him in the dirt, Boss Ma stared up at Tie Zhan’s rock-solid boots, then at the half-eaten meat bun in Tie Zhan’s left hand, and nearly fainted on the spot.
Two bags of salt! Boss Ma screamed inside his own head, slapping his own fat cheeks in despair. Yesterday morning I sold a real Rank 3 Martial Grandmaster to Lord Pei for two fifty-pound bags of table salt! And I even laughed at him for buying a cripple!
Tie Zhan didn’t even look at Boss Ma. He planted his halberd in the sand, stepped on the back of Lord Zhao Kuan’s bronze armor with one boot so the fat lord couldn’t crawl away, and took another bite of his pork bun.
“My Lord, Auditor Su,” Tie Zhan called back toward the table. “The ninety stone-roller pullers are all parked neatly on the ground. None of them are missing any arms or legs.”
“Excellent precision, Commander Tie! Not a single medical herb wasted!”
Abacus Su stood up from the breakfast table, adjusted his Crystal-Clear Spectacles, and walked briskly over to the pile of ninety groaning men with his Nine-Ring Gold-Iron Abacus in one hand and a thick red-ink ledger in the other.
“What are you doing?! Let go of me!” Lord Zhao squirmed under Tie Zhan’s boot like a fat beetle, his hair hanging wildly over his dusty face. “I am Zhao Kuan, hereditary Lord of Green-Willow Oasis and cousin to Madam Zhao, the Marchioness of the Iron-Wolf Marquisate! Pei Xuan, you exiled bastard, if you dare touch a hair on my head—”
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-TING!
Abacus Su crouched down in front of Lord Zhao’s nose and clicked his golden abacus right in the fat man’s ear.
“Mr. Zhao Kuan, please be quiet while I read your Dry-Well Town Municipal Itemized Fine & Restitution Bill!” Abacus Su said primly, flipping open his ledger.
“Item One: Yesterday afternoon, your guards unlawfully assaulted two registered Dry-Well Town merchants and damaged one wooden cart wheel. Medical and repair fee: five thousand silver taels.”
“Item Two: Five minutes ago, you and eighty-nine armed accomplices crossed the Imperial Boundary Stone with open flames and iron weapons, kicking three ounces of sand into our Lord’s breakfast noodle pot and causing severe mental distress to our fifty kitchen aunties. Market Disturbance, Soup Contamination, and Mental Distress Fine: fifty thousand silver taels!”
“Item Three: Unlawful detention and wage theft against three thousand nine hundred newly registered citizens of Dry-Well Town over the past six years: forty-five thousand silver taels!”
Abacus Su clicked the final row of golden beads with a loud SNAP! and pulled a bright yellow strip of stamped debt paper from his sleeve.
“Total amount due immediately: One hundred thousand silver taels! Plus, as for your accomplice Boss Ma here—for trafficking unjustly framed imperial heroes and failing to use mule manure-bags within five miles of our highway, he is fined twenty thousand silver taels and all property in his caravan is confiscated!”
SLAP!
Abacus Su pasted the red-stamped 100,000-Silver Debt Notice squarely onto Lord Zhao Kuan’s sweaty forehead!
“One... one hundred thousand silver taels for kicking dust near a noodle pot?!” Lord Zhao’s eyes rolled back as he nearly choked on his own tongue. “You’re robbing me in broad daylight! My whole manor vault only has thirty thousand silver taels and two bags of salt!”
“Thirty thousand silver taels and two bags of our own Snow-Crystal Salt?” Abacus Su smiled warmly, writing down the deduction on the ledger. “Thank you for declaring your assets! Old Wei and Captain Meng are already emptying your manor vault right now! After deducting your thirty thousand silver taels and annexing all land, houses, and private ponds of Green-Willow Oasis as collateral, you still owe Dry-Well Town a balance of forty thousand silver taels!”
Pei Xuan walked over, looking down at his stepmother’s cousin with a pleasant smile.
“Since my dear cousin-uncle Zhao doesn’t have forty thousand silver on hand, don’t worry—Dry-Well Town never kills debtors who can work,” Pei Xuan waved his hand toward Foreman One-Eyed Jack. “Foreman Jack! Bring out ninety-one Yellow Debtor Vests and ninety-one heavy iron road-rollers! Put Lord Zhao, Boss Ma, and their eighty-nine men on Southern Highway Paving Crew #8! Make sure Lord Zhao gets partnered right next to his old friend Boss Qian on the weekend toilet-scrubbing rotation!”
“NOOOOO! I’m a noble! I can’t scrub toilets!” Lord Zhao wailed as One-Eyed Jack and Scarface Wolf cheerfully stripped off his bronze armor, slipped a bright yellow Debtor Vest over his silk shirt, and clapped a zapping debtor collar around his fat neck.
Next to him, Slave-Trader Boss Ma was also stuffed into a yellow Debtor Vest and handed a heavy iron shovel, crying bitter tears as his own two fifty-pound bags of Snow-Crystal Salt—plus all forty of his horses and six iron wagons—were loaded onto the Scorpion Bus by Hong Ling!
With Lord Zhao’s manor emptied out (+30,000 Silver Taels and 100,000 Catties of Grain added to the town treasury!) and five hundred nearby oasis tenant farmers cheering as they joined the town, Pei Xuan stood atop the North Gate of Green-Willow Oasis and tapped [ANNEX SUB-TERRITORY] on his RTS map!
DING! DING! DING!
A pillar of warm golden territory light descended from the clouds, linking Green-Willow Oasis directly to Dry-Well Town thirty miles north!
At the same time, the massive surge of pure Territory Dragon-Vein Qi and the gratitude of four thousand four hundred newly freed people poured straight into Pei Xuan’s body!
CRACK-POP-HUMMMMM!
Inside Pei Xuan’s limbs, his silver-heavy Mercury Blood boiled and refined once more, soaking deep into his bone marrow until every bone in his body gleamed like polished white jade! His strength leaped past three thousand pounds in a single breath!
“Thirty-five thousand Loyalty Points a day, and nine thousand citizens,” Pei Xuan exhaled a long breath of white steam, feeling the explosive Rank 2 Peak power humming in his fists.
Down below the gate, Lord Zhao Kuan and Boss Ma were already pulling a heavy stone roller down the highway under One-Eyed Jack’s watchful eye, while Old Guo’s noodle stall at the roadside was bustling with happy blacksmiths and guards.
Just then, at the far eastern edge of Pei Xuan’s expanded RTS radar map, a lone, dusty figure appeared walking slowly down the rocky mountain trail toward the Red-Sand Wastes.
It was a cold-faced young man in patched white scholar-swordsman robes. Despite the ragged hem of his garment and the pale internal injuries in his chest, his back was as straight as a javelin, and strapped across his shoulder was an ancient, scabbard-wrapped Spirit Sword that hummed faintly in the desert wind.
At his current walking pace, the injured swordsman would reach the gates of Dry-Well Town in two days’ time—and when the golden long-range RTS Tooltip flickered over the distant figure’s head, Pei Xuan nearly choked on his tea!
[ LONG-RANGE TARGET DETECTED (15 Miles East): YE GUHAN — RANK 5 EARLY FOUNDATION ESTABLISHMENT SWORD GENIUS (INJURED / CURRENTLY HAS 0 COPPER COINS IN HIS POCKET!) ]
“A broke Rank 5 Foundation Establishment Sword Genius walking straight toward Old Guo’s noodle shop?” Pei Xuan grinned from ear to ear. “Old Guo, simmer an extra pot of Braised Scorpion-Beef Broth over the next two days. We have a very special customer on the way!”