As the red desert sun sank toward the jagged black peaks of the northern mountains, terror and misery gripped the Three Oasis Towns and Black-Wind Fortress.
At the mouth of the mountain pass sat Sand-Ridge Oasis, Bitter-Well Oasis, and Iron-Palm Oasis, arranged like three corners of a triangle only a mile apart from each other, while five miles up the winding stone road behind them loomed the iron walls and smoking mine-shafts of Black-Wind Fortress.
Two hours ago, Fatty Qian, Rat-Face Sun, and Scarred Li—the three Oasis Town Lords—had galloped back into the crossroads on lathered, half-dead horses without their silk palanquins, without their fifty wagons, and with their trousers still stained dark from wetting themselves on the hill ridge!
To cover up their own cowardice and keep the townspeople from rebelling, the three greedy lords had immediately ordered the heavy wooden gates of all three oasis towns barred with iron beams and piled thirty tons of cobble-rocks behind the doors!
Up on the battlements of Sand-Ridge Oasis, Fatty Qian waved a leather whip and screamed until his fat face turned purple:
“Listen to me, all of you! That demon boy Pei Xuan in Dry-Well Town used dark blood-magic to murder all three thousand Black-Wind Heavy Riders and ate Great King Hei Feng’s heart raw! Any minute now, his barbarian army will march up here to skin our children alive and boil our bones for soap! Nobody is allowed to go near the south gate! Any townsman who dares to whisper about opening the gate or buying Dry-Well Town’s food will be whipped a hundred times and thrown into the dry salt pit!”
Down in the dusty, foul-smelling streets of the three oasis towns—and up in the cold stone barracks of Black-Wind Fortress where five thousand captive iron-miners, blacksmiths, and cavalry families lived—heartbroken wailing echoed toward the twilight sky.
“My son! My nineteen-year-old Xiao Hu was in the Third Cavalry Squadron!” an old silver-haired blacksmith woman knelt outside Pit Number Two at Black-Wind Fortress, beating the cold stone ground with her scarred hands. “Hei Feng forced him to put on armor three years ago... Now Lord Qian says all three thousand riders were slaughtered in the south! How can my old husband and I go on living?!”
Inside Sand-Ridge Oasis and Bitter-Well Oasis, six thousand hungry townspeople sat huddled beside their empty water buckets. Because the Three Oasis Lords had used the “war emergency” as an excuse to confiscate every family’s grain jar and raise the price of muddy well water to ten copper coins a ladle, children were crying from thirst while old men chewed dry willow leaves.
Even the five hundred oasis militiamen standing on the walls of the three towns—and the two hundred fortress guards left behind at Black-Wind Fortress—held their rusty iron spears with shaking hands and hollow, hungry eyes.
“Captain,” a young gate guard on the wall of Bitter-Well Oasis whispered, licking his cracked, bleeding lips as he looked down at his empty water gourd. “Rat-Face Sun hasn’t given us our millet ration since yesterday morning, and he just locked the town well with three iron padlocks so only his personal bodyguards can drink. If Pei Xuan’s army really comes with three Rank 3 Grandmasters... are we really going to die for Rat-Face Sun on an empty stomach?”
Before the guard captain could answer, a low, rhythmic vibration suddenly traveled up through the paved northern highway from the south!
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-CHIME-CHIME!
“They’re coming! Pei Xuan’s demon army is here!” Scarred Li shrieked from the watchtower of Iron-Palm Oasis, ducking behind a stone merlon so only his bald head poked out. “Archers, nock your arrows! Whatever happens, don’t look down at the road!”
Naturally, hearing their lord shout “Don’t look down at the road,” all five hundred guards on the walls of the three oasis towns and thousands of townspeople standing on their mud rooftops immediately craned their necks to stare down the southern highway!
And what came rolling out of the purple desert twilight made every single jaw across all three oasis towns and the mountain slope of Black-Wind Fortress drop straight to the floor.
There were no bloodstained siege towers, no spiked battering rams, and no skull banners.
Instead, gliding smoothly up the highway at thirty miles per hour came thirty massive Armored Scorpion Buses draped in red silk ribbons and strung with hundreds of dazzling, multi-colored Neon Glow-Stones that lit up the gathering night like a fairy palace!
Behind the thirty Scorpion Buses trotted five hundred sleek, unharmed Black-Wind Warhorses wearing floral garlands around their necks—and sitting in the saddles of those five hundred warhorses weren’t headless ghosts or bloodthirsty demons!
Riding at the very front in a crisp, clean sky-blue uniform shirt—with his cheeks rosy and plump, a shiny Red Paper Flower pinned to his chest, a roasted spicy lamb leg in his left hand, and a giant Loudspeaker Conch Shell in his right hand—was none other than Vanguard Captain Ma, followed by nineteen-year-old Xiao Hu, Squad Leader Big Liu, and five hundred grinning Black-Wind cavalrymen!
Right at the central triangle crossroads—three hundred yards outside the locked gates of Sand-Ridge Oasis, Bitter-Well Oasis, and Iron-Palm Oasis, and right at the foot of the wide mountain ramp leading up to Black-Wind Fortress—Pei Xuan stood on the roof of the lead command bus and waved his hand.
“Park the Night-Market Fleet! Unfold the Portable Dragon-Steam Bathhouses! Light the ten Nine-Dragon Stew Cauldrons!”
CLACK-CLACK-WHOOOOOOOSH!
Within five minutes, right before the wide, unbelieving eyes of eleven thousand people watching from the walls and mountain slopes, the thirty giant Scorpion Buses unfolded like magical treasure boxes:
1. On the Left Wing (The Culinary Battery): Old Guo and Sun Baolu (“Boom-Pot Sun”) fired up ten interconnected [Nine-Dragon High-Pressure Alchemy Pots] loaded with two thousand pounds of Frost-Mane snow-lamb, three thousand pounds of Meat-Belly Giant Potatoes, Golden-Blood Wheat dumplings, and thirty kinds of mild stamina-boosting herbs! When Sun Baolu twisted open the ten brass dragon-head whistles at once—WHEEEEEEEEE!—ten towering columns of rich, golden, cumin-and-roasted-lamb steam shot thirty feet into the air, where four giant windmill fans blew the heavenly fragrance straight over the walls of all three oasis towns and right up the mountain canyon into Black-Wind Fortress! 2. On the Right Wing (The Public Spirit Bathhouse & Free Water Plaza): Twenty insulated copper-tank wagons—filled with steaming hot mineral water heated by Ao Ming’s dragon-fire before departure—unfolded their canvas privacy pavilions and stone soaking tubs to form the [Border Public Spirit Bathhouse & Free Sweet-Spring Water Station]! Crystal-clear, ice-cold Sweet-Spring Spirit Well Water gushed out of fifty brass faucets into clean wooden barrels with a huge neon sign flashing above them: > [ DRINK ALL YOU WANT — 0 COPPER COINS! ] > [ HOT DRAGON-MINERAL FOOT BATH + PINE SOAP — FREE FOR ALL NEW CITIZENS! ] 3. In the Center Stage: Vanguard Captain Ma and nineteen-year-old Xiao Hu climbed onto the roof of a neon-lit stage wagon, raised their fused Loudspeaker Conch Shells, and shouted at the top of their lungs!
“MOM! DAD! CAN YOU HEAR ME UP IN PIT NUMBER TWO AT BLACK-WIND FORTRESS?!” nineteen-year-old Xiao Hu’s voice, magnified ten times by the conch shell, echoed clearly off the mountain cliffs. He held up a huge roasted lamb leg in one hand and a basket of white buttered wheat buns in the other! “It’s me, Xiao Hu! Fatty Qian is a dirty liar! Lord Pei didn’t kill a single one of our three thousand cavalry brothers! Look at us—we’re all alive, our horses weren’t even scratched, and Lord Pei fed us two bowls of meat-potato porridge and gave us heated flushing toilets!”
Up on the rocky slope outside Pit Number Two of Black-Wind Fortress, Xiao Hu’s silver-haired mother and blacksmith father froze on their knees, staring down at the brightly lit stage wagon where their son was jumping up and down waving his arms!
“It’s Xiao Hu! Our boy is alive!!” the old blacksmith roared, tears of joy gushing down his soot-stained face as five thousand captive miners and cavalry families up in Black-Wind Fortress erupted into deafening cheers. “Lord Pei didn’t kill our sons! The Oasis Lords lied to us!”
Then Vanguard Captain Ma stepped up to the central megaphone, pointing back toward the rows of steaming hot-pot cauldrons and the glowing bathhouse tents:
“Brothers and sisters inside Sand-Ridge Oasis, Bitter-Well Oasis, Iron-Palm Oasis, and Black-Wind Fortress! Listen to Lord Pei’s official proclamation!” Captain Ma boomed. “Anyone who walks out of those gates tonight and registers with Bookkeeper Su at the Night Market will receive: - Item One: Immediate Zero-Tax Dry-Well Citizenship—zero head tax, zero water tax, and free Sweet-Spring water forever! - Item Two: One Free Heated Stone Courtyard House per family, plus free schooling and two eggs a day for every child! - Item Three: Tonight at the border Night Market, unlimited Rank 2 High-Pressure Lamb & Meat-Potato Stew, unlimited buttered Golden-Blood Wheat buns, and a free hot soak in the Public Spirit Bathhouse!”
GUUUUUUUULP!
As the four giant windmill fans blew the thick, rich, spicy aroma of boiling snow-lamb, roasted Meat-Potatoes, and sweet honey-wheat buns straight across the battlements of all three oasis towns, six thousand starving citizens inside the streets and five hundred guards on the walls lost their minds at the exact same second!
Up on the wall of Sand-Ridge Oasis, Fatty Qian saw his guards’ eyes turning green with hunger and shrieked in panic:
“Don’t listen to them! That soup is poisoned! Anyone who steps off this wall will be executed by my personal—”
Before Fatty Qian could finish his threat, down on the Night-Market stage, Sun Baolu (“Boom-Pot Sun”) cackled and patted his purple-gold cauldron:
“They think our food is fake? Let this old alchemist send them five thousand free appetizers over the wall! Low-pressure steam mortar—GOLDEN MEAT-PILL GIFT RAIN—FIRE!”
THOOM-THOOM-THOOM-THOOM!
Twenty mortar tubes puffed gentle white steam, launching forty hollow bamboo gift-cylinders tied with little silk parachutes high over the locked gates of Sand-Ridge Oasis, Bitter-Well Oasis, Iron-Palm Oasis, and straight into the central square of Black-Wind Fortress!
POP! POP! POP!
Thirty feet above the crowded streets of the three oasis towns and the mountain fortress, the forty bamboo cylinders popped open cleanly, raining down five thousand warm, glossy, golden-brown Chewable Meat-Flavored Stamina Pills wrapped in clean oil-paper alongside five thousand printed [VIP Night-Market Dinner & Citizenship Vouchers]!
On the battlements of Sand-Ridge Oasis, the starving oasis guard captain caught one warm oil-paper packet right out of the air.
Unwrapping the paper, a mouth-watering fragrance of honey-glazed beef brisket and mountain ginseng hit his nose. Unable to resist for even half a second, the guard captain tossed the golden pill into his mouth and chewed.
BOOM!
Warm, pure Rank 2 Medicinal Blood-Qi exploded from his stomach into his four limbs! Not only did his gnawing two-day hunger vanish instantly as if he had just eaten three pounds of prime roast beef, the old arrow wound in his left shoulder stopped aching, and his stagnant Rank 1 Peak cultivation broke straight through into Rank 2 Early Martial right there on the battlements!
The guard captain stared at his own glowing fists, then looked down at the printed voucher in his hand, and then turned slowly to glare at three-hundred-pound Fatty Qian, who was standing ten feet away holding a whip.
“Poisoned?!” the guard captain’s voice rumbled like thunder as all two hundred guards on the Sand-Ridge Oasis wall swallowed their free golden Meat-Pills and felt their blood-Qi surge! “Fatty Qian! You locked up the town well, starved our families for six days, and made us guard your gold while Lord Pei is raining Rank 2 Immortal Stamina Pills from the sky for free?!”
“W-Wait! Captain Zhang, put down that rope! I am your Town Lord! I’ll pay your back wages tomorrow!” Fatty Qian backed up against the flagpole in terror.
“Pay us with what? Your fat belly?!” Captain Zhang roared, waving his hand to the two hundred oasis guards and the two thousand cheering townspeople surging up the wall stairs! “Brothers! Tie up Fatty Qian like a New Year’s pig! Open the south gates and carry him out to Lord Pei’s Night Market to trade for extra lamb stew!”
“TIE HIM UP! OPEN THE GATES!”
At the exact same minute: - In Sand-Ridge Oasis, two hundred guards threw Fatty Qian onto his belly, trussed him hand and foot to a thick wooden carrying pole, and heaved the heavy iron gate-bars off the doors! - In Bitter-Well Oasis, the gate guards stuffed a dirty sock into Rat-Face Sun’s mouth, tied him to a wheelbarrow, and flung the town gates wide open! - In Iron-Palm Oasis, three hundred furious blacksmiths used their own forge tongs to pin Scarred Li to a wooden plank and smashed the gate padlocks open with sledgehammers! - And up in Black-Wind Fortress, when Hei Feng’s remaining two hundred fortress guards saw their own Bandit King Hei Feng step out onto the Night-Market stage wearing a yellow Debtor Vest with a Little Red Flower on it and shouting through a megaphone (“Open the fortress gates and bring the miners down for hot baths and lamb stew, or I’ll come up there and spank every one of you myself!”), the fortress guards cheered, threw open the mountain iron gates, and helped the old miners and children ride down the slope on wooden mine-carts!
CREEEEEEEEEAK—BOOM!
Four sets of fortress and town gates flew open at once without a single arrow fired or a single drop of blood shed!
Out from the three oasis towns and down from the mountain road of Black-Wind Fortress poured a joyful, cheering human tide of eight thousand men, women, children, master blacksmiths, coal miners, and former oasis guards!
Leading the charge were the three former guard captains of Sand-Ridge, Bitter-Well, and Iron-Palm Oases, jogging side by side while carrying Fatty Qian, Rat-Face Sun, and Scarred Li slung upside down from three wooden poles like three trussed hogs at a country fair!
“Lord Pei! Bookkeeper Su!” Captain Zhang shouted happily as he dumped three-hundred-pound Fatty Qian onto the stone pavement in front of the registration booth. “We brought you the three blockade ringleaders AND the keys to their personal silver vaults! Does handing over a corrupt Oasis Lord still count for the Red Flower & Extra Lamb Leg Bonus?”
Behind his registration desk, Abacus Su’s spectacles shone like two full moons as he stamped three red receipts:
“One corrupt Oasis Town Lord equals ten Red Paper Flowers, one whole roasted snow-lamb, and thirty days of advanced priority for a corner courtyard house! Next in line—step right up to get your Citizen ID Card, two free bowls of Master Sun’s High-Pressure Stamina Stew, and a token for the Portable Dragon-Steam Bathhouse!”
All through that warm spring night, the crossroads outside Black-Wind Valley turned into the grandest banquet and bathhouse festival the Red-Sand Wastes had ever witnessed.
Inside the twenty steaming Portable Dragon-Steam Bathhouses, gray-haired iron miners who hadn’t had a hot bath in ten years soaked their calloused limbs in warm, spirit-infused mineral water until their chronic back pain and coal-lung coughs melted away.
When they walked out of the bathhouses wearing clean, fluffy wool robes woven by Dry-Well Town’s workshops, they sat down at long lantern-lit tables with their reunited cavalry sons, eating endless bowls of Nine-Dragon High-Pressure Lamb & Meat-Potato Stew and sweet watermelon slices while listening to Abacus Su explain how every basket of iron ore they mined tomorrow would earn them work points, meat rations, and shiny Red Paper Flowers!
And sitting tied up in three wooden cages right beside the dishwashing trough—wearing bright yellow vests labeled “Debtor #11,001, #11,002, and #11,003 (Dishwashing & Latrine Scrubbing Crew)”—Fatty Qian, Rat-Face Sun, and Scarred Li wept bitter tears as they scrubbed greasy soup bowls with corn-husk brushes under the strict supervision of Debtor Foreman Hei Feng!
“Scrub faster, Fatty Qian!” the seven-foot former Bandit King barked, tapping his chest where his second Red Paper Flower was pinned. “You left a spot of lamb oil on Bowl Number Forty-Two! If our Dishwashing Squad loses the hygiene inspection tomorrow morning and costs me my Third Red Flower, I’ll dunk your fat head in the dishwater barrel!”
“Yes, Great King—no, Foreman Hei! I’m scrubbing! I’m scrubbing!” Fatty Qian sobbed, scrubbing the wooden bowl until it shone like a mirror.
Up on the roof of the command bus, Pei Xuan looked out over the sea of glowing lanterns, laughing families, and steaming bathhouses as the RTS Loyalty notifications chimed nonstop in his mind:
Pei Xuan smiled as the warm, surging golden stream of thirty-five thousand people’s trust and gratitude flowed into his dantian.
“Thirty-five thousand loyal citizens, five hundred tons of black iron a day, and over two hundred thousand Loyalty Points rolling in every midnight,” Pei Xuan murmured, looking back down the wide highway toward Dry-Well Town. “Now it’s time to cash in our points, build the Level 4 Dragon-Blood Martial Academy, and push the whole army—and myself—to the next level!”