Ptooey!
A thick glob of yellow camel spit flew through the scorching desert air and landed right on the back of a red scorpion.
The scorpion, which was as big as a baby's shoe and waving two poisonous pincers on top of a flat rock, didn't even get a chance to hiss. The heavy, smelly spit flattened it into the sand.
Old Yellow, a bald, skinny pack-camel with only three patches of mangy fur left on his hump, chewed sideways on a dry thorn-twig. He looked at the crooked wooden sign beside the road, let out a long, wet snort, and folded all four of his knobby legs underneath his belly.
Thump.
The rickety wooden cart tied to Old Yellow's harness tilted forward, nearly dumping everyone off the back.
"Whoa! Hold on, Young Master!"
A rough, scarred hand reached out like an iron clamp and grabbed the back of Pei Xuan's cotton belt, keeping him from flying headfirst into the hot red sand.
Pei Xuan let out a dry cough and steadied himself against the side of the cart. He was seventeen years old, dressed in a faded gray robe that had been washed so many times the cuffs were fraying. His face was handsome, with sharp eyebrows and bright, calm eyes, though his cheeks were pale from the cold poison that had been stuck inside his crippled dantian since the day he was born.
He wiped the red dust from his forehead and looked at the crooked wooden sign nailed to a dead tree stump.
Three ugly words were carved into the dry wood: DRY-WELL VILLAGE.
Behind the sign sat thirty-five low, cracked mud huts baked yellow by the blazing sun of the Red-Sand Wastes. Half of the huts had holes in their straw roofs. Not a single green tree grew anywhere in sight—only dry thorn-bushes, hot rocks, and swirling red dust.
"Even the camel knows this place is a graveyard," a sharp, angry voice piped up from the back of the cart.
Pei Xuan turned his head. Sitting right on top of a half-empty sack of coarse yellow millet was Hong Ling, his fifteen-year-old maid. She had two braids tied with red string, dirt smudges on her nose, and a pair of heavy iron kitchen cleavers tucked under her belt. In her lap sat a small wooden abacus that she clutched like a baby.
"Stupid Lady Wang! Shameless Marquis!" Hong Ling smacked the millet sack with her tiny fist, her eyes red with anger. "They framed you for stealing a Blood-Ginseng Pill, Young Master! How could someone with a frozen dantian even eat a hot pill like that without exploding? The Marquis didn't even ask a single question before kicking us three hundred miles out into the desert!"
"Keep your voice down, Little Ling," said Old Wei.
The one-armed old soldier stood beside the cart wheel, his hand resting on the hilt of a chipped iron broadsword. His left sleeve was pinned up empty against his shoulder—he had lost that arm ten years ago blocking an assassin's blade for Pei Xuan's late mother—and a deep knife scar ran from his left eyebrow down to his jaw.
Even though Old Wei only had one arm, his back was straight as a spear, and his rough leather skin gleamed with the tough strength of a Rank 1 Early Martial fighter.
"We are out of the Iron-Wolf Marquis's house now," Old Wei said in his gravelly voice, scanning the quiet mud huts ahead. "Out here, nobody is trying to slip poison into the Young Master's tea every night. As long as this old bone is still breathing, nobody will touch a hair on the Young Master's head."
"Old Wei is right! Why be mad when we have our own land now?"
A round, sweaty face poked out from behind a pile of pots and pans at the tail of the cart. It was Old Guo, a fat cook whose belly jiggled whenever he laughed. Strapped across his broad back was a forty-pound black iron wok that looked thick enough to stop an arrow.
Old Guo wiped his forehead with a grease-stained towel, his thick, muscular forearms flexing. Like Old Wei and Hong Ling, Old Guo had trained his skin and muscles to Rank 1 Early Martial simply by swinging heavy iron pots and chopping firewood for twenty years in the back kitchen of the Marquis's estate.
"Wait till we find the kitchen, Young Master!" Old Guo grinned, his eyes squinting into two happy slits. "I still have half a jar of salted mutton fat and a bag of millet. Once I scoop a bucket of water from the village well, I'll boil you a thick, hot pot of yellow millet gruel!"
"Count the spoons first, Fat Uncle Guo!" Hong Ling clicked two beads on her abacus with a sharp clack-clack. "We only have thirty-two catties of millet left, fourteen copper coins, and one lump of gray rock salt. If Old Yellow doesn't stand up and pull this cart into the village right now, I'm going to shave the rest of his tail and sell it for brush hair!"
Old Yellow turned his long neck around, looked right at Hong Ling with his big watery eyes, and blew a loud raspberry with his rubbery lips.
Brrrrt!
"You bald beast!" Hong Ling reached for her kitchen cleaver.
"Leave him alone, Hong Ling," Pei Xuan said with a chuckle, climbing down from the cart. His legs felt a little weak as his boots hit the hot sand, a dull ache pulsing in his lower belly where his crippled dantian sat like a block of ice. "Old Yellow pulled us twenty miles through the sand today without a single drop of water. Let's walk the last hundred steps."
He gave Old Yellow's warm neck a gentle pat. The lazy camel immediately let out a happy grunt, stood up on all four legs, and trotted docilely behind Pei Xuan without needing to be pulled.
As the four of them—plus one bald camel—walked past the crooked wooden sign into the center of Dry-Well Village, the wooden doors of the thirty-five mud huts creaked open one by one.
First came the sound of dry, raspy coughing. Then, one after another, skinny figures stepped out into the blinding sunlight.
Within half a minute, a hundred starving villagers had surrounded the cart in a tight circle.
Pei Xuan stopped and looked at them. Every single villager looked like a walking skeleton wrapped in patched hemp rags. Their faces were sunburned and hollow, and their lips were cracked and crusted with dried blood from lack of water. The men held notched iron hoes, wooden clubs, and rusty two-pronged pitchforks, while the women and children hid behind them, staring at the cart's millet sack with wild, hungry eyes.
At the front of the crowd stood a hunched old man leaning on a crooked date-wood cane, and beside him stood a tall, big-boned young man of eighteen whose shoulders were wide even though his ribs showed through his torn shirt.
"Stop right there!" the hunched old man croaked. His voice sounded like two dry stones rubbing together. "Who are you people? Why are you wearing the gray cloth of the Iron-Wolf Marquisate?"
Old Wei immediately stepped in front of Pei Xuan, his right hand gripping the handle of his chipped broadsword. A heavy wave of Rank 1 Martial pressure rolled off his scarred body, making the front row of starving farmers stumble back half a step.
"Watch your tongue, old man!" Old Wei barked. "This is the Ninth Young Master of the Marquisate, Lord Pei Xuan! His Lordship has been granted Dry-Well Village as his fief. Get on your knees and greet your new Lord!"
Instead of kneeling, the hundred villagers gasped in horror, and then their faces twisted with pure desperation.
"Another lord from the Marquisate?!" the big-boned young man beside the elder roared, raising his rusty pitchfork with shaking hands. "Three months ago, Steward Ma came from the Marquis's castle saying he was going to fix our well! He beat my father, took our last three strings of copper coins as 'Well-Digging Tax,' and rode off in the middle of the night on our village's only mule! We don't have a single copper coin left! If you came for taxes, you'll have to take our dry bones!"
"That's right! We won't give you a single drop of our water!"
"Our well only gives three buckets of yellow mud a day! If you take that away, our children will die before tomorrow noon!"
The crowd shouted hoarsely, gripping their hoes and clubs. They looked like a pack of cornered desert rats ready to bite even if it killed them.
Hong Ling jumped down from the cart, pulling out both of her heavy kitchen cleavers and banging them together with a loud CLANG!
"Who said we're stealing your muddy water?!" Hong Ling yelled back, puffing out her cheeks. "Our Young Master is the kindest person in the whole Marquisate! Put those pointy sticks down before I chop them into firewood!"
Just as the two sides were glaring at each other, a sharp, clear chime suddenly rang inside Pei Xuan's head.
DING!
A cool current rushed from the top of his skull straight into his eyes. For a split second, the blazing desert sun seemed to pause, and a glowing blue screen unfolded right in front of Pei Xuan's vision—like the strategy games he used to play in his past life before waking up in this world!
==================================================================== [ RTS SUPREME SOVEREIGN SYSTEM — ACTIVATED! ] ==================================================================== Binding Territory: DRY-WELL VILLAGE (Level 1 — Barren Mud Outpost) Territory Lord: Pei Xuan (Rank 0 — Crippled Dantian / Cold Poison) Map Fog of War: 5-Mile Radius Unlocked -------------------------------------------------------------------- [ SYSTEM RULES ] 1. Every day at Midnight (00:00), every citizen in your territory with LOYALTY 60 OR HIGHER generates Daily Loyalty Points (LP). 2. Point Scale by Realm: * Rank 0 (Mortal Civilian): +1 LP / day * Rank 1 (Early Martial): +10 LP / day * Rank 2 (Mid Martial): +100 LP / day * Rank 3 (Peak Martial): +1,000 LP / day * Rank 4 (Qi Gathering): +10,000 LP / day *(Scales by 10x up to Rank 10 Universe Realm)* 3. Spend LP in the [SUPREME FUSION CUBE] to merge any 2–3 items, delete all flaws, and create miraculous buildings, crops, or cultivation manuals! ====================================================================
Pei Xuan blinked. As he looked out at the crowd in front of him, little floating status bars popped up above every single person's head!
Above the hunched old village elder floated a red bar:
[ Citizen: Old Man Liu (Village Elder) ] * Realm: Rank 0 Mortal | Loyalty: 22 / 100 [Hostile / Doubtful] * Daily LP Contribution: 0 LP (Requires 60+ Loyalty) * Current Thought: "My throat feels like it's full of hot sand. If this pale noble boy tries to rob our well like Steward Ma, I'll grab his leg so Stone can run away with the kids!"
And above the big-boned young man holding the rusty pitchfork:
[ Citizen: Stone (Shi Tou) ] * Realm: Rank 0 Mortal | Loyalty: 18 / 100 [Hostile] * Daily LP Contribution: 0 LP (Requires 60+ Loyalty) * Current Thought: "That bald camel looks chewy, but if we boil its hooves for three days, the whole village could eat for a week..."
Pei Xuan's mouth twitched. He glanced sideways at Old Yellow, who was happily scratching his rump against a hitching post, completely unaware that the locals were already planning how to stew his hooves.
Then Pei Xuan looked at the three servants standing around him. Three bright golden bars shone above their heads:
[ Follower: Old Wei (One-Armed Guard) ] * Realm: Rank 1 Early Martial | Loyalty: 96 / 100 [Die-Hard Loyal] * Projected Midnight Income: +10 LP / day * Current Thought: "These farmers are weak, I can knock ten of them down with my scabbard without hurting them. Nobody touches the Young Master!"
[ Follower: Hong Ling (Housekeeper Maid) ] * Realm: Rank 1 Early Martial | Loyalty: 95 / 100 [Die-Hard Loyal] * Projected Midnight Income: +10 LP / day * Current Thought: "Keep your eyes off my millet sack! Every grain belongs to the Young Master!"
[ Follower: Old Guo (Iron-Wok Chef) ] * Realm: Rank 1 Early Martial | Loyalty: 92 / 100 [Die-Hard Loyal] * Projected Midnight Income: +10 LP / day * Current Thought: "The Young Master coughed twice just now. I need to boil hot soup for him right away."
Three Rank 1 Early Martial servants above 60 Loyalty, Pei Xuan calculated instantly as his eyes lit up. That means at midnight tonight, I'll get 30 Loyalty Points! And all one hundred of these villagers are sitting at 18 to 25 Loyalty. If I can raise their Loyalty past 60, that's another 100 points every single day!
"Old Wei, Hong Ling, put your blades away," Pei Xuan said calmly, placing a hand on Old Wei's shoulder.
"But Young Master, that boy is pointing a pitchfork at you!" Old Wei frowned.
"They're starving and thirsty, not bandits," Pei Xuan said. He stepped in front of Old Wei, his hands empty and open, and looked straight at Old Man Liu. "You're Elder Liu, right? Don't worry. Steward Ma was a thief, and I'm not here to collect a single copper coin from you."
Old Man Liu froze, his cloudy eyes blinking in surprise. "You... you aren't here for the Well Tax?"
"Look at my cart," Pei Xuan said with a wry smile. "Does a noble coming to collect taxes ride a bald camel with three servants and a pile of iron pots? The Marquisate kicked me out here to live—or die—with all of you. From today on, Dry-Well Village is my home too."
The villagers looked at the patched clothes on Pei Xuan's back, Old Wei's empty sleeve, and Old Yellow's ugly bald hump. Slowly, the tips of their hoes and pitchforks lowered an inch.
Pei Xuan turned to the cart. "Old Guo, untie the millet sack. Scoop out five big wooden bowls of yellow millet and give them to Elder Liu."
"WHAT?!" Hong Ling screeched as if someone had stepped on her tail. She threw herself across the top of the sack like a mother hen guarding her eggs. "Young Master! Five bowls is almost four catties of grain! We only have thirty-two catties left for the whole month!"
"Give it to them," Pei Xuan said gently, patting her head. "We are new neighbors, Hong Ling. We need Elder Liu to show us which empty house we can sleep in tonight, and we need to buy one ladle of water from their well so Old Guo can cook dinner. Five bowls of millet is our rent and water money."
Hong Ling puffed her cheeks out like a frog, her eyes watering as she watched Old Guo untie the sack and scoop five heaping wooden bowls of golden millet into an empty cloth bag Old Man Liu held out with trembling hands.
"Real millet... clean, husked yellow millet..." Old Man Liu's hands shook so badly he almost dropped the bag. Around him, the hundred starving villagers swallowed hard at the sight of the golden grain.
Above their heads, Pei Xuan watched the red Loyalty bars flicker and tick upward all at once!
[Old Man Liu | Loyalty: 22 -> 34 / 100][Stone | Loyalty: 18 -> 29 / 100][Village Average Loyalty: 21 -> 32 / 100 (Still Doubtful — Waiting to see if it's a trick)]
"Young Master Pei... no, my Lord!" Old Man Liu bowed low, his voice cracking. "The old steward's courtyard is at the north end of the square. The roof has a hole, and the wooden door is missing one hinge, but the mud walls are thick! As for the water... Stone, go fetch the bucket from the well and give His Lordship two full ladles!"
"Right away, Grandpa Liu!" Stone's face turned red with shame for pointing his pitchfork earlier. He dropped his weapon and ran over to the center of the village square.
Pei Xuan walked over to see the famous well that gave Dry-Well Village its name.
When he looked down into the pit, the corner of his mouth twitched again.
It wasn't even a proper stone well. It was a crooked, six-foot-wide mud hole dug into the cracked yellow clay, braced with a few rotting wooden planks to keep the sides from caving in. At the bottom, about fifteen feet down, sat a shallow puddle of thick, bubbling yellow mud-water.
Stone lowered a battered wooden bucket on a frayed hemp rope, scraped it along the bottom of the puddle with a loud slurp, and hauled it up.
Inside the bucket was half a gallon of lukewarm, murky yellow sludge. Two dead desert beetles floated on top, and a strong smell of rotten salt and wet dirt hit Pei Xuan's nose.
[ Object: Dry Salty Mud Pit (Village Water Source) ] * Grade: Rank 0 Flawed Terrain * Output: 3 Buckets / Day of Salty Earth-Poison Sludge. * Warning: Long-term drinking causes cracked lips, kidney stones, stomach cramps, and slow meridian rot. * [FUSION CUBE DETECTED]: Can be fused with a purifying stone or spirit object! (Cost: 10 LP)
"This... this is what you drink every day?" Old Guo stared into the bucket, his fat face turning green. "If I boil my millet in this yellow mud, it'll taste like pickled camel spit!"
Old Yellow walked over, poked his nose into the bucket, took one sniff, and immediately sneezed, backing away three steps in disgust.
Old Man Liu sighed bitterly, wiping his eyes with his ragged sleeve. "Ten years ago, the water was still clear, my Lord. But every year the sand gets hotter and the well dries up more. Now, all hundred of us only get two mouthfuls of this salty mud a day after letting the dirt settle at the bottom of a jar. If it dries up completely next month, the whole village is finished."
"Take this bucket to our house first, Old Guo," Pei Xuan said softly, his eyes glinting as he stared at the [Cost: 10 LP] prompt floating over the mud hole. "Filter it through clean cloth and boil it three times. Tonight we rest. Tomorrow morning... this village won't have to drink mud anymore."
Old Man Liu and Stone looked at each other and forced a polite smile. Neither of them believed a pale seventeen-year-old boy with three servants could fix a dying desert well, but since he had just given them five bowls of real millet, nobody dared say a word against him.
For the rest of the afternoon, Old Wei, Hong Ling, and Old Guo worked like whirlwinds to clean up the run-down mud courtyard at the north end of the square.
Old Wei used his broadsword to chop dry thorn-branches and patched the hole in the roof. Hong Ling swept three inches of red sand out of the bedroom and found a smooth, fist-sized piece of clear white quartz rock by the back wall, which she immediately washed and placed on top of her account book as a paperweight.
Meanwhile, Old Guo let the half-bucket of yellow well water sit in a clay jar until the mud settled at the bottom, poured the murky water through four layers of white cotton cloth, and boiled it with two handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salted mutton fat.
By the time the desert sun sank below the red dunes and a cold night wind began to howl outside, a small clay pot of hot, fragrant millet porridge was sitting on the wooden table.
"Eat up while it's hot, Young Master!" Old Guo poured the thickest, cleanest porridge from the top of the pot into a porcelain bowl and set it in front of Pei Xuan. For himself, Old Wei, and Hong Ling, he scooped the thin, gritty bottom layer that still smelled faintly of mud.
Pei Xuan didn't touch his spoon. Instead, he picked up his clean porcelain bowl and poured half of it right back into Hong Ling's and Old Wei's bowls, then scooped a big spoonful into Old Guo's bowl.
"Young Master, you can't!" Old Wei stood up in alarm. "Your body is weak from the cold poison! You need the clean water!"
"If my three family members collapse from drinking mud, who's going to guard my door and count my copper coins tomorrow?" Pei Xuan smiled warmly and picked up his spoon. "Sit down and eat. That's an order from your Village Lord."
Hong Ling sniffled, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand, while Old Wei's scarred face reddened and Old Guo wiped a tear on his apron.
Above their heads, the golden numbers flashed:
[Old Wei | Loyalty: 96 -> 97 / 100][Hong Ling | Loyalty: 95 -> 97 / 100][Old Guo | Loyalty: 92 -> 95 / 100]
After dinner, the three servants were exhausted from days of marching through the desert. Soon, Old Guo was snoring like thunder in the side room, and Hong Ling was fast asleep hugging the millet sack with one arm and her abacus with the other. Only Old Wei sat cross-legged by the front door, his broadsword across his knees.
Pei Xuan sat on his hard wooden bed, watching the glowing clock in the corner of his RTS screen tick down second by second.
[23:59:57...][23:59:58...][23:59:59...]
DING!
A warm golden chime echoed inside his mind as midnight arrived!
==================================================================== [ MIDNIGHT TERRITORY SETTLEMENT — DAY 1 ] ==================================================================== Territory: Dry-Well Village (Level 1) Total Population: 103 * Loyal Citizens (Loyalty 60+): 3 - Old Wei (Rank 1 Early Martial): +10 LP - Hong Ling (Rank 1 Early Martial): +10 LP - Old Guo (Rank 1 Early Martial): +10 LP * Doubtful Citizens (Loyalty <60): 100 (0 LP generated) -------------------------------------------------------------------- >> TOTAL DAILY INCOME: +30 LP! >> CURRENT BALANCE: 30 LP >> [SUPREME FUSION CUBE (Lv.1)] IS NOW READY FOR USE! ====================================================================
Thirty points right on time!
Pei Xuan stood up quietly, walked over to the table where Hong Ling was sleeping, and gently picked up the fist-sized piece of clear white quartz rock sitting on her account book.
"Sorry, Hong Ling. I'm borrowing your paperweight to make us rich," he whispered.
He stepped out into the courtyard. Old Wei opened his eyes instantly. "Young Master? Where are you going in the cold wind?"
"Come with me to the well, Old Wei," Pei Xuan grinned, holding up the white quartz stone in the moonlight. "I'm going to find us some real water."
The village square was dead silent under the cold stars. Not even a dog barked—because the villagers had eaten the last dog two winters ago.
Pei Xuan walked right up to the edge of the crooked, smelly mud pit, placed one hand on the cracked clay rim, and held the clear quartz rock in his other hand.
In his mind, he opened the glowing three-slot box of the [Supreme Fusion Cube].
==================================================================== [ SUPREME FUSION CUBE — RECIPE PREVIEW ] -------------------------------------------------------------------- [Slot 1]: Dry Salty Mud Pit (Rank 0 Flawed Water Vein) [Slot 2]: Clear White Quartz Rock (Natural Earth Filter) [Slot 3]: (Empty) -------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Fusion Cost: 10 LP (Remaining Balance after Fusion: 20 LP) >> Result: Removes 100% of salt, mud, and earth-poison! Deepens water vein by 300 feet and creates a [Lv.1 Sweet-Spring Spirit Well]! >> [CONFIRM FUSION? YES / NO] ====================================================================
Yes! Fuse it now!
The moment Pei Xuan willed it, 10 LP vanished from his balance. The white quartz rock in his hand melted into a stream of warm, liquid silver light and shot straight down into the dark mud hole!
RUMBLE—!
The ground beneath Pei Xuan's boots gave a deep, muffled shake. Old Wei grabbed his broadsword in shock, staring down into the pit.
Down in the dark hole, the rotting wooden planks disintegrated into dust, while the cracked yellow clay walls hardened and crystallized into smooth, octagonal white quartz-stone bricks that spiraled deep into the earth. The foul yellow mud at the bottom was sucked away in a flash, and then—
GURGLE! SPLASH!
A column of crystal-clear, sweet-smelling spring water surged up from three hundred feet underground! Within five seconds, the clear water filled the entire white-stone well right up to the brim, sparkling like liquid silver under the desert moon and sending a cool, refreshing mist drifting across the dry village square!