"Crooked! Half a finger crooked to the south! Who laid this seventh row of corner bricks?! Do you have donkey dung in your eyes?!"
At six o'clock the next morning, before the red desert sun had even climbed over the dunes, One-Eyed Jack's voice boomed down the newly named East Well Street like a brass war horn.
Pei Xuan walked out of his courtyard washing his face with a warm wet towel and paused to watch the scene.
Halfway down the street, a burly bandit with a shaved head—who used to be known across the Red-Sand Wastes as "Bone-Chopper Ma" because he liked to rob salt caravans with a heavy butcher axe—was standing with his head bowed like a scolded schoolboy. He held a gray Cool-Breeze Brick in both hands while One-Eyed Jack tapped a wooden ruler against his shiny forehead.
"Foreman Jack, it is only off by the thickness of a fingernail!" Bone-Chopper Ma protested weakly. "The grooves still clicked together! No wind can get through!"
"A fingernail on row seven becomes half an inch by the roof beam!" One-Eyed Jack barked, his single eye glaring fiercely as he held up a hemp string weighted with a lead bob. "Look at the plumb line! Did Young Master Pei give us divine interlocking bricks so you could build a leaning pigsty?! If Scarface Wolf's crew builds straighter walls on the south side of the street than we do on the north, I'll make you clean the camel stalls with your bare hands! Pull that row off and click it back straight!"
"Yes, Foreman! Right away, Foreman!"
Bone-Chopper Ma hurriedly pried up the corner brick with an iron crowbar and snapped it back down until the side of the wall was as flat as a mirror. Above his head, his floating tooltip flickered in Pei Xuan's sight:
[ CITIZEN / PRISONER TOOLTIP: BONE-CHOPPER MA ] * Realm: Rank 1 Mid Martial | Loyalty: 42 -> 64/100 [Loyal!] * Status: Assistant Brick-Corner Specialist (Team One) * Thought: "Foreman Jack is strict, but look how smooth that corner looks! Once we put the white lime trim around the window, our House #14 is going to crush Team Two's ugly huts!"
Pei Xuan couldn't help laughing under his breath.
Three days ago, Bone-Chopper Ma had been waving an axe at the village gate shouting about drinking blood. Now he was worried about whether the white lime trim around window #14 looked neat enough!
Across the street on the south side, Scarface Wolf was not backing down an inch. The big Rank 2 bandit chief had taken off his shirt, revealing a muscular back covered in old blade scars, and was carrying twelve fifteen-pound bricks at a time on a wooden shoulder yoke.
"Faster! Pass the stove bricks faster!" Scarface Wolf bellowed to his men as he hopped onto the roof scaffolding of House #28. "Jack's crew is already putting the chimney cap on House #27! Wait—why does their chimney have a carved wave pattern around the top?! Who taught them how to do decorative trim?!"
Down below, a skinny bandit with buck teeth squinted across the street. "Chief! They recruited that old carpenter Zhao Er from the refugee camp! He showed them how to lay the small half-bricks sideways to make a pattern!"
Scarface Wolf's eyes bulged. "Cheaters! Go find the potter's widow from the second refugee group! Give her half of my lunch potato and ask her to mix red sandstone powder with well clay to paint phoenix tiles around our front doors! If Team One has wave chimneys, Team Two will have red-trimmed doorways! Nobody beats the Scarface Squadron!"
"Chief, aren't we ferocious horse bandits?" another bandit asked as he carefully smoothed clay around a warm brick bed-flue inside the house. "When we get out of these yellow vests, what if other gangs hear that the Sand-Jackal Gang spent all week competing over whose window frames looked prettier?"
Scarface Wolf smacked the bandit on the back of the head. "Shut your trap and level that bed flue! Do you know how warm those heated brick beds were last night? For the first time in ten years, I woke up without sand in my nose or a scorpion in my boot! And did you hear what the little cleaver girl said at breakfast? Once all sixty stone houses are done, the winning construction team gets to move out of the prisoner barracks and live in the four big corner houses at the end of the street!"
The bandit's eyes lit up immediately. "We get to sleep on the heated brick beds too?!"
"Only if our doors are straighter than Jack's! Keep laying!"
Old Guo waddled up beside Pei Xuan, carrying a wooden tray with two steaming bowls of Meat-Potato porridge topped with chopped green wild onions and crispy fried scorpion tails.
"Young Master, eat while it's hot," Old Guo said with a wide grin, his fat cheeks jiggling as he watched the two bandit crews racing up and down the ladders. "I have lived fifty years, and I have never seen bandits work harder than hired masons. At four o'clock this morning, I heard clicking sounds outside my kitchen window. I thought thieves were sneaking into the grain shed, so I grabbed my iron wok—only to find One-Eyed Jack and ten men laying foundation stones by torchlight so they could get a three-house lead before Scarface Wolf woke up!"
Pei Xuan picked up his spoon and took a bite of the thick, savory porridge. The Meat-Potatoes had melted into a rich creamy broth that tasted like slow-simmered mutton bone soup, and a wave of gentle warmth spread from his stomach into his four limbs.
"People only become bandits in the Red-Sand Wastes because farming sand gives nothing and the town lords tax them until they starve," Pei Xuan said, looking down the fast-growing street. "Give a man a full belly, a warm bed, and a craft he can be proud of, and nine out of ten will choose a trowel over a rusty knife."
And the one out of ten who still wanted to cause trouble?
Pei Xuan glanced toward the end of the street, where three stubborn bandits from Scarface Wolf's old personal guard were leaning lazily against a wheelbarrow behind a stack of bricks, whispering to each other while everyone else worked.
[ PRISONER TOOLTIP: BALD SCORPION (Rank 1 Late Martial) ] * Loyalty: 12/100 (Hostile!) * Thought: "Scarface Wolf and One-Eyed Jack have lost their minds! Turning into brick-slaves for a teenage boy? Wait until noon when everyone is tired—the three of us will smash the brick kiln's iron chute, grab three horses from the corral, and ride to Salt-Pool Town!"
Pei Xuan didn't even need to put down his porridge bowl.
He simply raised his voice slightly. "Foreman Jack. It looks like three men behind the brick stack by House #30 think your Cool-Breeze Kiln is ugly and want to smash the iron chute at noon."
Clack.
Every sound on the north side of the street stopped at once.
One-Eyed Jack slowly turned his head on top of the wall of House #27. Beside him, twenty burly Team One bandits holding heavy stone bricks and iron crowbars turned their heads too. Across the street, Scarface Wolf froze on his ladder, his face turning black as the bottom of a wok.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Smash the brick kiln?!
If the brick kiln was smashed, how would they finish the sixty houses?! And if they didn't finish the sixty houses, what would happen to their ten-silver debt reduction, their heated stone corner houses, and tonight's giant tub of Spicy Fried Scorpions?!
"Bald Scorpion!" Scarface Wolf roared, jumping ten feet straight down from the roof and landing with a heavy boom that cracked the dirt. "You lazy dog! I carried forty loads of bricks on my own back this morning so our team could win the corner house, and you want to smash our kiln?!"
Bald Scorpion and his two buddies turned pale as ghosts. "Ch-Chief! How did he know what we were saying?! We were thirty paces away! Come on, Chief, we are the Sand-Jackal Gang! Let's smash the kiln and run—"
WHAM!
Before Bald Scorpion could finish his sentence, Scarface Wolf's iron-hard Rank 2 fist slammed straight into his jaw, knocking him spinning through the air into a pile of wet blue well-mud.
At the same time, One-Eyed Jack and six Team One bricklayers jumped over the ditch and piled on top of the other two plotters, whacking their backsides with flat wooden leveling boards.
"Smash my kiln?!" One-Eyed Jack yelled, bonking the second bandit on the head with his ruler. "Do you know how tightly those tongue-and-groove bricks lock together?! I haven't seen stonework this clean in twenty years! If you chip a single brick on my street, I'll brick you into the latrine wall!"
"Little Cleaver Girl! Miss Hong Ling!" Scarface Wolf shouted, dragging the three bruised, mud-covered troublemakers by their collars and throwing them in front of Hong Ling's accounting desk. "These three pigs tried to sabotage Team Two's construction schedule! Take them off my brick crew and put them on double-shift latrine digging! I want six replacements who actually know how to hold a trowel!"
Hong Ling pushed her abacus beads with a sharp clack-clack and nodded seriously. "Reporting sabotage earns Team Two a five-silver honesty bonus. As for these three... attempting to damage a Level 1 Special Village Building carries a fine of two hundred silver each, plus thirty days of night-soil hauling in double-shock collars."
She twisted an iron key on the three men's yellow collars.
BZZZZZT!
Sparks danced across the collars, making Bald Scorpion and his two buddies twitch and dance like frogs on a hot pan while the entire street of refugees and bandits pointed and laughed.
Over the next two days, the construction race reached a fever pitch.
Because the [Cool-Breeze Brick Kiln] produced two thousand interlocking bricks every hour without stopping, the only limit was how fast the workers could lay them. Pei Xuan had the village carpenters set up a standardized assembly line: one crew dug six-inch stone foundation slots, a second crew clicked the four walls together like giant toy blocks, a third crew dropped pre-cut timber beams and flat brick tiles across the top, and a fourth crew built the indoor brick stove-bed (kang) that channeled cooking heat under the sleeping platform.
By the evening of the third day, the dusty, crooked slum of Dry-Well Village had vanished completely.
In its place stood sixty brand-new Cool-Breeze Stone Houses arranged in four neat, straight rows along a wide main street paved with flat crushed-sandstone slabs!
Each house had smooth gray stone walls, red-trimmed windows, a white-washed courtyard wall, and a chimney puffing warm cooking smoke. Along both sides of the street, drainage ditches lined with stone bricks carried clean overflow water from the Sweet-Spring Well down toward the twenty acres of lush green Meat-Potato fields.
Even better, when the villagers carried their bedding inside, not a single desert scorpion, sand flea, or centipede dared to crawl within three feet of the moss-infused gray bricks!
That night, Pei Xuan stood on a wooden stage in the center of the newly paved square, while Hong Ling read the final tally from her ledger.
"Three-day construction total!" Hong Ling announced loudly. "Team Two under Scarface Wolf built twenty-nine standard stone houses! Team One under One-Eyed Jack built thirty-one stone houses, plus the street drainage curbs, with zero crooked walls!"
"YEAAAAH!" Team One threw their straw hats into the air, cheering wildly as Old Guo and four kitchen helpers carried out two massive wooden barrels overflowing with sizzling, chili-spiced fried scorpions and golden roasted Meat-Potatoes.
Scarface Wolf clicked his tongue in annoyance, though his mouth watered as Old Guo handed Team Two a slightly smaller barrel as a runner-up prize. "Next time we build the west street, Jack, my boys are taking the crown!"
Pei Xuan stepped forward and looked at One-Eyed Jack.
With the thirty-one houses built and his bonus points counted, the repair bill above One-Eyed Jack's head had officially hit zero.
"One-Eyed Jack, step forward," Pei Xuan said.
One-Eyed Jack wiped the chili oil from his mouth and walked up to the stage, suddenly looking nervous.
Pei Xuan pulled a small iron key from his belt, reached out, and click—unlocked the yellow Debtor Collar from around One-Eyed Jack's neck, tossing it into a basket.
"Your three-hundred-silver property damage fine to Dry-Well Village is paid in full," Pei Xuan said clearly so everyone in the square could hear. "Along with twenty-four men from your crew who worked triple shifts. Take off your yellow vests. Starting tonight, you are free men. The village gate is open—you can take three days of dry rations and leave whenever you want."
The square went completely quiet.
Everyone looked at One-Eyed Jack and the twenty-four freed bandits. After all, bandits loved freedom, right? Now that the shock collars were off, wouldn't they run straight back into the desert?
One-Eyed Jack stared at the iron collar in the basket, then looked back down East Well Street at the thirty-one neat, straight stone houses he had built with his own hands. Smoke was rising from the chimneys, warm yellow lantern light glowed through the windows, and the smell of lamb-potato stew filled the clean, bug-free air.
Leave?
And go where? Back to sleeping in a freezing sand cave where scorpions bit his toes every night and he had to risk his neck robbing rusty copper coins from starving travelers?
THUD!
One-Eyed Jack dropped straight to both knees on the stone stage, hugging Pei Xuan's boots with both arms while tears leaked out of his single good eye!
"Young Master! Don't kick me out!" One-Eyed Jack wailed at the top of his lungs. "I don't want to be a bandit anymore! The west side of the village still doesn't have a bathhouse, a granary, or a proper stone wall! Who is going to snap the chalk lines if I leave?! Look at Scarface Wolf—his walls lean half an inch to the left! If you leave the village masonry to him, the whole town will look crooked!"
"Hey! My walls only leaned a quarter of an inch!" Scarface Wolf yelled from below the stage, before quickly dropping to his knees too. "Young Master, my fine still has two hundred silver left, right?! Don't unlock my collar yet! Let me finish paving the south road first!"
Behind One-Eyed Jack, the other twenty-four freed bandits hurriedly threw down their yellow vests and bowed their heads to the stone floor.
"Lord Pei! Let us stay in the village construction crew! Just give us three bowls of Meat-Potato stew a day and a brick bed!"
Above the crowd, a wave of bright green light washed over the floating tooltips as eighty bandit prisoners and all two hundred rescued refugees surged past sixty-five Loyalty at the exact same time!
==================================================================== [ MASS LOYALTY BREAKTHROUGH! ] * 60 Cool-Breeze Stone Houses Completed! Village Comfort: A! * One-Eyed Jack Loyalty: 58 -> 88/100 (Die-Hard Village Foreman!) [New Trait Unlocked: Master Mason — Village Building Speed +25%!] * 82 Former Bandit Prisoners crossed 60+ Loyalty! * All 200 Second-Wave Refugees crossed 70+ Loyalty! -------------------------------------------------------------------- [ POPULATION & INCOME UPDATE ] * Population: 585 (Loyal 60+: 538 | Doubtful: 47) * 502 Rank 0 Mortal Civilians (x1 LP) = +502 LP/day * 36 Rank 1 Martial Artists (x10 LP) = +360 LP/day * Village Comfort & Kiln Bonus = +38 LP/day >> NEW DAILY INCOME: +900 LP/day! >> CURRENT BALANCE: 1,200 LP! ====================================================================
Pei Xuan smiled and helped One-Eyed Jack up by the arm, handing him a clean blue cloth vest with the words CHIEF CONSTRUCTION FOREMAN stitched on the pocket by Hong Ling.
"All right, Foreman Jack," Pei Xuan said warmly. "You and your crew are officially hired. Tomorrow morning, you start building the Village Smithy and the Martial Training Yard."
"Thank you, Lord Pei! I promise every brick will be straight as an arrow!" One-Eyed Jack beamed, clutching the blue vest to his chest like an imperial robe.
As the crowd cheered and went back to their feast, Pei Xuan noticed that one person was not by the bonfire tables.
He looked toward the quiet shadow behind the Sweet-Spring Well, where Old Wei was sitting alone on a flat stone, his forehead covered in cold sweat as he bit down on a piece of leather to keep from groaning out loud.
Pei Xuan's eyes turned serious. He walked into the kitchen storehouse, picked up a heavy sack of dried scorpion shells, and opened his Fusion Cube.