"M-Master?! Am I losing my mind from the desert heat?!"
Old Wei rubbed his single eye hard with the back of his knuckles, staring down at the white stone well in complete disbelief.
Just ten breaths ago, this spot had been a crooked, stinking mud pit with half a bucket of yellow sludge at the bottom. Now, a neat ring of smooth white quartz bricks stood waist-high in the moonlight, and crystal-clear water was bubbling right up to the top rim!
A cool, sweet mist rose from the water's surface. Just breathing in that mist made Old Wei's dry throat feel as if it had been brushed with cool mint leaves.
Pei Xuan smiled, looking at the glowing blue window floating above the well in his vision.
==================================================================== [ BUILDING: SWEET-SPRING SPIRIT WELL (Lv. 1) ] ==================================================================== * Type: Fused Civic Water Source (Zero Flaws) * Daily Output: 500 Buckets / Day (Auto-Refills from Deep Vein) * Basic Effect: Cool, sweet mineral water mixed with trace Earth Spirit Qi. Cures heatstroke, stomach rot, cracked skin, and earth-poison. Drinking daily increases citizen stamina by +30%! * Special Bonus — [Morning Essence]: The first bucket drawn each night after Midnight contains concentrated Spirit Essence, able to wash blocked meridians and temper mortal skin and muscle! ====================================================================
Five hundred buckets a day, and the first bucket every midnight has concentrated Spirit Essence!
Pei Xuan's heart beat faster. Ever since he woke up in this body three days ago on the road into exile, his chest had felt tight and freezing cold. When his mother was pregnant with him seventeen years ago, the Marquis's main wife, Lady Wang, had secretly slipped "Frost-Root Powder" into her soup. Pei Xuan's mother had died of weakness a few years later, and Pei Xuan had grown up with a frozen, clogged dantian that kept him from practicing even the simplest martial arts.
"Old Wei, hand me that wooden bucket," Pei Xuan said.
"Wait, Young Master!" Old Wei grabbed the rope first, his scarred face serious. "What if there is some weird desert bug or poison in this sudden water? Let this old servant drink a mouthful first to test it!"
"No need. I made this well myself," Pei Xuan laughed. Before Old Wei could stop him, Pei Xuan dipped the wooden bucket into the very top layer of the glowing silver water and hauled it up.
The water inside the bucket was so clear that he could see every grain of the wood at the bottom. Tiny silver bubbles floated upward like crushed stars, giving off a faint, sweet scent like mountain snow and wild pear blossoms.
Pei Xuan tilted the bucket and drank directly from the rim.
Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.
The water was ice-cold when it touched his lips, sweeter than any honeyed tea he had ever tasted in the Marquis's estate. Yet the moment the water slid down his throat and hit his stomach, it turned into a roaring river of warm, gentle fire!
BOOM!
Inside Pei Xuan's lower belly, the stubborn block of black ice that had sat inside his dantian for seventeen years suddenly cracked like a frozen pond in springtime!
"Ugh!" Pei Xuan dropped the half-empty bucket and dropped to one knee on the stone pavement, gripping his stomach with both hands.
"Young Master!" Old Wei panicked, reaching out to catch him.
"Don't touch me, Old Wei! Stand back!" Pei Xuan gritted his teeth, though his eyes were shining like lanterns in the dark. "The cold poison in my body is breaking apart! Let me push it out!"
Pei Xuan crossed his legs right beside the well and took a deep breath, guiding that warm river of Sweet-Spring Essence through his cramped, shriveled meridians.
Everywhere the warm current passed, seventeen years of gray frost-poison melted away.
Crack! Pop-pop-pop!
Inside his body, his stiff tendons stretched like bowstrings, and his weak bones let out a string of crisp popping sounds. Sticky, foul-smelling black sweat oozed out of every pore on his skin, soaking his faded gray robe and dripping onto the ground with a faint hiss.
One minute passed. Then five minutes.
When the last drop of Morning Essence water finished washing through his limbs, a hot burst of fresh blood-Qi rushed from his heart to his fists.
Pei Xuan snapped his eyes open and punched his right fist forward into the empty air!
WHOOSH!
A sharp gust of wind blew three feet of red dust off the ground in front of him!
==================================================================== [ PERSONAL BREAKTHROUGH! ] * Host: Pei Xuan * Status: Seventeen-Year "Frost-Root Cold Poison" 100% Cleansed! * Realm Upgraded: Rank 0 (Crippled Mortal) -> RANK 1 EARLY MARTIAL! * Current Strength: 550 Jin (Can lift a 500-lb stone roller or defeat 5 grown men barehanded). ====================================================================
Pei Xuan stood up smoothly. He didn't feel the slightest bit dizzy anymore. His lungs felt wide and clear, his skin was warm and tight like cured leather, and his vision in the dark was twice as sharp as before.
To test his new strength, he reached down with one hand, grabbed a three-hundred-pound broken millstone lying beside the well, and lifted it right above his head without even breathing hard!
Thud!
He set the millstone back down, kicking up a puff of dust.
Old Wei's jaw dropped so low his chin nearly hit his chest. His single eye widened until it was as round as a copper bell.
"Y-Young Master... you... your skin and muscles just reached Rank 1 Early Martial?!" Old Wei stammered, his voice shaking so badly he could barely hold his sword. "Doctor Sun at the Marquisate said your meridians were frozen shut forever! How did drinking half a bucket of water cure you and push you straight into the Martial Realm?!"
"Who cares what Doctor Sun said? He takes his silver from Lady Wang," Pei Xuan grinned, picking up the wooden bucket and handing the rest of the Morning Essence water to Old Wei. "Drink the rest of this bucket, Old Wei. Your left shoulder always aches before dawn when the wind gets cold, doesn't it?"
"Young Master, this is divine water! A servant like me shouldn't waste a drop—"
"Drink it, or I'll pour it on Old Yellow's bald head," Pei Xuan ordered.
Old Wei swallowed hard, bowed deeply, and tilted the bucket back, finishing the remaining Morning Essence water in three big gulps.
"Hah—!"
Old Wei let out a long breath that turned into white steam in the night air. His stooped shoulders straightened an inch, the deep wrinkles around his eye smoothed out, and the knotted scar tissue on his left shoulder stump relaxed as a wave of warm blood rushed through his body.
"The cold ache in my shoulder bone... it's really gone!" Old Wei swung his right arm in a wide circle, making the air whistle. "I feel like I'm thirty years old again!"
[Follower: Old Wei | Loyalty: 97 -> 99 / 100 (Fanatical Devotion)]
"Go get four hours of sleep, Old Wei," Pei Xuan said, washing the sticky black poison sweat off his hands and face with a fresh bucket of well water. "Once the sun comes up, the whole village is going to wake up to a big surprise."
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Four hours later, just as the eastern sky turned the color of a bruised peach, a shrill scream echoed from the Lord's courtyard at the north end of the square.
"THIEF! BURGLAR! DESERT BANDIT!"
The wooden door banged open, and Hong Ling charged out in her socks with a heavy kitchen cleaver in each hand, her hair sticking up like a bird's nest.
"Who stole my lucky white paperweight rock?!" Hong Ling yelled at the top of her lungs, looking left and right across the dusty yard. "I put it right on top of the account book before I went to sleep! If they took my rock today, tomorrow they'll steal my millet sack! Come out here so I can chop your toes off!"
Behind her, Old Guo waddled out rubbing his sleepy eyes, his big iron wok already strapped to his back and an iron soup ladle in his hand.
"Little Ling, quit yelling so early," Old Guo yawned. "Who would sneak into our yard to steal a rock and leave the camel outside? Look, Old Yellow is still right over there by the well—"
Old Guo stopped talking mid-sentence.
His fat jaw fell open, and the iron soup ladle slipped right out of his fingers, hitting the dirt with a dull clink.
Out in the middle of the village square, Old Yellow was standing beside a brand-new white stone well. Because the well was so full of clear water, a little stream was trickling over the quartz bricks and pooling in a hollow in the hard clay.
Old Yellow had his entire face dunked inside the clear puddle, sucking up water with loud, happy slurp-slurp-slurp sounds while his stubby tail wagged like a puppy's.
"W-Water?!" Old Guo rubbed his eyes three times, then bolted across the square faster than a rolling meatball. He dropped to his knees beside the white quartz rim, plunged both of his thick hands into the well, and scooped a handful of cold, crystal-clear water to his mouth.
"Sweet! It's cold and sweet!" Old Guo shouted, his voice echoing off the thirty-five mud huts around the square. "Little Ling! Come look! The stinking yellow mud pit turned into a sweet mountain spring overnight!"
Hong Ling ran over with her cleavers, looked at the white quartz bricks of the well, and blinked. "Hey! Why do the bricks on this well look just like my missing paperweight rock?!"
Creak...
Around the square, the wooden doors of the villagers' huts began to open.
Stone walked out of the nearest hut scratching his tousled hair and rubbing his dry, crusted eyes. His throat felt like someone had stuffed it with hot ashes.
"Why is that fat cook yelling before the sun is even up?" Stone muttered hoarsely. "Did the camel die?"
He looked toward the center of the square.
The morning sunlight hit the overflowing white stone well, making the clear water sparkle like a giant mirror. Beside the well, Old Yellow lifted his dripping chin, burped loudly, and splashed a puddle of clear water onto the dry ground with his hoof.
Stone froze like a wooden statue.
For three seconds, he couldn't even breathe. Then he let out a shout so loud it nearly blew the straw off his roof:
"GRANDPA LIU! GRANDMA ZHANG! WAKE UP! THE WELL IS FULL OF CLEAR WATER! IT'S SPILLING ON THE GROUND!"
"Nonsense! Have you gone crazy from thirst, boy?!" Old Man Liu stumbled out of his hut leaning on his cane. "That pit hasn't had clear water in ten years—"
Old Man Liu took two steps into the square, smelled the cool, sweet mist floating in the morning breeze, and saw the crystal water trickling across the dusty clay.
His date-wood cane fell out of his hand.
Within thirty seconds, all one hundred villagers—men, women, gray-haired elders, and skinny children—came pouring out of the thirty-five huts. They carried chipped clay bowls, wooden buckets, and hollowed-out gourds, running toward the center of the square as fast as their weak legs could carry them.
Yet when they got within ten steps of the white quartz well, the crowd suddenly skidded to a stop.
Standing beside the well were Old Wei, with his hand on his broadsword, and Hong Ling, holding her two cleavers. And sitting calmly on the edge of the white stone well was Pei Xuan, wearing a clean gray shirt and looking ten times healthier and stronger than he had yesterday afternoon.
The starving villagers stared at the overflowing water, their Adam's apples bobbing up and down as they swallowed dry spit. Several little children started crying softly, pulling on their mothers' ragged skirts.
"M-My Lord..." Old Man Liu stepped forward, his knees trembling as he bowed all the way to the dirt. "Did... did Your Lordship invite an Immortal deity down in the night to bless this dry pit?"
"No Immortal came here, Elder Liu," Pei Xuan said clearly so everyone in the square could hear him. "I told you yesterday that Dry-Well Village is my home now. How can a Lord let his own people drink yellow mud?"
Old Man Liu looked at the clear water spilling over the stones, and tears ran down his hollow cheeks. "My Lord... how much will this clean water cost? At Green-Willow Oasis thirty miles away, the Water Baron charges five copper coins for a single bucket of clear water. We... we don't have any copper coins left, my Lord, but if you give our children just one bowl each, the young men and I will sign ourselves over as your slaves!"
"Who said I'm selling water to my own people?" Pei Xuan stood up on the stone rim. "Listen up, everyone! Today I am setting the First Law of Dry-Well Village!"
Every villager held their breath.
"From today on, the Sweet-Spring Well belongs to Dry-Well Village!" Pei Xuan pointed down at the sparkling water. "Nobody pays copper coins here! Every family that works hard, keeps the village clean, and follows my orders gets two full buckets of Sweet-Spring Water every single day—for free! And you can drink as much as you want while working in the square!"
Silence hung over the square for two full heartbeats.
"F-Free?!" Stone stared at Pei Xuan with wide eyes. "Two full buckets a day?! We can drink until our bellies are full?!"
"Why are you still standing there looking dumb?" Pei Xuan tossed a wooden ladle to Old Man Liu. "Elder Liu, you drink the first bowl! Everyone line up with your buckets—Old Guo and Stone, help the old folks and children scoop water!"
Old Man Liu caught the ladle with shaking hands. He stepped up to the well, dipped the ladle into the cold, crystal-clear water, and brought it to his cracked, bleeding lips.
He took one big gulp. Then a second. Then he drained the whole ladle in one breath.
"Ahhh..."
Right in front of a hundred pairs of staring eyes, a miracle happened.
The deep, bleeding cracks on Old Man Liu's dry lips closed up and healed into healthy pink skin in less than five seconds! A flush of red color rose into his gray cheeks, and as the sweet Earth Spirit Qi washed into his stomach, his crooked back gave a loud crack-pop and straightened up by three inches!
"My stomach! The burning pain in my gut from drinking salty mud is gone!" Old Man Liu threw his head back, laughing and crying at the same time as he dropped his cane and stamped his foot on the ground without wobbling. "It's Immortal Spirit Water! Drink! Everybody drink!"
The crowd went wild!
Stone grabbed the well bucket and hauled up five gallons at a time, pouring the cold, sweet water into every clay bowl and wooden gourd held out to him.
Grandma Zhang, who had been half-blind from desert glare and malnutrition for three years, drank two big bowls in a row. She wiped her mouth, blinked her cloudy eyes, and suddenly pointed at the ground. "Hey! Look at that little black ant carrying a millet husk by my shoe! I can see again! My eyes aren't blurry anymore!"
Skinny mothers fed ladlefuls of water to their feverish babies, and within minutes, the children's dry coughing stopped and they began giggling and splashing cold water on each other's faces. Strong men like Stone buried their whole heads in the wooden buckets, drinking until their stomachs were round, then letting out loud roars as they felt warm strength flowing back into their dried-up muscles!
Above the square, Pei Xuan's vision was practically blinded by a rain of flashing green and gold notifications!
[ Citizen: Old Man Liu | Loyalty: 34 -> 82 / 100 (Devoted!) ] * Current Thought: "Lord Pei is a living Bodhisattva! Whoever dares speak a bad word about His Lordship, I'll smash their head with my cane!"
[ Citizen: Stone | Loyalty: 29 -> 86 / 100 (Die-Hard Loyal!) ] * Current Thought: "Sweet water! And my arms feel so strong! My life belongs to Lord Pei from today on!"
[ Citizen: Grandma Zhang | Loyalty: 31 -> 79 / 100 (Loyal!) ] * Current Thought: "I can see! I'm going to sew His Lordship three pairs of thick cloth shoes tonight!"
DING! DING! DING!
==================================================================== [ TERRITORY MILESTONE ACHIEVED: HEARTS OF THE VILLAGE! ] -------------------------------------------------------------------- * All 100 Villagers of Dry-Well Village have surpassed 60 Loyalty! * Current Village Average Loyalty: 78 / 100 * Loyal Population: 103 / 103 (100% Loyal!) -------------------------------------------------------------------- >> PROJECTED MIDNIGHT INCOME: * 3 Rank-1 Early Martial Servants (x10 LP) = +30 LP / day * 100 Rank-0 Mortal Citizens (x1 LP) = +100 LP / day >> NEW DAILY INCOME: +130 LP / DAY! >> CURRENT BALANCE: 20 LP (+130 LP arriving at Midnight) ====================================================================
"Long live Lord Pei!"
Old Man Liu dropped to both knees in front of the well and knocked his forehead against the ground with a loud thud.
Behind him, Stone, Grandma Zhang, and all ninety-seven other men, women, and children dropped to their knees in unison, their voices shaking the dust off the hut roofs:
"Thank Your Lordship for saving our lives! Long live Lord Pei!"
"Everyone stand up," Pei Xuan said, lifting Old Man Liu by the elbows. "Drinking water alone won't fill your stomachs. Old Guo! Set up your big iron wok in the middle of the square! Pour in twenty catties of our yellow millet and boil a giant pot of Sweet-Spring porridge so everyone in the village gets a hot bowl for breakfast!"
"Twenty catties?!" Hong Ling clutched her chest as if she had been shot with an arrow, her fingers twitching on her abacus. Then she looked at the crying children and old folks around the well, bit her lip, and marched back toward the house waving her cleaver. "Fine! Twenty catties it is! Wait for me to weigh it out, Fat Uncle Guo—don't you dare spill a single grain in the dirt!"
Half an hour later, a huge fire of dry thorn-wood was crackling in the middle of the village square.
Because the yellow millet was boiled in Sweet-Spring Spirit Water, the porridge didn't just turn thick and golden—it gave off a rich, sweet grain aroma that made everyone's stomach growl like thunder. Every villager got a full bowl of steaming porridge and ate until they were sweating happily, licking their bowls so clean they didn't even need to be washed.
Just as Stone and the other young men were rolling up their sleeves to sweep the village roads and repair the broken huts at Pei Xuan's command, a frantic scream echoed from the high red sand ridge west of the village.
"RUN! EVERYBODY HIDE THE WATER!"
A skinny twelve-year-old boy named Little Mud, who had gone out at dawn to gather dry thorn-roots for firewood, came tumbling down the sand dune on his backside. His knees were scraped and bleeding, and his face was as white as bleached bone.
"Lord Pei! Grandpa Liu!" Little Mud scrambled into the square, pointing a shaking finger toward the western desert trail. "A big cloud of dust is coming down the Canyon Road! It's One-Eyed Jack and thirty horse bandits from the Sand-Jackal Gang! They're coming three days early to collect the monthly Water Tax!"