The morning sun had barely climbed over the red dunes when the sound of barking echoed across the newly expanded border of Dry-Well Village.
It was not the angry snarl of wild beasts anymore. Two hundred grey-furred Desert Sand-Wolves sat in neat rows along the outer ditch, wagging their bushy tails like oversized farm dogs while waiting for Old Guo to toss out the morning soup bones. At the front of the pack, the giant Silver-Back Wolf King wore a braided hemp collar with a shiny wooden tag that read: Patrol Dog #1.
Pei Xuan stood on the roof of his two-story Cool-Breeze Stone House, stretching his back until his joints popped with a crisp, healthy sound. Ever since Dry-Well Village upgraded to Level 2: Green-Spring Oasis Village last night, the air inside the perimeter felt ten degrees cooler. A gentle breeze smelled of damp earth and sweet grass instead of scorching dust.
With a thought, Pei Xuan pulled up his translucent blue RTS Territory Screen.
==================================================================== [ TERRITORY: DRY-WELL VILLAGE (Level 2: Green-Spring Oasis) ] Lord: Pei Xuan (Rank 1 Peak Martial) | Safety: Grade A Map Fog of War: 10 Miles Clear | Territory Buff: Cool Breeze (+10% Stamina) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Population: 1,050 (Loyal 60+: 1,015 | Doubtful 20-59: 35 | Prisoners: 0) * 1 Rank-2 Early Martial (Old Wei — 100 Loyalty Die-Hard Bonus!) * 150 Rank-1 Martial Citizens & Guards (x10 LP) = +1,500 LP / day * 864 Mortal Civilians (x1 LP) + Beast & Building Bonuses >> DAILY INCOME: +2,500 LP/day | CURRENT BALANCE: 2,620 LP -------------------------------------------------------------------- [ TECH TREE & BUILDINGS ] * [Sweet-Spring Well (Lv.2)] -> [Meat-Potato Fields (10 Acres)] * [Cool-Breeze Brick Kiln (Lv.1)] -> [Village Martial Yard (Lv.1)] * [NEW UNLOCKED BRANCH]: [Wall & Tower Defense (Lv.2 Ready)] ====================================================================
"Two thousand five hundred points a day," Pei Xuan murmured, taking a sip of warm sweet-spring tea from a clay mug. "Twenty days ago, I was scraping together thirty points to fix a mud hole. Now we finally look like a real settlement."
Down in the square, the village was bustling like an overturned anthill.
One-Eyed Jack, the former bandit leader turned Chief Construction Foreman, was marching down the main street wearing a woven straw hat and slapping a wooden ruler against his palm.
"Straighten that brick, Number Twelve!" One-Eyed Jack barked at a burly former bandit who was troweling mortar onto a new bathhouse wall. "If Lord Pei walks past and sees a crooked corner, I'll dock your spicy fried scorpions at lunch! Move your backside!"
Above the burly bricklayer's head, a floating green bar pulsed in Pei Xuan's vision:
[Citizen: Tie Niu (Former Jackal Bandit) | Rank 1 Early Martial | Loyalty: 84/100][Current Thought: Boss Jack is strict, but if we finish the bathhouse before noon, Old Guo promised extra lamb gravy on our potatoes!]
Further down the street, Batu and his nomad hunters were loading wooden barrels of fresh Sweet-Spring water onto ox-carts to irrigate the outer fields, while Grandma Zhang was leading thirty village women in morning squats at the Martial Yard. Every time they stomped their feet in unison, the packed dirt trembled with a dull thump.
Suddenly, a sharp flashing red dot appeared at the eastern edge of Pei Xuan's ten-mile mini-map.
Wait—not an army. Just one fast-moving dot, surrounded by six smaller yellow dots.
At the same time, the Silver-Back Wolf King at the eastern gate raised its ears and let out a low, rumbling woof.
"Young Master!" Old Wei's booming voice called up from the courtyard below. The one-armed veteran was polishing his gleaming Rank 2 Heavy Mountain-Cleaver Saber with an oiled cloth, while his left mechanical blood-iron hand held the scabbard steady. "Batu's wolf scouts just signaled from the two-mile dune. Seven riders are coming from the east along the old salt trail. Look like town guards from Salt-Pool Town."
Pei Xuan narrowed his eyes and zoomed in on his RTS map.
Twenty miles east of Dry-Well Village sat Salt-Pool Town, the only trade hub in this corner of the Red-Sand Wastes. Unlike Dry-Well Village, which had started as a dying pit, Salt-Pool Town sat on top of three deep brackish wells. For the last ten years, a fat merchant named Boss Qian (Qian Wanguan) had bought out the local officials and locked all three wells behind iron fences.
In Salt-Pool Town, a single wooden ladle of cloudy, salty water cost ten copper coins. A bucket cost fifty coppers. Starving desert travelers who couldn't pay had to sign blood contracts to work in Boss Qian's brick kilns until they dropped dead.
"Why would Boss Qian send riders out here?" Hong Ling asked, poking her head out of the kitchen storehouse. She had her brass abacus tied to her waist and two heavy kitchen cleavers tucked into her red apron belt. "Did he hear about our Meat-Potatoes?"
"Even better," Pei Xuan said with a faint smile as he walked down the stone stairs. "Over the past week, Batu's nomads and three passing peddler caravans filled their waterskins at our Sweet-Spring Well for free before heading east. If travelers can get ice-cold, sweet water here for nothing, who is going to buy Boss Qian's salty mud for ten coppers a ladle?"
Hong Ling gasped, her eyes widening as her fingers flew across her abacus beads. "Clack-clack! That means we cut his water profits in half! No wonder the fat pig is angry!"
"Tell the gate guards not to shoot the cactuses yet," Pei Xuan ordered, flicking open his paper fan. "Let the messenger ride up to the gate. When someone comes all this way to deliver free silver, we should be polite."
Old Wei nodded solemnly, his scarred face full of admiration. "The Young Lord is always so merciful. Even to a greedy dog like Boss Qian, you offer courtesy first."
Pei Xuan didn't bother correcting him. He walked leisurely toward the eastern village gate, where a wooden fence and ten fat green Needle-Spitting Guard Cactuses stood watch beside a newly painted wooden sign.
Five minutes later, hoofbeats thundered across the hard sand.
Seven riders galloped up to the village entrance, kicking up a huge cloud of red dust on purpose so it would blow into the faces of the villagers waiting by the gate.
At the front rode a skinny, rat-faced man in a shiny green silk vest with a goatee that stuck out like two mouse whiskers. He rode a tall black mare and held a horsewhip tipped with braided bronze wire. Behind him rode six burly thugs wearing leather vests painted with the character Qian inside a copper coin.
As the dust cleared, Pei Xuan's RTS Tooltip popped up over the rat-faced rider's head:
==================================================================== [ TARGET: STEWARD LIU (Boss Qian's Head Dog) ] * Realm: Rank 1 Mid Martial (Skin-Hardening) | Loyalty: 0/100 (Hostile) * Inventory: 18 Silver Taels, 40 Copper Coins, 1 Silk vest, 1 Fake Official Seal * Current Thought: "What a bunch of dirt-poor mud farmers! Wait—why are their houses made of grey cut stone? And why are those wolves looking at my horse's legs like drumsticks?!" ====================================================================
Steward Liu pulled hard on his reins, making his black horse rear up on its hind legs right in front of the wooden gate. While doing so, the horse lifted its tail and dropped a steaming pile of horse manure right onto the clean, newly swept stone paving bricks outside the gatehouse.
Beside the gate, One-Eyed Jack's single eye twitched violently. He had personally scrubbed those entrance bricks three times this morning!
Steward Liu didn't even look down. He pinched his nose with two fingers, looked down from his saddle at Pei Xuan's simple cotton robe, and sneered.
"Which one of you mud-chewers is the exiled ninth brat from the Marquisate, Pei Xuan?" Steward Liu barked, his voice shrill and arrogant. "Come out and kneel to receive Master Qian's decree!"
Around the gate, fifty villagers who had been carrying water buckets stopped dead in their tracks. Their skin was bronzed and thick from practicing the Iron-Anvil Body Art, and every single one of them glared at Steward Liu like he had just insulted their ancestors.
"Watch your mouth, rat-beard!" Batu stepped forward, his Rank 2 muscles bulging under his wolf-skin vest. "You are speaking to the Lord of Green-Spring Oasis!"
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"Oasis? Bah! It's just a stinking mud pit with a few lucky puddles!" Steward Liu spat on the ground—adding a second stain to One-Eyed Jack's clean bricks. He pulled a rolled-up piece of yellow paper from his vest and waved it like an imperial edict.
"Listen up, Pei Xuan!" Steward Liu shouted so the whole street could hear. "My master, Boss Qian of Salt-Pool Town, holds the Exclusive Water Trade Permit for fifty miles of the Red-Sand Wastes—signed and stamped by Deputy Magistrate Wang of Black-Rock City! Over the last ten days, your village has been illegally giving away free well water to passing nomads and peddlers, costing Master Qian three hundred silver taels in lost water fees!"
Pei Xuan leaned against the gatepost, fanning himself slowly. "Wait. Let me get this straight. The sky rained, the earth held water, I dug a well in my own village, and I let thirsty people drink. And somehow that means I stole three hundred silver from your boss?"
"Every drop of water under this desert belongs to Master Qian!" Steward Liu puffed out his skinny chest. "However, Master Qian is a generous man who respects the Iron-Wolf Marquis. He has two conditions for you!"
Steward Liu held up two fingers.
"First! Pay three hundred silver taels immediately to cover Master Qian's lost business! Second! By tomorrow noon, pull your people back a hundred yards from the well and hand the well-head over to Salt-Pool Town's guards. Master Qian will fence it off and sell the water at the fair price of eight coppers a ladle—and out of kindness, he will give you ten percent of the copper coins!"
The crowd of villagers exploded in anger.
"Eight coppers a ladle?! Before Lord Pei came, we didn't even see eight coppers in a whole year!" Old Man Liu shook his iron hoe furiously.
"He wants to fence off our Sweet-Spring Well?! Over my dead body!" Grandma Zhang rolled up her sleeves, her bronze forearms gleaming as she cracked her knuckles with a sound like walnut shells breaking.
Steward Liu laughed coldly and cracked his whip in the air. PA!
"You bunch of starving beggars dare bark at me?" Steward Liu sneered. "Do you know who Master Qian just hired for the autumn caravan season? The Black-Arrow Mercenary Company! Two hundred veterans coated in iron armor, led by Captain Hu, a Rank 2 Peak master who can crush rocks with his bare hands! If you don't hand over the well and the three hundred silver within three days, Captain Hu will turn this village into flat sand and hang your heads on the well-beam!"
Having finished his threat, Steward Liu tossed the yellow paper onto the ground at Pei Xuan's feet, yanked his reins to turn his horse around, and smirked. "Think carefully, Ninth Young Master! Nobody from the Marquisate is coming to save a disowned—"
"Hold on," Pei Xuan said calmly.
Steward Liu paused, looking back over his shoulder with a mocking grin. "What? Scared already? If you want to pay the three hundred silver right now, I can count it for you—"
"Hong Ling," Pei Xuan said, not even looking at the paper on the ground. "Read him the gate sign."
"Yes, Young Master!"
Hong Ling hopped onto a stone milestone beside the gate, cleared her throat, and slapped her brass abacus against her palm with a loud CLACK.
"Notice to all outsiders entering or stopping at the front gate of Dry-Well Village!" Hong Ling read in a crisp, loud voice, pointing at the wooden signboard nailed to the gatepost. "Item One: Temporary Horse Parking Fee—one silver tael per hoof! Seven horses times four hooves equals twenty-eight hooves, which comes to twenty-eight silver taels!"
Steward Liu blinked, thinking he had misheard. "What?!"
Hong Ling didn't stop. Her fingers flew across the brass beads. Clack-clack-clack!
"Item Two: Environmental Sanitation & Manure Removal Fee!" Hong Ling pointed a kitchen cleaver straight at the steaming pile of horse droppings on the stone bricks. "Your horse pooped on our Grade-1 Cool-Breeze Paving Stones without a diaper bag! Fine: ten silver taels! Plus, you spat phlegm on Brick Number Four—five silver taels! And you littered one sheet of ugly yellow paper—two silver taels!"
One-Eyed Jack stepped forward with a bucket of soapy water and a brush, nodding angrily. "That's right! Do you know how hard my boys worked to lay those flat stones?! Ten silver is letting you off cheap!"
"Item Three!" Hong Ling shouted, flipping her ledger page. "Shouting loudly at the village gate and scaring our two hundred guard puppies and our Sacred Camel Old Yellow! Mental Distress & Noise Pollution Fee: fifty silver taels! Total bill: ninety-five silver taels! Cash only, no credit!"
Silence fell over the gate for three full seconds.
Steward Liu stared at the fifteen-year-old girl holding two butcher cleavers, then at Pei Xuan, and finally burst out laughing so hard tears came out of his eyes.
"Hahaha! Have you desert bumpkins lost your minds from drinking mud?!" Steward Liu pointed his whip at Pei Xuan's nose. "Charge ME ninety-five silver for parking my horse and spitting on the dirt?! I am Boss Qian's chief steward! Believe it or not, I'll whip your—"
SWISH!
Steward Liu never finished his sentence.
Old Wei didn't even draw his heavy saber. Moving with the explosive speed of a Rank 2 Early Martial warrior, the one-armed veteran stepped forward like a phantom. His left Rank 2 Blood-Iron Mechanical Arm shot out, grabbed the braided bronze whip mid-air, and yanked!
"Whoa—!"
Steward Liu felt as if his arm had been caught by a runaway ox. Before he could let go, he was ripped clean out of his saddle, flying ten feet through the air before slamming face-first onto the stone pavement with a loud SMACK!
Two of his front teeth went skittering across the bricks.
"Steward Liu!" The six Salt-Pool Town guards behind him cursed and reached for the iron clubs at their waists.
"Stay in your saddles if you want to keep your legs," Batu growled.
With a single sharp whistle from Batu, forty Rank 1 villager militiamen stepped out from behind the gate walls holding long iron-tipped wooden spears, while ten Needle-Spitting Guard Cactuses along the roadside puffed up to the size of water vats, their hundreds of three-inch iron needles aimed straight at the six guards' groins!
At the same time, two hundred Sand-Wolves stood up in unison, baring fangs that gleamed like white daggers.
The six Salt-Pool Town guards froze so fast their hands cramped on their club hilts. Cold sweat poured down their backs like rain. What kind of starving village was this?! Every single farmer holding a spear had bronzed, rock-hard skin and the fierce eyes of a veteran soldier!
On the ground, Steward Liu groaned, spitting out blood and two broken teeth as he tried to crawl backward. "You... you dare hit Master Qian's envoy?! You're dead! Captain Hu will skin you alive!"
"Old Wei, check how much money he has toward his ninety-five-silver bill," Pei Xuan said mildly, stepping around the blood spot so he wouldn't dirty his cloth shoes.
"Yes, Young Master."
Old Wei reached down with his iron hand, lifted Steward Liu by the ankle like a plucked chicken, and shook him upside down three times.
Jingle, clatter!
A velvet coin pouch, a fake brass seal, and a handful of loose copper coins fell onto the stones. Hong Ling squatted down, counted the silver pieces in three seconds flat, and frowned.
"Eighteen silver taels and forty coppers!" Hong Ling reported, tucking the pouch into her red apron. "Young Master, this deadbeat is still seventy-six silver taels and sixty coppers short!"
"Seventy-six silver short?" Pei Xuan tutted and shook his head in disappointment. "In Dry-Well Village, nobody leaves without paying their municipal fines. What is that green vest he's wearing made of?"
"Suzhou silk, Young Master! Worth about two silver!" Hong Ling eyed Steward Liu's clothes like a butcher sizing up a pig. "And his leather boots are worth one silver! And those six guards have six leather vests, six iron clubs, and seven horses!"
"Wait—no! Those are Master Qian's horses!" Steward Liu screamed as Old Wei's iron fingers grabbed the collar of his silk vest and ripped it off in one motion. "My pants! Don't take my silk pants! It's windy out here!"
"Strip all seven of them down to their drawers," Pei Xuan ordered calmly. "Keep the seven horses, the saddles, the weapons, and their boots as partial payment. Leave them fiftyfour silver in debt on the village ledger so we can charge compound interest when we visit Salt-Pool Town next week."
"Right away, Lord Pei!"
Scarface Wolf and ten grinning former bandits rushed forward like wolves on a sheep carcass. Within two minutes, Steward Liu and his six burly guards were stripped down to their white cotton underpants, socks gone, boots gone, and horses led happily into the village stables by Batu's nomads.
To add insult to injury, Old Yellow the Camel strolled out of the gatehouse, chewed a mouthful of potato peelings, and spat a huge glob of sticky, foul-smelling golden phlegm right onto the top of Steward Liu's head, gluing his goatee to his chin!
"Get moving!" One-Eyed Jack swung the flat of a wooden shovel against Steward Liu's bare backside with a resounding PAP! "Run back to Salt-Pool Town and tell Fat Pig Qian that he still owes us fifty-four silver for his steward's horse poop! If he doesn't pay up within three days, we'll come collect it ourselves!"
"Aiyah! My backside!"
Clutching their underpants with both hands, Steward Liu and his six guards sprinted barefoot down the scorching desert road toward the east, hopping and yelping every time their tender soles hit hot gravel or a dry thorn.
Behind them, all one thousand villagers at the gate burst into thunderous laughter and cheers.
==================================================================== [ EVENT: HUMILIATING THE WATER BARON'S ENVOY! ] * Village Morale: +25! * 35 Doubtful Newcomers have crossed 60+ Loyalty! * 15 Militiamen inspired by the confrontation -> Breakthrough to Rank 1 Mid! * Loot Gained: 7 War Horses, 6 Iron Clubs, 18 Silver Taels. >> NEW DAILY INCOME: +2,650 LP/day | CURRENT BALANCE: 2,620 LP ====================================================================
As the laughter died down, Old Wei wiped his iron hand on a rag and lowered his voice.
"Young Master, that rat-faced steward wasn't lying about one thing," Old Wei said seriously. "I heard of the Black-Arrow Mercenary Company back when I served in the Marquis's border army. Their leader, Captain Hu, trained in the Iron-Bone Fist at an outer martial hall. He is a genuine Rank 2 Peak Martial fighter, and all two hundred of his men carry heavy crossbows and siege rams. With seven horses lost today, Boss Qian will definitely send them here within two days."
Batu frowned as well. "Lord Pei, our villagers are brave, and Old Wei and I are Rank 2, but our current village wall is just a five-foot fence made of packed mud and thorn wood. If two hundred armored mercenaries bring iron battering rams and fifty crossbows, that low fence won't stop them for ten breaths."
Pei Xuan looked at the low, crumbly yellow mud fence surrounding the village, then looked at the [Current Balance: 2,620 LP] glowing in the corner of his eye.
"A low fence won't stop a thousand-pound battering ram," Pei Xuan said, a slow, mischievous grin spreading across his face as he clicked open the newly unlocked [Wall & Tower Defense] branch on his RTS screen. "So why don't we build a wall that throws the battering ram right back into their faces?"
"Throws it back?" Old Wei and Batu blinked in confusion. "Young Master, how can a mud wall throw a battering ram?"
Pei Xuan snapped his fan shut and pointed toward the clay pits behind the brick kiln.
"One-Eyed Jack! Gather all one thousand villagers and every single ox-cart we have! Before midnight tonight, I want ten thousand cartloads of wet oasis clay, five hundred bundles of wild desert rubber-vine, and all the scrap iron slag from the kiln piled up along the perimeter line!"