Clang! Clang! Clang!
Three massive black-iron cauldrons—each one wide enough for two grown men to sit inside—were hoisted onto three stone fire-pits in the middle of the Dry-Well Village square.
These cauldrons had been left behind in the back shed years ago when the village still had sheep to boil for winter festivals. For the past five years, they had sat upside down gathering rust and spiderwebs because the village didn't even have enough water to fill the bottom of one pot.
Now, Stone and One-Eyed Jack scrubbed all three cauldrons until they gleamed, then hauled bucket after bucket of crystal-clear water from the [Sweet-Spring Spirit Well] until all three giant pots were brimming to the top!
Around the well, forty village women led by Grandma Zhang and Hong Ling sat on low wooden stools with kitchen knives, washing and chopping three hundred catties of five-pound [Meat-Belly Giant Potatoes] into fist-sized golden chunks.
Meanwhile, Little Mud and twenty village children came running back from the shaded gullies behind the village carrying baskets full of wild green desert onions and fragrant yellow sand-garlic.
"Into the pots they go!"
Old Guo stood on a wooden crate between the three roaring fires, stripped to his undershirt with a white towel tied around his forehead. Sweating happily, he dumped basket after basket of golden potato chunks into the three boiling cauldrons, followed by crushed gray rock salt and big handfuls of chopped wild onions.
Gurgle—bubble—bloop!
As the Sweet-Spring Water came to a rolling boil, a culinary miracle began to happen inside the three iron cauldrons.
Normal potatoes only turned soup starchy. However, these [Meat-Belly Giant Potatoes] had been fused in the Supreme Fusion Cube with Old Guo's aged salted mutton fat!
As the fist-sized golden chunks tumbled in the boiling Spirit Water, the natural veins of rich lamb-fat essence inside the potatoes melted out into the soup. Within fifteen minutes, the clear water in all three cauldrons had turned into a thick, creamy, milky-gold mutton broth, with shiny droplets of golden oil dancing on the surface!
"Stir from the bottom, Stone! Don't let the thick gravy stick to the iron!" Old Guo shouted, swinging his four-foot wooden paddle through the center cauldron.
When Old Guo lifted the paddle to check the thickness, a cloud of rich, white steam billowed twenty feet into the sky.
The smell wasn't just good—it was downright criminal in a starving desert!
It smelled as if a hundred fat desert sheep had been slow-simmered for twelve hours with sweet butter, roasted chestnuts, and fresh green onions, without a single trace of gamey wool smell!
Twenty yards away, where One-Eyed Jack and the thirty yellow-vested bandits were stacking spare firewood against the wall, thirty-one pairs of eyes locked onto the three bubbling cauldrons.
Gulp. Gulp.
Rat-Whiskers was staring so hard at the milky-gold soup that he forgot to put down the log in his hands, and a long string of clear drool dripped right off his chin onto his bright-yellow [DEBTOR LABORER] vest.
[Warning: Debtor #14 (Rat-Whiskers) has paused for 8 seconds... 9 seconds...]
"Put the wood down, you idiot, before the collar zaps your hair straight again!" One-Eyed Jack barked, quickly tossing two logs onto the pile and wiping his own drooling mouth with the back of his hand.
"Boss Jack..." Rat-Whiskers sniffled, his stomach growling so loudly it sounded like a trapped frog. "Back at our Sand-Jackal camp, Big Brother Scarface only lets us eat dry horse-jerky that's hard enough to chip a tooth, boiled in salty ditch water! Look at that golden soup... do you think Lord Pei will really give prisoners like us a bowl?"
"Didn't you hear His Lordship yesterday? Anyone who doesn't get zapped before noon gets a full bowl!" One-Eyed Jack glared around at his thirty men. "Move your butts! Stack this firewood as neat as a brick wall! If anyone drops a twig and makes us late for lunch, I'll kick his backside myself!"
Pei Xuan walked out of his courtyard just in time to hear One-Eyed Jack yelling at his men to work harder. Looking at the floating bars above the thirty-one bandits, Pei Xuan couldn't help chuckling.
Yesterday afternoon, these thirty-one horse bandits had wanted to burn down the village. Now, after one afternoon of drinking Sweet-Spring Water and one morning of harvesting Meat-Potatoes, their red hostility was completely gone!
"Old Guo," Pei Xuan called out, walking up to the cauldrons. "Is the first pot ready?"
"Ready, Young Master! The potato chunks are soft as butter and soaked full of broth!" Old Guo scooped up a big ladle of steaming golden stew and held it out.
"Give the villagers and the debtor crew their first bowl early so they have strength to build new sheds this afternoon," Pei Xuan ordered.
"WOOOOOH! LONG LIVE LORD PEI!"
Both the hundred villagers and the thirty-one yellow-vested bandits cheered at the top of their lungs!
Stone and One-Eyed Jack lined their crews up in two neat rows with big wooden bowls. Old Guo didn't hold back—every single person got two huge ladles of thick, milky-gold lamb-potato stew bobbing with four or five fist-sized chunks of golden Meat-Potato and green onions!
One-Eyed Jack took his big wooden bowl with both hands, blew on the steaming broth, and drank a big mouthful.
Gulp!
The rich, savory mutton broth slid down his throat, warming his chest, his stomach, and even his tired muscles! Then he bit into a chunk of boiled Meat-Potato—it melted on his tongue like a tender piece of braised lamb belly!
One-Eyed Jack's single eye welled up with hot tears as he gobbled the whole bowl down in less than a minute.
Above his head, his floating status bar flashed green and crossed the magic sixty-point line!
[ Newly Loyal Citizen/Debtor: One-Eyed Jack (Rank 1 Peak Martial) ] * Loyalty: 58 -> 68 / 100 [Loyal!] * Daily LP Contribution: +10 LP / day! * Current Thought: "So what if I'm wearing a yellow vest?! Here I get cold Spirit Water and unlimited braised lamb-potato soup every day! Even if Big Brother Scarface comes to rescue me, I'm hiding in the toilet pit I dug!"
DING! DING!
Beside One-Eyed Jack, Rat-Whiskers and six other bandit veterans also licked their bowls clean, their Loyalty bars shooting past 60/100 one after another!
[8 Bandit Prisoners (1 Rank-1 Peak, 2 Rank-1 Early, 5 Rank-0) have crossed 60+ Loyalty!][Projected Daily Income Increased: +130 LP -> +165 LP / day!]
While Dry-Well Village was happily feasting on the first round of stew, a strong, dry wind blew in from the east.
The wind swept across the village square, scooped up the thick, buttery aroma rising from the three giant cauldrons of boiling Meat-Potato Stew, and carried that mouth-watering smell high over the western sand ridges!
Because the Meat-Belly Giant Potatoes were a Lv.1 Spirit-Starch Crop cooked in Spirit Well water, their aroma didn't scatter quickly like ordinary cooking smoke. Instead, the rich smell of slow-simmered salted mutton and sweet baked potatoes drifted in a dense, invisible ribbon five miles... eight miles... ten miles across the scorching Red-Sand Wastes!
Four miles southwest of Dry-Well Village, inside a dry, cracked riverbed, fifty ragged people were trudging slowly through the hot sand.
They were the surviving villagers of Dried-Creek Settlement, led by a broad-shouldered, soot-faced blacksmith and carpenter named Uncle Tie. Seven days ago, their tiny desert spring had dried up completely, and a sandstorm had buried their huts. For the past two days, they hadn't had a single crumb of food; the children were sucking on smooth pebbles to trick their dry mouths into making spit, and the adults were staggering on trembling legs.
"Uncle Tie... I can't walk anymore..." a ten-year-old girl whimpered, collapsing onto the hot gravel. "I'm so hungry my stomach feels like it's eating itself..."
Uncle Tie knelt down with cracked, bleeding lips, his eyes red with despair. They were still twenty miles from Salt-Pool Town—none of them would make it alive.
Just then, a warm gust of wind blew down the dry riverbed from the northeast.
Whoooosh...
Uncle Tie's nose twitched.
He froze, sniffed once, and then sniffed again hard.
"M-Mutton soup?!" Uncle Tie's eyes flew wide open. "Boiled salted mutton soup with sweet potatoes and green onions?!"
Around him, all fifty starving refugees lifted their heads at the exact same moment, sniffing the air like a pack of starving wolves!
"I smell it too! Fat lamb broth!"
"Have we already died of thirst and arrived in Heaven's kitchen?!"
"No! Look at Blackie!" Uncle Tie pointed at the skinny yellow hound tied to his belt. The starving dog had its nose pointed straight toward the northeast sand ridge, barking weakly and pulling on its rope with all its remaining strength!
"Someone is boiling giant cauldrons of meat soup just three or four miles northeast of here!" Uncle Tie hauled the little girl onto his back, a burst of desperate strength rushing into his legs. "That way is Dry-Well Village! Follow the smell! Move!"
At the exact same time, five miles northwest of the village, Widow Sun and sixty ragged weavers and brick-makers who had fled the cruel tax collectors of Salt-Pool Town smelled the exact same rich mutton aroma on the wind. And three miles to the south, Old Shepherd Ma and forty starving young herders who had lost their flock in a canyon landslide dropped their walking sticks and began running toward the smell with drool pouring down their chins!
Back in Dry-Well Village, Pei Xuan was inspecting the newly dug drainage ditches when a loud chime rang inside his head.
DING!
He opened his [RTS 5-Mile Fog-of-War Mini-Map].
Coming from the southwest, northwest, and south trails, three long lines of gray dots ([Neutral Units — Starving Refugees]) were converging on the West Gate road!
==================================================================== [ TERRITORY EVENT: THE TEN-MILE STEW ATTRACTION! ] -------------------------------------------------------------------- * Detected: 150 Starving Desert Refugees drawn by the Spirit Aroma of Old Guo's Giant Meat-Potato Stew! * Group Breakdown: - 50 Artisans & Farmers led by Carpenter/Blacksmith Uncle Tie - 60 Weavers & Brick-Makers led by Widow Sun - 40 Young Herders & Laborers led by Old Shepherd Ma * Hostile Intent: 0% (Desperately Hungry — Seeking Survival) ====================================================================
"My Lord! My Lord!"
One-Eyed Jack came sprinting back from the West Gate, his bright-yellow debtor vest flapping in the wind. Instead of running away when he saw outsiders, he ran straight to Pei Xuan like a loyal watchdog!
"My Lord, there's a huge crowd of ragged people coming up the Canyon Road!" One-Eyed Jack reported loudly. "About a hundred and fifty of them! None of them have horses or sabers—they're all staring at our village and sniffing the air like hungry ghosts! Should I line my debtor brothers up with shovels to block the gate?"
"No need to block them. They're our new neighbors coming to help you build houses," Pei Xuan smiled. "Hong Ling! Grab your account book, ink brush, and a wooden table! Old Guo, carry one of the three cauldrons of Meat-Potato Stew and ten baskets of baked potatoes out to the West Gate!"
"Yes, Young Master!"
When Pei Xuan walked out through the West Gate and stood between the two rows of six-foot [Needle-Spitting Guard Cactuses], all one hundred and fifty starving refugees had just stumbled to the edge of the cactus line.
They looked even worse than the villagers of Dry-Well Village had looked two days ago. Their clothes were torn to ribbons, their feet were blistered from the hot sand, and many of the mothers were carrying fainting children.
Yet the moment they saw Old Guo and Stone set a steaming, four-foot-wide iron cauldron of milky-gold Meat-Potato Stew right inside the gate, the entire crowd of one hundred and fifty refugees let out a collective sob.
"It's real! We weren't dreaming!"
"Look at the golden oil floating on that soup! And those big golden potatoes in the basket!"
Uncle Tie, Widow Sun, and Old Shepherd Ma took one look at the ten terrifying, iron-needled Guard Cactuses flanking the gate, then saw Pei Xuan standing calmly in the center wearing a clean robe, flanked by Old Wei and thirty-one burly men in matching yellow vests.
Without a second of hesitation, Uncle Tie dropped to his knees in the sand outside the cactus line. Behind him, all one hundred and forty-nine men, women, and children dropped to their knees together!
"Lord of Dry-Well Village!" Uncle Tie bowed until his forehead touched the hot dirt, his voice trembling. "We are refugees from Dried-Creek Settlement and the Salt-Pool border! Our wells dried up and we have walked for four days without food! None of us are thieves or beggars—I can forge iron tools and build roof beams, Widow Sun's women can spin cloth and bake mud bricks, and Old Ma's boys can herd cattle and dig ditches!"
Uncle Tie lifted his tear-streaked face, pointing at the pale children behind him. "Please, my Lord! We only ask for half a bowl of hot soup and a mouthful of water for each child! In exchange, all one hundred and fifty of us will sign lifetime indentured contracts to work for Your Lordship without a single copper coin of wages!"
Pei Xuan looked out over the hundred and fifty kneeling refugees.
In this harsh desert world, human lives were treated cheaper than weeds by the nobles and Immortal Sects. Yet in Pei Xuan's eyes, every single hardworking carpenter, brick-maker, weaver, and herder kneeling in front of him was a walking gold mine of Daily Loyalty Points!
"Stand up, everyone," Pei Xuan said warmly, his clear voice carrying to the very back of the crowd. "Dry-Well Village doesn't take slaves, and we don't sign indentured contracts. We only take free citizens!"
Uncle Tie and Widow Sun looked up in stunned disbelief. "F-Free citizens?"
"That's right," Pei Xuan pointed to the wooden table where Hong Ling was sitting with her brush poised over the village register book, and then pointed to the long wooden water trough beside the gate that Stone had just filled with cold, sparkling Sweet-Spring Spirit Water.
"My rules are simple," Pei Xuan announced. "First, line up at the table and register your name, age, and trade with Housekeeper Hong Ling. Second, wash the desert dust off your hands and faces in the clean water trough. Third, work six hours a day building homes, farming, or crafting for the village. Every registered citizen of Dry-Well Village gets free housing, two buckets of sweet spring water a day, and three full meals of Meat-Potato Stew every single day!"
He tapped the rim of the giant iron cauldron with Old Guo's wooden ladle.
"And you don't wait until tomorrow to eat—as soon as your name is in the book and your hands are washed, you get a big wooden bowl of hot stew and a two-pound baked Meat-Potato right now!"
For two seconds, the hundred and fifty refugees thought their ears were playing tricks on them.
Then—
"Thank you, my Lord! Long live the Lord of Dry-Well Village!"
Crying tears of pure joy, the hundred and fifty refugees knocked their heads on the ground three times, scrambled to their feet, and formed a neat, orderly line in front of Hong Ling's registration table! Nobody dared push or shove, terrified that breaking the rules would cost them their place in this paradise.
"Next! Name, age, and what can you do?" Hong Ling asked briskly, her brush flying across the paper.
"Tie Dashan, thirty-eight years old, blacksmith and house carpenter!"
"Good! Go wash your hands at the trough and take token Number One to Fat Uncle Guo for your stew!"
Uncle Tie ran to the wooden trough, plunged his burning face and cracked hands into the ice-cold Sweet-Spring Water, and drank three huge gulps. Instantly, the tearing pain in his dry throat vanished!
Then he stepped up to Old Guo's cauldron. Old Guo grinned and handed him a massive wooden bowl brimming with steaming golden broth and four huge chunks of Meat-Belly Giant Potato, plus a whole roasted potato on the side!
Uncle Tie took one gulp of the rich, salty mutton-potato broth and bit into the golden tuber.
"Mmmph!"
His eyes widened as warm, meaty juice flooded his mouth and slid down into his empty stomach. It felt as if a warm stove had been lit inside his chest, chasing away four days of bone-deep exhaustion in a single breath!
DING! DING! DING! DING!
As one refugee after another drank the Sweet-Spring Water and ate their steaming bowls of Meat-Potato Stew, a firework display of green notifications lit up Pei Xuan's RTS screen!
[ New Citizen Registered: Tie Dashan (Blacksmith/Carpenter) ] * Realm: Rank 0 Peak (Half-Step Rank 1) | Loyalty: 45 -> 78 / 100 [Loyal!] * Current Thought: "Cold spirit water and thick lamb-potato stew for every meal?! Even the County Magistrate in Salt-Pool Town doesn't eat this well! I'll build Lord Pei the strongest houses in the desert!"
[ New Citizen Registered: Widow Sun (Master Weaver) ] * Realm: Rank 0 Mortal | Loyalty: 40 -> 74 / 100 [Loyal!]
[ New Citizen Registered: Old Shepherd Ma ] * Realm: Rank 0 Mortal | Loyalty: 42 -> 76 / 100 [Loyal!]
By the time the three giant cauldrons were scraped clean an hour later, all 150 refugees had been registered as official citizens of Dry-Well Village!
Out of the 150 newcomers, 112 of them had immediately shot past 60+ Loyalty (averaging 73/100), while the remaining 38 shy kids and cautious elders were already sitting at 55–59/100, just one more meal away from crossing the line!
Add in the 8 bandit debtors (including One-Eyed Jack worth 10 LP and two Rank-1 bandit veterans worth 10 LP each, plus five Rank-0 bandits) who had crossed 60+ Loyalty over lunch, and Pei Xuan's territory summary screen jumped to a whole new level:
==================================================================== [ TERRITORY STATUS UPDATE: DRY-WELL VILLAGE (Lv. 1) ] -------------------------------------------------------------------- * Total Population: 284 (103 Original + 31 Debtors + 150 New Citizens) * Loyal Population (60+ Loyalty): 223 / 284 - 6 Rank-1 Martial Units (Old Wei, Hong Ling, Old Guo, One-Eyed Jack, + 2 Loyal Bandit Veterans) x 10 LP = +60 LP / day - 190 Loyal Rank-0 Citizens & Debtors x 1 LP = +190 LP / day -------------------------------------------------------------------- >> NEW PROJECTED DAILY INCOME: +250 LP / DAY! >> CURRENT BALANCE: 130 LP ====================================================================
Two hundred and fifty Loyalty Points a day! Pei Xuan smiled as he watched Uncle Tie and One-Eyed Jack already leading crews to put up temporary wood-and-reed shelters for the new families before sunset.
However, none of them noticed that two miles north of the village, deep inside a dark, sunless rocky ravine called Scorpion-Tail Gully, the lingering scent of sweet spirit-starch and mutton fat had sunk into the cracks of the earth.
Click-clack... hiss... click-clack...
Underneath the black boulders of the gully, five hundred pairs of beady crimson eyes snapped open in the dark. Five hundred venomous Red-Tail Poison Scorpions—each one as big as a grown man's fist, with stingers dripping purple venom—crawled out of their holes in a rustling red carpet, marching straight toward Dry-Well Village's potato fields under the cover of dusk!