New City

Gloomy clouds churned across the sky, leaving both heaven and earth draped in murky gray. The bitter chill of the extreme north swept through tens of thousands of li of desolate, snow-covered wastes, crossed the scarred and ruined three northern provinces, and reached this inconspicuous border on the northern edge of the capital region. Flecks of plain white drifted down into the mortal realm. It was snowing again. A scruffy, middle-aged man raised his eyes to glare at the cursed heavens. Stepping slowly out of the mountain woods, he walked toward the plains ahead, dragging several carcasses of mountain beasts behind him. There, a modest city stood. Huizhou. A fallen county that had once become known throughout Great Yan—as the place where the Prime Minister's third son was assassinated. Naturally, the slaughter of the city's commoners during that assassination had provoked outrage in the imperial court at the time, but once the fury subsided, the tragedy was merely brushed aside. How absurd, how lamentable: the lives of a whole city were not worth that single aristocrat. Recalling these memories that had suddenly surfaced in his mind, Luo Yuanqi drew his beast pelt tighter around himself and involuntarily let out a soft sigh. He had once been an official in the Ministry of War—not a high-ranking one. During the northern war, he took the fall for a superior and resigned from office. He did not linger in the imperial capital waiting for reinstatement, but instead followed a surge of hot-blooded courage and volunteered for deployment to the Northern Border, hoping to serve his country as a martial apprentice by slaying the enemy. Yet a real battlefield was fundamentally different from memorials in the imperial capital. The hot blood he had nurtured since childhood went bone-cold the moment he set foot on the front line. Never mind killing enemies—just looking at the mangled flesh and blood flying through the air and the mountains of corpses piling up like earth to fill the seas terrified him out of his wits. He ran. He became a deserter. Such conduct was hardly an isolated case. Aside from the elite garrison towns of the Northern Border, deserters were everywhere. Men would quietly fall behind and slip away during the chaos of a charge. When formations fell into disarray, the supervisory camps could not keep watch over everyone. A few dozen deserters would band together, dive into the mountains, and become bandits. Though Luo Yuanqi had been terrified by the battlefield, having possessed the backbone to give up his post in the imperial capital for the Northern Border, he still retained a shred of integrity. He refused to keep company with bandits. Gathering a few soldiers like himself, he took in many refugees who had been displaced by the blizzards, natural disasters, and devastation of war along the way as they traveled south. Using the stipends and food he had saved from his time in the capital, he bought flour, rice, and cloth, and a few months ago, they settled in these border woodlands near the capital region to live in seclusion. The bitter cold from the extreme north had already receded considerably. In previous years at this time, snow on the ground would have been a foot deep. A few more years, and this blizzard calamity would likely come to an end. Yet the scourge of war seemed to have grown even worse. Over the past few months, their small village had taken in hundreds of refugees fleeing south. According to these wretched folk, the Barbarians in the three northern provinces had already been suppressed, and the calamity that drove them south was actually a pestilence. Spread through saliva and tainted blood, it drove those infected into manic madness, like demons possessing their minds. They recognized no kin, thirsty for blood and slaughter. All who spoke of it did so with lingering terror, yet Luo Yuanqi paid it little heed. As a former Ministry of War official, he knew the strength of those garrison towns very well, to say nothing of the immortal sects scattered like stars across the three provinces. Once the Barbarian invasion was halted, the restoration of order in the three northern provinces was only a matter of time. Compared to the plague, he was far more concerned with how his village would survive the winter. Most people in the village were unregistered criminals who dared not clear new fields through slash-and-burn farming. With so many new mouths to feed, the rice and flour bought during their journey south were nearly exhausted. Relying solely on the village's martial apprentices to hunt, several hundred people would surely die this winter. He had discussed this matter with a few trusted men. They were all common soldiers and vagrants, and he had expected no useful advice, but a villager from the far north had given him a blunt answer. "Cannibalism." "Start with the elderly over fifty, then the girls, the boys, and the sick..." "...First coax a batch of old men out of the village and slaughter them all together. See if we can pull through at the start. We can lie to the rest, saying they left on their own, and say the meat is deer we hunted..." "...Heavy snow and freezing weather keep the meat from spoiling, and beasts outside can't chew through it either. But we have to mark the spots, or they'll be buried in snow, and once they're buried, we won't find them..." At the time, Luo Yuanqi and the others had looked at him as though looking at a monster, but the man spoke with utter numbness: "...Don't look at me like that. I used to be just like you. But when winter came and we were starving to death, you'd do it too..." "..." "..." Luo Yuanqi had forcefully cut off that conversation. He knew the man was telling the truth; he had read memorials describing people exchanging children to eat in the Northern Border, so he was prepared for the harsh reality, but they could not cross that line. The snow disaster was nearly over, and the war was winding down. Based on his understanding of the Chancellor in the imperial court, the Pacification Act should have passed by now, and disaster relief had likely begun. As long as they endured this winter, once unregistered vagrants like them registered under the Pacification Act, everything would improve. Therefore, they could not break this bottom line. Biting his dry, peeling lips, Luo Yuanqi dragged the stiff, frozen carcasses of the mountain beasts and stopped a hundred zhang from the new city. Almost at the same moment— *Whoosh!* A black fletched arrow shot from the city wall, planting itself precisely one foot in front of him as a warning. *Just as I expected.* Staring at the trembling fletching, Luo Yuanqi felt a moment of daze. He subconsciously gripped the hemp rope across his shoulder, unable to suppress the sorrow welling in his chest. On his journey south, aside from provincial seats, he had avoided every city in Great Yan. This was the reason he had delayed seeking protection from this city for so long. Beneath a catastrophe, how could any nest remain intact? It was not that the court had issued no disaster relief decrees to the northern commanderies and counties, nor that the local officials dared defy the throne. The damned problem was that the court issued decrees without allocating silver or grain! Except for provincial seats capable of long-term relief, the subordinate commanderies and counties had it rough. Caring for their own citizens was their limit. When confronted with starving refugees begging for food, kind-hearted officials might distribute a bit of porridge before ordering them driven away, while hard-hearted ones would slaughter them outright to prevent desperate mobs from storming the walls. The displaced commoners were kicked back and forth between commanderies and counties like stray dogs. Yet he had trekked over a hundred li not to beg for food, but merely to trade wild game and medicinal herbs for coarse grains and millet to stave off hunger. Heaven and earth stretched vast and gray as heavy snow fell. Luo Yuanqi's throat bobbed. For a moment, he was at a loss. Go back? Return to the village and survive the winter by eating people, as that peasant had described? Yet if they ate people... was it even certain they could endure until next spring? *Whoosh!* Another arrow shot from the wall, this time thudding right beside his foot. The humming vibration of the shaft made him subconsciously take a step back. At this moment, Luo Yuanqi felt a pang of regret. He regretted resigning from his post in the imperial capital, regretted coming to this wretched place, regretted having to witness the suffering of the realm's commoners with his own eyes, only to be powerless every single time. Taking a deep breath, he watched the white mist from his lips disperse in the wind. He could not die here. If he perished, the village would fall into chaos, and once that happened, everything would be lost. Taking one last look at the towering walls, Luo Yuanqi was about to turn back when he noticed a wicker basket being lowered from the battlements. Were they letting him into the city? Once he reached the top of the wall, the vigilant gazes of several soldiers swept over him at once. Luo Yuanqi was a former court official who had seen the world. Setting down the hemp rope bound to the beast carcasses and the snake-skin sack filled with medicinal herbs, he stated his purpose plainly: "Sirs, this lowly one hunted some mountain game and wished to come to the city to trade for some coarse grain to survive the winter." Though his expression remained steady as he spoke, tension inevitably mounted in his chest. These wild goods and herbs were not particularly valuable, but if these soldiers chose to plunder them and kill him on the spot, no one would ever hold them accountable. The soldier leading them looked him up and down. Without answering directly, he simply said, "Leave your things and follow me. There are some matters we need from you." "Yes, sir." Lowering his head, Luo Yuanqi gave an ingratiating smile, though doubt stirred within him. Such awkward intonation—what regional dialect was that? Serving as a court official required sharp eyes and broad knowledge. Having served in the imperial capital for two decades, Luo Yuanqi was familiar with dialects from all corners of the land. Even if a person spoke the official dialect, he could generally deduce their region of origin. Yet he could discern nothing from this soldier's accent. As he walked along the city wall, having worked in the Ministry of War, he quickly detected something amiss. The armored soldiers on the wall all seemed to belong to the same clan. Their skin was too pale—pale as a corpse. At a glance, had these armored men not been exhaling warm mist just like him, one might have suspected they had stepped into the underworld. Why were all the people in this new city of the same clan? Furthermore... Although residential houses lined the streets within this new city, why did it look more and more like a military garrison fortress? Not far north from here, were Qinlong Pass and Jingbei Prefecture not already guarding the northern gateway to the capital region? Which elder statesman had proposed repairing Huizhou earlier? Thinking of this, Luo Yuanqi's pupils shrank violently, and a chill surged from the soles of his feet straight up his spine. It was over. The scourge of war was far from finished. This new city belonged to that treacherous Prime Minister— *Thud!* *Creeeak—* The door was pushed open, letting the swirling snow inside. A woman in skimpy, shoulder-baring clothes stepped in through the snow, casually tossing a dossier onto the desk inside the room. The brazier crackled with fire. Behind the desk, a short-haired man whose grooming defied Great Yan etiquette was dressed in armor, calmly perusing documents. Without looking up, he asked casually, "How did it go?" Yi Kui shook her head and countered, "Taking the initiative to let him into the city—isn't that rather inappropriate?" Qin Yuan slowly raised his gaze, his dark eyes devoid of emotion. "Not long ago, that prince borrowed troops and left the city, making a considerable stir. For a hundred li around this new city, no refugees gather. For this man to suddenly appear here is strange. If we ignore him, he might disrupt the Young Master's great affairs. His cultivation is meager, so it was better to bring him inside and detain him." Yi Kui pulled out a chair, sat down, and said softly, "True enough. He claims to be a refugee." Qin Yuan frowned slightly. "A refugee wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a garrison fortress and a civilian city." Yi Kui's expression turned slightly solemn, and she did not beat around the bush. "So after a little interrogation, he changed his story. He said he was once a court official in the Imperial Capital who volunteered to fight in the Northern Border, only to desert out of fear, which is why he has some discernment." At this, Yi Kui glanced at the armor he wore and teased, "General Qin, how do we dispose of this man?" Qin Yuan lowered his eyes back to the military roster and said offhandedly, "Kill him." Yi Kui had anticipated this. Before her seat had even grown warm, she rose to her feet. The construction of this new city had been carried out in secret. In normal times, undertaking such massive construction would have been impossible to hide. But now, with war ravaging tens of thousands of li across the three northern provinces and ruins being rebuilt everywhere, their new city naturally drew little attention. Now that someone had recognized it as a garrison town, he naturally could not be allowed to live. Yet after a brief thought, Yi Kui added, "Oh, right. That man said he knows he will likely not escape death, and begged us to go into the mountains to the west to save his village." Qin Yuan's gaze paused. He called out to Yi Kui as she prepared to leave: "Keep him alive for now. Send someone to the west to check." Yi Kui looked back in confusion, asking with a strange look, "Why?" "See for yourself." Qin Yuan tossed the document in his hand to Yi Kui. As she browsed through it, he said calmly, "The time is almost here. The Chancellor accompanied the Emperor on the northern hunt last night, and the Young Master just submitted a memorial to the court. A massive upheaval will likely erupt in the imperial capital of Great Yan very soon. At any moment, we may receive orders to decamp and march north to seize the passes, preventing the Beifeng Army from advancing south. At such a juncture, no errors can be tolerated. First go investigate the place he described. Hmm... go personally." Yi Kui listened without complaining, waiting for more detailed instructions. After deliberating for a moment, Qin Yuan continued, "If the man spoke the truth and they are merely refugees, send them some food. If not... if there is the slightest sign of spies, slaughter them all, then summon the Black Scale Guards to interrogate him further." Yi Kui blinked her beautiful eyes and knitted her dark brows, raising an objection. "Food for several hundred people for a whole winter is no small amount. Wouldn't it be simpler to just kill all those refugees?" The crypt remnants were fiercely xenophobic. At this critical juncture, the Prime Minister's Manor had not forced them to undergo ideological reeducation. After the city was built, they merely stationed some Black Scale Guards and technical bureaucrats nearby to monitor them, leaving nearly all internal affairs to the two divine officials. Qin Yuan handled military administration, while Yi Kui oversaw finances. As a divine official from the underground palace, though Yi Kui was wanton, she was never extravagant. In the underground palace, they had truly been terrified by poverty, wishing they could break a single grain in half to eat. Even now that they enjoyed better days, she still lived by meticulous calculation. Now asking her to allocate money and grain to outsiders? What a joke! The crypt remnants had always revered the law of the jungle. To conserve resources, they could be cold-blooded and ruthless even toward their own kin, let alone other refugees. In Yi Kui's view, the best way to prevent secrets from leaking was simply to butcher that village. Qin Yuan naturally understood her thoughts. After a brief silence, he suddenly asked, "Yi Kui, during the southward migration, you must have seen that Black Qilin Army commander named Yuan Hao. What do you think his eventual end will be?" "..." Yi Kui looked puzzled, not understanding why he had suddenly brought up that madman. Qin Yuan took a deep breath and said slowly, "Yuan Hao is just like us—a blade in the Young Master's hand. But he is different from us. He doesn't care that what is too rigid snaps easily, nor does he care about his own life or death. But we must care about the lives of these four hundred thousand divine people. "Yi Kui, our current situation is actually very difficult. Though the Chief Arbiter has become the Young Master's confidante, the ministers of the Prime Minister's Manor all fear and dislike us. If we do not wish to end up like Yuan Hao, we must learn to adapt to Great Yan, exercising caution in all things." Yi Kui listened carefully. After a moment of contemplation, she whispered rather reluctantly, "...Then it must be calculated by the bare minimum rations." "Agreed." Qin Yuan nodded in accord. Having also hailed from the underground palace as a divine official, he was just as stingy.