The Governor's Office of Golden Gallon Port.
One man sat sprawled boldly in a chair, while the other paced anxiously back and forth across the office.
On the low table sat two cups of tea; one was still warm, while the other sat untouched and already cold.
Watching Yodu stroke his chin in deep thought without offering an answer, Laxi could not help cursing.
"...Can you quit pacing around in goddamn circles? If you're not dizzy, I sure as hell am just watching you."
Yodu glanced at him, then looked out the window, sighing heavily and shaking his head.
Seeing him hesitate to speak, Laxi's brow twitched sharply.
"If you've got something to say, spit it out."
Yodu finally spoke.
"General, do you know why Mr. Fang Chang transferred you from the front lines to the rear?"
Laxi lifted his teacup, blew on the surface, and replied nonchalantly, "I know."
The space between Yodu's brows twitched violently. Keeping his temper in check, he pressed on, "Then why are you being so impatient?"
"Impatient? Heh. The Empire slaughters my countrymen and butchers my kin, and you ask me why I'm impatient?" Laxi raised his brows, his eyes narrowing to slits as his gaze shot toward Yodu. "Every day I waste sitting here, god knows how many families are torn apart!
"I'll never forget what happened in Lowell Camp—and that was just a speck of dust, a single blade of grass across these four million square kilometers of land! Let me tell you, I want nothing more than to march up to Tiandu right now, chop that old bastard emperor's entire family to pieces, and tear down every last one of the thousand pillars in the City of a Thousand Pillars!"
Yodu started to reply, but Laxi cut him off.
"You're of the Snake Clan. Your own people died on Ten Peaks Mountain and the Weifu Wasteland, too. You've read the Survivor Daily—dying like that doesn't even qualify as cannon fodder! Yet that useless sack of straw Wutuo doesn't show an ounce of remorse; he's thrilled, and he's planning to send more people to that godforsaken place to die. Before you try talking me out of this, why don't you think about your own people first—"
"Enough!"
Yodu roared suddenly, cutting off Laxi's tirade.
His chest heaved. Across his face—normally a mask of worldly sophistication, tact, and restraint—a rare flicker of lost control broke through.
Glaring fixedly at Laxi, he wished he could lunge forward and seize the man by the collar, but he held back.
"I'm fucking worried about you! You reckless bastard, you know damn well what the situation is up north! Those fools are your countrymen, sure, but they're a rabble worse than feudal levies! What's the difference between you going there and marching straight to your death?"
Surprise flickered across Laxi's face. He didn't take offense; he simply hadn't expected this normally guarded, unobtrusive fellow to have such a straightforward side. Then he burst out laughing.
"What a joke! A tortoise hiding in its shell lives a long life, but why the hell would I want to be a turtle? You mock me for dying young; I mock you for living too long and never getting sick of it! Heh, today I'm hell-bent on being that short-lived ghost!"
Yodu was torn between tears and laughter. Seeing Laxi finish his tea and prepare to leave, he stepped forward himself, poured half a cup more, and blocked his way.
"My general, my ancestor, at least consider the practical realities—"
Laxi curled his lip. "Do you think I don't know the northern situation better than you? Don't forget, the battle reports come to my office first! I study the firsthand reports—don't you think I've thought about it more than you reading them secondhand? A bunch of pigheads fighting nothing but clumsy, rigid battles! The more I read, the angrier I get—angry enough to drain bottle after bottle!"
As he spoke, he seemed to recall those reports again, his teeth grinding in fury.
Yodu sighed.
"But even if you go, General, what difference will it make?"
Without hesitation, Laxi replied, "The Resistance is incompetent, but I am not! And my fellow Moon Clan people are far from incompetent!"
Yodu couldn't help pressing, "And what if you lose?"
Laxi replied calmly, "Then I die. That's all."
Silence fell over the room.
Yodu stared at him in a daze. He had thought that talk of dying young was just bravado, but Laxi was completely serious.
This man was truly wagering his life...
His Adam's apple bobbed. Without a word, he picked up his teacup and raised it toward the general.
"I did not expect you to possess such resolve. Forgive my disrespect."
"Don't make it look like you're seeing me off to the afterlife, damn it. I'm not dead yet," Laxi said, clinking cups with him and grinning broadly. "Still, even if I die, taking them to their deaths with me is better than this half-dead, gutless crawl. If in the end they fail to unseat the emperor and merely extinguish the burning blood in the hearts of Brahma Province's youth, that would truly be intolerable!"
As they spoke, footsteps sounded outside the office door, and a young man pushed it open and entered.
"Mr. Yodu, a telegram from Dawn City."
"What does the telegram say!" Before Yodu could speak, Laxi sprang to his feet and barked the question.
The young man cast a cautious glance at Yodu, and only after seeing him nod did he continue.
"Mr. Fang Chang says... approved."
Ecstasy flashed across Laxi's face. He let out several hearty laughs, clasped his fists toward Yodu, and said, "Farewell!"
With that, he strode out like a gust of wind without lingering for a single second, leaving only Yodu and the young man behind.
Glancing in the direction Laxi had departed, then back at Yodu, the young man asked hesitantly after a moment, "Mr. Yodu... is this really wise?"
He was of the Horse Clan. Before becoming a civil servant at City Hall, though not a noble himself, he had worked for nobles, so his family was quite well-off.
Toward someone like Laxi, his feelings were a mix of admiration, fear, and a hint of distaste.
He admired him because the old nobles and lords feared him; he feared him because the man was indeed ruthless, capricious, and vicious in his methods.
As for the distaste, it was mostly mixed with jealousy.
It was City Hall that led the locals in building railways, the subway, and renovating the Upper City, yet the vast lower and middle classes admired Laxi far more—a man vicious enough to kill even his own people when pushed.
Compared to Yodu, Laxi's prestige among the common folk of Golden Gallon Port was considerably higher.
If Laxi had shown even the slightest interest in becoming mayor, the esteemed Mr. Yodu would have had a tough time competing with him—barring underhanded tactics.
"Perhaps Mr. Fang Chang has his own reasons," Yodu said after a long silence, sighing softly.
Having served as "acting mayor" for so long, he had come to understand how difficult things were for Mr. Fang Chang.
Most of the time, the job was not choosing the best among reliable options, but choosing the lesser of two evils between two equally unreliable ones.
Was it better to stamp out a spark that had caught fire with such difficulty, or let it burn to see what might emerge from the ashes...?
He felt that if he were in Mr. Fang Chang's shoes, he might very well make the same choice.
In truth, Laxi wasn't entirely bad. A man who openly laid his cards on the table about wanting to be a warlord and emperor was still better than Zhalas of the Northern Federation, who shouted about freedom while acting like an emperor and styling himself president.
The former still had room for change; at least the youth of Brahma Province didn't yet view equality as a scourge, and what Laxi thought alone mattered little. But the latter was far worse—right and wrong would be inverted, and only a roaring war or a conflagration burning everything to ashes could allow for a fresh start.
As a reformist, he didn't truly despise people like Laxi. On any spectrum, such men were still more agreeable than royalists, even if he couldn't bring himself to admire them.
"We'll take it one step at a time." Yodu shook his head, returned to his desk, and continued reviewing the new textbook curriculum submitted by the Educators Association...
***
Meanwhile, Laxi stepped outside and stopped in front of the City Hall entrance.
He turned around to look at the Golden Gallon flag and the Alliance flag fluttering over the plaza before City Hall, took off his officer's cap, and placed it onto the flagpole base.
"You said no kneeling, so today I will not kneel.
"In the days to come, let all survivors of Brahma Province replace kneeling with bows and raised fists! Whoever the fuck dares kneel again—whether to me or anyone else—I'll saw off his goddamn legs first!"
With that, he bowed three times, straightened his back, turned, and strode away.
That day, the Golden Gallon Port City Hall accepted the resignation submitted by Civil Defense Office Director Laxi.
Resigning alongside him were one hundred officers and soldiers of the militia.
Word had it that after Laxi gave a speech upon returning to the barracks that day, the number of resignations more than doubled.
Under instructions from the Governor's Secretary, the Golden Gallon Port authorities approved every single one.
Those young lads returned the military caps, uniforms, and epaulets issued by the authorities, as well as the rifles slung across their shoulders.
From this day forward, they were no longer awe-inspiring militiamen, but ordinary residents of Golden Gallon Port.
Yet as they marched out of the barracks, they were met by cheers from survivors across the entire city.
People gathered in the streets, tossing flowers to them, handing them fruit, and embracing them, as if seeing off heroes departing for battle.
While everyone was venting fury over the Empire's shamelessness, these young lads had stepped forward.
Their births were not noble, their records hardly heroic, and their ancestors possessed no illustrious martial glory, yet anyone could see the unflinching courage and resolve in their eyes.
Marching through the crowd with heads held high and chests out, the lads looked at the people offering them flowers, their eyes shining with pride.
To have a moment like this once in a lifetime, one could die without regrets!
Many of them still remembered.
Something similar had happened once before, on the day of the Empire's defeat.
Only back then, those flowers were showered upon the Alliance, not on them who had also bled.
They didn't resent the Alliance for taking the glory; after all, they knew they could never have defeated the Empire on their own. Besides, their own performance was far less dazzling than those fighters, who had sent ten thousand men fleeing in terror and diving into the river with barely a hundred soldiers chasing them.
Even though they took the locals' reverence for the Alliance for granted, a touch of envy had been inevitable.
Did they not also long for recognition from their own people?
Did they not also look up to those who had already united!
Especially after reading books and newspapers brought from across the sea, learning about everything that had happened in Dawn City, Daybreak City, Boulder City, and beyond, that longing grew until it transformed into a new kind of faith.
Miracles were not born naturally, nor were they guaranteed by right.
The awakening of Golden Gallon Port's residents began with the Survivor Daily, but the seeds of these soldiers' awakening had been planted the moment they fought side by side with those people.
Someone had to take the first step!
Now it was their turn to walk the path those people had once trodden!
Just as the young lads strode forward with heads held high, Palu, who had been transferred from the Port District police station to maintain order, was hunting for a leather shoe knocked off his foot in the crowd.
He had paid over nine hundred gallons for it—half a month's salary.
Finding it at last in a corner of the crowd, he pounced on it with joy, clutching it to his chest and letting out a long breath.
"Praise the Horse God!"
Muttering prayers, he hurriedly slipped the shoe back on and strutted back into the crowd.
Waving his hands left and right to direct people and scolding a few curious kids, he waited until night fell and the crowd dispersed. Wiping away his sweat after all that exertion, he headed to the break room of a nearby security bureau to rest his feet.
The security bureau was filled with young men, all indignantly discussing the Empire, cursing Wutuo for not treating the Rat Clan as human beings, and not treating ordinary imperial subjects as humans either.
"Joining the Mucal Community is fine and well! But couldn't they find another way? The Administrator never forced everyone to risk their necks to support the cause of humanity—couldn't they have chosen a different approach?"
"Exactly! They could have taken the compensation from the Mucal Community to buy industrial equipment, and then taken on orders from the Community. But that dog-fucked Wutuo insists on trading lives instead!"
"And god knows where the money went!"
"Sigh, I just hope those lads win..."
"Several stalls in Karaba Market have donation points. The dye house and textile mill owners are calling for donations; I pitched in a bit yesterday myself."
"Is that reliable?"
"Why wouldn't it be? The boss of the Assassin Group donated a million silver coins himself! Do you think big-time operators like them care about your pocket change?"
"*Hiss*... That kind of money could buy a tank!"
Cursing the Empire had become a trend in Golden Gallon Port. Everyone was doing it, and even Palu, who used to miss Nihak, had grown disaffected with that washed-up relic lately, occasionally chiming in with a curse or two.
But when it came to those young lads who caused traffic jams and gave him endless trouble, he couldn't feel happy.
Couldn't they have slipped away silently in the dead of night?
Those cursed nuisances had nearly cost him one of his new leather shoes.
Sitting here, though, he didn't dare contradict the crowd openly. He merely grunted under his breath, "Heh, forget tanks—even giving them power armor would be useless... Following that drunkard Laxi, they'll just spill all their fiery blood for nothing."
Bashak, who happened to be sitting on the edge of the crowd, overheard the complaint and looked at his colleague in disbelief. "How could you say that about them?"
He cared little for matters outside work, but he at least didn't dislike those brave enough to take the lead.
If they actually succeeded, it would bring good—at least fewer aggrieved souls would drown in the Everflowing River.
Seeing someone take the bait, Palu sneered. "Does it even need saying? How could someone like Laxi accomplish anything? A former slave who'd be nothing without the Alliance! Does he actually think people are afraid of him?"
As if feeling that alone lacked punch, he quickly added, terrified of leaving it out: "And most importantly, he has no ideology."
Bashak was torn between tears and laughter. "What... what does that even mean? Are we talking about the same thing?"
He had assumed the senior guard would point out that the young men left without rifles.
Seeing how green the boy was, Palu scoffed, curling his lips as he recited like an expert: "Gods are merely invented shackles; ideology is the sword that cuts them down! Relying on heaven or earth is worse than relying on yourself; wealth comes from your own hands and mind; respecting others is respecting yourself... You haven't read the Survivor Daily, have you? How can you be a guard when you don't even know something as vital as ideology! Young man, your political awareness is seriously lacking!"
Bashak stared at him blankly. He honestly couldn't recall the papers saying all that; he only remembered the guys from the Alliance telling him that Rat Clan members could become guards too, and that illiteracy could be overcome with time.
Scolded by his senior, he felt his face burn hot, momentarily wondering whether he truly practiced equality in his daily work and interactions.
"Then... do you have that stuff?"
Bashak had asked diffidently, genuinely wanting to learn.
But when Palu heard it, the senior guard, who had been smug just a second earlier, leaped up like his tail had been stepped on.
"You shifty-eyed rat, how dare you say I don't! Of course I do! When the Alliance first landed, I knew those guys who unite everyone were bound to win!
"Besides, if I hadn't turned a blind eye and let them come ashore, they wouldn't have won so easily! Why do you think I'm guarding the port district while you only fetch and carry on Knight Road? Long-haired fools have short sights, so how come a hairless fellow like you has no vision either!"
Bashak stared blankly at his agitated senior and took a step back, pity and fear mingling in his eyes.
He wasn't afraid that the old fellow's words were prophetic and would doom those lads—after all, gods really didn't exist. Rather, he had suddenly realized that the other side of the river was full of people just like this.
They were the spitting image of the prologue Mr. Rat had written for General Lowell's biography. And this time, the Ls were chanting the ideas brought by the Alliance, just as they had once chanted about how wonderful it was that the Wilante gave a thousand dinars...
Killing an emperor wasn't hard.
But these people were immortal...
***
Dusk slowly settled, and night deepened. A quiet peace hung over the Everflowing River, the reed marshes lush and green.
This was the northwestern edge of Golden Gallon Port, an undeveloped wasteland.
Originally called Reed Slope, it was now referred to by locals as Dead Men's Slope, simply because the reed marshes concealed the bones of drowned ghosts.
The townspeople who had escorted them this far finally stopped and went no further.
Laxi and his followers would board boats at the riverside ferry, disguised as members of the Assassin Gang to pass through territory controlled by the Tiger Army.
As some boarded, others disembarked.
Gazing at the wretches offering endless, tearful thanks to the boatmen for granting them a second life, and at the skeletal remains hidden among the reeds, Laxi stood at the bow of the barge, a trace of disdain in his eyes.
With his back turned to his men, he spoke in an even voice.
"...Do you see those refugees on the Everflowing River?
"They're like dogs that fell into the water, scrambling desperately to crawl onto the bank, as if crawling ashore will let them live like human beings... Fucking pathetic. Instead of being proper men, they insist on being dogs."
The men remained silent.
Although they supported Laxi and didn't even oppose him taking the imperial throne, that didn't mean they agreed with everything he said.
Aside from the officers who had submitted their resignations with him from the start and served as his confidants, many had followed him purely out of fiery passion.
Among them were plenty who sympathized with these stowaways and had stepped forward precisely to help them at the root of the problem.
Seeing that no one answered, Laxi let out a cold grunt, but his tone shifted.
"Yet if you ask me, being a dog may be shameful, but who turned them into dogs in the first place!
"Was it their parents?
"Was it the people here?
"Was it you?
"Or was it the Alliance? The Legion? Ideal City?
"None of them! It was that Wutuo, his chancellor, his ministers, and the thousands upon thousands of slaveholding manors and the plantation lords sitting inside them! It was those bone-chewing bastards who turned people into dogs and twisted human relations into dogs against dogs!
"Today you follow me upriver not merely to save the Moon Clan, but to save those thousands upon thousands of slaves! In the future, if I am crowned emperor, whether you believe in me or not, I will never let a single Xilan man live like a pig or dog again!"
***
A week had passed since Laxi's resignation, and the stir created by those young lads had kept Golden Gallon Port boiling for just as long.
The entire settlement praised Laxi and those young men, even the old nobles who had once feared that plague god the most.
The Port District.
Not far from the entrance of the Triumph Hotel stood a breakfast shop whose facade was decorated identically to those in Dawn City. Blue-coated travelers occasionally stopped by for a meal, making the shop quite popular among locals.
Two well-dressed men sat at a table, eating soup dumplings with ginger and vinegar from three steamer baskets while pointing and commenting on the latest issue of the Survivor Daily.
*Red Soil* had just wrapped up the story of L and finally reached the main narrative, yet it spoke neither of General Lowell nor of the red soil itself. Instead, taking a madman's diary as its opening thread, it elaborated on the soil-eating mentioned in passing in the prologue.
The article made readers break out in a cold sweat.
Soil chewed in the mouth tasted like delicious meat; bloody mud cakes looked just like human hearts and livers.
The protagonist was a madman, and a madman's diary was naturally ravings, yet Mr. Rat wrote it so realistically that one couldn't help questioning his sanity—and upon deeper reflection, questioning one's own, until even the soup dumplings lost their flavor.
Shuddering, the two men quickly changed the subject, turning to the "Union" that had recently become the talk of the town.
That was the name the youth of Golden Gallon Port had bestowed upon Laxi and the lads who followed him out of the city to fight against the Empire, as well as the hope they placed in them.
At first, it was merely a name. Later, several radical youths registered the organization and opened a supervised account at a Golden Gallon bank according to regulations, actively raising funds for them. By now, it had taken on the feel of a distinct faction.
Although Laxi, still en route, might not acknowledge this post-facto title, he certainly wouldn't refuse the weapons and money delivered to his doorstep.
"That Laxi probably has bad intentions. I could tell at a glance he wants to be emperor."
"Heh, you think you're the only one who can see that?"
"Don't you think that's utter nonsense?"
"I've flipped through the old books sent by the Alliance. In the history of the Human Alliance, constitutional monarchy was actually a tested formula."
The Ox Clan man sitting opposite widened his eyes.
"Why stoop to that shameful crap? The Human Alliance is already buried in the trash heap of history! And you're rummaging through the trash heap inside a trash heap for food!"
The Horse Clan man eating his soup dumplings gave him a helpless look.
"No matter how rotten it is, could it be more rotten than Wutuo?"
The Ox Clan man fell silent.
That was true enough...
Who could be more disgraceful than Xilan?
Even though he had half-royal blood himself and held a title granted by the Empire, he never brought such things up in conversation, terrified of drawing contemptuous glares.
In a corner of the breakfast shop, a rather mature-looking youth sat quietly reading a newspaper.
Several plain-looking yet burly men sat casually around him eating noodles, turning away anyone who attempted to approach with intimidating glares.
Except for the waiter who came over to refill their tea.
Looking at the newspaper held in the customer's hands, Zayed spoke in a very soft voice.
"The news on that page is about Port Youtiao. They plan to renovate the harbor there and need more steel, cement, and laborers."
Axin raised an eyebrow slightly and smiled at the intriguing waiter.
"You can tell I'm illiterate?"
Zayed gave a gentle nod and spoke in a mild tone.
"You are very enthusiastic about knowledge, but beef noodles are best eaten hot. Once the broth soaks in, the noodles turn soggy."
Axin offered a faint smile.
"You're quite an interesting fellow. With the education to read and study newspapers, why aren't you teaching? What are you doing pouring tea and clearing tables here?"
This waiter looked somewhat familiar, as though Axin had seen him at the Triumph Hotel, but he had probably been fired for some reason.
Axin could guess why—most likely chiming in while guests were dining.
That was hardly a good habit.
It was only because he had run into Axin, a grassroots fellow who had clawed his way up from the bottom and didn't hold it against him. Besides, this was Alliance territory; he had to play the part of a gentle, upright citizen.
If the waiter had encountered someone less forgiving, they would have certainly taught him a lesson.
Of course, it was also possible this fellow had bet on Axin's patience before stepping up.
Hearing the light mockery in his tone, Zayed smiled faintly, unbothered.
"Teaching cannot change the Empire. If I teach one person, or ten people, it changes nothing."
As if hearing something hilarious, Axin burst out laughing and set down the newspaper.
"You really are something. I compliment your literacy, and you stick an onion up your nose to play the elephant! Tell me, then—how does being a waiter... change the Empire?"
Not only did Axin laugh, but the gang members sitting beside him chuckled as well.
Except for the slow-witted Kunal.
He didn't find it funny; instead, he simply curled his lip in contempt.
These days, every nobody had rebellion on their lips. Even a breakfast shop waiter was dreaming in broad daylight.
The noodle shop owner was winking furiously from the counter, practically on the verge of tears as he tried to wave Zayed away from that terrifying figure.
This man was the boss of the Assassin Gang!
Who in this port didn't know what kind of business he ran?
If he got displeased, someone would probably have to fish Zayed's body out of the Everflowing River.
Yet Zayed acted as if he hadn't noticed.
He had never cared about this job in the first place, just as he had never cared about the job at the Triumph Hotel.
He had taken work here solely to catch the eye of an influential benefactor, and now he had found him.
As for whether it would work, that was in the hands of fate. It wasn't as if he hadn't failed before.
Smiling faintly, Zayed continued, "Being a waiter cannot change the Empire, but it can earn me travel fare."
Hearing that he was merely a runaway saving up for a ticket, Axin felt even more disdain, though he didn't let it show on his face, merely picking up his chopsticks to eat his noodles.
"...Port French Fries, huh? A decent destination, but they only welcome folks who work hard with both feet on the ground. I suggest you cure yourself of that habit of aiming too high while doing too little. Moving so sluggishly, you don't look like a Golden Gallon Port man at all. At this rate, you won't even make a good noodle shop waiter."
He was growing somewhat annoyed.
Yet to his surprise, the waiter replied, "Why would I go to Port French Fries? I am going to Dawn City."
"What are you going there for?" Axin paused his chopsticks and gave him another look, wholly unprepared for the waiter's startling words.
"Laxi cannot succeed, nor can Yodu. Not a single person in the entirety of Golden Gallon Port can save Brahma Province. There isn't a one-in-ten-thousand chance that what happened in Boulder City can be repeated here... They all lack one thing, and that thing is in Dawn City."
Staring intently at the bewildered Axin, Zayed rested both hands on the table.
"I do not want to watch the youth of Brahma Province bleed in vain. I must go there and bring it back!"
Chapter 768