The door rattled under heavy pounding as the guests screamed at the top of their lungs, "Let us out! Does this supply post want business or not, huh? What kind of attitude is this toward paying guests, huh?"
Yet the door and its lock were extraordinarily sturdy and would not budge. Catching the scent of the Emperor's Flowing Dew, the two were ravenous as wolves and tried to climb out through the window.
Only then did they realize that wooden bars reinforced the exterior of the window—likely installed to withstand the storm winds, but they also kept anyone inside from getting out.
After locking the door tight, Wang Fubao called to the guests on either side, "There's an open spot here! Room for two more!"
"Me, I'm coming!" A guest diagonally opposite rushed over. Their room had a communal bunk for five people, and the small patch of ground before their doorway was nowhere near enough to share among five.
Scenes like this played out in at least four or five spots across the guest quarters.
There were also those dissatisfied with the tiny area marked by the white line who rushed beyond it to collect dew, only to be swarmed by the Yangshan Guard, who stood at the ready with wooden clubs and staves. The guards knocked them unconscious and hauled them back inside for confinement.
No explanations heard, no quarter given.
The guards struck in earnest, aiming specifically for shoulders, buttocks, and legs. Their technique and force were well-practiced: a single blow left a man howling in agony, shocked right back to his senses, before he was tossed back into his room.
Wherever trouble flared up, they charged in to suppress it immediately, without the slightest hesitation.
After several failed attempts to test the boundaries, no one was stubborn enough to try again. The other side had overwhelming numbers, brandished weapons, and looked so fierce and menacing that they resembled thugs far more than a proper guard force.
Some remained behind the white lines, hurling curses at the Yangshan Guard. But these roughnecks—pirates who had only just gone legitimate—puffed out their chests, glared back, and did not shrink in the slightest: "This is private property! Every single drop of Emperor's Flowing Dew that falls here belongs to the Island Master! His letting you have some is pure generosity. Don't push your luck, and don't push your face into our business, hear? Watch your legs! Step one foot over that line and I'll break it!"
The words were crude, but the logic was rock-solid.
The troublemakers locked back in their rooms could scream till their throats tore; no one paid them any heed.
On private land like this, the moment they disrupted order, their status degraded from He Lingchuan's guests to prisoners causing a disturbance.
Min Tianxi, the leader of the Second Channel, passed by a corner guest room. It housed only a single guest, so just one man stood before the door—yet the space inside the white line was packed solid with seven bottles and jars.
Whatever all seven jars gathered would belong to him alone. God only knew where he had managed to scrounge up so many containers.
Fortunately, he was stationed at a corner where other guests could not see him; otherwise, they would have been green with envy.
Min Tianxi glanced at him, and the guest even flashed him a friendly smile.
Min Tianxi looked away and was about to round the corner when something felt off. Taking two steps back, he stared intently at the white line on the ground.
Huh? Something was wrong!
Seeing him stop, the guest went pale.
Sure enough, Min Tianxi swept his foot across it, and with a soft rustle, the white line skewed out of place.
"...Well now, you clever bastard! Drew your own line, did you?" No wonder it had looked odd at first glance—the line had been set far too out from the doorway, at least ten feet away.
The guest hurriedly cupped his hands. "Officer, please turn a blind eye. Let me compensate you a little..." With that, he held out a large silver ingot.
Min Tianxi grabbed him by the collar with one hand and threw him straight into the room.
The man had just scrambled up when the silver ingot flew in after him, followed by the resounding slam of the door.
"Greedy bastard," Min Tianxi muttered indistinctly around the Mind-Clearing Pill under his tongue. He scraped at the dirt on the ground twice before realizing that the fellow had buried the original white paint under loose soil. The smart aleck had moved the line out by three or four feet and set down a new one.
That gave him room for two more jars.
In the dark, rainy night, with the guards hurrying past, a quick glance would never catch that the line was out of place.
Furthermore, the line had not been drawn with chalk or paint, but with a strip of white silk pulled taut...
In this lighting, with most of it obscured by jars, it really was easy to overlook.
A real genius.
Glancing around to make sure nobody was looking, Min Tianxi swiftly took all the liquid from the jars, then turned and bellowed, "Open spot over here..."
Punk thought he could play tricks on them?
The Yangshan Guard acted decisively, crushing every flicker of unrest in the guest quarters the moment it started. Desperate as people were for the Emperor's Flowing Dew, being locked inside meant they would not get a single drop—and they would have to watch helplessly as others took the dew from their doorstep. That was what truly drove people mad.
As for the boatmen and sailors who had not booked rooms on the island, they had been restricted to the docks and their vessels to collect the Emperor's Flowing Dew, completely separated from the guest quarters on shore.
Keeping the groups apart minimized clashes.
Over the sea raged fierce winds and towering waves, yet Suoding Island was steeped in an uncanny atmosphere. In the torrential downpour, everyone stood with heads tilted up toward the heavens, their eyes faintly bloodshot, terrified of missing even a drop of the celestial nectar.
Only the Yangshan Guard patrolled back and forth, striking gongs and shouting constant reminders:
"For your own safety, do not cross the white line! Do not cross the white line!"
Amid all the hectic rushing about, two hours passed, and He Lingchuan's anxious heart finally settled.
Though there were small mishaps here and there, and he himself ran about frantically like a fire captain putting out blazes everywhere, the order in Suoding Island's guest area had actually held and not collapsed.
The turmoil and brawls the people of Yangshan had dreaded never materialized; though some were injured, miraculously, no lives had been lost.
The Yangshan Guard, freshly selected and trained for less than ten days, usually stood about slack-jawed and slouching on the drill grounds; tonight, however, they performed with impressive discipline.
Such was the magic of power.
Armed with staves before ordinary folk, vested with the authority to discipline others, every guard stood tall with backbone straight, head held high, bellowing with the full-throated roar of a tiger descending the mountain.
Thanks to the continuous combat drills and emergency exercises Qiu Hu had organized over the past few days, most guards knew exactly what to do—especially how to control their force at critical moments, knocking troublemakers unconscious without causing grievous injury.
The staves in their hands were the very weapons they used during routine training.
He Lingchuan had weathered the fall of the Emperor's Flowing Dew in both Panlong City and Yuheng City, and he knew well that the secret to maintaining stability at such a moment was swiftness, precision, and ruthlessness!
Riots were terrifying, but if suppressed harshly at the first spark before spreading, the bluster would quickly fizzle out.
The only force capable of helping people overcome greed and selfish desire was absolute authority.
Submission to and fear of sheer authority could even suppress the primal urges stirred by the Emperor's Flowing Dew.
Pitting weakness against weakness, leveraging human nature against human nature—it never failed.
Seeing that everything was on track, he let out a breath and was just about to tilt his head back to take a few sips of the Emperor's Flowing Dew when Lei Ni suddenly came running up:
"Report! The mountain slope on the northwestern end suddenly collapsed, trapping seven people! I've already dispatched a team to rescue them."
"The northwest?" He Lingchuan frowned. "Why is anyone over there!"
The northwestern tip of Suoding Island had rugged terrain; while scenic, no one lived there. Moreover, with the Yangshan Archipelago bracing for the hurricane tonight, a curfew had long been issued forbidding anyone from wandering outside the barrier.
Chapter 1011