[14 Days Before the Full Moon]
Dawn broke over Lujing Village, but no rooster's crow welcomed it.
The usually peaceful morning air was now filled with new sounds: the hoarse chop of axes, the creak of falling trees, and the heavy breathing of men at work. They had labored through the night by torchlight, driven by a lethal cocktail of adrenaline, fear, and the terrifying new authority of the strange man they had rescued.
Long Wei had not slept.
He stood under the largest tree in the village center, which now served as his temporary "Command Post." On the ground before him, the charcoal map of the village had been updated. It was now littered with tactical symbols no one understood but him: small triangles for traps, cross-hatching for barricades, and arrows indicating likely enemy routes.
His body was a prison of pain.
Every few minutes, he had to lean on his crutch, gritting his teeth against the waves of agony pulsing from his ribs. The lack of sleep and the sudden physical exertion had re-opened his nearly healed wounds. He knew he had pushed himself too far. But what choice did he have?
"Long-dage."
He didn't need to turn. He already recognized the light footsteps. Chen Yue approached, carrying a steaming bowl of congee and a cup of herbal water. Her face was smudged with torch-soot and dirt; she had clearly been up all night with the women, gathering and weaving ropes.
Their eyes met.
There was something new in her gaze. The fear was still there, but it was no longer fear of bandits. It was a fear mixed with... awe? And a little... grief. She was grieving for the funny, awkward "Long-dage" who was gone, replaced by the cold-hearted commander standing before her.
Long Wei took the water, ignoring the congee. He drank it in one long gulp. The water was bitter, but it soothed his dry throat.
"You... must... eat," Chen Yue whispered.
"Eat... later," Long Wei said. "Time... is... our... food... now."
He limped into the square, his crutch sinking into the freshly dug earth. Chen Fu and the other men had returned, dragging the last of the pine logs. They collapsed to the ground, panting, their farming muscles burning from a new kind of labor.
"Good work," Long Wei said. His tone was flat. "Now... rest... two... hours."
The men sighed in relief.
"After... that," Long Wei continued, "we... start... digging."
The sigh turned into a collective groan.
"Dig?" Chen Fu, acting as foreman, staggered to his feet. "We just chopped down half the forest! We need rest!"
"Ma Gou... does not... rest," Long Wei said, his voice like ice. "He... is... drinking... wine. Laughing... at you. Waiting... for the full moon... to take... your grain... and... your women."
The words hit the men harder than an axe. Shame and anger overrode their exhaustion.
"What... do we... dig?" asked an old farmer.
Long Wei stabbed his crutch into the dirt at the new outer perimeter of the village. "A ditch."
He walked, limping, marking out the line he had planned. A giant arc covering the entire side of the village that faced the path and the fields.
"Three... steps... wide," he said. "Shoulder... deep. Outer... side... sloped. Inner... side... straight."
"That... that will take weeks!" protested Chen Fu.
"We... have... ten... days... for this," Long Wei said. "We... work... in shifts. Team... digs. Team... sleeps. Team... sharpens... spears. No... one... stops. Ever."
He looked at Chen Fu. "You... manage... the shifts. I... will... watch... the design."
Long Wei didn't just order them to dig a ditch. He gave them their first lesson in siege engineering. "Dig... from... the center," he explained. "Throw... the dirt... to the... inner... side."
"But that will block our path," Chen Fu said.
"Good," Long Wei said. "It... becomes... a rampart. A wall... of earth. The ditch... stops... horses. The rampart... stops... men. You... are building... two... walls... at once."
For ten days, Lujing Village turned into a construction hell.
Long Wei was a merciless overseer. He couldn't dig, but he was everywhere. He limped along the ditch line, his crutch pointing relentlessly.
"Deeper!" he yelled at one team.
"That... side! Too... sloped! Make it... straight! I... want... them to... fall... and... not... get up!"
"Chen Fu! That... team... is too slow! Replace... them!"
He pushed them to their limits, and then... a little further.
He himself barely slept. He survived on Chen Yue's herbal water and pure willpower. Several times, Chen Yue found him passed out at his Command Post, asleep leaning against the tree, and would gently cover him with a blanket. But the moment he awoke, the ruthlessness returned.
The men began to hate him. But they also began to... trust him.
On the fifth day, the ditch was only half-done. Exhaustion had turned to despair.
"We can't," a young man said, throwing down his shovel. "This is impossible."
Long Wei limped over to him. He stared at the man. "Your name?"
"Li... Li Er," the youth stammered.
"Li Er. You... have... a wife?"
"Yes..."
"Children?"
"One... girl. Three... years old."
"Good," Long Wei said. "Ma Gou... will... like... them. When... he... burns you... alive... in front... of them. Pick up... your shovel. Dig."
Li Er picked up his shovel. He dug with tears streaming down his face.
By the tenth day, the ditch was finished. It was a massive, ugly scar in the earth, shoulder-deep and three steps wide, encircling 80% of the village. The earthen rampart behind it created a chest-high wall of defense.
Lujing Village no longer looked welcoming. It looked... angry.
[4 Days Before the Full Moon]
"The ditch... is done," Chen Fu reported to Long Wei. He was exhausted, but there was a note of pride in his voice. He had lost weight, but his muscles had become hard as steel. "Now we can hide behind it."
Long Wei was inspecting a pile of ropes Chen Yue had gathered. "Hiding... is... how... you die."
He called for the hunting team. The six men who knew the forest best.
"You... thought... I forgot... the forest?" Long Wei said. "The main... path... is now... a trap. But... smart bandits... might... try... the woods... behind."
For the next two days, Long Wei taught the hunters the dirty art of guerrilla warfare.
"Your... boar... traps... are good," he said, inspecting one of their snares. "But... they... are for... catching. Our... traps... are for... wounding. For... crippling. To... make them... scream."
He showed them how to make Punji traps. He didn't call them that. He just called them "Dragon's Teeth." They spent hours sharpening hundreds of arm-length bamboo stakes, hardening the tips in fire, and dipping them... at Long Wei's insistence... into the village's animal dung pile.
"Infection," he explained curtly. "Slower... than... a sword. But... just as... deadly."
The hunters looked at him in horror.
They planted the "Dragon's Teeth" in leaf-covered pits along hidden paths. They set up tripwires that would release hanging logs. They created "false" trails that looked safe, leading directly into a small swamp or the deepest pit traps.
The forest around Lujing, once peaceful, had now been given teeth.
[2 Days Before the Full Moon]
Long Wei gathered the 34 men in the square. They stood taller. Building their fortress had given them a sense of pride. They looked at their ditch and rampart with satisfaction.
"Good... work," Long Wei said. "Your... fortress... is strong."
The men smiled. Chen Fu grinned.
"It... will... slow down... Ma Gou... about... three... minutes," Long Wei added.
The smiles vanished.
"A fortress... does not... fight," Long Wei said, his voice booming in the silence. "A ditch... does not... kill. You... kill."
He threw his crutch to the ground. His wounds were healed enough that he could stand, though it still pained him. He picked up one of the new, sharpened wooden spears—two meters long, with a fire-hardened tip as hard as iron.
"This... is not... a hoe," he said. "This... is not... a farming... tool. This... is a tool... for ending... a life. You... must... learn... how to... use it."
"Teach us, Commander!" shouted Li Er, the young man who had once wept while digging.
Long Wei looked at Chen Fu. "Take... a spear. Attack... me."
"What?"
"Attack... me. Try... to kill... me."
Chen Fu, spurred by the provocation, roared and charged. He swung the spear like a club, a wide, powerful horizontal arc.
Long Wei didn't even move. He simply pivoted, letting the swing pass. With the butt of his own spear, he struck Chen Fu's wrist. Chen Fu yelled and dropped his weapon. Long Wei then flicked his spear's tip, stopping it an inch from Chen Fu's throat.
The thirty-four men swallowed.
"You... fight... like... farmers," Long Wei said, lowering his spear. "You... swing. Swinging... is... slow. Swinging... opens... your defense. Swinging... is... wrong."
He took a stance. His body was low, balanced. The spear was held tight in two hands, the tip pointed straight ahead.
"You... do not... swing," he said. "You... thrust."
He demonstrated. A fast, brutal, efficient motion. Like a viper's strike. In, then out.
"Thrust. Pull. Thrust. Pull. Nothing... else. Thrust... for the... gut. Thrust... for the... neck. Thrust... for the... eyes. Keep... your distance. Do not... let them... get close... with their... swords."
For two solid days, from dawn till dusk, the village square became a boot camp.
"Again!" he yelled, his voice hoarse. "I... don't... see... sweat! I... don't... hear... a war cry!"
"HAH!" the men roared, thrusting their spears into straw dummies.
"Again! Harder! Pretend... it is... Ma Gou! Pretend... he is... dragging... your wife!"
The roar the men unleashed was no longer a training cry. It was a roar of pure rage.
On the final day, he taught them the most important thing. Formation.
"You... alone... are weak. Together... you... are strong."
He divided them. Three ranks. Twelve men each (the two oldest men were put on rock and oil duty).
"Rank... one! Kneel! Spears... angled... up!"
"Rank... two! Stand! Spears... straight... ahead!"
"Rank... three! Reserve! Fill... the gaps!"
He had created a hedgehog. A simple farmer's version of a Roman phalanx. A deadly wall of spears.
"Rank... one... holds the horses! Rank... two... kills the riders! No... one... moves... back! The man... beside you... is your brother! You... protect... him! He... protects... you!"
Chen Fu, now completely transformed, acted as his lieutenant, shouting the commands, correcting stances. The sheep had been taught how to use wolves' teeth.
[Night of the Full Moon]
Lujing Village was silent. Too silent.
The full moon hung in the sky like Ma Gou's milky white eye, illuminating the new fortress. The ditch gaped like a dark mouth. The earthen rampart looked solid.
Behind the rampart, thirty-four men stood in formation, their spears pointing toward the single entrance.
Above them, on the hut roofs, the women and older children sat beside piles of rocks, sand, and—at Long Wei's instruction—large cauldrons of boiled animal dung and urine.
"Sickness," he had explained to Chen Yue, whose face was pale with disgust. "More... important... than hot... water."
Long Wei himself stood at his main Command Post: the roof of the grain silo, which gave him a view of the entire "kill zone." He was no longer in farmer's robes. He wore his black tactical vest over a dark shirt. On his shoulder, the M4 was slung. At his side, his pistol.
He had checked his ammo a hundred times. Four mags for the M4. Three for the pistol. 200-odd rounds in total. Against 30 bandits... or more. It wasn't enough.
The firearms were his trump card. They were his fight-winners. But they weren't to be wasted on grunts. They were for commanders.
Chen Yue climbed the ladder to the silo roof, carrying a waterskin. She sat beside him. The silence enveloped them.
"Long-dage," she whispered, using his old name. "Are... you scared?"
Long Wei stared at the horizon. He could hear them now. Faintly. The sound of hooves and drunken laughter.
He thought about the question. Scared. He remembered the RPG blast. He remembered General Tano. He remembered the pain of waking up in this world.
He looked at the girl beside him. The girl who had saved him, and whom he had now pushed into the middle of a war.
"Fear... is... good," he said softly, his Han-era Mandarin much more fluid now. "Fear keeps you alive. Keeps you sharp."
He touched the cold metal of the M4. "What matters is what you do after you are scared."
The laughter of the bandits grew louder. They had reached the edge of the fields.
Long Wei stood. He looked down at his trembling, but resolute, army.
"Healer Chen!" he yelled.
"Yes!" the old man's voice called back from below.
"Light... the fires!"
All along the rampart, women lit the torches, illuminating the spear-wall in a terrifying orange glow.
Ma Gou and some thirty-five bandits—more than expected—stopped at the edge of the ditch, their laughter freezing.
The village they remembered was gone. In its place was a small, angry fortress that looked ready for war.
Long Wei raised his M4, chambering a round. The metallic, deadly CHK-CHK sound was terrifyingly loud in the ancient Chinese night.
"Tomorrow," he murmured to himself. "No. Tonight."
He stared at Ma Gou in the distance.
"We show them... how a real wolf hunts."