Only after hearing the laborers from Heyang County speak did the villagers of Wang Family Village realize just how poisonous the words "roving bandits" were to ordinary people.
Letting bandits land here was not a compromise.
It was arson with paperwork.
They had only just clawed back a fragile peace. Someone else was about to burn it down and call it strategy.
So this was what we had been doing all along?
Bai Mo clenched his teeth and shouted, voice cutting through the crowd.
"Wang Family Village! Work harder. Harder than them."
The response came instantly.
"Got it!"
They were fed. They had strength. And once people have both, they stop asking philosophical questions and start lifting things.
The crowd surged forward, ready to work, when someone suddenly appeared among them — a man wearing a blue cap.
He was from Gao Family Village. A technical worker. One of the people responsible for teaching newcomers how to use cement — which already made him a terrifying authority figure.
He pushed forward a cart piled with woven rattan helmets, dyed yellow, shaped suspiciously like military gear.
"Put these on," he said.
The villagers stared.
The blue-capped worker smiled, the kind of smile used by people who know rules and enjoy enforcing them.
"Yellow caps for ordinary workers. Blue caps for technical staff. Mister Bai Yuan and Magistrate Feng wear white caps. Tianzun's order. Construction site rules. Follow them properly."
The villagers were confused, but rules were rules. They each took a yellow helmet and put it on.
Once worn, they realized something important.
These things were solid.
Not decorative.
More like helmets than hats.
The blue cap raised his voice.
"Yellow caps, over here. I'll teach you how to mix cement. You — go dig sand by the river. You — fetch water."
"Add cement. Add river sand. Mix. Harder. Yes, like that. Don't be gentle — it's not dough."
The construction site exploded into motion.
Two teams worked in parallel.
One raised a temporary wooden wall along the edge of Qiachuan Dock, enclosing the entire harbor. Behind it, the cement fortress began to rise, layer by layer, starting from the front.
Slow. Relentless. Unforgiving.
Morning.
Li Dao Xuan had just gotten out of bed.
In his left hand: a pineapple bun, still warm.
With his right, he tapped the label on the box marked "Heyang County."
His vision jumped.
The county city unfolded beneath him.
Heyang was nothing like Chengcheng.
There were far more shops. Most were shuttered now, but they had known better days — and once shipping resumed at Qiachuan Dock, they would know them again.
Food stalls lined the streets. Restaurants everywhere.
This city liked to eat.
Li Dao Xuan searched casually and understood why.
Heyang proudly advertised itself as an ecological food city along the Yellow River.
He nodded approvingly.
"I like this kind of place."
The Takeout Tianzun suddenly felt his pineapple bun lose all appeal.
A small noodle shop caught his attention.
A crooked sign read: San Chi Knife-Cut Noodles.
It looked abandoned — until he noticed the owner cleaning inside, preparing to reopen.
Flour had returned.
Which meant business would follow.
The owner set up a large stove at the door, placed a massive pot on top, and shoveled coal inside with zero hesitation.
Too much coal.
Not the behavior of someone paying market price.
Li Dao Xuan paused.
Coal-producing area.
Only people sitting on coal act like this.
A quick search confirmed it.
Heyang had produced coal since ancient times. High quality. Shallow seams. Easy to mine even with primitive tools.
The mines were less than six miles from the county — at Jinshui Gully and Wang Village.
Both places were already within his field of vision.
He just hadn't paid attention.
Now he did.
Jinshui Gully appeared.
A narrow mountain ravine northwest of the county. A small official road twisted into it. No towns. Just shacks.
Inside lived people blackened head to toe by coal dust.
They were poor. Brutally so. But drought had not crushed them the way it had others.
Coal sells whether it rains or not.
In bad years, it bought less grain — but still bought enough.
Outside the mountains, farmers starved, rebelled, collapsed.
Here, the miners lived the same miserable life as always.
Not full.
Not dead.
Li Dao Xuan smiled.
Coal was good.
This place was worth developing.
As for the miners?
They had no idea how close they were to being dragged into prosperity against their will.
His vision snapped back to Gao Family Village.
Black smoke rolled across the sky above the village school.
Li Dao Xuan froze.
"…Did the school catch fire?"
A terrifying thought followed immediately.
"Did I do this?"
Another thought followed even faster.
"No. I wouldn't. I'm a law-abiding adult with insurance and stable employment."
Also, the model school in the box was fireproof. Professionally built.
He waved his hand.
A violent wind swept through the box, tearing the smoke away.
Cheers erupted instantly.
"Tianzun has arrived!"
"Tianzun dispelled the smoke!"
Li Dao Xuan activated Focus.
On the rooftop stood a crowd of soot-covered figures: Gao Yiye, Song Yingxing, Young Master Bai, the Third Miss, and dozens of students.
Everyone looked like smoked meat.
"What are you doing?" Li Dao Xuan asked.
Gao Yiye stepped forward.
"Reporting to Dao Xuan Tianzun. Mister Song and Young Master Bai are testing the steam engine's lifting capacity."
She spoke calmly, like this was the most normal sentence in the world.
"They connected gears and pulley assemblies to the engine's rollers, attached iron chains, wrapped them around a massive stone on the ground floor, and powered it on."
"It lifted the stone to the fifth floor."
Li Dao Xuan looked down.
A stone the size of a small house now sat obediently on the rooftop.
He was silent for a moment.
The steam engine he had given Song Yingxing last time had indeed been placed on the rooftop.
Which explained everything.
"…I see," he said.
Then frowned.
"But if you're experimenting, why did you fill the sky with black smoke?"
The steam engine hissed behind them, still warm, still hungry.
It had answered already.
Trivia
Construction Site Helmets
Color-coded headgear is a modern industrial safety concept used to distinguish roles and responsibility levels on work sites. In this chapter, the system appears centuries early, not as ideology, but as a survival response to large-scale coordinated labor. When work becomes dangerous, hierarchy stops being abstract.
Coal and Economic Immunity
Coal workers historically suffered less from agricultural disasters because their product retained value regardless of weather. This did not make them wealthy — it merely kept them exploitable year-round. Stability is not the same as safety.
Steam Power and Lifting Systems
The true revolution of steam engines was not motion, but multiplication — gears, pulleys, and torque converting fuel into obedience. Once heavy objects move without muscle, social structures follow shortly after.
Black Smoke
Inefficient combustion is not a technical flaw alone. It is the visible cost of learning in public. Every era pays this price first with air, then with people.