Just as the Captain of the Guard had dreaded, the sight of the flyer returning cast a pall of bewildered dread over the farmstead. The workers, who had been anxiously awaiting the overseer's permission to begin the harvest, exchanging hopeful glances under the leaden sky, now watched the vessel descend with the grim finality of a recurring nightmare.
"Did he forget something?" one of the younger tenant farmers muttered, wiping sweat from his brow with a soil-streaked forearm.
"Who knows? Just find it and send it on, quick! Don't let that one come back for it himself," another replied, his voice low.
A grizzled old hand spat into the dust. "Trouble, that's what he is. Grabbed my sleeve as he was leaving, demanded I save a suckling kid for a roast he'd be back for. A right piece of work." The collective assessment, formed in less than a day, was unanimous: the so-called 'Young Master Keli' was a preening, useless burden. His face held the petulant arrogance of the perpetually dissatisfied, his manner that of someone who, given the slightest legitimacy, would believe the very sun rose at his command. A walking complication.
Their hope to scour the premises for some forgotten trinket to hastily dispatch was dashed as the flyer's hatch hissed open. The workers' faces fell, but they schooled their features into masks of weary deference. "Captain? Is the young master… unwell? Has he returned?" the head farmer asked, the question heavy with unspoken dread.
The Captain's expression was stony. I wish I knew,he thought. Aloud, he said, "The young master sustained a minor injury during familial… introductions. He is to convalesce here."
A stunned silence, then a collective, internal groan. Injured in under an hour?Their initial judgment was terrifyingly accurate. A magnet for strife.
But worse was to come. The bruised and battered 'young master' emerged, clutching that damned funerary urn. Before their confused eyes, he delved into the vessel's ashes and produced a rolled parchment sealed with the unmistakable wax sigil of the Xie main house.
"Right then," he announced, his voice nasally and imperious. "This farm is mine now. I desire ginger-infused milk custard. Fetch me fresh, aged rhizomes. Now. And someone milk a cow. My nerves are frayed."
The declaration hit the assembled workers like a physical blow. Their world, precarious as it was, had just been upended. The scowling, bruised boy before them was now, legally, their master. Their fate was tied to his whims.
"Why are you gawping? Move! You're laborers! Must I teach you how to harvest? Bring everything in! I'm bleeding coin just looking at you!" The 'wretch'—the title settled in their minds with cold certainty—snarled, his impatience a palpable, toxic cloud.
Cowed and seething, the workers scattered. In the relative privacy of the storage barn, a hurried, anxious council formed.
"Do we… take in the wheat as well? It's ripe. Better early than spoiled," a middle-aged farmer ventured, wringing his cloth cap.
"But he didn't order the wheat! What if he—"
"What if what?" interrupted the eldest, a man with a face like weathered oak and eyes that had seen too many bad harvests. "You think not making a mistake will spare you his tongue? These lordlings curse by the tides of their own bile. And with the deed changing hands… who's to say he won't dock our pay on a whim? Best to secure the yield, get our wages. The lad's not exactly a deep thinker, is he?" He leaned closer, his voice dropping. "And he did say 'bring everything in.' We'll just play the dull-witted rustic, yeah? Assume he meant it all. Get the coin first, then decide if we stay for this… spectacle."
The logic was ruthless and practical. Nods of grim agreement passed between them. As they filed out with scythes and carts, they witnessed the wretch haranguing the proud, armored guards.
"You lot! Standing about like ornaments! I'm injured! I require fresh trotters for broth! The restorative properties are essential!"
The guards exchanged helpless glances. Fresh trotters implied… pig catching.
The Captain stepped forward, his voice tight. "I'll have the workers procure them—"
The wretch cut him off with a sharp wave. "They're digging! You're idle! Can you not manage a simple pig? Am I not worthy of this minimal service?"
The guards' stoic masks cracked, revealing pure, unadulterated frustration. With a collective, internal groan, they marched towards the pen. What followed was a scene of glorious, undignified chaos. Enchanted by the sudden chase, a large, mud-caked sow erupted from the sty with a terrified squeal, leading the polished, armored men on a slapstick chase through muck and manure. They slipped, swore, and deliberately avoided using any but the most basic kinetic shoves—using real spells would be an admission of defeat. The mental chorus was unanimous: Damn this wretched, petty little man!
Watching from the sidelines, the tenant farmers felt a bizarre, fleeting sense of schadenfreuge. If the guards, with their polished armor and aura of authority, were subject to this, what hope did they have?
Yao, while perfecting her performance of intolerable entitlement, was also observing. The guards' pursuit, their reluctance to use Spirit, their basic physical coordination—it was all data. The Captain was likely Level 10, a respectable rank for a hired blade. The others, Level 7 or 8. In the grand scheme, not high. But to reach even Level 4, she herself needed 1000 experience points—the equivalent of a hundred bandits or scores of wolves. These men had grinded their way up over a decade or more through real conflict. Noble youths like Xie Lin, for all their lack of skill, were fedexperience in curated dungeons. The disparity was systemic.
Annoying,she mused. An Eagle's Eye Gem can be bought. The Tier 3 'Eagle's Sight' skill tome is a fortune.A proper appraisal skill would make this so much easier.
As dusk painted the sky in bruised oranges and purples, the desperate industry of wage-earners proved formidable. Fearful of the new master's caprice, the hundred-odd workers, driven by the need to secure their pay, toiled with a frantic energy, skipping their evening meal. By the time the last light bled from the horizon, they returned to the farmstead, their bodies aching but with the grim satisfaction of a job completed.
That satisfaction curdled into stunned disbelief. The pigsty, the cow pens, the sheep fold, the chicken coops—all were empty. A profound silence had replaced the usual evening cacophony of animal sounds.
"By the forgotten gods… where…?"
They rushed to the processing yard near the kitchens. The sight that greeted them stole the breath from their lungs.
A charnel house. Not of gore, but of eerie, efficient dismantling. Every adult animal had been slaughtered, skinned, and cleaned. Mountains of wool, hides, and feathers were neatly stacked in a storage shed. The smaller, young animals were penned separately, bleating and confused. Standing in the center of this organized carnage was the wretch, now bathed and wrapped in a simple robe, directing the shell-shocked kitchen staff with the brisk efficiency of a quartermaster.
"—vacuum-seal the prime cuts. We'll fetch a premium at the city markets. I need liquidity, and fast. The young ones, we'll sell to other holdings in a few days."
The tenant farmers stared, their faces ashen. They had never witnessed such cold, calculated rapacity. This wasn't the wanton cruelty of a bored noble; it was the systematic asset-stripping of a vulture. A deep, helpless despair settled over them. With a master like this, what future was there?
When the wretch turned and saw the results of their labor—the entire harvest brought in—he flew into a manufactured rage. "You witless clods! I didn't order the wheat! Are you trying to bankrupt me? Defy me?!"
The old farmer, his heart hammering against his ribs, met the tirade with a hollow stare. "You said 'bring everything in,' young master. We're simple folk. We took you at your word."
"You—! You insolent old fool! You did this on purpose!" The wretch spluttered, his face purpling with feigned fury, before stomping off towards the main house, leaving a wake of bitter silence.
The farmers and kitchen staff exchanged glances of utter desolation. To serve such a master was to choose between eating shit for a crust of bread, or being the shit itself. The world, it seemed, had contracted into this bleak, hopeless farm.
Upstairs, Yao leaned against the window frame, watching the dejected figures below. The weight of their silent condemnation was a physical pressure. The 'best-behaved kid in the compound,'she thought with a twist of bitter irony. And now I'm the villain in their story.She rubbed her temples, the performance leaving a sour residue. "I hope they can endure a few more days."
Down in the kitchen, the decision was being made to leave. Immediately. A master who would do this would surely withhold their wages. Better to cut their losses.
The head cook, a stout man with forearms like knotted wood, caught the old farmer's arm. "Old Zhang. Wait. Eat first."
"Eat? My stomach is turned to stone."
"Don't be so hasty. Look at the stew pots. He ordered them filled. For you all."
Old Zhang's eyes narrowed with deep suspicion. "A last meal before he cheats us? I've heard of such tricks. Leads to whole families taking the long sleep in a charcoal hut."
The cook frowned, lowering his voice. "I don't know about that. But I'll tell you this… when they were… processing the animals, he wasn't there watching. Told me to mix grain alcohol into their feed first. 'To quiet them, the noise is a nuisance,' he said. Good liquor, too, that the old overseer hoarded." He paused, his gaze distant. "In my years, I've seen butchers. This… this felt different. Like he couldn't stomach the sight of it. There's a softness there, buried deep."
Old Zhang remained skeptical, but a detail surfaced. For all his vile posturing, the young master hadn't so much as glanced at the daughters of the tenant farmers. In a world where that was often the first and worst predation, his indifference was… notable. He'd shown more interest in the potato sacks.
"I don't know," the old man sighed, the fight gone out of him. "But if we're to be cheated, an empty belly won't help. We eat! We eat our fill! Make the miser hurt!"
The report of the evening's events, delivered by the sour-faced Captain, elicited a wave of weary disgust from Xie An. The boy was a grasping, vulgar simpleton, easy to manipulate and thus, ultimately, harmless. The family's interest, he concluded, would wane. The problem had solved itself through sheer, spectacular unlikeability.
Yao, her performance complete, retreated from the window. The night was her true province. Shedding the 'Oaks' skin with the familiar, gut-wrenching twist of the吞噬卷轴 (Consumption Scroll), she slipped from the farmhouse a shadow among shadows. Her destination was a remote way-station on the old road between the city and the wilds, a place for discrete transactions.
Her contact was already there, a figure shrouded in a traveler's cloak, face obscured. No names, no glances. A case was offered.
"One F-grade YK-model Arcane Core. One entry-level solo skimmer. Agreed price: 12 million copper. The core is here. The skimmer is there." A gloved hand gestured to a nearby craft.
Yao inspected the core first—a pulsating, cylindrical crystal housed in a heat-dissipating casing. Then the skimmer: a two-meter-long, oval-bodied craft, its hull matte grey, its design utterly generic and unremarkable. A 'Flying Fish,' cheap, slow, and anonymous. The repulsor pads and mana-conversion engine were new, as promised.
She handed over the certified cheque. The contact scanned it with a handheld validator, gave a curt nod, and melted back into the darkness without another word.
Alone with the vehicle, a thrill of illicit excitement shot through Yao. In the game, piloting was a matter of menu screens and auto-pathing. This was real. The hum of dormant magic, the smell of ozone and polished stone. She retrieved the basic piloting crystal from its slot, pressed it to her temple, and let the basic operational data—lift, stabilization, directional thrust—flood her mind. It was intuitive, but crude.
Taking a steadying breath, she placed her hands on the control grips. A thought activated the core. A low, resonant hummmmmvibrated through the craft. She nudged the left grip forward.
The 'Flying Fish' lurched unsteadily off the ground, wobbled like a top losing spin, then steadied at about chest height. Another nudge, and it drifted forward, its path more of a hesitant zigzag than a straight line.
A light came on in the way-station's watchtower. A bleary-eyed attendant peered out, scratching his head. Drunk at this hour?he wondered, then dismissed it. Surely not. Nobody's that much of a rube.