— The Emperor’s Imperial Record, Entry No. 30 —

  I told Huo Qianlei first before leaving. I didn’t want this to be a repeat of last time.

  Their whole family seemed like they were really starting to care about me, and I didn’t want to leave them stranded, not knowing where I was for up to two days.

  I set out from the gate in the Mudfoot district. Thankfully, the supervisor didn’t seem to have as much pull with the guards as he did with others.

  I was going to Far Hollow. I didn’t know where that was, but Big Randy gave me the map to get there before I left. His wife even gave me a batch of homemade… I don’t know what, I just knew that she would be very disappointed if I turned them down.

  I walked as fast as I could while I held the package I was supposed to deliver. I could only use one hand, so things got tiring fast, and I wasn’t stupid enough to try using the forest paths, even if they would have been quicker.

  The moment I came across anything even mildly dangerous, I would be nothing but an easy snack.

  I kept moving. The faster I got there, the sooner I would make my coin, avoiding anything I thought would be a hiding spot or some ill-thought-out trap.

  I reached Far Hollow by nightfall. Far less than the timeline Huo Qianlei expected for me.

  It was getting closer and closer to winter so I imagined there weren’t a lot of eager volunteers for this kind of job.

  I showed up, holding the package right in front of me so I wouldn’t be riddled with arrows.

  I had never seen a militia post before. The men all wore dark robes and thick leather vests with black helmets, so I could only see their eyes and the middle of their faces.

  The second they saw me, I noticed there were at least 5 arrows pointed at my face, and more that I probably didn’t notice.

  Immediately, I shouted, “I’m from Big Randy, he said to bring this parcel. I’m no harm.”

  I waved my arms as I spoke, trying to make myself seem less like a threat, which wasn’t hard to do since I was effectively disabled for the next few days. A pang of heat rose through me as I remembered the elixir, but I shoved it down.

  That was when a tall, muscular man—that was all I could see of him— walked up to stand a few metres away from me.

  He beckoned, “Come here. Slowly, keep the parcel in front of you.”

  I obeyed, and the nerves in my body started to flare up, my heartbeat turned heavy. I was starting to regret agreeing to this kind of work.

  He took the parcel from me when I got close. Passing it off to one of his men. Then turned back to me, “Wait here.”

  My mouth turned dry. ‘Did I offend somebody?’ All the bravado I’d previously had flooded out of me. I shuffled my feet, repositioning them so I could run if I had to.

  He kept staring at me as we waited for the other guard to come back. I held eye contact, if only because looking away would have heightened my fear.

  None of us blinked

  It took about the time for an incense stick to burn before the other guy who had left came back out, all the while, my robes had turned damp from the sweat.

  He brought with him a small cloth pouch and handed it to the man who had spoken to me earlier.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Here’s your coin,” he dropped it off in my hand. Then looked at me, as if assessing me. “Before you go, kid.”

  ‘What now?’ I didn’t want to remain here a moment longer.

  “Are you willing to take on more jobs?”

  *Hmm?* I looked at him in surprise. ‘Money?’ That was all I could think about, the fear and cowardice that ran through my body released their control to my cold hunger for opportunity. “What jobs?”

  He looked around, as if checking if anyone was near. “Delivery jobs. Same kind of work you’re doing now. No hassle. Low effort. “

  I didn’t trust the look on his face, but I wanted the money more. “Alright, what do I have to do?”

  I wish I had turned him down.

  He tilted his head towards the barracks, “Come in, let’s talk.”

  I was sitting down at a small rectangular table. With whom I assumed was the head of the soldiers here. The man who had led me in stood to his right.

  The head was shorter than his subordinate, but he made up for it with his sheer size. He was almost as wide as I was tall. His muscles bulged at the seams of his garments.

  He nodded at me. He didn’t have his helmet on, but there wasn’t much to see of his face. He was bald, the type that made you believe he shaved every night. No mustache, nose hairs. Not even eyebrows.

  Every feature was either a hard line or a scar.

  “Look here, young man. This is a serious offer I’m giving you. We just want you to deliver some stuff for us. The pay will be wonderful. What do you say?”

  Nothing came for free as far as I knew, and this deal sounded too good to be just that.

  “What’s the rub?”

  “What rub? There is no rub. We give you stuff. You deliver them. We pay you. That’s all there is to it. “

  I tried to analyze his face, staring at every little hairless hole I could find, but I couldn’t glean anything. I looked at his subordinate, who had turned his head sideways.

  This whole situation was starting to give me a bad feeling. No matter how afraid I was, I was more scared of dying. I stood up. “No, thank you, Commander, there’s no way you are telling me everything. I’d like to take my leave.”

  He chuckled, then slowly got serious as he realized I wasn’t joking.

  “Hmm, alright, we’ll be sending you to go and receive delivery packets from our allies on the field. We need as many men as we can to keep watch over here. Tensions have been rising with the Rising Phoenix sect, and if anything breaks out between them and the awoken moon sect, their mortal citizens will be on us like vultures.”

  “So you’re sending me to a military zone. “

  “Yes.”

  I could imagine not a lot of people were willing to go out of the cities so close to winter. It was probably only the merchants and cultivators who would try it.

  But I didn’t care. I wanted money. And connections. And a military campaign was one of the best ways to get it.

  “How much is the pay?”

  The bulky commander’s eyes brightened. “Hah, good lad. One silver per trip.”

  “Five,” I said, the trembling barely registerable in my voice. I would have patted myself on the back if I weren’t still in his presence.

  His forehead furrowed, the deep-set eyes sunk further back into their sockets. They looked like the kind of eyes you would see just before a knife wound up in your chest. Or a boulder.

  “Five silver is madness.” He gently placed a fist on the table, and it cracked. “Two, and you can have some of the rations.”

  I tried not to look away, every one of my senses was working twice as hard. I could hear the blood flow through my own ears. Showing weakness was a guaranteed way to let him know he could push more.

  Intimidate me.

  This was different from bargaining with the butcher, or Azul, if I pushed too far in this, then I would die. But my dreams of silver and qi wouldn’t let me completely give up. The muscles in my legs tightened, in case this didn’t work out.

  We bargained till we settled on three silvers with rations and some warm clothes.

  My first trip was in a week. But that wasn’t what was on my mind. I wasn’t aiming for the money I could get from the deliveries to the soldiers they sent out into the field.

  Big Randy was right about the war.

  All those men I’d seen in the camp were going to die. They’d be sent out as cannon fodder. I could tell from how malnourished and weak most of them looked.

  Peasants.

  They were sending peasants to war.

  ‘Men of war are always hungry.’ I tried to push that thought away, but that was the whole reason I had accepted to do this.

  Should I let this chance slip by, and feel good that I hadn’t sold to dead men? Or make money anyway and hope some of them survive.

  My dreams of becoming a cultivator wouldn’t pay for themselves. My mind went to all those hungry, starving soldiers who had only gotten dry, stale bread for the last few weeks.

  I started to sketch the details out. If I did this right, I’d be able to make a killing off the spat between the two sects. The kind that didn’t need my bow and arrows.

  I’d sulk when I had the coin to care. But my hands shook at the thought, and my heart faltered.

  But I didn’t stop planning.

  Back outside, one of the guards barked at me to leave.