Five days later.
West of Wu Guan County Town, at a bustling construction site.
It was evening, but the sky was still bright.
Several bricklayers had just finished work and come to a food stall. Each ordered a bowl of Boiled Water and two flatbreads, then squatted outside to eat.
They ate only one and a half, hiding the remaining half in their clothes.
The construction site provided one meal at noon.
"Tell me, is it better in Heavenly Saint Army territory than where we came from?" a young man asked.
"Of course it is," an old man beside him said.
Though he was called an old man, he was really only in his forties.
"Better how?"
"What's better is that when they handle matters fairly here, you don't have to pay extra silver," the old man said with a sigh.
"Yeah, it's my first time getting cash in hand. A full eighty copper coins—enough to buy forty flatbreads. I could eat myself to death." The young man bit into his flatbread and felt the wages he had just received.
"Don't dream about it. You can spend at most five copper coins a day on food. Once you return to camp, you have to hand over the rest," the old man said, shaking his head.
"Damn it! The work I do is enough to feed my family of six. Why should I give it to them?" the young man said bitterly.
"What else can you do? Can you just abandon your family? If you had no family ties, you wouldn't have been selected in the first place," the old man said helplessly.
"Damn it, why can't the Heavenly Saint Army reach our county? Our county is only forty li from here!" the young man said through gritted teeth.
"Don't you