Bitter Spring Post was a desert town with fewer than five hundred permanent residents. One of Blood Qin Empire's smuggling routes for silk and tea bricks passed through Bitter Spring Post. With its bitter spring, which could replenish caravans' water and food supplies, this little town had thus prospered into something twisted and abnormal.
Though it had only five hundred permanent residents, several thousand people often lingered here. Bandits, fugitives, streetwalkers, and all manner of people whose business could neither be named nor understood frequently appeared here, loafed about for a while, then abruptly vanished. Some disappeared forever; others surfaced here again after some time had passed.
It was a place where fish and dragons mingled, chaotic to the extreme. A living Hell where, even if you were walking down streets thick with dog shit and cow dung, the moment you dared reveal so much as a copper coin, someone would stab you in the back.
Ever since the Blood Qin Empire launched its western campaign, Bitter Spring Post had become even more distorted, even livelier. It had become the base of operations for many slave traders and shady men making their fortunes through crooked means. Countless prisoners from the front lines, slaves, beautiful maidservants, vast herds of cattle and sheep, and more were continually sent here. Naturally, richly dressed people carrying large quantities of gold also came here, accepting these enormous quantities of goods worth astronomical sums one by one.
Above a ramshackle tavern stood a tall tower, topped by a broken windmill made of metal blades. The fierce wind blew through, and the windmill turned with a creaking groan, producing a monotonous noise that made people drowsy. Big green-headed flies buzzed everywhere. A thick layer of flies gathered over several plates of cold braised dishes inside the tavern,