The Stench of Meat and Wine Behind Vermilion Gates, Bones of Those Frozen to Death by the Road

The remnants of the defeated troops from Azure Cloud Ridge kept arriving at Jade Sun City. Zhou Xingzhan, badly wounded, had also fled there.

This battle had dealt the Human Race a grievous blow. Three Thousand-Man Commanders had fallen, while Battalion Commanders, Hundred-Man Commanders, Squad Leaders, and other military officers had suffered even heavier losses.

Jade Sun City was a county seat deep within the borderlands. Its walls stood high, and it was relatively secure. It also became the place where the remnants who had broken out could settle.

Zhou Xingzhan took over command of Yuyang County and stationed the troops along the city walls.

Li Xuancang was assigned to a city defense squad, still serving as Squad Leader.

His merits were enough to earn him a promotion to Hundred-Man Commander, but in such extraordinary times, this was clearly not the moment to reward achievements.

More than a thousand surviving soldiers were all wounded, their armor battered and incomplete. Every face was etched with exhaustion and the dazed bewilderment of having survived a disaster.

The three thousand elite troops who had once guarded Azure Cloud Ridge had been reduced to this.

The Barbarians might descend upon them again at any moment, casting a shadow over everyone's hearts.

During several days of rest, while he was off rotation, Li Xuancang left the military camp alone and stepped onto the streets of Jade Sun City. There, he witnessed with his own eyes the two utterly different worlds of these chaotic times.

He had been in this world for several months, but he had spent all that time in the military camp and had never had the chance to properly understand this age.

Not far beyond the camp lay the city's slums.

The narrow streets were riddled with potholes, while the low earthen houses on either side were dilapidated beyond measure, seeming ready to collapse at the first gust of cold wind.

The streets were crammed with commoners in ragged clothes, their faces sallow and their bodies emaciated.

Most were refugees who had fled here, along with impoverished commoners who had already lived at the very bottom.

Starving people curled up in the corners by the walls, moaning weakly. Children wailed from hunger, yet could not even get a mouthful of wild vegetables.

The commoners wore coarse cloth garments patched upon patches and tattered beyond recognition, shivering in the bitter wind.

"Give us something to eat!"

"Master, please give us something!"

"Please, give us something to eat!"

"..."

For a single mouthful of food, they humbled themselves without reservation and knelt on the ground to beg.

Life was already difficult for commoners in the borderlands.

Now that the Barbarians had invaded in force, the Imperial Court had abandoned certain territories. The Barbarians had driven straight in, plundering countless villages. The surviving commoners had nowhere to call home and could only flee to Jade Sun City to stay alive.

The grain shops by the streets had their doors tightly shut, and grain prices had soared to a terrifying height.

Even so, all the grain had been snapped up by the powerful and wealthy. Ordinary commoners could only gnaw tree bark and eat Guanyin clay, struggling bitterly at the edge of life and death.

The more urgent the war became, the harsher the exorbitant taxes and levies grew, crushing family after family.

Clerks from the yamen went door to door like fiends, demanding payment. Those who could not pay were forcibly dragged away, their property confiscated. Wives separated from husbands, children scattered, families ruined and lives destroyed—such things were commonplace.

People who had collapsed from hunger and illness could be seen everywhere by the roadside.

No one asked after them. No one offered aid. Human lives were as cheap as grass, and simply staying alive was a luxury.

Li Xuancang clenched his fists as he looked upon this living hell, his heart heavy beyond measure.

He thought of his family far away in Azure Creek Village, afraid that they, like the commoners before him, might be bullied by all and sundry in these troubled times, never knowing whether they would survive the next day.

"I'm already a Squad Leader. Father, Mother, Elder Sister, Little Sister—you can receive protection. You must all stay alive."

Li Xuancang's clenched hands slowly loosened. He was already a man of the Imperial Court; his family would receive the Imperial Court's protection, be exempt from all harsh taxes and levies, and have a better chance of surviving.

After leaving the slums and heading toward the city center, the sight before him seemed like an entirely different world.

Broad, level avenues paved with bluestone stretched ahead, lined on both sides with pavilions and towers rising one after another, their carved beams and painted rafters magnificent and resplendent.

Wealthy merchants, high officials, and nobles rode through the streets in lavish carriages.

Their drivers freely berated commoners who failed to get out of the way in time, arrogance written all over them.

The restaurants and tea houses along the streets were filled with song and dance every day, with the sounds of pipes and strings never ceasing.

The sons and daughters of the powerful wore silk and satin, jade and precious treasures hanging from their waists. They called friends together, drank wine, and made merry.

Their tables were laden with rare delicacies, with chicken, duck, fish, and meat piled high as mountains. Food they could not finish was casually dumped away, squandered without restraint.

At that moment, the sight of meat and wine rotting behind vermilion gates while the bones of those frozen to death littered the roads became utterly real before Li Xuancang's eyes.

The officials' mansions and great clans' estates in the city were surrounded by high walls and deep courtyards, crowded with servants. Precious flowers and plants grew within, while braziers burned warmly.

The masters and ladies of these residences wore brocade robes and jade garments, adorned with gold and silver jewelry. They sang and played music by day, feasted every night, utterly heedless of the flames of war raging at the border beyond the city or the starving corpses scattered across the land outside.

They hoarded goods for speculation, drove up grain prices, and made fortunes from the chaos of war.

They colluded with officials, oppressed the commoners, seized farmlands, and indulged in the utmost extravagance and privilege.

The lives and deaths of the common people at the bottom meant no more to them than after-dinner gossip, perhaps not even worth mentioning.

Not a single refugee or beggar could be seen in the central district. It was not that they did not know food could be found here, but that they dared not approach and could not approach.

Government patrols constantly roamed the area. The instant refugees or beggars drew near, they were driven away.

At best, they were beaten and cursed; at worst, they were seized and forced into corvée labor. It was simply a world where people devoured people.

One Jade Sun City held two worlds: on one side, a living hell of hunger, cold, and uncertainty from one day to the next; on the other, a gentle haven of wealth drowned in decadence and extravagance.

The gulf between classes was like a heavenly chasm, stretching between them—blindingly obvious and cruel.

Li Xuancang stood in the middle of the street, staring at those two utterly opposing scenes. A storm of emotions churned within him, and an intense obsession rose in his heart.

"I must become stronger."

He had to become stronger. He had to climb step by step, only then could he protect his family in these troubled times.

"Stop! Who are you?"

Li Xuancang had not worn his military uniform today, only the coarse linen clothes of an ordinary commoner. A patrolling yamen runner immediately called out to stop him.

The patrol quickly surrounded him.

An ordinary commoner would have been frightened out of their wits by such a scene.

Li Xuancang's expression did not change. He faced them directly, without the slightest hint of fear.

"Who are you? Why are you looking around the streets like a thief? What are you plotting?"

The lead yamen runner looked like a vicious demon as he barked the question.

It was Li Xuancang's first time wandering through the county city, so some things naturally caught his attention. Yet in the eyes of the patrolling yamen runners, that made him look furtive and up to no good.

Li Xuancang took his Squad Leader's token from his robes and said calmly, "Li Xuancang, Squad Leader of Lakeside Station, Azure Cloud Ridge."

The moment he spoke, the yamen runners' expressions froze. They stared fixedly at the token in Li Xuancang's hand, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.

"M-Milord... this lowly one... failed to recognize Mount Tai... I have offended M-Milord... p-please... please forgive... forgive me..."

The men were terrified, their hearts and livers shaking. They immediately begged Li Xuancang for mercy, unable even to speak clearly.

They and the Battle Soldiers both served the Imperial Court, but the gap in status between petty yamen runners like them and Battle Soldiers was as vast as heaven and earth.

They could not obtain exemptions from corvée labor or taxes, much less receive the Imperial Court's protection.

They could not afford to offend even an ordinary Battle Soldier, let alone a Squad Leader.

"Leave."

Li Xuancang did not make things difficult for them.

"Thank you, Milord, thank you, Milord..."

The men felt as though they had been granted a pardon and fled as if running for their lives.

After making a round of the city, Li Xuancang returned to the military camp and suppressed the turmoil in his heart.

His strength still quietly increased by 1% each day. Jade Sun City's safety was only temporary; the Barbarian pursuers could arrive at any time.

Only by becoming stronger could he survive in these troubled times of vast class divides and raging war—and protect those he wished to protect.