Chapter 13: In Search Of The Water Source
The afternoon light fell through the gaps in the wooden walls in long, dusty shafts, illuminating motes of straw that drifted in the stillness like snow suspended in amber. Liu Wei's son was asleep on a pile of straw, his face less pale than before, his breathing slow and even.
The fever flush had faded from his cheeks, leaving them the normal color of a sleeping child—a little pink, a little warm. The blanket was tucked around his shoulders.
Liu Wei sat beside him, his hand resting on the boy's forehead with the gentle, automatic gesture of a parent who had been measuring fever for days.
He looked up when Wei entered, and his eyes were red and hollow from sleeplessness, the skin beneath them bruised-looking.
But there was something in them that hadn't been there yesterday. Relief, maybe. Or hope. Something fragile and tentative, like a flame sheltered from the wind.
"The fever broke," Liu Wei said. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw.
"An hour ago. He opened his eyes and asked for water. First words he's spoken in two days. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both at the same time. Probably looked like a complete madman."
"The rules about looking like a madman have been suspended," Wei said, crouching beside him. "I think they were suspended the day the sky cracked open."
Liu Wei let out a shaky breath that was almost a laugh. "I don't know how to thank you. I've been trying to find the words all morning. I used to be good with words. Before all this. Now they just... they don't come. They get stuck."
"You don't have to find them."
"I do." He looked at Wei, and his eyes were wet. "You didn't have to let us stay. You could have thrown us out with the others. You would have been within your rights—I know what Lin Tao did to your family. I know about the fire. I know about the dog. Everyone in the valley knows. But you didn't throw us out. And my son is alive."
He drew a shaky breath that rattled in his chest. "He's alive because of you. I keep saying it to myself, like I'm trying to convince myself it's real."
"It's real. He's right there."
Wei put a hand on his shoulder. "You're a good father, Liu Wei. That's not nothing. In a world like this, that's everything."
"It's all I have." He wiped his eyes with his sleeve—a rough, impatient gesture.
"Lin Tao threatened me, you know. Before we came here. He said if I didn't go along with his demands—if I didn't back him up when he tried to take everything—he'd make sure my family didn't survive. He said there were accidents waiting to happen, and no one would ask questions. 'Accidents.' Like it was nothing. Like my son's life was just... leverage. Something he could use."
Wei's jaw tightened. "He's a bastard."
"Yes. He is." Liu Wei looked down at his sleeping son, at the steady rise and fall of his small chest. "I went along with it. I'm not proud of that. I was afraid. I thought if I just did what he said, if I just kept my head down, he'd leave us alone. But I was wrong. He doesn't leave anyone alone. He just finds new ways to use them. New threats. New leverage."
"When your son is strong enough—"
"We're leaving. Going far away from here. Somewhere Lin Tao won't find us. Somewhere none of them will find us." He looked up at Wei, his hollow eyes desperate and determined. "I know I have no right to ask for anything else. But please—let us stay until he can stand. One more day. Maybe two. Then we'll go, and you'll never see us again."
Wei looked at the sleeping boy. The steady rise and fall of his chest. The color returning to his cheeks. The small hand curled loosely on the blanket.
"You can stay until he's strong enough to walk. And when you're ready to leave, come find me. I'll give you what we can spare. Food. Supplies. Whatever we can manage."
Liu Wei stared at him. "Why? We're not your people. We're not your family. You don't owe us anything. After everything Lin Tao did—"
"Because you didn't do anything to us," Wei said. "You're just a man trying to keep his son alive. That's not something I can hold against you. Not ever."
Liu Wei's face crumbled. He didn't make a sound, but the tears ran down his hollow cheeks and dripped onto the straw. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you. I'll find a way to repay you. Someday. Somehow."
Wei stood. "Take care of that boy. He's lucky to have you."
He walked out into the afternoon light.
***
Hei and Hao
Hei was under the persimmon tree, his head on his paws, his injured leg stretched awkwardly to the side. The swelling had gone down over the past few days, but the old dog still limped when he walked, still flinched when anyone touched the leg.
He was lying in a patch of sun, his grey muzzle twitching as he dreamed—chasing something, maybe, in whatever world dogs went to when they slept. His dark fur was warm from the sunlight.
Hao was already there, sitting cross-legged in the grass, fletching arrows with practiced efficiency. A small pile of finished shafts lay beside him on a cloth, the feathers neat and tight, the bindings precise.
He had improved dramatically since the goblin attack—his fingers moved with the confidence of repetition, each arrow taking shape in less time than the last. Beside him, a small knife and a pot of glue rested on a flat stone.
"I've been bringing him scraps," Hao said without looking up. His fingers kept moving, smoothing a feather into place.
"Every day. Bits of meat, mostly. He eats them, but he still won't let me near the leg. I tried to touch it yesterday—just to check the swelling—and he growled at me. Not a warning growl. A real one. Deep in his chest. First time he's ever done that."
"He doesn't trust us yet." Wei sat down on the other side of the dog, the grass cool beneath him. "Give him time."
"I've been giving him time for three years." Hao tied off the fletching with a sharp tug and inspected his work, holding the arrow up to the light.
"His leg's been hurting for nearly a year, and every time I try to help, he pushes me away. Sometimes I think he blames us. For not stopping them. For not protecting him."
"Maybe he does." Wei looked at the old dog—the grey muzzle, the patient dark eyes, the leg that had never healed right.
"But he's still here. He's still guarding the gate every night. He hasn't given up on us. That's something."
Wei reached into his inventory and pulled out a common peach—blessed by the tree, warm and golden, its skin faintly luminous. He held it out to Hei, not pushing, just offering it on his open palm.
Hei's nose twitched. He opened his eyes—those dark, patient eyes that had seen ten years of this farm and everything that had happened on it, from the first planting to the goblin assault to the neighbors at the gate. He looked at the peach. Then at Wei.
"It's from the orchard," Wei said quietly. "The tree's blessing. It might help with the leg. If you want it."
For a long moment, Hei didn't move. The silence stretched, broken only by the distant clucking of chickens and the whisper of wind in the persimmon leaves and the soft rasp of Hao's knife against a shaft.
Then, slowly, the old dog leaned forward and took the peach from Wei's hand. He ate it in two careful bites, juice dripping from his grey muzzle.
A panel appeared, golden text flickering into view.
```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ HEI (BLESSED DOG, Tier 1, Common) │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ The old injury begins to respond. │
│ Evolution may now proceed. │
│ Estimated time: 24-48 hours. │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
```
Hao leaned over, squinting at the air where the panel had appeared. "What's it say? I saw the glow."
"He's going to be all right. The leg is starting to heal. Really heal. Not just the swelling going down—the bone, the muscle. Everything."
"Good." Hao tied off another fletching and set the arrow aside with the others. He let out a breath that seemed to carry weight with it. "I'm up to forty-three arrows now. Jianguo says I need sixty. That man has no concept of reasonable goals. No concept of rest. No concept of anything except 'more.'"
"He was a soldier."
"That explains the unrealistic expectations. Soldiers think everything can be solved with more ammunition. More training. More discipline."
He picked up another shaft, turning it in his fingers.
"Jianguo's going to train Li with the knife tomorrow. Mother said she'd join if she can find time between cooking and laundry. Even Grandmother muttered something about a cleaver. I heard her. "
"She was sitting by the window, knitting, and she just said 'I still have my cleaver.' Didn't look up. Didn't explain. Just went back to knitting."
"Grandmother with a cleaver is a terrifying thought."
"She once killed a fox with a frying pan. A cleaver would be an upgrade." Hao grinned, but it faded quickly, like a candle guttering in a draft. His hands stilled on the arrow shaft. "You really think Lin Tao will come back?"
Wei looked toward the wall—the grey stone, the blessed vines, the distant glow of the Tree of Life. "He said he would. I believe him. He's not the kind of man who makes empty threats."
"Then we'd better be ready." Hao set down the arrow and looked at his brother. "I've been thinking. About what you said before. About how you can make the farm stronger. The wall, the animals, the garden. If you can do that—make us stronger—maybe we don't have to just wait for Lin Tao. Maybe we can make sure that when he comes back, there's nothing for him to take. Nothing he can break."
"That's the plan."
"Good." Hao picked up his knife again. "Because I didn't spend three years fletching arrows just to hand them over to that bastard. I didn't watch Hei limp for three years just to let them finish what they started."
They sat in silence for a while, the afternoon sun warm on their shoulders, the old dog breathing slowly between them. Xiao Hei, having finished his nap in the house, came trotting out across the courtyard and collapsed dramatically across Wei's feet, as if the effort of walking twenty meters had exhausted him beyond recovery.
---
Family Meeting
That evening, the family gathered in the kitchen. The oil lamps flickered on the scarred old table, their flames casting long shadows that danced on the walls.
Wei's mother set out bowls of congee, pickled vegetables, and a dish of golden-flecked scrambled eggs. Steam rose from the teapot, carrying the scent of jasmine through the warm, close air.
Outside, the last light was fading from the sky, and the first stars were beginning to appear.
Grandfather sat at his usual place, his cane hooked over the arm of his chair, his pale eyes thoughtful.
Grandmother was by the window, her knitting needles clicking steadily—a soft, rhythmic sound that had been the background noise of Wei's entire life, as constant as the wind in the orchard. Hao slouched against the wall, Xiao Hei already asleep in his lap, the puppy's small body rising and falling with each breath.
Li sat cross-legged on the kang, her kitchen knife on the cushion beside her—she never put it far from reach anymore. Jianguo leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, his tall frame blocking the last of the evening light. His scythe rested against the wall beside him.
"The neighbors are gone," Wei's father said, sitting at the head of the table. His voice was tired but steady. "Liu Wei and his son will leave in a day or two. The goblins are still in the hills, but they haven't moved closer. Not yet."
Hao reached for an egg. "So we're safe."
"We're safer. That's not the same." His father set down his chopsticks with a deliberate click. "But we have another problem. The rice fields."
The room went quiet. Even Grandmother's knitting paused for a single beat—the needles hovering motionless for just a moment before resuming their rhythm.
"I walked the paddies this afternoon," his father continued. "The plants are dead. Every stalk. The soil is bone-dry—cracked, like it hasn't seen water in years.
The irrigation channels are choked with silt and ash. Even if we cleared them tomorrow, there's not enough water flowing from the canal to flood even one mu. What's left is barely a trickle. It's not enough. Not nearly enough."
"So what do we do?" Hao asked. His voice had lost its usual humor.
"We find a new water source. Your grandfather thinks there might be a spring near the eastern property line—he remembers something from when he was young. A spring that came right out of the rocks, cold and clean. Tomorrow morning, Jianguo and I are going to look for it."
"And if you don't find it?" Li asked quietly.
"Then we learn to live on three months of rice and a lot of potatoes." His father's expression was grim. "I've got nothing against potatoes in principle. They're fine vegetables. They fill your stomach. But rice..." He shook his head, and for a moment he looked every one of his fifty-three years.
"A meal without rice is like a day without sun. You can survive it, but you won't be happy about it. You won't feel like you've really eaten."
Grandfather snorted into his tea. "You used to say that about millet."
"Millet is worse. Millet is what you eat when you've given up on life entirely."
"I've eaten millet for eighty-four years. I'm not dead yet."
"You're an exception. You're too stubborn to die."
"Exactly." Grandfather picked up his cup with both hands, the steam curling around his weathered face. "Find the spring. Stop complaining. Your grandfather complained less than you do, and he lost his land twice. He just kept planting."
Wei's father almost smiled. Almost. "We could try planting new seeds in the paddies," he said, turning to Wei. "Once we get water flowing. Seeds that can handle the changed soil. The same way you got the vegetable seeds—the ones that are growing so fast your mother can't keep up with the harvest."
"I can look," Wei said. "There might be something. Rice that grows in mana-enriched water, or varieties that need less than the old strains. Something that can thrive in whatever the shimmer left behind."
His father studied him for a moment, his dark eyes unreadable. "You can do that? Find seeds like that?"
"I found the vegetable seeds. I can look for more."
"Then look. Whatever it takes." He picked up his chopsticks again. "I'm not spending the rest of my life eating millet. I'd rather face the goblins on an empty stomach."
"That's the spirit," Wei's mother said dryly, setting a fresh pot of tea on the table with a soft clunk.
Jianguo spoke for the first time, his voice low and measured. He hadn't moved from the doorway, his arms still crossed.
"If we find the spring, we'll need to dig a channel. A proper one—lined with stone so it doesn't collapse. The old ditches are broken in a dozen places. I walked the whole length yesterday. Some sections are completely gone. That's a week of hard labor. Maybe more, depending on how far the spring is from the paddies."
"Then we start as soon as we find it," Wei's father said.
"Everyone works. No exceptions. We clear the channels, we line them, we get the water flowing. We've done harder things. We built the wall. We survived the goblins. We can dig a ditch."
Grandmother's knitting needles clicked steadily. "I can dig," she said without looking up. "I dug the first well on this farm. I was sixteen years old. The ground was harder then—full of rocks the size of my fist. My hands bled for a week. My father wrapped them in cloth and told me to keep going."
No one argued with Grandmother. No one ever did.
"Tomorrow, then," Wei's father said. "Jianguo and I search for the spring. Wei, you look for seeds. Hao, keep making arrows—we'll need them. Li, help your mother with the animals and the garden. We'll take the night in shifts—the goblins haven't moved, but that doesn't mean they won't."
"And the wall?" Li asked.
"Wei and I will take the first watch," Jianguo said. "The wall is strong, but walls don't watch themselves. They need eyes."
***
The house settled into its nightly quiet, the kind that Wei had known his entire life—the creak of old beams cooling, the distant rustle of the orchard, the soft, steady breathing of his family behind thin walls. He lay on the kang, eyes open, staring at the fish-shaped knot in the ceiling beam.
The wood was dark with age, the grain swirling around the knot like water around a stone. He had traced that pattern a thousand times as a child, lying in this same spot, waiting for sleep.
But sleep was a distant country tonight, unreachable. His mind churned with the day's weight: Lin Tao's sneer, the dead paddies, his father's voice muttering about rice in his sleep.
He sat up slowly, letting the blanket fall. The air was cold against his skin, raising goosebumps along his arms. The house was silent except for the soft rhythm of breathing from the other rooms—his mother's slow and steady, his father's deep and even, Hao's occasional snort.
He dressed in the dark, his fingers finding each garment by touch and habit. Thick pants. A dark shirt, the one with the worn elbows. His boots, the leather soft and familiar.
The scythe went across his back, the familiar weight settling against his spine. He knew every creak of the floor, every loose board, and he avoided them with practiced care—a skill he had learned as a boy, sneaking out to catch fireflies with Hao. The house let him go without waking.
Outside, the courtyard was silver and black under a sliver of moon. The stars were cold and distant, scattered across the sky like grains of rice thrown by a careless hand.
The dogs were at their posts, dark shapes against the darker ground.
Hei lifted his head from his paws near the gate, his dark eyes catching the faint light, reflecting it back like two small moons.
Wei crouched and scratched behind the old dog's ears, finding the spot where the fur was softest.
Hei leaned into the touch, his tail giving a single, slow wag.
"Stay," Wei whispered. "Guard the family. I'll be back."
Hei watched him for a long moment, his dark eyes patient and knowing. Then he laid his head back down on his paws with a soft sigh.
The trust in that gesture was a weight of its own—the trust of a creature who had been hurt before and had chosen to believe anyway.
Wei moved toward the gate, his boots silent on the packed earth. The wall loomed above him, grey stone and blessed vines, the thorny hedge rustling in the night wind. He had just reached for the latch when a voice spoke from the shadows.
"You're not going alone."
Wei spun, his heart lurching into his throat. Jianguo stood near the tool shed, fully dressed, his machete sheathed at his hip.
The blade was a brutal, heavy thing—a relic of his military service, its edge honed to a razor line that caught the moonlight like a silver thread. He had been waiting, leaning against the shed with his arms crossed, as still and patient as the stone itself.
"I—" Wei started, his voice catching in his throat. "I was just—"
"Sneaking out to the eastern line." Jianguo stepped forward, his boots crunching softly on the packed earth. His face was unreadable in the darkness, but his voice carried a note of dry amusement.
"Looking for the spring your grandfather talked about. I figured you'd try. You've had that look all evening—the same one your father gets when he's about to do something stupid. "
"He gets this particular set to his jaw, like he's already arguing with anyone who might try to stop him."
Wei rubbed the back of his neck, a flush of embarrassment warming his cheeks. "I couldn't sleep."
"Neither could I." Jianguo crossed his arms over his broad chest.
"So I waited. I've been standing here since the family meeting ended. Your father would have caught you too, but I told him to go to bed. Said I'd handle it." He studied Wei for a moment, his dark eyes moving over the scythe, the boots, the determined set of his shoulders.
"You're not going out there alone. Not with goblins in the hills and whatever else is prowling. I'm coming."
"It's dangerous," Wei said. "I don't want to—"
"Which is exactly why you need someone watching your back." Jianguo's voice was firm, but there was something softer beneath it—something that might have been concern, or might have been pride.
"I spent twelve years in places more dangerous than this. I know how to move quiet. I know how to fight. I know how to read terrain, how to track, how to stay alive when everything around you is trying to kill you. And I know when a young man is about to get himself killed." He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter. "Your mother would never forgive me if I let you go alone. And neither would I."
Wei opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. There was no arguing with Jianguo when he got that look—the same look he'd had when he faced down Wang Feng in the barn, cold and steady and absolutely immovable.
"Fine. But we need someone on the wall."
"Hao." Jianguo turned toward the house. "He's awake. I saw him sneaking in the kitchen an hour ago. Couldn't sleep either, apparently. This family has a collective insomnia problem."
They found Hao in the main room, sitting by the dying fire with bread in his hand. The embers cast a faint orange glow across his face, deepening the shadows under his eyes.
"You're going somewhere," he said. It wasn't a question. His hand stilled on the whetstone.
"We are going to the eastern line," Wei said. "Looking for the spring Grandfather talked about. Jianguo's coming with me. We need you on the wall."
Hao set down the whetstone with a soft click. "You're going out there? Now? With the goblins still prowling—"
"We'll be careful. But someone has to watch the farm. We can't leave it unguarded."
Hao was quiet for a moment, his jaw working.
Then he stood and picked up his bow from where it leaned against the wall. "Fine. But if you're not back by dawn, I'm coming after you. And I'm bringing the dogs along."
"The dogs?" Jianguo raised an eyebrow.
"They are deterrent." Hao's expression was utterly serious. "No one expects them. That's his tactical advantage."
Jianguo almost smiled—that faint, reluctant twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Keep the wall. Shoot anything that tries to climb it. We'll be back before first light."
Hao nodded, his jaw tight. He looked at Wei, and for a moment, his usual humor fell away. "Be careful. Both of you. If you die out there, Mother will kill me. And then she'll find a way to bring you back just so she can kill you too."
"We'll be back," Wei said.
"You'd better be."
***
The night closed around them as they slipped through the gate. The world outside the wall was a different place—darker, colder, full of unseen sounds and half-imagined threats.
The moon was a thin crescent, barely enough to see by, casting long shadows that twisted and danced with every gust of wind. Jianguo moved with the confidence of a man who had navigated darker nights in deadlier places, his boots finding solid ground by instinct.
He set a brutal pace, his long legs eating up the distance, and Wei had to push to keep up.
They ran through the dead fields, past the abandoned Lin property—dark, silent, a smudge of deeper black against the sky.
The house was a hollow shell now, its windows empty, its door hanging open. Wei remembered the smoke rising from its chimney when he was a child, the sound of Old
Lin's voice calling his sons in for dinner. Now there was nothing. Just silence and shadows and the faint, lingering smell of ash.
The grass was dry and brittle underfoot, crackling with each step. The air was cold, sharp with the scent of distant smoke and the faint, cloying sweetness of rot that drifted from the direction of the town.
Wei's breath came in steady clouds, his heart pumping warmth through his limbs. Beside him, Jianguo was a silent machine—no heavy breathing, no wasted motion, just the steady rhythm of a soldier on patrol.
They had covered perhaps two li when Jianguo raised a hand. They stopped, crouching behind a low stone wall that had once marked the boundary of a neighbor's field. Wei heard it: a chittering sound, high and sharp, coming from a copse of trees to their left.
Goblins. The same chittering laughter he had heard during the assault on the wall, the sound that still haunted his nightmares.
Jianguo drew his machete. The blade caught the moonlight, cold and silver, and Wei saw for the first time the intricate patterns etched into the steel—not decoration, but the marks of years of use, of sharpening and resharpening, of a weapon that had been maintained with religious devotion.
"Stay behind me," Jianguo murmured. "Don't engage unless you have to. Watch and learn."
They moved forward, slow and deliberate. The chittering grew louder, resolving into distinct voices—the guttural, mocking speech of goblins. Through the trees, Wei could see torchlight flickering.
A small fire burned in a clearing, and around it, five goblins squatted in a rough circle. They were arguing over something—a dead rabbit, maybe, or a scavenged sack of grain—their long ears twitching, their needle teeth glinting as they snapped at each other.
One of them, larger than the others, held a crude stone knife and was gesturing wildly. They hadn't seen them. They were too absorbed in their squabble, too confident in their numbers.
Jianguo didn't hesitate. He moved into the firelight like a shadow given form, his machete singing through the air. The first goblin—the large one with the knife—died before it knew it was being attacked.
A single, clean stroke separated its head from its shoulders. The blade moved so fast that Wei barely saw it, just a silver arc and then the spray of black blood across the fire.
The second goblin shrieked and lunged with a crude stone axe. Jianguo sidestepped—a minimal movement, barely six inches—and the axe whistled past his shoulder.
He caught the goblin's arm, twisted it with a sickening crack, and drove the machete through its chest in a single, fluid motion. The creature's shriek cut off mid-sound.
The third tried to run. Jianguo's blade caught it between the shoulder blades, and it pitched forward into the dirt. The fourth and fifth scrambled for their weapons—a rusted pipe, a jagged piece of metal—but Wei was already there, his scythe swinging in a wide arc.
The blade caught the fourth across the chest, and it fell screaming. The last goblin turned to flee, its yellow eyes wide with terror, and Jianguo picked up a rock from the ground—just a rock, a fist-sized chunk of granite—and threw it with a casual, almost dismissive motion. It struck the goblin in the skull with a sickening crack. The creature crumpled without a sound.
Silence. The fire crackled, sending sparks spiraling into the dark sky. The bodies lay in twisted heaps, black blood pooling on the dry earth, already beginning to soak into the soil. The dead rabbit the goblins had been fighting over lay forgotten beside the flames.
Jianguo wiped his machete on the grass with a practiced, almost absent gesture, then inspected the blade. Satisfied, he sheathed it. His expression was unchanged—not cold, not cruel, just calm. The calm of a man who had done what needed to be done and felt no need to dwell on it.
"Scouts," he said. "Probably from the same pack that attacked the farm. They'll be missed eventually, but not for a while. Goblins don't keep good track of each other."
Wei stared at the bodies, his heart still hammering. He had killed goblins before, in the chaos of the assault on the wall. But that had been different—desperate, frantic, a blur of fear and adrenaline. Watching Jianguo work was something else entirely.
The economy of motion, the absolute lack of hesitation, the way each movement flowed into the next like water following a channel—this was not a farmer who had learned to fight. This was a soldier who had been farming. A soldier who had done this so many times that it had become as natural as breathing.
"You've done that before," Wei said. His voice came out steadier than he felt.
"More times than I care to count." Jianguo's voice was quiet, almost distant. "In the service, we did a lot of night patrols. A lot of ambushes. Real enemies, I've fought humans. Goblins are stupid compared to them, but they're dangerous in numbers. The trick for animals like them is to not let them get organized. Hit them before they know you're there, and they fall apart."
He glanced at Wei. "You did well. The scythe swing was good. A little wide, but good. You'll get tighter with practice."
"How many did you kill? In the service?"
Jianguo was quiet for a moment. The firelight flickered across his face, deepening the lines around his eyes. "Enough. Come on. We're burning moonlight, and we've still got a spring to find."
***
They ran on, leaving the dead goblins behind. The terrain changed as they approached the eastern line—the flat, dead fields giving way to rolling ground, then to a shallow depression where the earth grew softer underfoot. The grass became thicker here, greener, and the air changed too. It became damp, carrying a new scent: wet soil, decaying vegetation, the green, fecund smell of a swamp. The kind of smell that spoke of water somewhere nearby.
Wei slowed, his heart pounding with something other than exertion. Hope, maybe. Or fear. They were tangled together so tightly now that he couldn't tell them apart. "This is it. Grandfather said the spring was near here—he described a hollow, a place where the ground was always wet. Where the water came right out of the rocks."
Jianguo knelt and pressed his palm to the earth. When he lifted it, the skin was dark with moisture. He rubbed the dirt between his fingers, feeling its texture, then smelled it. "The ground's soft. There's water here, somewhere. Not deep. Maybe not enough for the paddies, but..." He stood, his eyes scanning the darkness ahead. His posture shifted subtly—shoulders squaring, weight settling onto the balls of his feet. "Something doesn't feel right."
"What do you mean?"
"The silence. Listen."
Wei listened. The swamp was not silent—there were sounds, small ones. The drip of water from leaves, the rustle of reeds in the wind, the faint, chittering chirp of insects hidden in the grass. But beneath those sounds, there was a deeper stillness. No birds calling in the trees. No frogs croaking from the pools. No animal sounds of any kind. Just the quiet of a place where things were hiding. The quiet of a held breath.
"I hear it," Wei said quietly. "It's like the forest before the orc attack. Everything waiting."
"Yes." Jianguo's hand moved to his machete, resting on the hilt. "We go carefully. Stay close to me—no more than arm's reach. If I give you a signal, you run. No questions. No hesitation. No looking back. Understood?"
Wei nodded, his throat dry as dust.
"I need to hear you say it."
"I understand. Signal means run. No questions."
"Good." Jianguo drew the machete, holding it low and ready. "Let's go."
They moved deeper into the swamp. The ground grew wetter with each step, their boots sinking into mud that sucked at their heels with wet, hungry sounds. Pools of dark water appeared between hummocks of thick grass, their surfaces still and black as polished obsidian.
The trees here were different—twisted and stunted, their trunks wrapped in vines, their branches draped with curtains of grey-green moss that hung motionless in the still air.
The smell of rot intensified, layered with something else now. Something animal. Something that had lived and died and decayed in this place for a very long time.
And then Wei saw them.
Crawfish. Enormous crawfish—some the size of his forearm, others nearly as long as his leg—crawling through the shallows, their armored shells dark brown and glistening with moisture.
They moved with a slow, deliberate grace, their multiple legs picking their way across the muddy bottom, their long antennae waving in the dark water like alien sensors.
Their claws were massive, disproportionate to their bodies, and even in the dim light Wei could see the clear difference between them: some had thick, blunt crusher claws, heavy as mallets; others had slender, serrated cutter claws that gleamed like blades.
"Uncle," Wei breathed, grabbing Jianguo's arm. "Look at these."
Jianguo had already stopped. He was staring at the crawfish with an expression Wei had never seen on his face before—something between disbelief and a deep, primal hunger. His stoic mask had cracked, and beneath it was a man who had just remembered something wonderful.
"I know what those are." His voice was almost reverent. "We found a pond full of them once, during a patrol in the southern part. Years ago. Before I left the service. We'd been marching for three days on half rations, everyone tired and hungry and ready to kill each other over the last packet of dried noodles.
And then we found this pond—just a small one, hidden in a forest clearing—and it was full of these. Smaller than these, but the same. Same claws. Same shells." He shook his head slowly, a distant look in his eyes.
"We boiled them in a steel helmet. Had nothing to season them with—no salt, no oil, nothing. And it was still the best meal I ate in twelve years of service."
"The meat was so sweet, so tender. Fell right off the shell. We sat around that fire and ate until we couldn't move, and for one night, we forgot we were soldiers."
Wei focused on the nearest crawfish, letting his vision sharpen in the way he had learned over weeks of using the system. A panel flickered into view, golden text against the darkness.
```
┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ MARSH TITAN CRAWFISH │
│ Tier 1 | Common Wildlife │
│ │
│ A large freshwater crustacean native to │
│ the valley's wetland ecosystems. │
│ Unaffected by shimmer corruption. │
│ │
│ Claws: │
│ – Crusher Claw: Blunt, immense grip │
│ strength. Can crack bone and shell. │
│ Handle with extreme caution. │
│ – Cutter Claw: Serrated edge, sharp as │
│ glass. Used for tearing flesh. Keep │
│ fingers well clear. │
│ │
│ Threat Level: Low (if handled properly) │
│ │
│ Special Note: │
│ – Meat is exceptionally tender and │
│ flavorful. Considered an extreme │
│ delicacy. High in protein. │
│ – Uncontaminated by shimmer toxins. │
│ Safe for consumption. │
│ – Eggs are a rare culinary treasure. │
│ – The water is dirty but non-toxic; │
│ the swamp itself is a natural filter. │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┘
```
"I feel that they're safe," Wei said, his voice rising with excitement. "Not contaminated. Not monsters. Just... crawfish. Really, really big crawfish. Hundreds of them."
End Of Chapter 13