Where Immortals Once Walked

He Lingchuan chuckled. “Heh, still keeping me in suspense?”

“No, that’s not it.” Hu Min sighed. “It’s just really hard to put into words. I honestly don’t know what to say.”

Hearing him say that, He Lingchuan did not press him any further. As Hu Min said, if he continued to enter the Panlong Dreamscape, he would sooner or later see the Red General for himself. With that being the case, there was no need to rush.

His drinking companion grinned and said, “That question of yours? More than half the fresh recruits ask it. Some even join the army solely due to the Red General’s fame.”

“Where exactly did the Red General even come from?” He Lingchuan snatched up the last piece of pork crackling as he asked. “Don’t tell me that you don’t know even that?”

Hu Min said with a shrug, “I reckon only Lord Zhong could answer that question.”

The two of them laughed loud and long, blending right into the inn’s noisy clamor.

In this dream, He Lingchuan realized that he had shed his protective shell. It felt almost as if he were back in his student days again, chatting nonsense over skewers and soda, laughing freely without restraint.

It had been so, so long since he had felt this relaxed.

Perhaps that had been the case ever since he became He Lingchuan.

After eating and drinking their fill, Hu Min rose with a hiccup, paid the bill, and then dragged He Lingchuan out with him.

His lame leg slowed him, so he flagged down a donkey cart to carry them both to the Ministry of Merits.

On the way, Hu Min explained, “The Ministry of Merits records and distributes all merit. It’s one of the most important institutions in Panlong City. It has two offices, one for military merit and the other for civilian merit. Since we’re here to claim rewards for battle, we’ll be going to the Office of Military Merit.”

He Lingchuan felt like a country bumpkin in the big city. “I can easily understand how one can earn military merit. I mean, you fight, you earn. But how do civilians gain merit? By supporting the army from behind the lines?”

“Not quite. Anything tied to combat falls under the Office of Military Merit, even common folk who expose spies. Civilian merit, on the other hand, comes from corvée labor, extra grain contributions, or venturing out to trade. Those merits can then be exchanged for things money can’t buy, or things that are outrageously expensive like houses, cultivation techniques, medicinal ingredients, or even the right to employ servants.”

He Lingchuan gawked. “Even servant quotas have to be earned with merit?”

“Of course. In Panlong City, you can’t just throw money at someone and expect them to serve you.” Hu Min chuckled. “The same amount of merit it takes to get a fourth-class residence will also let you buy one servant slot.”

“Huh? It’s that hard to get a single servant slot?” He Lingchuan thought back to Liu Baobao in Heishui City. He was just the pampered son of a merchant, yet he had three concubines and twelve household servants.

It seemed that the enjoyments that wealthy men outside took for granted were nearly impossible here.

“Also, what do you mean by venturing out to trade?”

“Well, leaving Panlong City and carrying messages, or doing business elsewhere.” Hu Min gave him a look. “Didn’t you see those caravans before you entered the city?”

“I did, I saw plenty of them.” He Lingchuan glanced at the streets now. Shops stood shoulder to shoulder as trade boomed within the city. In fact, this place was even busier than Heishui City.

Foreign trade was like water, nourishing the city. Without the flow of goods from outside, Panlong City could never have prospered like this.

He even spotted a playhouse, red-light houses, and gambling halls...

Everything was orderly, vibrant, and full of life. It was almost hard to believe that this was all within a city that lived year-round under the shadow of war.

After all, it was normal to assume that wherever war passed, there was only supposed to be ruin and exile.

“It’s precisely because war is constant in the Panlong Wasteland that venturing out to trade is so dangerous. Hence why it’s rewarded,” Hu Min said solemnly. “Baling has tried blockading our trade routes several times to strangle Panlong City. Those battles were all bitter and bloody.”

He paused for a few moments before continuing, “In the old days, these things weren’t handled well. The homeland didn’t even know the Panlong Wasteland had become an enclave, cut off in the west. Lord Zhong, after much pain, swore we would never be isolated again.”

Then Hu Min waggled his brows. “Ever since even servant quotas have to be earned with merit, the birthrate has suddenly shot up. Everyone just stays home having babies. The higher-ups are over the moon! I don’t know if it counts as an unexpected blessing.”

Of course, the first requirement for war was manpower. For a city like Panlong, locked in ceaseless conflict, finding ways to boost the population was nothing short of vital.

He Lingchuan blinked. “Huh? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I mean, just think about it.” Hu Min gave a sly grin. “If you can’t hire servants, and your household chores pile up, what’s the cheapest solution?”

He Lingchuan ventured uncertainly, “Kids?”

“Exactly! Have a few more, and by the time they’re seven or eight, you’ve got extra hands. They’re free labor. You don’t have to pay them any wages; you’ve just got to feed them, and they’ll be more obedient than livestock. A few years older, and they can even earn money for you. Isn’t that perfect?”

“....” He Lingchuan rolled his eyes. “Since you make it sound so reasonable, how many kids have you had?”

“Erm, well, I... haven’t had any yet.” A faint blush crept across Hu Min’s face. “What’s the rush?”

“You’re someone who lives with his head tied to his belt, yet you’re saying you don’t feel any need to rush?” He Lingchuan shot him a sidelong look. “Don’t tell me you haven’t even found a wife.”

“I haven’t met the right one.” Hu Min waved hastily toward the front. “Look, we’re here. Get off the cart!”

The Ministry of Merits was the largest complex on this street, right by the lakeside. It boasted blue-gray walls, flying eaves, and a grand three-bay façade. Crowds bustled in and out through six lacquered black doors. Inside was a long hall, from which two corridors branched off. One of the two corridors led to the Office of Military Merit, while the other led to the Office of Civilian Merit.

Naturally, Hu Min steered him toward the Office of Military Merit.

The deeper they went, the more specialized the offices became. He Lingchuan soon realized the system was far more elaborate than he had initially thought. For instance, the Bureau of Military Oversight handled battlefield discipline, such as executing deserters and overseeing the troops, and kept detailed records of combat during and after battle to determine rewards and punishments.

The branch they were heading to, however, was the Bureau of Bright Prospects, responsible for actually distributing military rewards.

The room was about twenty square meters, with three desks at the front and towering cabinets of ledgers and registers along the walls.

Hu Min strode up to the window seat with a smile and said, “Merits Clerk Liu, I’ve brought a brother to claim his merit.”

The merits clerk put down his brush. “Name?”

Hu Min rattled it off, “He Lingchuan. On the third of last month, at Xiqing Gorge, he stayed behind to cover the retreat of Wei City’s civilians toward Panlong City. His unit was under the command of Colonel Xiao Maoliang.”

So Officer Xiao’s actually a colonel.

Merits Clerk Liu, practiced and efficient, headed to the back cabinets, flipped through a register, and quickly found the record. “Mm, He Lingchuan, not a local?”

He Lingchuan replied without blinking, “I’m from Tusu. I came here with the refugees.”

“The assessment says: fought bravely, acted with cunning. Your squad was small in number but inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, kept civilian casualties low, and—since the Red General personally endorsed it—the merit counts as great. By group merit, you are awarded: one wood house, thirty taels of silver, one set of light chainmail armor, two and a half kilos of cheese, five taels of chewing tobacco, and barely over a tenth of a hectare of middle-grade paddy fields in the Azure Ox District.”

He read the list smoothly, word-perfect from memory. “If you don’t want the house or the armor, you can exchange them for other goods.”

He Lingchuan beamed. “I’ll take everything as is. I won’t be exchanging anything. Many thanks!”

Hu Min accompanied him back out of the ministry, then the two hopped onto the same donkey cart, heading toward He Lingchuan’s newly granted residence.

The rewards were all portable. The house and farmland came as two deeds. As for the armor, he had already donned it. And those thirty taels of silver? Those came at just the right time. Without them, he would have been penniless in Panlong City, unable to take a step, and too shameless to keep freeloading off Hu Min.

The so-called “wood house” did not literally mean it was built of wood. Civilian housing in Panlong City was ranked in nine classes, from highest to lowest: silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, water, fire, wood, and earth.

Who came up with such ridiculous names for classes?

He Lingchuan itched to complain.

Still, earning enough merit in one battle to skip past the lowest “earth house” class and directly receive a “wood house” was no small feat, especially for an outsider.

Still, even after gambling with his life, this was all he had earned. Clearly, in Panlong City, military merit did not come easily. It also spoke to how frequent and desperate the battles in the Panlong Wasteland were. One or two merits alone would never guarantee one a carefree life.

If a soldier wanted a better life for himself and his family, he had no choice but to fight with all he had.

The Green Ox District lay on the outskirts, and the donkey cart trundled along slowly. Hu Min yawned again and again, even nodding off twice. He Lingchuan, on the other hand, dared not close his eyes for fear that if he drifted, he would slip out of the dream, and who knew how long it would take before he could return.

After more than an hour, they finally arrived.

The moment He Lingchuan stepped down from the cart and stood before his allotted wood house, a strange daze came over him. For an instant, it felt like coming home.

It was a crowded block of commoners’ dwellings. Uneven dirt roads, rows of squat houses pressed shoulder to shoulder. One wall butted right up against the neighbor’s courtyard, and across the way, two families even shared a partition. At night, if one couple clapped their hands in bed, or the neighbor gave their child a beating, every detail would carry through loud and clear.

The house assigned to He Lingchuan had a sturdy enough wooden door, though the lock was temperamental—sometimes it opened, sometimes not.

Inside, the layout was painfully simple. There were only two rooms. One was for sleeping, while the other, smaller one was for cooking. Out back, there was a tiny courtyard, though “courtyard” might even be too grand a word for it. It was more like an air shaft, a crooked square squeezed in between neighbors, no more than five square meters in area. There was hardly enough room for a water jar, and it was boxed in by his neighbors’ walls.

“This is a wood house?” asked He Lingchuan. Truthfully, he felt a pang of nostalgia. Before he became He Lingchuan, he had lived in a cramped rental in a modern metropolis. That apartment was not much larger than this. “Then what does an earth house look like?”

Hu Min pointed at the water vat. “An earth house is just a single room, and it doesn’t even have this little courtyard.”

So, correction: the earth house was even closer to his old life.

Hu Min went on with practical advice, “The cheese and chewing tobacco are hot commodities at the market. If you don’t use them, you can sell them for cash. As for the paddy fields, if you don’t plan to farm them yourself, you can rent them out. The standard split here is forty–sixty; you take forty. But do keep in mind that Panlong City levies a ten percent tax, and that’s on you. If your holdings ever reach twenty thousand square meters or more, the tax doubles to twenty percent. If you want to bring it back down to ten at that time, you’ll have to spend more military merit.”

“Spend... merit?” He Lingchuan gave a bitter smile. “Who came up with all this trickery?”

“Commander Zhong.” Hu Min cleared his throat. “Merit’s a fine thing. The more you use it, the more you realize how scarce it is. You’ll see soon enough.”