THE SYSTEM IS NOT MINE

Trade Miller City, situated on flat terrain, had an open and unguarded entrance.

There were just pillars with a board reading ’Trade Miller City’ in large letters, and next to it, ’The City of Grains’ was written in smaller letters.

The entrance always seemed to be occupied by carts carrying different kinds of grain, millet, corn, and spices, their scents lingering in the air.

Yan drifted into the city with a group of travellers who chose a small restaurant near the market square, a place where the ground floor was filled with merchants, their clothes held the traces of the grain and the spices.

Yan walked up to the first floor, chose a table in a remote corner where no one else sat, and ordered a bowl of stew.

Beside his table, three people arrived and sat around it.

It did not take long for the waiter to bring his dish.

​Yan ate slowly, much more slowly than a normal person would.

​“I’m telling you,” a man at the next table barked, slamming his cup down.

”Commander Chen Yu burned the Shin grain with his own hands. My cousin saw it himself. He serves under the General Hecta.”

The man across from him scoffed. “Your cousin might have been fooled, I have insider news, It wasn’t Chen Yu.”

​“Oh? Then who?”

​“A senior cultivator,” the second man replied, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial hum.

“Oh, oh... I heard about the mighty senior as well, a mysterious man who burned the enemy’s grain with a single breath..”

The third man at the table laughed.

”I am telling the truth.” the man who brought up the senior cultivator insisted.

”Yes, yes, ” The other two said, and started laughing.

“Cultivators do stranger things than that.”

Someone added from another table, and the laughter stopped.

For a while, no one spoke.

​Yan continued to eat, a faint, ghost-like amusement passing through him.

The rumours travelled faster than any soldier, but like most travellers, the truth had been lost somewhere along the road.

The conversation shifted, the mood turning sharper.

“Have you heard about Chu Feng?”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The table went quiet. “Who hasn’t? They say he bought an entire Shin convoy just to give it away.”

​“He’s staying in one of the manors he built in every major trade city, and he’s currently distributing grain here too.” a merchant added, gesturing vaguely toward the richer streets. “Every morning to the afternoon outside his manor, he distributes free grain to the poor just because he can.”

”He must be a fool then, who gives out the grain” one merchant added.

But the man opposite the merchant said nothing and looked at him as if wondering whether he had gone nuts

​Meanwhile, Yan finished his meal and left the place.

He paid with a few silvers, and asked ”Where do the poor live?”

The restaurant employee was confused by the weird question. Either way, he said, ”Walk a few steps west from here. You will see a poultry farm. Then walk further until you reach the poor district.”

”Thank you” Yan said and stepped back into the restless current of the street and walked west.

And just when he was about to reach the poultry farm, he saw a man lying on the road.

People around him either walked past him or went around him, ignoring him.

Yan stood and observed the man for a while. A man passing by stopped next to Yan and said, ”Ignore that guy. Drunkards often fall on the road”

Yan nodded and moved forward.

He walked until the smell of meat and oil was replaced by the stench of stagnant water and rotting cloth.

The slums were a graveyard of crooked huts that leaned against one another like broken teeth.

Here, the faces were hollow, the eyes watchful and silent.

​Yan found a pile of discarded rags beside a collapsed shack. He waited and looked around.

Seeing no one around, he stripped off his travel clothes and glanced at his sword for a brief moment before burying the clothes and the sword in the loose soil.

When he emerged, wrapped in filth and tattered cloth, the transformation was complete.

The aura of the realm that most cultivators faintly emit outside the body even when idle, however, when Yan buried himself in the ground, he realized how to hide with his understanding of ground and mind letters.

With a thought, the aura surrounding him disappeared and he looked no different than any mortal.

​“Hey! What are you doing here?”

A shout came from behind, making Yan’s back stiffen.

The mud from burying his clothes still clung to his hands, making the evidence quite obvious.

Yan turned around and noticed a city guard approaching him.

Yan took a deep breath as he saw the guard coming nearer and nearer.

But right then, a group of poor people cut them off by rushing between them. Yan slipped into the group and moved urgently toward the merchant district.

The group consisted of old men carrying bags, barefoot children carrying iron containers, and women carrying bedsheets and baskets.

All of them moved toward the same destination. Yan understood where they were headed.

​“Hurry,” one of them whispered. “If we’re late, there will be nothing left.”

On the way, several other lines of people joined them , the crowd kept getting bigger and bigger, hundreds of bodies funnelling toward a single point.

Chu Feng’s manor.

It was a massive structure behind high white walls, draped in red banners bearing the mark of the merchant association.

Inside the courtyard, two wagons stood, each carrying the grain. Some men were pushing the grain down from the wagon onto the floor.

When Yan arrived, a big queue had already formed outside the gate, stretching far into the distance. Yan waited in the queue.

The people at the front entered the manor through the gates and came out carrying grain.

The queue kept on decreasing.

But suddenly, the line stopped as the people at the front recoiled, stepping back so quickly that they tripped over their own baskets.

”Run”

”Run”

People shouted and broke the queue, and rushed everywhere, but Yan did not; he watched the entrance of the manor while people around him were fleeing.

​Chu Feng’s private guards had drawn their blades.

Facing them was another group of men dressed in black, their faces hidden behind cloth.

The first clash was sudden and brutal.

A black-clothed man kicked one of Chu Feng’s guards, sending him crashing backwards against the gate.