The fence went up faster than I’d projected.

  Hao had his six volunteers by midmorning the day after our conversation, which was two days ahead of my most optimistic estimate. Zhao Ping’s son Zhao Jun turned out to be better with an axe than I’d assumed — the man could drop a pine in four strokes and strip the branches in the time it took me to mark the next tree. By the end of the first rotation, the crew had fallen into a rhythm I hadn’t needed to design.

  Jun felled and stripped.

  The Wei brothers hauled.

  Hao dug post holes with a speed that bordered on unnatural, driving the iron-tipped digging bar into packed earth like a hot knife through butter.

  I measured the spacing, checked the alignment, and directed where each post went based on the sightlines I’d mapped from the hillside.

  Nobody questioned the layout. I’d been worried about that. The fence line didn’t follow the most direct path between the outer houses, it curved slightly inward at the center, creating a narrower gap at the road that would force anyone entering to pass through single file.

  A straight line would’ve been faster to build but I’d pitched the curve as following the natural contour of the terrain for drainage, and since nobody else had surveyed the ground, nobody argued.

  *Twelve days. Forty-six posts. One gate frame that Hao insisted on building himself because he wanted it solid enough to hold against a charging ox.*

  I didn’t tell him a charging ox wasn’t what I was designing against.

  On the thirteenth morning, I stood at the north road and looked at the finished line. It looked like a livestock fence built by farmers with more determination than carpentry skill. Completely unremarkable to anyone who didn’t study the geometry.

  I’d tested it the latch and was relieved that it held firm.

  *First defensive line, complete. It won’t stop a determined force. It will slow them down by ninety seconds and funnel them into a space where our men could hold a chokepoint.*

  “Looks good.” Hao came up beside me, wiping sweat from his neck.

  “Looks like a fence,” I said.

  “Best fence in the prefecture.” He slapped a post. It didn’t move. “The Liu family’s already asking if we can extend it around their chicken run.”

  “We can link it to the main line on the east side, which closes the gap between the Liu house and the Wei compound.”

  Hao gave me a look. “You already planned that.”

  “It seemed logical.”

  “You had the post count ready before I finished the sentence, Liang.”

  “I’m good with numbers.”

  He shook his head and walked off to help Jun sharpen the axes.

  The drying rack took four days. I built most of it myself, which was a first since every other project had run through Hao and the volunteer crews. But the hillside platform was small enough for one person and I wanted control over the details. Cedar posts instead of pine, because cedar lasted longer in weather. A platform wide enough for two men to stand on, elevated two meters off the slope on cross-braced legs. Angled slats on top that were spaced for drying grain and also, incidentally, for seeing through without being seen from below.

  I spread millet across the slats on the first dry morning and stood underneath, looking north.

  The road was visible for almost two li. I could see the bridge crossing, the tree line, and the point where the road curved east toward Meishan. On a clear day, anyone approaching the village would be visible from this platform before they reached the fence line.

  In a world where battles were decided by surprise and superior numbers, ten minutes was the difference between caught sleeping and standing ready.

  I climbed down and went to check the irrigation.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The merchant came unexpectedly.

  I spotted him from the drying rack as it was now a force of habit, I’d started checking the northern road from the platform every morning under the pretense of turning the millet.

  A single figure with a handcart, that moved at an unhurried pace. I honestly was just relieved that it wasn't a refugee.

  By the time he reached the gate, Hao was already there. Of course he was. My brother had an instinct for arrivals the way some people had an instinct for weather.

  I came down the hill at a walk and reached them as Hao was helping the man position his cart in the shade. The merchant was older, fifty or so, a lean about him. His cart was modest made of bolts of rough cloth, some iron tools, and a few ceramic jars sealed with wax.

  “Pei Hao,” my brother introduced himself and extended his hand. “Welcome to Hekou.”

  “Wang Su.” The merchant clasped Hao’s hand and looked around the village with appraising eyes.

  His gaze lingered on the fence. “New construction?”

  “Foxes,” I said from behind Hao.

  Wang Su looked at me. His gaze was sharper than his road-worn appearance suggested. “Thorough response to foxes.”

  “We’re thorough people.” I stepped forward. “Pei Liang, his brother. Can we offer you water?”

  Hao shot me a glance that said *I was handling this*, and I returned one that said *keep handling it, I just want to listen*.

  We’d gotten efficient at silent communication.

  Over water and cold rice, Wang Su did what merchants did best, he talked.

  And I did what I’d been training myself to do for the past month. I listened for the information buried inside the noise.

  The surface talk was trade. Cloth prices up because the southern trade routes were disrupted. Iron was scarce because the Lord of Qinghe’s forges were running day and night producing weapons.

  Ceramic from the eastern kilns was the only thing still moving at normal volume because nobody had bothered to conscript potters yet.

  *Southern routes disrupted. Weapons production accelerating. The campaign isn’t winding down. It’s escalating.*

  “Passed through Meishan three days ago,” Wang Su said between bites of rice. “Prefect’s compound was busy. Riders coming and going, even more than usual for tax season.”

  “Recruiting?” I asked.

  Hao looked at me. I kept my eyes on the merchant.

  Wang Su chewed slowly. “Didn’t ask for more details. Men in my profession learn not to ask questions at military compounds. But the stables were full of fresh horses, and the smithy attached to the barracks was working through the night. I heard the hammers from the inn.”

  *Fresh horses means new riders. Night smithing means urgent demand for equipment. The Prefect is either reinforcing his garrison or preparing to deploy again. Either way, the next conscription wave is closer than I’d estimated.*

  “How are the other villages?” I asked. “Between here and Meishan.”

  “Nervous.” Wang Su set his bowl down. “Tongshan lost enough men in the last round that they couldn’t bring in their wheat. The whole village is on half rations and the harvest isn’t for another six weeks. Heard they sent a delegation to the Prefect asking for relief. Didn’t hear what came of it.”

  *Tongshan is twenty li north of us. If they default on their tax quota, the Prefect’s collectors will move through every village on this road to make up the shortfall. Including us.*

  “You’re welcome to stay the night,” Hao said in a warm tone. “We don’t see many travelers. The village would enjoy the company.”

  “Kind of you.” Wang Su smiled, and it was the first expression he’d worn that didn’t look calculated.

  “I’ll take you up on that. Your village has a good feel to it. Someone’s been thinking ahead.”

  He said it to Hao. I let him.

  That night, after Wang Su had been settled in the Liu family’s spare room and Hao was making his evening rounds, I sat behind the house and opened myself to the qi the way I’d learned to.

  It came faster now.

  Three weeks of practice and the sensation that had taken me twenty minutes to find on the first morning now arrived in three breaths. I felt the warmth behind my sternum and the cool pressure from outside.

  The membrane between each sensation was thinner each time.

  I held the boundary and breathed.

  *The Prefect is mobilizing. Tongshan is starving. The war is eating villages faster than they can recover and we’re six weeks from being the next one on the list.*

  The qi pulsed in time with my heartbeat.

  *I need to move faster. The fence is done. The labor rotation is working. The drying rack gives us early warning. But none of that matters if the Prefect sends riders with cultivation and we have nothing but forty-six fence posts and a cultivator who can barely sense his own qi.*

  I pushed against the membrane with a steady pressure, testing the boundary between internal and external the way you’d test a door you weren’t sure was locked.

  The warmth behind my sternum flared and spread through my arms and into my fingertips, and for one clear moment I felt the air around my hands as texture rather than temperature.

  Then it faded and my hands tingled.

  *Incremental, frustrating, and inadequate progress. But progress nonetheless.*

  I opened my eyes and noticed that the stars were out, sharp and dense in a way they only could be without artificial light.

  The merchant’s information had changed the timeline. I’d been planning for six months of gradual development.

  The fence, the labor rotation, the social restructuring, and the slow accumulation of goodwill that would eventually support something larger.

  Based on what Wang Su had described, the fresh horses, the night smithing, the starving villages, I had six weeks.

  Maybe less.

  I went inside and pulled both bark maps from under the sleeping mat.

  The village as it was and then the village as it needed to be. The gap between them stared back at me in scratched lines and dried ink.

  The training ground mark sat on the second map, circled twice.

  *Six weeks before the Prefect comes looking for bodies and finds a brother who can split the air with his bare hands.*

  I picked up the sharpened stick and started redrawing the timeline.