Wu Xie, the city lord of Wuyuan City, stood on the balcony of his estate, the tallest building in the city, and gazed out over the sprawling landscape before him. From this vantage point, he could see the entirety of Wuyuan, its well-crafted buildings rising proudly against the backdrop of the northern sky. The streets below were alive with activity; merchants called out their wares, children played in the alleys, and the scent of freshly baked bread wafted through the air. In Wu's mind, this city was one of the few jewels of the north, a beautiful place he felt immensely proud to call home.

  Yet, as he surveyed the vibrant scene, his gaze inevitably drifted toward the city walls, where a stark contrast marred the otherwise picturesque view. Beyond the sturdy stone barriers lay an ugly sight that gnawed at his heart—a sprawling refugee camp, a desperate collection of tents and makeshift shelters that had sprung up in the wake of the war between the cultivators from the south. The camp was a chaotic jumble of people, with smoke rising from campfires as families huddled together for warmth against the biting cold. It was a grim sight of the suffering that lay just beyond the safety of his city.

  The sight filled Wu Xie with a deep, simmering disgust. These vermin—these wretched, crawling things—had no right to stain the earth outside his city. Their hollow eyes, sunken from hunger, their tattered clothes fluttering like the banners of a defeated army—they were a blight upon the pristine beauty of Wuyuan’s domain. To him, they were not people, not souls deserving of pity, but a plague, an infestation that had slithered north to leech off his prosperity.

  Southerners. The word alone curled his lip in contempt.

  For generations, the people of the south had sneered at the north, at Zan, as if their wealth and their cultivators made them superior. They had mocked the northerners as cursed, as backward, as peasants clinging to superstition while the south flourished under the guidance of their exalted sects. Wu Xie had heard the stories—how southern merchants would stiffen at the sight of a northerner in their markets, how their scholars wrote treatises declaring Zan a land of barbarians. Their cultivators, with their gleaming swords and righteous posturing, had only reinforced their arrogance, looking upon the north as little more than a wasteland.

  And now? Now, as war tore through their precious cities, as their so-called righteous cultivators turned the south into a graveyard in their fight with demonic cultivators, they came crawling to Zan’s gates. They, who had once spat upon the north, now stretched out their hands, begging for scraps.

  The irony was almost laughable.

  Wu Xie’s fingers tightened around the railing, his knuckles whitening. Let them starve. Let them freeze. Let them remember the scorn they once heaped upon us. The thought of opening Wuyuan’s gates to them was unthinkable—an insult to every northerner who had endured their mockery. His city was a sanctuary, a jewel of order and tradition, and he would not allow it to be sullied by their desperation.

  Yet, despite his resolve, they kept coming.

  Day after day, their numbers swelled. What had begun as a scattered few had metastasized into a sprawling, stinking mass of vermin, a tent city that clung to Wuyuan’s walls like a parasite. Their fires burned through the night, their wails carried on the wind, a constant reminder of their presence. And with them came the stench—of unwashed bodies, of sickness, of hopelessness.

  Wu Xie’s jaw clenched. How dare they? How dare they plant themselves at his doorstep, demanding aid as if it were their right? They had brought this upon themselves. Let the southern cultivators save them, if they cared so much.

  The city lord wanted nothing more than to order the guard to kill them all, but he couldn’t do that, no matter how much he wanted to. The thought of slaughtering the refugees was tempting, a dark fantasy that flickered in his mind like a flame. He envisioned the chaos that would ensue, the blood staining the ground outside his city walls, and how it might attract the attention of the few cultivators from the Righteous Alliance who occasionally ventured north. These powerful beings, cloaked in the facade of their righteous titles, might take notice if they heard of a city that had slaughtered thousands. Perhaps they would come to Wuyuan, drawn by the scent of blood, and in their righteous fury, they might cleanse the land, and destroy his city.

  But the more immediate concern was that such an act would turn his city into a pariah among the other communities of Zan. If Wuyuan City was willing to kill so many people, what would the other northern lords think? They would surely wonder what he might do to their own communities if they ever fell out of favor. Trade relations would be severed, alliances would crumble, and Wuyuan would find itself isolated, surrounded by enemies. The thought of being cut off from vital resources and support was enough to quell his darker impulses.

  It was frustrating for Wu, as he genuinely believed that many other city lords across the south of Zan were likely feeling the same way about the influx of refugees. They would share his disdain, yet if he were to take such drastic measures, they would ostracize him, branding him a monster. The war was only going to escalate, and more people would continue to funnel up from the south into Zan. The problem would only worsen, and he could try to drive them away, but they would only return, desperate and determined.

  He needed a solution, and he had quite the creative one in the works. To turn these refugees into a useful resource.

  As he pondered the intricacies of his intended approach, the door to his chamber burst open, and Jin-Soo, a magistrate and administrator who worked closely under Wu Xie, stormed in, his face flushed with anger.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Lord Wu, we need to talk!” Jin-Soo exclaimed, his voice a mixture of urgency and frustration. His normally composed demeanor was shattered, replaced by a palpable anger that filled the room. “I have heard of what you intend to do with the refugees, and it is abhorrent!”

  Wu Xie turned to face him, his brow furrowing at the accusation. “So, you know. Where’d you hear it from?”

  “It was my disciple who told me,” Jin-Soo replied, his voice rising with indignation. “He was so appalled when he found out what you intended to do that he resigned from his position and headed north to work for another magistrate. I can’t blame him! You intend to enslave all those refugees!” Jin-Soo yelled, his eyes blazing with disbelief. “How could you, being a city lord, plan to do such a thing?”

  Wu Xie felt a surge of irritation at the accusation, but he quickly tempered his response. “Jin-Soo, you’re misunderstanding my intentions. I’m not talking about enslavement in the way you think. I’m proposing a system where we can utilize their skills and labor to benefit the city by making them work. Any excess labor can be traded with interested parties.”

  “That’s still slavery! And you’re adding a slave trade to it!” Jin-Soo scoffed, his voice dripping with disdain. “You can dress it up all you like by calling it indentured servitude, but you’re not going to fool me or any of the other city-states. They’ll see through it and won’t accept what you’re doing. You’re going to ruin Wuyuan City!”

  “Then what would you have me do?” Wu Xie shot back, his frustration boiling over. “There are more people gathering at our gates every day. Something needs to be done!”

  “That’s why I told you we needed to create a proper refugee resettlement program months ago,” Jin-Soo replied, his tone firm but measured. “We should have started creating new farmland and communities around Wuyuan to help house and feed them. But you scoffed at me and did nothing, and now the problem has gotten even worse.”

  "You'd have me coddle those filthy-!" Wu Xie's roar echoed through the chamber before he caught himself, but the damning word had already escaped: "Vermin!"

  The silence that followed was deafening. Jin-Soo's face went pale, then flushed dark with outrage. When he spoke again, his voice trembled with barely contained fury. "Vermin. You truly see them that way. Those children playing with sticks in the mud? The grandmothers coughing their lungs out in the night? All just... vermin to you."

  "They're SOUTHERNERS!" Wu Xie exploded, his composure shattered. "Their scholars called us backward savages! Their merchants cheat us! And their precious cultivators-" His voice caught on the word, memories flashing of southern cultivators cutting down northern guards like it was nothing.

  Jin-Soo's response came low and deadly calm: "The men who did those things aren't starving outside our walls. The people at our gates are farmers, potters, weavers - people who probably never seen a northerner before they were driven from their homes."

  Wu Xie turned away, his ceremonial cloak swirling as he stared at the city from his balcony. "My decision stands," he said flatly. "These ‘things’ will be rounded up and put into indentured servitude."

  The sound of Jin-Soo's seal of office clattering onto the wooden floor rang like a death knell. "If there is nothing I can say to convince you otherwise, then consider this my resignation,” Jin-Soo said, his voice heavy with disappointment. “I will not help you enslave innocent people. My disciple was right to resign, and I’ll be heading north to join him.” With that, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room, leaving Wu Xie alone with his thoughts.

  In the quiet of the room, a voice called out from the shadows, smooth and unsettling. “Will that man’s resignation cause any problems for our deal?”

  Stepping out from the darkness was a figure clad in black clothing, his presence almost spectral. He was gaunt and skinny, with skin so pale it appeared almost sickly, contrasting sharply with his long, black hair that hung like a curtain around his face. He seemed to have emerged from the very shadows themselves, as if he had been waiting there all along, invisible to the world.

  Wu Xie’s heart raced at the sudden appearance of the man. He instinctively took a step back. “No, the guards are under my command and have agreed to my plan. They will soon be rounding up the refugees,” he replied, trying to maintain an air of confidence.

  “Excellent,” the strange man said, his voice dripping with a chilling satisfaction that sent a shiver down Wu’s spine. The way he spoke made it clear that he relished the unfolding events, as if he were a puppeteer pulling the strings of fate.

  “But there is something you could do to make the process smoother,” Wu continued, his eyes glinting with a predatory gleam.

  “And that would be?” the man asked, a sense of foreboding hanging in the air.

  Wu Xie stood silhouetted against the balcony, his fingers drumming a restless rhythm on the jade-inlaid railing. Below, the refugee campfires flickered like accusing eyes in the darkness. He didn't turn as he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper yet carrying the weight of a death sentence.

  "You're skilled in the art of... discreet removals, I presume?" The city lord's tone foreboding. "Jin-Soo's daily walk through the Western Market would present an ideal opportunity. A knife in the back from a desperate refugee... perhaps one of those Southern beggar children he so loves to pity."

  "Most tragic," the man murmured, his voice like oiled steel. "A beloved elder slain by those he sought to help. The irony would not be lost on the populace... nor on your remaining advisors."

  "Can it be done before the next council meeting?"

  A smile slithered across the assassin's face. "It can be arranged."

  The city lord's throat moved as he swallowed. Jin-Soo's face flashed in his memory - laughing as they shared wine after Wu Xie's inauguration, steadying him during the plague riots, quietly correcting his mistakes in council. His oldest friend. His last true counselor.

  But then he saw the refugee hordes swelling against his walls, heard the whispers of dissent in his streets, felt the weight of the jade seal in his sleeve.

  "Make it dramatic," Wu Xie heard himself say, his voice hollow. "Not enough to seem staged, but enough that the people will demand retribution. When they see one of the Southern whelps killing one of their own, I want every citizen screaming for blood."

  The assassin bowed. "Your vision is... admirably thorough, Lord Wu. The demonic cults will be most pleased with their new supplier." He produced a contract scroll from his sleeve, the red wax seal already bearing the mark of the Obsidian Pavilion. "Shall we finalize the agreement? We give you gold for regular shipments of slaves for as long as this war lasts."

  Wu Xie stared at the document. Somewhere beyond the estates walls, a dog howled. The sound reminded him of Jin-Soo's laughter - rough, honest, now to be silenced forever.

  He took the proffered brush and signed without reading.