11: Chapter 11: Recruiting Exiles, Population Exceeds 500

Old Zhou's funeral was held early the next morning. There was no priest, no Ecclesiarchy prayers—Blackstone Village had none of those things. Wang Defu stood before the grave, clutching a handful of soil in his hand, and recited a eulogy he had learned during his youth in the Imperial Guard, but he changed a few words, replacing 'the Emperor's warrior' with 'a son of Blackstone Village.' His hand trembled as he finished speaking. It wasn't grief—it was a release, the relief of finally uttering words he had not been permitted to speak during his thirty years of Imperial service, now spoken on a remote, unpeopled border planet.

Locke thrust that battle-axe into the ground before the grave and knelt on one knee. He said nothing. Lin Mo stood at the edge of the crowd, gazing at the five new graves and the smoke rising from Old Tom's workshop in the distance—smoke and graves, the two most common sights on this planet.

After the funeral, Lin Mo went alone to the ridge where Old Zhou had often kept watch. The hunter's lookout was crude—a shack made of a few branches, a smoothed stone serving as a stool, and a pile of ash on the ground. He sat down on that stone. From this spot, he could see the entirety of Blackstone Village and the northern hills. Beside the ash pile, he found a small, polished piece of bone—an ork finger bone, ground into the shape of a carving tool. During the long watches when no one came to relieve him, Old Zhou had been carving something with an ork's bone, something he would never finish.

Old Zhou's death sank into the well of Blackstone Village like a stone. The surface soon grew calm again, but everyone knew something more now lay in the depths of that well. After the funeral, Lin Mo went to the ridge where Old Zhou had often kept watch. He picked up a polished piece of bone from beside the ash pile—an ork finger bone, ground into the shape of a carving tool. During his long watches, Old Zhou had been carving something with an ork's bone, something he would never finish. Lin Mo pocketed that bone carving tool. He sat down on the stone Old Zhou had used, from where he could see the entire outline of Blackstone Village. The oil lamp at the village entrance was like a pin fastened to the chest of the darkness. He sat for a long time before standing up. As he stood, he did one thing—he used a charcoal pencil to write a line on the back of the stone: 'Someone kept watch here.'

Lin Mo sat on Old Zhou's ridge for a long time. The wind rustled through the bushes with a dry, paper-rubbing sound. After writing that line on the back of the stone, he didn't leave immediately. Instead, he carefully inspected the area around Old Zhou's lookout. In a corner of the shack, he found a small bundle wrapped in oilcloth. Opening it, he discovered arrowheads Old Zhou had accumulated over the years. Each one was meticulously sharpened and exceptionally well-preserved. The tail of the topmost arrowhead was engraved with a letter—the initial of a name. Lin Mo placed that arrowhead in his pocket. He rewrapped the rest and returned them to their original spot. For the next person who might need them.

**Chapter Type: Crisis Advancement Chapter**

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The wind stopped. The entire valley grew as quiet as if someone had pressed a mute button, leaving only the distant sound of sentries changing guard.

The first refugees appeared on the morning of the third day.

The night wind blew again. This gust was colder than the last, carrying a scent of metal mixed with earth. He tightened the worn, frayed coarse-cloth coat around him—this was given to him by the villagers, much warmer than the T-shirt he wore when he crossed over.

Lin Mo saw them from atop the wall. A dark line on the horizon slowly writhed its way toward Blackstone Village. He raised his binoculars—it was a procession, or rather, something that had once been a procession. About two hundred people, dragging their families along, some carrying bundles on their backs, some leading children by the hand, some pushing wheelbarrows—piled with whatever belongings they had managed to salvage from the ruins.

The person walking at the front, upon seeing Blackstone Village's walls, went weak in the knees and knelt on the ground.

Locke stood beside Lin Mo, silent for a moment. 'People from Willow Village. That direction only leads to Willow Village.'

By the time Wang Defu arrived with the news, the first refugees had already reached the village entrance. Lin Mo noticed there were almost no able-bodied young men in the crowd—mostly the elderly, women, and children. The men had stayed behind as a rearguard, letting them flee first. If a settlement's entire main fighting force stayed behind as rearguard, the likelihood of them returning was slim.

Wang Defu recognized a face in the crowd. A grey-haired woman held a child of about three or four. Her eyes were vacant, a dried trail of blood at the corner of her mouth. Wang Defu called her name. She stared at him for a long while before finally taking a breath, as if surfacing from underwater.

'Gone,' she said. 'Willow Village... is gone.'

That day, people arrived in three separate waves. From Willow Village, from Riverbend Town, and from a northern mining outpost Lin Mo had never heard of, the families of the miners. By evening, Lin Mo had the final tally: five hundred and thirteen people. Blackstone Village originally had only eighty-nine. Overnight, the population had increased nearly sixfold.

More than five hundred mouths to feed. And Blackstone Village's food supplies, calculated at the original consumption rate, could last twenty more days. At the current consumption rate—less than five days.

Lin Mo stood in the Archon's office—that small room with only a table, a chair, and an oil-paper window—with a hastily drawn emergency plan spread out before him. He divided the more than five hundred people into three groups based on labor capacity: those able to work were assigned to production teams; semi-able laborers were responsible for logistics and caring for the elderly and young; non-laborers (the elderly and young children) were centrally housed in the empty buildings at the village's end.

There weren't enough tents. He cleared out all the empty houses, partitioning them with wooden planks into communal bunks. The village's public well required queuing for water—Lin Mo created a schedule, allowing each household one bucket of water every three hours. Everything was barely functioning.

Among the refugees was a special individual. The way he walked up to Lin Mo betrayed his identity—back straight, steps measured, hands hanging naturally at his sides, the standard posture of an Imperial soldier. He said his name was Marcus, that he had served for twelve years, and after retiring three years ago, he had worked as a security chief at a mining outpost on the fringes of the Eastern Star Sector—until the outpost was overrun by orks.

'What about the Empire?' Lin Mo asked.

He silently calculated in his mind: how many days the food reserves would last, how much ammunition had been consumed, how many people were needed for the next patrol. These numbers meshed in his mind like gears, each one linked to three others—change one, and everything had to be recalculated.

Marcus looked at him, his gaze carrying a strange complexity. 'The Empire? There is no Empire here. No Imperial fleet has passed through the Eastern Star Sector for fifteen years. Every planet here is surviving on its own—some a little better, some a little worse, most not surviving at all.'

Lin Mo felt his heart skip a beat. Fifteen years. The Empire had abandoned the Eastern Star Sector far longer than he had imagined. He glanced out the window at the refugees setting up tents—this motley crew of the elderly, women, and children bore the evidence of a forgotten sector.

Marcus said he knew something else. On a planet called Hope Star, there was a derelict Imperial outpost that might still contain functional communication equipment. Lin Mo noted the name. His trust in Marcus lasted only an instant before transforming into a piece of information that had to be verified—but it at least gave him a direction.

A food deficit for over five thousand people, new recruits needing training, the weapons line needing expansion—and if that derelict Imperial outpost could provide any useful information, even just an outdated star chart, it would be a tremendous help. Locke selected about thirty men with combat experience from among the refugees—mostly mine security and militia, a few who had even handled lasguns. Locke's training method was to directly use one-to-one simulated combat drills on the training ground to screen personnel—those who remained after one drill were immediately assigned to combat squads. The communal kitchen overseen by Wang Defu opened. Steam rose from the large pot of thin porridge, each person receiving a bowl. The portions weren't large, but at least no one went to sleep hungry.

Lin Mo stood at the village entrance, watching the refugees warming themselves by the bonfires. More than five hundred people. Reserves that would run out in less than five days. A militia force taking shape. A possible communications station. The occasionally warm octagram pendant in his pocket.

He suddenly wondered: if eighty-nine people in Blackstone Village had truly survived until the 40th day, how long could five hundred people survive? The answer was—as long as they could fight. Fight for as long as they could, and they would live that long. Because in this universe, those who don't fight die the fastest.

A line of text surfaced from the depths of his mind in the darkness: 'Population expansion rate exceeds resource production rate. The gap between supply and demand is widening. The only way to establish a buffer period is to expand the collection radius or accelerate technological tree iteration.' He chose the latter.

*A pendant's chain reflected a glimmer of light under the oil lamp,*

*the path of the light connecting three unmarked points on the star chart.*

*—Lin Mo, the night the octagram pendant was obtained*

Another day ended. The number of days he had spent on this planet was slowly becoming a figure he dared not contemplate in detail. But he was still alive each day—that was enough.

*[For ten years the living and the dead have been far parted;*

*Not thinking of you, yet never forgetting you.*

*A thousand li away lie your lonely grave,*

*nowhere to speak of my desolation.]*

*—Su Shi, 'River Town.' A fragment of memory sealed within the mirror of the emperor, quietly surfacing in the darkness.*

That night, Wang Defu had a dream. In the dream, a voice told him: that outsider was not the first person sent here. Before him, there had been another.