65: Chapter 65 Cracks

When Lin Mo returned to Blackstone Town from the base front lines, Yang Shitou was waiting for him at the door of the Archon's office. Yang Shitou's expression was not the silent young man Lin Mo was familiar with—his brows were furrowed, and he was clutching a report filled with people's names.

The report concerned a shortage of logistical supplies. It wasn't a production issue; it was a distribution problem. While inspecting the warehouse, Yang Shitou discovered that a batch of improved coagulants and emergency rations meant for front-line soldiers had been intercepted—not by an outsider, but by a veteran in the logistics team, someone who had lived in Blackstone Town since its village days, someone who had fought orcs alongside Locke, and who had worked in Blackstone Town longer than Yang Shitou's entire service time.

The veteran's reason for intercepting the supplies was simple—his younger brother was on the front lines, and he wanted to save an extra portion for him.

Lin Mo sat in the Archon's office with the report spread out before him. Locke stood at the door, having finished listening to Yang Shitou's statement. Locke's expression shifted from anger to silence, and then he asked, "Which unit is his brother in?"

Yang Shitou gave a designation. That unit had borne the brunt of the direct attack during the psychic counterattack a few days ago, suffering significant casualties.

Locke said nothing more.

Lin Mo sat in the Archon's office for a long time. He wrote down a plan on paper—following the principle of the "Third Way," public punishment was necessary because equal rules had to apply to everyone. But his pen paused on the paper for a long time. The disciplinary plan he eventually wrote was: the veteran needed to publicly return the intercepted supplies and accept a formal written warning in front of everyone. However, he would retain his position in the logistics team—because his work ability was not an issue, and aside from the intercepted supplies, he had not touched anything else outside his jurisdiction.

After reading the disciplinary result, Locke said nothing. Yang Shitou wanted to say something but hesitated. After writing those lines, Lin Mo put down his pen—he realized that he had neither fully followed "discipline" nor fully followed "human sentiment." He had chosen a middle path. He did not know if this path was the right one to take.

"Uncertain." Lin Mo didn't turn his head, "But moving forward is always better than waiting for death."

On the day the disciplinary result was announced, there weren't many people standing in the square of Blackstone Town, but there were enough. The veteran returned the supplies and stood there listening to the written warning. No one applauded, and no one objected. After the crowd dispersed, outside the window of the Intelligence Center, Yang Shitou stood in the square for a while, then turned and walked into the warehouse to continue counting the next batch of supplies. Locke smoked a cigarette at the entrance of the Arsenal, saying nothing.

A veteran who had fought orcs alongside Locke had taken an extra portion of rations from the logistics warehouse for his younger brother.

When Yang Shitou's report was placed on Lin Mo's desk, it was already evening. Lin Mo did not process it immediately after reading it. He stood up and walked to the window, watching the shadow of the old locust tree in the square stretch out in the setting sun. The veteran who had intercepted the supplies—he knew that man. When Blackstone Village upgraded to a town, that man was one of the first to join the garrison, and he had fought several hard battles alongside Locke. His brother was on the front lines, and he had intercepted the supplies to give his brother an extra chance at survival. Lin Mo could understand the motive, but he could not tolerate the action.

He wrote three versions of the disciplinary plan. The first version was too soft—just a public criticism, but he felt this would make discipline a mere formality. The second version was too harsh—dismissal and confinement, but he knew that for that veteran, dismissal was crueler than killing him. The third version—he wrote a few words on the paper, crossed them out, and repeated this several times before finalizing it. Public warning, retain position, return intercepted supplies. Three lines of text. It wasn't the most perfect plan—but at this stage, it was the most balanced point he could find between maintaining discipline and not destroying a person.

After the disciplinary plan was determined, he did not have Yang Shitou execute it immediately. He told him to post the notice after dawn the next day. He left that night for the veteran—giving him one night to face his family at home. When Lin Mo came to the notice board the next morning to post the final decision, the veteran was standing at the door watching him post it. Their eyes met for a brief moment in the morning light. The veteran did not come up to plead or defend himself; he just looked at Lin Mo, then lowered his head and turned to walk into the house. Lin Mo finished posting the notice. Fairness was sometimes like this—not everyone would be satisfied, but everyone knew that the rules had not bent because of different people.

After the notice was posted, no one stopped in front of the bulletin board all day. It wasn't that no one passed by—it was that everyone who passed by took a glance and then continued on their own way. That silence contained something complex: everyone knew that the person had done something wrong, and they all knew why that thing had been done wrong. No one agreed with his actions, but no one was in a hurry to condemn him. The silence itself was a form of understanding, a form of decency within the community.

"Follow the map, three days."

Locke believed in one thing: there are no perfect plans on the battlefield, only perfect habits. Therefore, the way he trained new recruits was not to teach them how to execute tactics, but to make their bodies remember what to do even when they were too tired to think. Changing magazines, crawling forward, judging cover—these actions had to be practiced until they could be performed without thinking. Because Chaos would not wait for you to be ready before attacking. They would appear at the moment you were most exhausted, most relaxed, and most wanted to give up. What Locke wanted to ensure was—when that moment arrived, every person in Blackstone Town would have a body that was faster than their brain.

No hesitation.

Self-governance is not a piece of paper—

Self-governance is what a person does when no one is watching them,

— — Lin Mo, Thoughts after the Self-governance Discussion Meeting

At the morning meeting that day, Lin Mo proposed a suggestion that made everyone go quiet—establishing the first school in Blackstone Town. It wasn't the kind that taught reading, writing, and arithmetic—it was a training system that taught survival skills, basic tactics, and Imperial knowledge. Every townsperson over the age of fourteen had to undergo a one-month basic training, covering shooting, first aid, fortification construction, and identifying Chaos markers.

Wang Defu was the first to express his support. His reason was simple: "People who farm cannot only know how to farm—the orcs won't care if you are in the middle of sowing seeds when they arrive."

Locke was responsible for military courses. Alice was responsible for first aid courses. Old Tom was responsible for fortification construction courses. Identifying Chaos markers was taught by Lin Mo himself—because the mirror of the emperor database in his mind was the most reliable source of Chaos knowledge in Blackstone Town at present.

The first class began the next day. Lin Mo stood in front of the makeshift podium, looking at the dozens of pairs of eyes below—some old, some young, some anxious, some indifferent. The first sentence he spoke was not "Welcome"—it was, "Starting from today, every single person is the defensive line of Blackstone Town."

The first training session in Blackstone Town ended two weeks later. There was no ceremony on the day of graduation—Locke said one sentence to everyone on the training ground: "What you know now is only enough to live three more minutes on the battlefield. What you need to learn next is how to make those three minutes useful." The new recruits did not applaud, but everyone's expression had changed—from fear to vigilance. Fear is not knowing what will happen; vigilance is knowing what will happen but not being ready yet. From fear to vigilance is the first step in a soldier's growth. Locke looked at those changing faces and gave them an evaluation in his heart: passing. Not good enough, but passing. In the warhammer 40k universe, passing means you have a chance to survive.

The first school in Blackstone Town found a pragmatic path between wish and reality: it didn't teach "knowledge"—it taught "the skills to survive."

The first batch of students totaled forty-seven people. Their ages ranged from fourteen to thirty-five—in Blackstone Town, thirty-five was already considered "middle-aged," but Lin Mo insisted on not letting age become a limitation: "If a thirty-five-year-old is willing to learn, we are willing to teach. The skills to survive do not distinguish by age."

Locke was responsible for teaching combat. His course was extremely simple and direct: how to use anything at hand as a weapon, how to bandage yourself after being injured, how to judge when to run and when to fight. He did not teach "how to win"—because on the frontier, survival itself often meant "not losing."

Alice was responsible for teaching first aid. Her course was the quietest of all courses—no shouting, no action demonstrations, only her low-voiced explanations of human anatomy, wound classification, and pharmaceutical knowledge. But the quietest class was often the one the students remembered the most firmly. Because everyone knew: in battle, someone who couldn't perform first aid was a burden to their teammates.

Old Tom was responsible for teaching fortification construction. His course was the "dirtiest" of all: students had to personally mix mud, carry bricks, and stand in the scorching sun for several hours learning how to build a wall that wouldn't collapse. When Old Tom taught this course, he said a sentence that was later repeatedly quoted by Blackstone Town historians: "The wall won't protect you. You protect yourself. The wall just gives you something to lean on while you protect yourself."

Lin Mo personally taught "Chaos Identification." The content of this course was provided to him by the mirror of the emperor: the various forms of Chaos, methods of infiltration, and identification markers. When he taught this course, he would write the same line on the blackboard every time: "The most terrifying thing about Chaos is not its power. It is that it makes you think, 'I can also possess power.'" That line was copied by the students on the first page of their notebooks.

"The world is but a great dream; how many times in life does the autumn chill return?" — Su Shi, "Xi Jiang Yue." Fragments of memory sealed within the mirror of the emperor emerged quietly in the darkness.

Late that night, after the disciplinary document was archived, someone secretly slid a note under the door of Lin Mo's office. There was no signature on it, only one line: "The child whose supplies he intercepted is Wang Defu's grandson." After reading it, Lin Mo burned the note. He would deal with it when day broke.