77: Chapter 77 Two Thousand Outsiders, Blackstone Town's First Expansion

An oak chair slammed into the tavern's wooden wall, shattering into three pieces that scattered across the floor.

"Say that again—is Blackstone Town your home?" The burly man with a full beard scrambled up from the floor, his left eye swollen into a slit, blood hanging from the corner of his mouth. The young man opposite him was half a head shorter, clutching the neck of a broken wine bottle. The sharp glass shards glinted coldly under the oil lamp.

"I said—" The young man's voice was as raspy as if rubbed with sandpaper. "My whole family fled from Riverbend Town, and seven people died along the way before we made it here alive. Who the hell are you to say who this place belongs to? What business is it of ours?"

The burly man slammed his fist onto the table, sending bowls and plates jumping and shattering. "The rules of Blackstone Town were set by Lord Lin Mo. Whoever doesn't obey—"

Before he could finish, the young man lunged forward, brandishing the bottle neck.

The bottle neck did not pierce any flesh. An arm like an iron pincer shot in from the side, firmly clamping onto his wrist. The broken bottle was practically ripped straight from his fingers.

Locke tossed the broken bottle into a waste barrel in the corner, pressed one hand on the burly man's shoulder to push him back into his chair, and pointed at the young man with his other hand.

"You two—" His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through all the noise in the tavern. "First thing tomorrow morning, go to the Medical Station to treat your wounds, then go to the square to register and get new work badges. As for your grudge—wait until you've lived in Blackstone Town for three months, and if you're still alive, then settle it."

He scanned the dozen or so people in the tavern who had fallen silent, his tone hardening: "I don't care if you beat each other bloody outside, but once you step inside the walls of Blackstone Town, the rules are the rules."

No one talked back. The burly man sat down sullenly, and the young man stiffened for a few seconds before slamming the remaining glass shard onto the floor and sitting back down as well.

Locke glanced at them and turned to walk out of the tavern. The rain had just stopped, and the dirt road had turned into a quagmire of mud. He stepped through the sludge, crossed the square, and pushed open the door to the Intelligence Center.

Lin Mo sat behind the desk with a blank Imperial requisition report spread out before him. He looked up and scanned Locke's expression. "Fighting again?"

"It's over." Locke wiped the mud from his boots on the threshold and placed the duty logbook on the table. "Newcomers from Riverbend Town and the earliest veterans. It was over a casual remark—saying Blackstone Town belongs to the old-timers, not the newcomers." He paused and flipped to the last page. "Two thousand people."

Lin Mo picked up the logbook, his fingertips grazing the densely packed names. Each name was followed by a number: gender, age, place of origin, skills, and any injuries or illnesses. Locke had never attended school, but his registration records never missed a single detail.

"Two thousand people." Lin Mo put down the logbook. "When did we cross the line?"

"This morning. Three Riverbend Town refugees registered at the same time—number 1,999, 2,000, and 2,001." Locke sat down beside him and tapped his knuckles on the cover of the logbook. "Food rations need to be recalculated."

"Not just food." Lin Mo picked up his pen and drew a vertical line at the top of the blank report. "Water supply rotations need to be rescheduled, patrol routes need to be extended to the new settlement, and the registration process itself needs to be changed. You're registering all the newcomers by yourself right now; how many can you handle in a day at most?"

"Thirty."

"That's not enough. With two thousand people, at least a hundred come and go every day, and you still have to manage the registration—thirty won't cut it." Lin Mo branched five lines off the vertical line, labeling the end of each with a field: Administration, Medical, Production, Defense, Infrastructure.

Locke leaned in to stare at it for a moment, then pointed at the top one, "Administration," and asked, "What are you going to write under this?"

"At least one full-time clerk," Lin Mo said.

"A clerk?"

"Someone to help you register entry and exit lists, write down dispute mediation records, and organize supply requisition forms." Lin Mo wrote a few words under the Administration branch and looked up at him. "Do you think one is enough?"

Locke was silent for four or five seconds. "Three thousand people."

"What?"

"I said—once the population hits three thousand, the one you wrote down won't be able to handle it." He extended two thick fingers and tapped on the remarks column. "At least two, preferably three."

Lin Mo glanced at him without speaking. Locke never participated in planning; he was only accustomed to direct action. But this time, he was right. Lin Mo crossed out "at least one" and changed it to "at least three." The management cost required for two thousand people was double what he had initially estimated.

"These three names—" Lin Mo filled in the names of three Riverbend Town refugees below. "One was an assistant to the local tax officer; they are literate and can handle accounts. The other two, judging by their handwriting on the registration form, have good foundations."

"I'll go verify them." Locke stood up, running the three names through his mind. "And not just their handwriting."

He didn't say "screen" or "vet," but Lin Mo understood. Among two thousand people, how many came seeking medical care, how many came seeking a way to survive, and how many came with other motives—Locke would sort them out in his own way.

"Don't leave yet." Lin Mo called him back. "Have you scouted the terrain around the new settlement?"

"Not yet. Going tonight."

"Running it at night?"

"By day, you watch the people; by night, you watch the traces. During the day, there are too many people and the footprints are chaotic. At night, when things quiet down, newly trodden paths, distant fires—nothing can be hidden."

He didn't wait for Lin Mo's answer, pushed open the door, and walked out into the mud.

The next morning, there were three hand-drawn topographical maps on Lin Mo's desk. In the bottom right corner of each map, the time was scrawled crookedly: the earliest was 2:17 AM, and the latest was 4:43 AM. The three maps covered all the valleys, streams, and abandoned mine tunnels around the new settlement, with every suspicious path circled in charcoal, marked with a note: Someone walked this three times last night.

Lin Mo stacked the three maps together and held them up to the light—the markings matched perfectly. Locke had used three different time slots to confirm the same conclusion: someone was using a small path at night to bypass the guard tower.

"Wang Defu." Lin Mo called out.

Wang Defu poked his head in from the outer room. "Lord Lin Mo."

"Make a copy of these three maps and post them in the Defense Duty Room." Lin Mo handed him the drawings. "Tell the militia on duty that starting tonight, add an overt sentry and a covert sentry on that small path. Let Locke decide who the covert sentry will be."

"Yes." Wang Defu took the drawings, expertly rolled them into a tube, and tied them with twine. He had been in Blackstone Town for over four years, working his way up from an initial laborer to a clerical assistant in the Intelligence Center—he lacked Locke's martial prowess and Alice's Psyker abilities, but he had a skill no one else could match: he remembered the name, background, and family relations of every single person in Blackstone Town. Lin Mo sometimes felt that Wang Defu's brain was the most reliable living archive in Blackstone Town.

"One more thing." Lin Mo handed him the organizational chart. "Make three copies. File one, post one on the bulletin board, and send one to the Medical Station for Alice. If she has any changes to the medical branch section, tell her to come see me directly."

When Wang Defu took the drawings, his gaze lingered on the five branches for a long time, eventually settling on the note under the Administration branch.

"Three copies." He repeated, his voice carrying a heavy solemnity that Lin Mo rarely heard. "Lord Lin Mo, this is the first official management chart in the history of Blackstone Town."

Lin Mo didn't speak, just nodded.

In the fifth week, the outpatient volume at the Medical Station dropped for the first time. It wasn't that fewer people were coming; it was that Alice's diagnosis speed had doubled.

"Did you change your registration process?" Lin Mo asked, standing at the door of the Medical Station.

Alice didn't even look up, the suture needle in her hand moving too fast to see. "I've compressed the injury assessment to under a minute. Everyone reports two things at the door: the site of injury and a pain rating from one to ten. Levels one to three go to the left consulting room to see the apprentice; levels four to seven come to me; anything above level eight goes straight to the emergency bed."

She cut the suture thread and wiped the blood from her hands with a disinfectant cloth before looking up at him. "Why ask about this?"

"Because your method can be used elsewhere," Lin Mo said. "Registration windows, supply requisitions, dispute mediation—all can use tiered triage."

"That's your business." Alice tossed the used instruments into the sterilization pot, her voice indifferent. "I only manage the Medical Station. But I can tell you this—processes alone are useless; you need people who can handle things independently."

Lin Mo leaned against the doorframe. "Do you have any suggestions?"

"I already said it." Alice picked up the next medical record. "Tomorrow, I want an assistant. Not an apprentice—someone who can suture independently and judge infection levels." Her tone was not a request, but a notification. "Find me one from the two thousand people. If you can't find one, I'll continue to cover two shifts by myself until I collapse."

Lin Mo nodded and said nothing more. As he turned to walk out of the Medical Station, his mind had already run through a dozen names, finally stopping on a middle-aged woman from Riverbend Town—Feng Sulan, formerly a volunteer at the local church. She had cared for over a dozen wounded after the war; she had no official medical qualifications, but she had two years of solid, first-line nursing experience.

He paused on the steps and looked back at the Medical Station. Through the half-open window, he could see Alice's back as she bent over to bandage a little girl's arm. Her movements were very gentle, and after she finished bandaging, she didn't let go immediately, her hand resting lightly on the girl's head for two seconds. The girl looked up at her and whispered a thank you.

Alice didn't answer. She took a peppermint candy from her pocket and placed it in the girl's palm. In the instrument tray nearby, four brand-new hemostats were arranged neatly—Old Tom had forged them from scrap metal from the Arsenal, and the precision of the jaws was even higher than the Imperial standard issue.

That peppermint candy was something Lin Mo had brought in his backpack when he transmigrated. Alice had taken a few from his pocket and had been keeping them.

In the evening, Lin Mo passed by the Arsenal and was forced back half a step by a wave of heat that rushed at him.

Old Tom stood in the center of the forging workshop, holding a freshly forged alloy steel rail. The rail body was still glowing with a dark red light, and the white mist rising from the quenching pool, wrapped in heat, blurred the entire workshop.

"Is it done?" Lin Mo walked into the workshop.

"It's done—" Old Tom held the steel rail up to the night lamp, turning it over and over to inspect it, his voice carrying the satisfaction unique to a blacksmith, spoken through gritted teeth. "The cross-sectional hardness is at least one level higher than the Imperial standard. Yang Shitou—bring the hammer!"

Yang Shitou handed over an eight-pound iron hammer. Old Tom took it, placed the steel rail on the anvil, and swung his arm with full force, bringing it down. A dull metallic clang echoed through the workshop—the steel rail didn't budge. There were no shards of the rail on the anvil, only a shallow dent left by the hammer head.

"See that?" Old Tom handed the hammer to Lin Mo. "Give it another go."

Lin Mo took the hammer, weighed it, and struck down with all his might.

It remained motionless.

"This rail can be used as a pillar for the watchtower." Old Tom wiped the quenching oil off the rail surface with his finger. "The original wood and stone structure can't withstand heavy firepower. The battering rams and heavy Bolters you mentioned last time—wood can't hold up for more than a few rounds. It's different with reinforced concrete—use these steel rails for the base, pour concrete on top, and bury a steel mesh in the middle. Forget about battering rams; even small artillery won't be able to blow it down."

"Cost?"

"It's all smelted from scrap iron, slag mixed with recycled metal. The only cost is fuel and man-hours." Old Tom put down the rail and wiped the grease off his hands with his apron. "For the reinforced concrete watchtower blueprints you gave me, it will take two months to renovate the four corner towers of the main city wall first."

"Is there enough manpower?"

"Not enough." Old Tom raised his head, his cloudy eyes looking straight at him. "But whether there is enough is your problem. I only care about building—you provide the manpower, and I'll provide the goods. If you don't provide enough, I'll pry it loose by myself. Or you can give me a few apprentices I can teach. Literacy is best, but if they are illiterate, that's fine too, as long as they are willing to put in the effort."

Lin Mo looked at Old Tom's rough hands, covered in white burn spots—the proof of fifty years standing before the anvil.

For fifty years, everything he forged was usable; no substandard parts ever left this workshop.

"I'll give you three people," Lin Mo said. "They'll report tomorrow morning."

Old Tom didn't say thank you.

He just turned and walked back to the quenching pool, stirring the iron slag floating on the water surface with a colander, as if talking to himself: "One more furnace."

Rainwater dripped from the tin roof into the bucket by the furnace, one drop after another, interweaving with the rhythm of the forging hammer, like the heartbeat of this planet forgotten by the Empire, beating alone in the dark night.

The chaos attention level jumped from seventy-five to eighty.

Lin Mo sat alone in the Intelligence Center for a long time.

He knew this wasn't because he had done any specific thing—chaos never perceived the power of a single person, but the birth of an order.

In this forgotten corner of the Empire's frontier, a society that could function on its own without instructions from Terra was taking shape.

A scale of two thousand people was not large, but among those two thousand were blacksmiths, doctors, sentries, and clerks; everyone had found their place.

This ability for self-organization, in the eyes of chaos, was a more intolerable threat than any Psyker.

The updated organizational chart was spread out before him.

There were five branches, each with the person in charge and reporting relationships marked.

The note for the administrative branch had been changed to "at least three full-time clerks," and the names of those three refugees from Riverbend Town had been filled in the name column.

Lin Mo picked up a pen and added a line of text in the blank space at the bottom of the blueprint. The handwriting was much sloppier than the neat organizational chart above, like a reminder written to himself in the middle of the night:

"A system can be designed perfectly, but what keeps it alive is never the blueprint. It is the people who don't slack off during every night shift. Behind every name is a person, and every person deserves to be placed in the right position."

He didn't erase this line.

On the wall of the Intelligence Center hung the map of the Eastern Star Sector.

The edges of the canvas were frayed, and there were cracks along the seams, but the lines and coordinates marked on it were increasing, as if this planet was being filled into this map inch by inch.

Lin Mo closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Outside the window was the sound of rain, and the steady, unhurried sound of the steam forging hammer in the distant Arsenal—thump, thump, thump.

He opened his eyes and looked at the small dot on the map where Blackstone Town was located.

Five years ago, this dot didn't exist.

Now, it was surrounded by three new settlements, an Arsenal with steadily increasing daily output, a Medical Station that treated dozens of people every day, a communication relay station pieced together from scrap iron—and a group of two thousand people who were shifting from "wanting to survive" to "wanting to live better."

He wouldn't say it out loud, but he vaguely felt that this dead, silent planet was being awakened.

He closed the folder, turned off the lights, and walked out of the Intelligence Center.

It was raining again outside, and the "Broken Dawn" flag in the square was soaked with rain, hanging heavily against the flagpole.

But at the end of the road, the window of the Medical Station was still lit.

Through the oiled paper window panes, one could see a blurry silhouette, head bowed, cleaning a scalpel in front of an instrument tray.

Lin Mo stood in the rain for a while watching the silhouette, but didn't walk over.

He turned and walked towards the Arsenal—Old Tom said he was going to trial-produce the first batch of alloy steel rails tonight.

Halfway there, rapid footsteps came from behind.

Someone was running in the rain to catch up with him.

Lin Mo stopped and turned around.

It was Yang Shitou, wearing an oilcloth cloak, clutching a soaked envelope in his hand.

His expression was unclear in the rain, but his voice was tight.

"Lord Lin Mo—a signal from Terra."

Lin Mo took the envelope.

Rainwater dripped down the corners of the kraft paper; the envelope was sealed with three layers of wax.

The outermost layer was the eagle of the Imperial Administration; the middle layer was one he had never seen in any public Imperial documents; the innermost layer had only a single letter.

J.

Lin Mo stared at the letter for a few seconds.

"When was it received?"

"An hour ago. Wang Laosi at the communication relay station said this signal was forcibly cut in. It doesn't look like a normal bulletin, more like—" Yang Shitou wiped the rain from his face, weighing his words, "like someone specifically locked onto our frequency and sent it individually."

"Encryption method?"

"Imperial military channel." Yang Shitou's voice lowered even more. "But we don't have authorization for the Imperial military channel."

This sentence meant two possibilities: either the signal was fake, and someone was impersonating the Imperial military, or the signal was real—but the sender possessed the authority to bypass all standard authorization procedures.

Lin Mo put the letter into a waterproof file bag; he didn't open it in the rain.

"Back to the Intelligence Center," he said. "Call Locke over too. Also, only you and I know about this for now. Don't let a third person know."

"Understood." Yang Shitou turned and ran into the rain.

Lin Mo stood in place, rainwater streaming down his collar.

He held the waterproof file bag, feeling the slightly curved weight of the envelope.

It was just a piece of paper, yet it was sealed with three layers of wax, two of which bore emblems he had never seen after scouring all the records.

He crossed the muddy square towards the Arsenal.

The rain was getting heavier, but his steps did not stop.

The door of the Arsenal was ajar.

He pushed it open and was surrounded by the familiar scent of rust and coal.

This was the smell he had lived with on this planet for nearly five years; he no longer found it pungent.

Here, this scent meant someone was building things, someone was repairing things, and someone was rushing out the next batch of urgently needed parts before dawn.

It was the scent of the future, created by a thousand ordinary people in a universe with no future.

Old Tom held up a piece of alloy steel rail that had just come out of the quenching pool under the night light, looked at it again and again, then put it down, rubbed his hands together, and said to the empty doorway: "Tell Lord Lin Mo that the first batch of rails can be put on the watchtower the day after tomorrow."

"I'm right here," Lin Mo said.

Old Tom turned around, stunned for a moment.

Rainwater dripped from Lin Mo's hair onto the workshop floor, mixing with the puddles of quenching liquid.

Old Tom's gaze swept over the slightly bulging waterproof file bag in his arms, but he didn't ask anything.

"Fine," he simply said. "Then I don't need to make Yang Shitou run a trip. The day after tomorrow, the first corner tower."

Lin Mo nodded.

He turned and walked out of the workshop, stood under the rain canopy of the Arsenal, and looked up at the night sky, tightly covered by dark clouds.

There was nothing in the direction of the Warp in the distance, but he knew that something was changing course.

Two thousand people gathered in a place without an Imperial permit, some seeing patients, some forging iron, and some standing guard in the rainy night.

—Lin Mo, patrol notes on the day Blackstone Town's population exceeded two thousand.

"There is a true meaning in this, but I have forgotten the words to express it."

—Tao Yuanming, "Drinking Wine." Memory fragments sealed within the mirror of the emperor, quietly emerging in the darkness.

Deep in the star sea.

A golden ship was sailing silently in the Warp.

The bridge was dim and cold, and the bulkheads were engraved with the ancient emblems of the Imperial military department.

The figure standing in the center of the bridge wore full-body golden armor, his face not visible.

He was watching the coordinate data flashing on the screen—the Empire's deep space tracking system was comparing the characteristic waveform of a Psyker signal in real time.

A line of comparison results popped up on the screen.

Gene signature match rate: 97.3%.

The figure stared at the screen without moving.

The deck behind him was dead silent; everyone was waiting.

"Change course." The voice was cold, without a trace of warmth, like metal scraping across bone. "We are going to find him."

No one on the bridge asked any questions.

Everyone knew that once this voice spoke, it accepted no questions.

The navigator's fingers danced rapidly across the control panel.

The massive golden hull abruptly shifted its course by seventeen degrees in the Warp, pointing directly at that frontier planet that wasn't even marked on the Imperial star map.

On the same night, Lin Mo locked the three-layered wax-sealed letter into the safe in the Intelligence Center.

He didn't open it.

But he knew one thing: everything he had built on this planet was being watched by a pair of distant, unknown eyes.

He stood in the pitch-black rainy night for a moment, then walked out of the Intelligence Center and headed straight into the rain.

The rain hitting his face was cold, but he always felt that the envelope tucked in his arms was scalding hot.

"Reminder from the mirror of the emperor: A name you have never seen—but with whom you share the same gene seed—is locking onto your coordinates. There are only three standard Federation days left."

He didn't stop his steps.

He had survived on this planet.

He had made two thousand other people survive as well.

And in that letter he hadn't opened yet, the next answer was waiting for him.