The morning of the fifth day arrived with a grim, grey sky that promised a cold drizzle. The mood in the Yang Clan estate matched the weather. A tense, funeral-like quiet had settled over the entire compound.
Yang Kai watched from the shadow of his doorway, a ghost observing his own family's wake. In the main courtyard, the clan's leadership had gathered. Patriarch Yang Kun stood at the forefront, his face a mask of stone. Beside him, his brothers—his own father, Yang Zhan, and his hot-headed Third Uncle, Yang Lei—looked like cornered animals, their hands resting on the hilts of their weapons. The few remaining clan elders stood behind them, their faces grim.
A small, sad-looking pile of goods was assembled at their feet. A few mangy-looking beast pelts, likely from the Feng Clan's leftover stock, bought at an exorbitant price. A dozen sacks of grain, probably the last of their personal stores. And a small, heavily-wrapped crate that he guessed contained the last of their refined iron—scraps, really, compared to the Tie Clan's offering.
This is it, he thought, a cold, analytical part of his mind assessing the scene. The sum total of the Yang Clan's dignity, laid bare for the whole town to see.
His mother, Madam Liu, stood slightly apart from the men, her arms crossed. Her face was a canvas of barely-suppressed fury. She wore a simple, dark-crimson robe today, devoid of her usual flair, but the anger radiating from her was more eye-catching than any silk or jade. He watched her. Even in her fury, the magnificent swell of her breasts and the proud curve of her hips were a statement of power she could not conceal. She wasn't just watching the proceedings; she was enduring them, and he knew she was already calculating how to turn this humiliation to her advantage.
He stayed hidden. This was a spectacle of shame, and his presence would only deepen it.
The great wooden gates of the estate groaned open. On the other side stood a contingent of the Governor's men, their black iron armor a stark, intimidating contrast to the Yang Clan's faded colors. At their lead was a man whose presence was a physical pressure, even from a distance. Peak Stage 3: Stellar Reforging Realm.
He remembered the name from whispers in the library scrolls. Captain Wei Jin. The Governor's dog of war, a man whose reputation for brutality was whispered throughout the Dregs.
Patriarch Yang Kun, watched Wei Jin stride into his courtyard, his iron-soled boots ringing on the flagstones, each step a hammer blow against the Yang Clan's pride. He kept his own face a mask of stone, his hands clasped behind his back to keep them from clenching into fists. He was the Patriarch. He had to be the rock upon which his clan's wavering spirit rested, even if he felt like crumbling to sand himself.
Wei Jin did not even glance at him. The disrespect was a deliberate, calculated insult. The Captain's eyes, cold and dismissive, swept over the pathetic pile of tribute. A contemptuous smirk touched his lips.
"Is this all?" Wei Jin asked, his voice loud enough for every servant and disciple watching from the sidelines to hear. "The great Yang Clan, one of the founding pillars of Fallingstar, offers the Governor little more than beggar's scraps?"
Yang Kun felt his brother, Zhan, take a step forward, his hand tightening on his sword. He sent a silent pulse of his will, a subtle pressure warning his brother to be still. To draw a blade now would be suicide.
"The Yang Clan pays its due, Captain," he said, his own voice a low, even rumble, betraying none of the fury that churned in his gut. "Take it and be gone."
Wei Jin's smirk widened. He slowly walked over to the tribute pile. He nudged one of the grain sacks with the toe of his boot, and a small trickle of grain spilled out onto the stone. A waste. A final insult. He then nudged the crate of iron.
"Scraps," he repeated, his voice soft now, and all the more insulting for it. He turned his gaze to meet Yang Kun's. "The Governor is a patient man, Patriarch Yang. But his patience is not infinite. He expected… more."
Yang Kun's jaw worked, a muscle pulsing in his cheek. "This is what we have."
"Indeed." Wei Jin's eyes glinted with a predatory light. He gestured to his men. "Take it. And deliver a message to the Governor. Tell him the Yang Clan's sincerity is… noted."
As the soldiers moved forward, grabbing the sacks and the crate with a theatrical roughness, Wei Jin paused. His gaze swept over the gathered Yang Clan members, lingering for a moment on the furious face of Madam Liu.
"Ah," he said, a look of mock realization on his face. "There is one more thing. A matter of… public works."
He pulled a scroll from his belt. "By the Governor's decree, the Dregs district is to be cleared to make way for a new granary. The residents are to be relocated. The labor, of course, must be provided by the clans as a show of civic duty."
He unrolled the scroll. "The Yang Clan's quota is ten laborers. Unskilled. To begin work tomorrow at dawn."
Yang Kun felt the blood drain from his face. It was a crippling blow disguised as a civic request. He was requisitioning their mortal servants, their farmers, the very people who kept the estate from collapsing completely.
"You go too far, Wei Jin!" his youngest brother, Yang Lei, roared, his face crimson with rage.
Wei Jin simply smiled. "It is the Governor's will. And the law." He casually tossed the scroll onto the ground at Yang Kun's feet. "See that it is done."
With a final, insolent smirk, he turned and strode from the courtyard, his men following in his wake. The gates boomed shut, leaving them standing in stunned, humiliated silence. The scroll lay in the dust between them, an edict of their own subjugation.
Yang Kai, watched from the shadows as the aftermath erupted, a storm of impotent fury.
His father, Yang Zhan, kicked the discarded scroll, sending it skittering across the flagstones. "That bastard! He's trying to gut us from the inside out! Our servants are the only thing keeping the farmlands from turning to dust!"
"It is a clear provocation," the Patriarch said, his voice a low rumble of thunder. "He wants us to refuse. He wants a reason to bring the full weight of Imperial Law down upon us."
A brilliant, vicious move, Yang Kai thought, his mind cold and clear. The Governor wasn't just taking their resources; he was taking their means of production. It was a masterful, brutal checkmate.
"We can't give him ten of our people!" Yang Lei protested. "Who will we send?"
An ugly silence fell over the courtyard. The disciples and servants who had been watching now looked at each other with fear in their eyes. Who would be chosen?
It was his mother who spoke, her voice cutting through the tension like a shard of glass. She had walked over and picked up the scroll, her expression unreadable.
"The decree calls for ten unskilled laborers," she said, her eyes scanning the text. "It does not specify they must be from our farmlands." Her gaze lifted from the scroll and swept over the courtyard, finally landing on the dark alleyways of the Dregs, the district that pressed right up against the southern wall of their own estate. The home of the clanless. The Stray Dogs.
"The Dregs are full of desperate, hungry people," she said softly. "Strong backs with no allegiances. A few copper coins, a promise of a full meal… I imagine ten laborers could be found quite easily."
A murmur of agreement went through the clan members. It was a cruel solution, but a practical one. They would pass their burden onto those even weaker than themselves.
But the Patriarch shook his head, his face grim. "The Governor is not a fool. The decree is for the Yang Clan to provide labor. If we hire mercenaries or beggars, he will see it as defiance. He will use it against us."
Madam Liu's lips thinned into a frustrated line. He was right, of course. The Governor had closed every loophole.
It was in that moment of deadlocked desperation that Yang Kai saw it. A crack. A tiny, almost invisible flaw in the Governor's perfect plan. The decree called for unskilled laborers. It was meant to target their mortal servants. But it didn't say the laborers had to be mortal.
He took a step out of the shadows.
Every eye in the courtyard snapped to him. His sudden movement was a shock, the ghost finally showing itself. He could feel his mother's glare, a physical heat on his skin. He ignored it.
He walked forward, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm, and stopped before his uncle, the Patriarch. He bowed his head, his voice coming out as a reedy, unfamiliar squeak.
"Patriarch."
Yang Kun stared at him, his expression one of weary confusion. "Kai. Nephew. You should be resting."
"I can work," Yang Kai said, the words tumbling out before he could lose his nerve. He looked at his own hands, soft and uncalloused. "I am… unskilled. And I am of the Yang Clan."
He looked up, meeting his uncle's gaze. "I will be one of the ten."
A stunned silence descended upon the courtyard. His father, Yang Zhan, looked at him as if he'd grown a second head. His mother's eyes widened in disbelief, her mask of cold fury cracking for the first time.
To them, it was the rambling of a fool. The son of the Second House, a young master, volunteering for manual labor alongside commoners? It was unthinkable. It was another layer of shame.
But Yang Kai saw something else.
He saw an opportunity. An excuse to leave the suffocating confines of the clan estate. A chance to see the town, to learn its layout, to listen to its whispers. A way to get close to the Governor's operations without raising suspicion.
And most importantly… a way to make himself useful. To turn his greatest weakness—his lack of cultivation—into a qualification.
The Governor wanted ten unskilled laborers from the Yang Clan.
He was the most unskilled man they had.