Runan's men had underestimated the villagers. Bad intelligence and the assumption that small places are easily broken had been their undoing. But a second, more cunning attempt was planned. Word leaked that Lord Runan had recruited a band of grave-robbers and tomb-tamers, the kind who pry at old seals for profit. They aimed not to take the newborn nor to raze the village; they wanted the pendant, the Seedbed, something old that could be sold or used to coerce. If you buy the right relic, you can turn a village's luck.
It was a cold morning when the thieves slithered into the old ruin at the ridge—an ancient cache that lay half-buried, covered in lichen and old runes. Shi Hao's scouts had followed signs and reported suspicious footprints. A rescue team assembled: Shi Hao, Shi Yi, Huo Ling'er, Bai'e, and a handful of others who moved like shadows and felt like purpose.
The ruin was not the easy thing the thieves had imagined. Vines rose on command. The Seedbed had whispered to Qingmu in the night and the little one's childish tug had called up a new and unexpected ally: root-spirits that had once guarded the place. They twisted at ankles and wept out seed-silk. Lightless corners sighed and exhaled dust. The robbers' torches sputtered.
A thief reached for a chest—an old carved box that probably contained nothing of value—but an ancient snare triggered. A net of living vines rose and entangled them. Huo Ling'er, who moved like fire, danced through the ruin and used a burst of heat to ignite a small cache of old kindling. Smoke filled the corridor, noxious enough to force the thieves to retreat. Shi Yi, who had always loved pranks that went wrong and sometimes right, slipped past an enraptured guard and freed the bound farmer they had tried to use as a decoy.
It was during the fracas that they found the true horror: one of the thieves wore the sigil of Runan on his sleeve. It changed the feel of the fight from a bandit raid into something political. Someone with resources had instructed them. Shi Hao's face grew hard as a whetstone.
The thieves were driven off. The stolen items mostly recovered, and one of the robbers, captured and bound, confessed his paymaster: a minor envoy of Runan who had been promised gold. The captured man trembled when the elder, in his simple authority, offered him a choice: "Confess and walk with the knowledge of the living or return to master and die with the knowledge of the dead."
He confessed. He was sent away with a warning carved into his cloak: a simple sigil that marked him as someone who had been returned after cruelty. Word travels, and the tale of the ruin raid grew into a quiet legend of how Stone Village could stand when forced into a corner.
Back at the village, gifts were made from the items recovered. A small, harmless charm, previously thought to be an antique, was handed to Granny Cheng who set it near the Seedbed and hummed old songs to it. They celebrated in murmured relief. Qingmu, who had never set a foot inside the ruin, was praised like a hero simply because his small pull on the Seedbed had summoned root-spirits to trip the thieves.
When Lord Runan learned of the fiasco he grumbled and flipped his hands over the jade signet like a man counting coins and finding a bad one. "They will get cleverer," he said at last. "And so shall we."
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