The single cart arrived with a mocking creak, its wobbly wheel seeming ashamed of its cargo. Two regular army soldiers, their faces etched with boredom and disdain, upended it in the center of the penal battalion's muddy compound. What tumbled out was not supplies; it was an insult.
Lin Wei stared at the pile. It was a collection of things the main camp had deemed unfit even for livestock: sacks of grain furred with blue-green mold and seething with weevils, bolts of cloth so rotten they fell apart like wet paper, and a few cracked jars of wine, so spoiled that smelled like vinegar, so pungent it stung the eyes. This was Commander Xin's "provision." The message was clear and brutal: You are less than nothing. Survive if you can. I do not care.
A low, dangerous growl rumbled from Ox Li's chest. The big man's fists were clenched into monstrous knots, his knuckles bone-white.
Sly Liu viciously kicked a mildewed sack, sending a cloud of spores into the twilight air.
"This is for the wounded? This is for us? We're to make bandages from rags that crumble and fill our bellies with maggots?"
[Analysis: Supplies biologically contaminated. Useless for medical or nutritional purposes.]," the system stated, its clinical tone a stark contrast to the simmering rage in the air.
Lin Wei's own arm, the wound from the battle still a tender, fiery line, seemed to throb in sympathy. He looked at the men around him—Ox Li, Sly Liu with his heavily bandaged leg, Scholar Zhang pale but watchful, and the dozens of other wounded soldiers whose eyes were now fixed on him, their fragile hope withering under this calculated neglect. The trust he had barely begun to build was being poisoned.
"They've left us no choice," Lin Wei said, his voice low and steeled, cutting through the angry muttering. "The regular army's storehouses are bursting. We have nothing. They have everything we need to live."
Sly Liu's eyes, always darting, sharpened with a feral, calculating glint. He understood the unspoken command perfectly. "The secondary depot, behind the western horse pens," he murmured, sidling closer like a conspiratorial shadow. "The guards there… their shift change is sloppy. They're more interested in dice and dreaming of home than watching over sacks of cloth after the evening meal."
A plan, desperate and fraught with peril, crystallized in the cold air. It was not a plan of battle, but of survival. A heist.
Under the cloak of a moonless, ink-black night, they moved. Lin Wei was the architect, but Sly Liu was the master of shadows, a phantom leading a hand-picked team of the most mobile and discreet men through the labyrinthine alleys of the vast camp.
Ox Li was their silent, mountainous enforcer, a walking bulwark whose mere presence stifled any thought of betrayal among their own.
Scholar Zhang remained behind, his keen mind already weaving a tapestry of plausible excuses and alibis should their absence be noted.
The depot was as poorly guarded as Liu had promised. The air inside was thick with the rich, life-affirming smells of clean leather, dry grain, and fresh straw. To Lin Wei, it was the scent of hope itself. They worked with a frantic, silent efficiency, their hearts pounding a frantic rhythm against their ribs, every sense stretched to a razor's edge.
They took only the essentials: bolts of sturdy, unbleached cloth, jars of clear, potent wine, a sack of coarse salt, and a small, incredibly precious pot of honey. Each stolen item felt like a brick in a fragile dam holding back despair.
They were on their final return trip, their arms laden with the fruits of their theft, a fragile warmth of success beginning to thaw the cold fear in their chests. It was then that a voice, sharp with authority and malice, lashed out from the darkness.
"You there! Halt! What in the name of heaven do you filthy convicts think you're doing?"
A lantern shutter snapped open, its sudden flare blinding. Behind the glare stood the pinched, sneering face of a man Lin Wei would come to know as Clerk Zhao, the quartermaster's assistant. His expression was a mix of a mild schandenfreude and anger. The game was up. They were caught.