The sun declined slower than it should have, as if the sky itself hesitated to allow night. His muscles burned with effort; sweat salted his eyes and stung his wounds. Each stone felt heavier than the last, as though the earth itself meant to bury him alive.
Around him, the line of laborers moved like a long, ragged river up the ramp toward the Great Wall. Overseers walked along the line, their eyes cold, their whips sharp. Men who lagged were struck without ceremony. A grunt from some collapsed figure would ripple through the line and then stop; those nearest would force themselves forward with animal determination.
He kept a slow, steady breath, counting silently—one step, two steps—until the pattern became rhythm: shoulder, lift, step, climb. The system's message looped in his mind like a stubborn drumbeat.
[Unlock Condition: Survive Until Nightfall]
Nightfall. It sounded simple until he remembered what night meant here: the small chance of food, the brief dark shroud that hid the overseers' watchful faces for a moment, the time to nurse wounds and rest. It also meant being alive to see the next day.
Around midday, the heat flattened him. He almost dropped his stone; his vision blurred at the edges. A man behind him swore and shoved the stone into his hands. "Hold it! Don't be a coward!"
He clenched his teeth and forced the weight back up. The chain on his ankle jingled, a cruel bell of reminder. He had only the fragmentary memory of the original host—an ordinary modern man, someone who knew the history of Qin in classrooms and documentaries. That knowledge felt obscene now; it did not fill his belly, did not heal his twisted blistered palms.
A young laborer ahead of him stumbled, his knees buckling beneath the weight. The overseer lashed out. The cracked thong of leather cracked again and again; the boy's face screwed up, then went still. Two guards dragged him away. No one moved to help. A faint, sick sensation of unreality crawled up his spine—he was among the living dead here.
He kept moving.
When the call finally came to set stones aside, a low cheer went round. Men who had not collapsed straightened, their faces hushed. He staggered toward the makeshift barracks where a slop of gruel waited. He'd expected it to be worse, but hunger is a measured thing; for now, it would do.
He sank beside a hollow-eyed man who had worked beside him all day. "You made it," the man rasped.
"I did," he said. The voice sounded foreign.
A chime sounded in his head, sudden and clean. He had come to expect the system's quiet interventions; they were like a life-preserving hand in a river. A translucent panel shimmered into view for his private sight.
[Condition Met: Survive Until Nightfall]
[Starter Reward Unlocked — Summoning: Low-Tier Soldier ×1]
[Deploy Now? — Yes / No]
Hope, long bottled, surged against his ribs. A soldier. The concept felt ludicrous and raw. He had no authority here, no uniform, no rank—but the system gave what it gave. Like a man given a single match in a house of straw, he understood the stakes.
He accepted.
The air beside him rippled. Light twisted and coalesced. A figure took shape: young, lean, expression unreadable but steady. The summoned soldier kneeled, head bowed.
"Commander," the man said. The single word hit him with a force he'd never expected. In a camp of slaves, he had become something other than a number.
He looked at the soldier's hands—callused, well-practiced in spearwork. He looked at his own hands and saw potential reflected back like a promise. If he could keep this one man alive, if he could preserve this thread that the system had offered, then perhaps he could weave more.
Night draped the camp in a thin shawl of grey. Small fires dotted the area while guards flicked torches across paths. He fed the soldier from his meager bowl. The man ate ravenously, and when he looked up there was an assessment in his eyes—appraisal, not awe.
"You'll need a name," the soldier said softly.
"Li Wei," he lied without thinking. The name came to his mouth like a safe harbor, though he had no right to it. The soldier nodded.
"Li Wei," he echoed. "I am Zhang Yong. I don't answer to the overseers. I answer to you."
He swallowed, feeling the gravity of the promise. A slave in chains, yet in the fold of night he held an army's seed. The future would be nothing but peril and hunger and cunning, but for the first time since waking in this hell, he slept with more than fear gnawing at him. He slept with a plan forming around a single soldier, in a world where even the smallest advantage could turn an existence into a destiny.
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