Dawn came like a sharpened blade. The camp stirred before the first light: shackles clacked, sleepy curses passed between men, the daily litany of exhaustion resumed. He rose with the laborers, but there was a difference in his gait—a purpose quietly nested beneath the weight.
Zhang Yong—his summoned soldier—stood by, not as a slave but as a soldier. At first he had kept his head down, performing tasks assigned to anyone in his makeshift charge—but now he moved with efficient economy. When the overseers barked for another line to carry stone, Zhang stepped into the path, intercepting a blow that would have fallen on a younger laborer. The action was small, but action crystallizes trust faster than rhetoric.
"You have some bite," Zhang offered later, while they circled the edge of the camp to scavenge water. "Where did you learn to command?"
He almost answered honestly: in modern classrooms, in textbooks, in video lectures on tactics and logistics. But such knowledge meant little without resources. Instead he said, "Everywhere and nowhere. Nowhere that matters here."
Zhang studied him. "We need shelter—some place the overseers don't check every hour."
They found a shallow outcrop of earth beyond the latrine piles where a narrow shadow hid. It was scarcely more than a recess in the slope—too small for more than two men to crouch in—but it would do. He spent the afternoon nursing blistered hands and watching men work, using the system when it whispered: a suggestion for stacking stones that saved time, a micro-adjustment to the way a lever was angled that reduced strain. Subtle things that passed as dumb luck to others but which added up to moments of breath.
Small acts of competence drew attention. A middling sergeant watched him reposition a log in the hauling team and asked a pointed question later. "You a soldier? Where'd you train?"
"Never trained," he said. "Just worked with tools." The sergeant shrugged and walked away; suspicion in this place often led to death, but interest could lead to assignment and, more dangerously, to patronage.
That evening he tried a risky idea. With Zhang's help, he convinced two other weary laborers to hide behind the outcrop and pretend to hang back in line. When the overseer's patrol glanced their way, they feigned exhaustion. The ploy worked; the patrolling guard moved on, believing the trio had merely collapsed. For the first time in days, the three of them had a private space to rest, to clean hands, to share secrets.
"Keep it small," Zhang murmured. "One hiding place. One plan at a time."
He nodded. The system pulsed, delivering a small reward for ingenuity: a list of basic drill commands, schematics for a crude spear from scavenged iron, and a notation: [Unlock: Discreet Recruitment]. The panel suggested names, ranks, and a method for binding loyalty that would not attract immediate reprisals if done carefully.
He thought of the dozens of broken men around the camp and felt something rise behind his ribs—possibility. If he could slowly gather a handful of trusted fighters, if he could train them out of sight and with stealth, they might stake out protection for the weak and gather more men. It would be slow; every recruit increased risk. But the alternative was extinction.
That night, the three-man refuge hummed with quiet conversation: the spy of rumor, the barter of food portions, whispers of families. A thin thread of camaraderie was forming—something human in a place designed to strip humanity bare. He lay awake, listening to the camp's distant moans, and felt the fragile architecture of loyalty start to form.
Outside, torches flickered. Guards laughed and drank. Inside, a slave with a soldier and two companions dreamed of a single gate: not one in stone, but one in men. If he could inch the gate open, he would. If he could tighten the circle, he would protect the weak. If he could bind loyalty by example rather than force, he might someday walk free from the shackle at his ankle.
The Great Wall rose behind him, monstrous and indifferent. Yet beneath its shadow, a small flame kindled—a furtive spark that might someday be fanned into something more terrible.
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