Tension in the camp grew like a living thing. Their small cell added stealthy comforts—extra food, secret water, brief moments of training—but it also added risk. Rumors trickled in: a new inspector would pass through the area in ten days. Inspectors meant checks, and checks could unearth their hidden stockpiles or notice strange coordination among laborers.
They decided to flatten their profile. No more overt kindnesses, at least for a while. Yet fate rarely respects plans. One afternoon, as they shifted stones, a hulking sergeant with a hawk nose began to shadow their hauling line. He watched them for hours, eyes picking up patterns. Hu felt his skin crawl. "We must be careful," he whispered. "We've been noticed."
That night, to throw off suspicion, they staged a minor quarrel during the line—pretend anger, loud words, a blow that resulted in an overseer punishing Hu. The punishment was a pretense; they timed it so the overseer would see and assume Hu was nothing but a troublemaker. The ruse worked: the sergeant sneered, satisfied.
But luck has a way of reversing itself. While the sergeant's attention shifted elsewhere, a supply wagon rumbled in from the western track—more grain, supposedly for the next week's labor. As the wagon passed, a farmer from a nearby hamlet recognized one of the faces on the wagon as a man he had seen stolen by a band of soldiers months earlier. He raised an alarm. The camp's routine snapped into a rougher pattern: sentries increased their walks, torches were lit earlier, the overseers tightened their inspections.
The next morning the sergeant went through the line with a new severity. He pried open sacks. He inspected fingers for dirt patterns, searched under shirts for hidden tools. The stolen grain had not come from their camp, but the sergeant's fury fed a search for irregularities anyway. He lingered near their outcrop that afternoon.
While the sergeant snooped, a child laborer—one they had helped weeks prior—was grabbed for failing to keep pace. The overseer lashed him until the child hiccupped. The sergeant seemed satisfied, and the camp's order resumed, but Hu's face had gone pale.
That night, the men planned an escape—not from the camp as a whole, which was suicide—but a temporary removal of the child's presence during a sudden headcount. They'd create a distraction at the latrine while Zhang created a false trail to the far side of camp. It was audacious and dangerous. The system hummed faintly in his head, advising caution.
The plan barely held. A drunken guard stumbled across Zhang's created trail and peered into the hedges where they'd concealed the child. Heart pounding, Zhang whispered a story in the guard's ear about a fight in another line. The guard, itching for entertainment, swaggered off. The ruse worked. They moved the child to the outcrop while the latrine quarrel drew attention.
Just as relief flooded them, a shout cut the night: "Intruder! Someone at the outer fence!" Torches bobbed and men rushed. Their little refuge seemed about to be exposed. He made a decision on instinct: he pushed Zhang into the shadows and himself stepped into the torchlight.
He was grabbed by two guards. The sergeant stepped forward, his face lit with a cruel grin. "Well, what do we have here? Hiding away from work, are we? Maybe plotting?"
He kept his face calm. Fear hammered his ribs, but he chose his words like a blade. "I was scouting for a loose stone that might fall during the night. I threw my back out. I was resting."
The sergeant's laugh was a curse. He struck him across the jaw and then, perhaps because the man liked spectacle more than punishment, ordered a public beating. Pain flared. Hu and Zhang watched from the outcrop, every second a coin of risk.
The beating was brutal but short; maybe the guards were bored. Or maybe the sergeant decided a spectacle was enough to remind everyone of the price of sloth. They dragged him to the center, blood on his lip, and forced him to carry a slab up the ramp as the camp watched.
He would have collapsed but Zhang had stationed two men along the path. They exchanged small signs and moved to cover him subtly—helping shield him from direct blows when an overseer's whip swung too low. It was small mercy and yet the camp read it as expected: a man punished for idleness.
Later, in the outcrop, Zhang pressed a palm to the bruise near his jaw. "You took the torch," the soldier said. "It could have been me. Why did you?"
He looked at Zhang, into the face of a man who had pledged loyalty. "Sometimes you burn your hand so others can see less smoke. We all have to take a torch now and then."
Zhang's expression hardened into a look of resolve. "Next time we'll do better. Next time we will not be noticed."
They patched his wounds as best they could. The child—now safe for the night—slept with a faint smile. It was a narrow escape, a test of their cohesion. Each strand of secrecy they held together made a net that might one day hold far more than three men and a boy. Each act of courage cost blood, but it also stoked something deeper: the knowledge that together they could survive.
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