The wind had died down a bit and the haze wasn't too thick. I uncoiled myself from where I leaned, breathing out the chilly air from my lungs. While getting up, my eyes fell on an imprinted footstep into the mud and I stared at them for a moment before it all clicked.
My breath caught in my throat as I realized they were fresh and belonged to none other than...
Xue Lian.
Without a second thought, I followed them, approaching a small wooden trunk hut on the outskirt of the town.
They led toward a cluster of pine carved shelters beyond the old stone bridge, where the displaced and the desperate often sought refuge—the Yǒngníng Yuan (永宁院), a quiet sanctuary known among the commoners as a place of fleeting safety, often overlooked by the patrolling guards and self-important nobles. It was built of leaves, weathered wood and beside it a withered plum tree, was a small hut cobbled together with bamboo trunks and tattered cloth. A thin trail of smoke curled from its front shed.
I hesitated only a moment before stepping up and knocking gently.
The door creaked open just a sliver.
Then it burst fully.
A woman—young, haggard, and wide-eyed—stared at me. In the space of a single heartbeat, terror overtook her face. She stumbled backward, tripping over a low stool and collapsing to her knees.
"No—no! You're one of the bad ones!" she screamed, voice sharp with fear. "We can't lend any more of our supplies! Not again! Not after what happened last time!"
Standing on thin ice of whether to move into the crazy woman's house or stay outside until I get frozen to icicle. I moved in, the door shed banging shut.
"Xue Lian?" My face shimmered with a bit of happiness as I went over to the corner where Xue Lian snuffed in some hot scented lemon grass soup.
"Don't move any further young Miss! I wouldn't mind using this on you!" The woman yelled with fury, her hands clasping onto a sharpened pine stick with a pointed end dripping off blood.
I froze, both hands lifted slightly in surrender as my eyes flicked between the bloodied pine stick and the trembling fury etched into the woman's gaunt face. I turned over to Xue Lian seeking some sort of empathy from her but she turned dead cold, shifting more to the heat radiating fire and sniffing in her lemon steamed drink.
My stomach sank.
Before I could plead further, a kick landed in the back of my knee, and I crumpled. In a blink, the woman was over me, a knotted coil of rope pulled tight between her fingers. I struggled, but her grip was ironed with years of surviving war and hunger.
"You're no different from the rest of them," she spat, yanking my wrists behind me and binding them together. "Pretty face. Silk voice. Rotten core."
She hauled me upright, shoved me to sit beside a half-rotted wooden post, and began looping the rope around my torso. I winced as the sharp splinters dug into my back.
"You've come, haven't you?" Her voice dropped to a bitter hiss. "To take one of my daughters. To send her to that monster on the borders—the Blood Tiger King of Zhào Sāo (赵骚). Bread and dried fish in exchange for a girl. That's the deal your kind always offers, isn't it?"
I stilled.
The Blood Tiger King—a name cursed even in whispers. Ruler of the outlawed Zhào Sāo Wáng Court, a war-hungry breakaway dynasty gnawing at the edges of the Shen Empire like a starving wolf. He was infamous for demanding girls from the outer provinces in tribute—brides, slaves, spies. None returned.
"What?" I was so nervous, struggling to untie myself from the thin bamboo strands. My gaze went back to Xue Lian for an explanation but she just laughed, enjoying how terrified I was. "Asshole..." I murmured underneath my breath and caught a little girl beside the shed corner, sipping in the same drink.
"Mummy, isn't that Shen Mi?" Her face glistened into a smile as she dropped her food and went over but was stopped instantly.
"Haven't I told you to stop trusting people from the imperial court or people in power. They are evil and she is one of them. I'm sure she has come here to sell us off for gold and silver!"
"What...?"
Xue Lian gulped in the drink at once, dusting herself up from the ground and tapped the woman's shoulders. "She is with me Auntie. We got lost in the sandstorm and found something we could use to cover ourselves up. She is part of the good guys."
The woman stiffened, her fingers still clutching the ends of the rope coiled around me. Her eyes flicked to Xue Lian, narrowing in suspicion. "You sure?" she asked, voice flat and void of warmth.
Xue Lian nodded once, curtly. "I wouldn't bring filth into your home. She is Lin Xi and not Shen Mi. It is just a coincidence that she looks a lot like Shen Mi."
"I don't trust you Lian ge, but because you helped us build this and gave us some food supplies, I will let her go on your behalf." The woman but her lips with an angered look on her face as she untied me. She dropped the ropes to the ground and ran to the doorshed, opened it up and checked around the surrounding, shouting it back up again.
Xue Lian exhaled sharply, brushing past the little girl and crouching beside me as I rubbed my sore wrists. Her brows knit in annoyance rather than concern.
"You should've just stayed in," she snapped, her voice low but sharp. "Mere mortals are so annoying. What the hell were you trying to prove by following me out here? You even got injured—ugh! Can't you follow a simple instruction?"
Her tone cut deeper than the rope burns. I stared at her, half-stunned by the coldness in her voice, half-grateful I hadn't been skewer
"A simple instruction?" I scoffed, brushing splinters from my back. "You vanished without a word. No note, no warning. Just gone. And you expected me to sit there twiddling my thumbs while a storm raged outside?"
Xue Lian rolled her eyes and stood, crossing her arms. "It was safer that way. You being reckless doesn't make you brave—it makes you a liability."
"Don't you dare call me a liability. If you hadn't tampered with the time, I wouldn't be in this ancient freak world zone and you wouldn't even be stuck with me. Why don't we clear our differences with a handshake? Where I come from, a handshake signifies peace!"
"I ain't shaking hands with filth like you. Wear this, it is going to get bad in the night! Once it's dusk, we would sneak back to avoid rasing Shen Fuchen's suspicion or your maiden's suspicion. " Xue Lian cruelly added, tossing me a cow skin knitted blanked hung on the wall.
I took the blanket from her hand, my fingers still tingling from the rope burns, and draped it around my shoulders. It smelled of damp earth and pine, but it was warm, and for the first time that night, I felt a little more grounded.
Xue Lian had already turned away, making her way toward the small window at the back of the hut, glancing out as if to make sure no one was watching us.
As I watched her, I couldn't help but feel that there was more to her than she was letting on, more than the harsh exterior she so carefully constructed.
"Auntie, you have truly helped a lot. I will take the first watch till dusk then we'd both take our leave."
"You promised us safety, Jie Jie. Mama Is poor in health, she can only keep me and Yoyao's ashes safe." The little girl's voice reverberate and I was forced to look at her now holding a small brown bottle which could have contained Yoyao's ashes.
"Xue Lian?" I whispered calling her attention and she looked at my direction but snorted, coming to sit next to me. "What the hell is going on?"
"The famine...brutal as I once said before you shunned me off. The commoners are the first to be target while the elites takes the food from each household to keep themselves alive. The famine only last for five days after which sunshine will be restored. But five days is like five years in this timeline."
"The crazy old lady mentioned someone's name like Zhao something...." Xue Lian's expression hardened as she leaned back, her voice lowering to a dangerous tone. "Zhao Sāo," she muttered, her eyes narrowing at the mention of the name. "The Blood Tiger King of the Zhao Kingdom of Ruin. He's the one who profits off the suffering of others."
I blinked, trying to make sense of her words. "But what does he have to do with this place? This famine... Why would they mention him now?"
Xue Lian sighed, shaking her head as though she had long grown weary of explaining the same cruel truths. "The Shen Dynasty—the land your emperor rules—has been struck with a famine that has no end in sight. And as the days drag on, the emperor, Shen Xian, has no choice but to make brutal decisions. He can't feed everyone, can't even feed his court, so he's trading away people like cattle—those who are weakest, those who have nothing left to give. They're sold as slaves, concubines, and worse, in exchange for food and wine that will keep the wealthy, the ministers, and his family alive for five more days."
I felt a chill creep up my spine. "Are you saying… they're using people's lives as currency?"
Xue Lian's gaze turned cold, a bitter edge in her voice. "Yes. That's exactly what they're doing. The poor are nothing more than tools to keep the rich fed. It's sickening, but it's the way of this rotten empire. And now... Zhao Sāo's forces are gathering at the borders, taking whatever they can get in return for the resources we need to survive."