The sun rose on a square that no longer looked like the makeshift open space it used to be. Smooth stone slabs covered the ground, sturdy wooden stalls stood in neat rows, and a new archway carved with the words "Evergreen Market" framed the northern entrance. Bright red cloth strips fluttered from the beams, and villagers gathered early, murmuring in excitement.
At the far end of the market stood a new building, modest in size but clean and neatly painted. A wooden plaque hung above its entrance: "Salt & Simplicity". Inside, white ceramic jars lined the shelves, each sealed and labeled. It was Yang Xu's salt shop—the first official store in the hidden county.
"Is it really... edible salt?" Old Lady Qin leaned in suspiciously, squinting at a small sample placed in a dish on the counter.
The young lad behind the counter—a boy Yang Xu had trained personally—grinned. "Try a pinch, Granny. It won't bite."
A few bold villagers reached out, pinched some of the coarse, snow-white grains, and licked their fingers cautiously.
"Huh?" One woman's eyes widened. "It's not bitter at all. It's clean!"
"It doesn't have that throat-scraping aftertaste like the stuff we used to get from the smugglers," someone else muttered. "Is this really from rock salt?"
"Lord Yang made it," the boy said proudly. "He purified the poison salt from the mountains, made it safe."
That got the crowd going. Within an hour, the first small jars were sold out. A second batch had to be brought from the back.
Behind this success were two quiet figures who had arrived just a week prior.
One was Zhou Yefu, a middle-aged man with sharp eyes and a sharp tongue. He used to run a dry goods shop in a now-flooded town downriver. When Yang Xu's recruitment notice reached him, he walked four days barefoot just to apply. His skills in managing inventory and keeping clean records made him the perfect manager for the market's daily operations.
The other was Qian Su, a young woman with a soft voice and a firm presence. She had once helped her father run a small caravan business before bandits destroyed it. Calm under pressure and excellent at reading people, she took charge of pricing, stall distribution, and dispute resolution. Under her watch, the early morning bickering among stall owners had already dropped sharply.
"I gave them titles," Yang Xu had told one of his aides earlier, "but not the kind with embroidered robes. Zhou Yefu is the Market Overseer, Qian Su is the People's Coordinator. If this market turns into a mess, it's on them. If it prospers… well, it still starts with them."
While the salt shop bustled, the rest of the market came alive too. Villagers had brought all sorts of wares—yams, soybeans, dried fish, firewood bundles, old cloth, and even simple carved toys. The early-morning air smelled of fresh soil, woodsmoke, and the promise of food.
And just in time—for the harvest season had arrived.
Golden stalks of millet and wheat blanketed the nearby fields. Entire families worked from dawn till dusk, sickles in hand, stacking grain into neat bundles. Laughter echoed from the terraces as children chased each other with stray stalks, and elders rested under shade trees, counting how many sacks they'd filled so far.
At noon, carts began rolling into the market, loaded with fresh-cut grain. It was a bartering frenzy.
"I'll give you ten bundles of millet for two jars of salt and a pound of dried fish!"
"You're dreaming! Eight bundles and not a grain more, old man!"
"Fine, fine! But you throw in a scoop of soybeans and it's a deal!"
Yang Xu stood quietly by the side of the market square, arms crossed. His robes weren't new anymore, patched in a few places, but he wore them with ease. The wind tousled his hair as he watched the people haggle, laugh, and trade.
"This..." he murmured to himself, "is how a real town breathes."
Behind him, a young man walked up and gave a short bow. "Lord Yang, the brick kiln's second firing went well. We've made enough to consider proper construction projects."
"Good." Yang Xu nodded. "We'll need those bricks soon. Not just here, but for something bigger."
He turned his gaze west, where the mountain paths led—eventually—to Chang'an.
This year had been full of small victories. Roads cleared. Cement poured. A salt shop opened. Two business talents brought in and trusted. But the world didn't end at the village gates.
He looked back at the harvest.
"We've got surplus grain," he said slowly. "The people can keep enough to eat and still have more. It's time to reach out."
"To Chang'an?" the young man asked, lowering his voice.
Yang Xu nodded. "We'll send a group with carts of grain—some of the good stuff. Let them sell it at the city market, see what kind of coin it fetches. At the same time, I want them to look for a shopfront. Small, modest, but ours. We'll need a foothold there for what's coming next."
"Understood. I'll make arrangements."
As the sun dipped toward the hills, a soft breeze picked up. The scent of freshly harvested grain filled the air, mixing with cooked soy, roasted chestnuts, and the lingering bite of salt.
It was the third year of the Wude era, and though the hidden county remained out of sight from the empire's gaze, it was beginning to stir.
Yang Xu looked up at the sky, a faint smirk on his lips. "Let's see how far we can push this little corner of the world."