It began with smoke. A thin wisp trailing over the treetops at dawn, faint, almost dismissible. But Song Lian had long learned not to ignore the smallest signs.
In her old world, smoke meant failure, electrical short, engine fire, building collapse. Here, it meant something more primal: People. Or death.
She stood on the rooftop of her house, binoculars pressed to her eyes, one of her few high-tech tools scanning the treeline. The forest was still, but a faint grey smudge hovered far to the east.
"Someone's out there," she murmured.
Below, Yun Zhen checked the perimeter. He'd expanded the fencing using repurposed iron rods and wooden stakes. Jia Mei, still thin but stronger now, helped him arrange firewood in the new storage shed.
Yun Zhen glanced up at her. "Same smoke as last time?"
She nodded. "Smaller fire. Could be lost travelers. Could be scouts."
He frowned. "Either way, we can't risk them stumbling in without warning."
Song Lian climbed down and grabbed her crossbow. "I'll take a look."
She moved like a shadow through the trees, her senses alert to every snapping twig and shifting breeze. Wuyuan Forest was thick and deceptive, especially under morning mist. But Song Lian knew its paths better than anyone now. After an hour of tracking, she found the source.
A clearing. Two adults huddled near a smoldering campfire, wrapped in rags. A third figure barely more than a child lay unconscious nearby, his chest rising and falling shallowly. The woman fed him small sips of water.
The man stood guard with a broken farming scythe. They were skeletal, mud-streaked, and reeked of ash. She stepped from the trees silently. The man lunged toward her, swinging wildly.
She caught his arm mid-swing. "Easy," she said. "I'm not here to hurt you."
The woman gasped. "Please… we're not bandits. We… we're from Meiling Hamlet. The tax enforcers burned it down. We've been walking for four days."
The man's voice cracked. "My son has fever. He won't wake up. Please… just water. We'll leave after."
Song Lian studied them. They weren't lying. The boy's skin was flushed with heat, his lips cracked from dehydration. She opened her pack and retrieved a sealed bottle of electrolyte water and an emergency thermal blanket.
"Come with me," she said. "You're not leaving anyone behind."
By sunset, three more mouths had been fed. Song Lian's small homestead had begun to look less like a reclusive cabin and more like a growing outpost.
Wooden housing kits from her spatial storage now formed the beginnings of a second row of shelters. The path to the stream had been widened. Solar lanterns hung from tree branches like silent guardians.
As the boy rested under clean sheets, his fever finally breaking, Song Lian met with Yun Zhen outside the new medical hut.
"That's five refugees in three weeks," she said.
He folded his arms. "And more will come. Word travels fast, especially when people are desperate."
She leaned against the post. "We can handle twenty people, maybe thirty. But if a hundred show up?"
He looked at her carefully. "Then we train them. Organize. Build. If you keep using your storage to support them, we can create something sustainable. Farming. Carpentry. Rotating patrols."
She gave a half-smile. "You're already talking like a ruler."
"I'm talking like a survivor," Yun Zhen replied.
"And so are you."
Far from Wuyuan, across the Bai River, the gates of Xuanjing City groaned open under a blood-red sky.
Riders entered—mud-soaked, weary, carrying tattered imperial seals. Inside the court of Empress Dowager Qiu, ministers whispered urgently.
"Your Majesty," one official began, "our patrols near the Wuyuan Forest found remnants of a hidden camp. Tools unlike any we manufacture. Shelters with iron supports and…"
"…and signs of resistance," the Empress finished coldly. She stood slowly, her silk robes trailing behind her like a shadow.
"First my son is murdered. Then Prince Yun Zhen vanishes. And now, whispers of a sanctuary for rebels in the old Yue territories? Her voice was low, dangerous.
"Burn it. Salt the earth."
"But Your Majesty, we don't yet know who…"
"I said burn it." Her eyes narrowed. "And send Commander Meng. He'll ensure no more traitors bloom beneath those trees."
Nightfall, back in the forest, Song Lian sat by the fire, scribbling plans into a worn notebook.
Shelter expansion, irrigation layout, hunting schedules. She paused, tapping her pen against her chin. Her spatial storage still held enough food and medical supplies for at least six months at their current rate. But with each new arrival, that number dwindled.
Yun Zhen approached quietly, setting down a bowl of dried fruit beside her. "I scouted the eastern ridge. Tracks. Heavy boot prints. No one near—but close enough."
Her jaw clenched. "How long until they find us?"
"Soon."
Song Lian stared into the flames.
Then she said the words she had avoided for days.
"We need a name."
Yun Zhen raised a brow.
"This place," she clarified. "It's no longer just a home. It's a refuge. A community. If it's going to survive, it needs a name."
He thought for a moment.
"How about Xingzhao? It means 'Morning Light' for those who escape the night."
She smiled slowly.
"Xingzhao it is."
And in the shadows beyond the forest, flames already whispered their warning.