On the outskirts of the town, several herb gardens enclosed by low wooden fences were visible. Under the bright sunlight, rows of low green shrubs stood in neat order, some of their leaves flipping over in the wind to reveal a silvery-grey luster on their undersides.
Further out was the tree line.
The afternoon sun could not penetrate that dense forest, casting a clear boundary between the open ground at the town's edge and the ancient woods.
Where the sunlight reached was the town; where it could not was the forest.
The Nightwatchers small base was located at the northern end of the town.
It was a two-story stone-and-wood building with a copper plate hanging by the door, engraved with the Nightwatchers emblem. A lamp was lit.
By the time the carriage stopped in front of the base, the door had already opened.
A man in his sixties walked out. His left leg was crippled, causing his body to lean to the right as he walked.
Deep, hard wrinkles were etched into his face like grooves. His hair was grey and cut very short. He didn't use a cane; the way he walked suggested he had been crippled for many years.
Old Harold.
He stood at the door, looking Lu Yuan up and down. His gaze lingered on the Nightwatchers badge for a moment, moved to Lu Yuan's face, and then returned to the badge.
“You are Lu Yuan?”
“Yes.”
“Younger than I thought.”
Harold's way of looking at people was direct and blunt.
He didn't bother with small talk and turned to walk inside. “Bring the things in first.”
Bol and Lu Yuan carried the wooden crates from the back into the base's storage room one by one. The crates weren't light; they were filled with concentrated medicinal liquid, the glass bottles packed with sawdust. A faint clinking of glass could be heard as they moved.
Harold watched them work, counting the crates and checking the seals. He nodded in satisfaction.
“You've arrived just in time. If this medicine had been two days later, the silver leaf grass field upstream might have been ruined.”
“Have you eaten?” Harold asked.
“We chewed on some dry rations on the road,” Bol replied.
Harold snorted and went downstairs. After a while, he brought up two bowls of soup and several pieces of flatbread.
The soup was a stew made of unknown mushrooms, hearty and rich, with a few droplets of oil clinging to the rim of the bowl.
The flatbread was cold but still soft to the touch, with a slightly coarse texture from locally ground wheat.
Lu Yuan took a sip of the soup. The mushrooms were very fresh, the broth thick, and he occasionally chewed on a small piece of mushroom flesh. It was delicious.
Beside him, Bol had already finished his bowl and was tearing into the flatbread, clearly very satisfied with this hot meal.
After eating, Bol wiped his mouth and pulled a folded piece of paper from his satchel.
“Let's turn over the medicine first. Is the Mayor around?”
Harold cleared the bowls. “He is. He shouldn't have left yet at this hour.”
The three of them left the base and walked along the stone-paved path by the creek toward the town center. The afternoon sun shone on the ashlar roofs, casting a warm greyish-white glow.
They passed two townsfolk carrying bamboo baskets who nodded to Harold. They glanced at Lu Yuan and Bol but didn't ask any questions.
The Mayor's house was next to the stone monument, and the door was open.
A man in his fifties sat on a chair by the door, holding a short tobacco pipe. Seeing Harold approaching with two others, he stood up. He wasn't tall, but his shoulders were broad, his face darkened by years of sun exposure, and his fingers were thick and short—the hands of someone who had worked hard for many years.
“You're here?” He nodded to Harold, his gaze lingering on Bol and Lu Yuan.
“Delivering medicine from the branch,” Harold explained briefly.
Bol stepped forward and handed over the paper. “The delivery manifest. Please check it.”
The Mayor took it, unfolded it, and looked it over, silently counting under his breath as he verified the number of crates and the types of medicine.
“Everything's here.” He folded the manifest back up. “How will the medicine be paid for?”
“Imperial shields,” Bol said. “As per custom, it will be offset in the form of medicinal herbs.”
The Mayor nodded; he had clearly gone through this process before.
Bol wasn't finished yet.
He fished a second document from his satchel, thicker than the first.
“There's one more thing.” Bol handed the paper over. “This is a separate procurement list from the branch. Medicinal consumption has been high lately, and the branch intends to increase its purchase volume. The varieties and quantities are all listed there.”
The Mayor flipped through it, his brow twitching slightly. “This is quite a lot.”
“That's why we want to see your inventory first.” Bol smiled. “Can you take us to the warehouse?”
“Let's go.” The Mayor tucked his pipe into his waistband and stood up, leading the way toward the other side of the creek.
The warehouse was at the southern end of the town, near the herb gardens.
It was a low stone building with thick door panels, the interior cool and dry.
Rows of dried medicinal herbs were stacked on shelves, labeled with names and dates.
Silver leaf grass, bitter-root vine, and dew-core flower petals were piled in categories on wooden dividers.
Among them were some rare herbs Lu Yuan didn't recognize, likely gathered from deep within the forest. The entire room was filled with a rich, bittersweet scent of flora.
Bol went through the list item by item, occasionally picking up a bundle of herbs to weigh it or opening one to smell it. The Mayor stayed by his side, answering his questions.
Lu Yuan followed behind without speaking. As he scanned the shelves, he got a general idea of the situation. The inventory wasn't particularly abundant; based on the branch's current procurement volume, this was at most a small-scale purchase. No wonder they had only sent Bol and himself.
However, the quality of the herbs here was indeed a step above those found in city herb shops.
Halfway through, Bol suddenly turned and smiled at Lu Yuan.
“I'll handle the procurement details.” He patted the list. “As for the rest, I'll leave it to you.”
Lu Yuan nodded, saying nothing.
By the time they left the warehouse, the sun was beginning to sink in the west.
The light in the town slowly shifted from gold to a warm orange, and the reflections on the creek grew softer.
Bol and the Mayor walked ahead, still discussing procurement details. Lu Yuan and Harold trailed a few steps behind.
When they reached the base, the Mayor stopped and looked at Lu Yuan.
“Harold mentioned it to me.” His voice wasn't loud, but it was direct. “About those two children.”
Lu Yuan didn't respond, waiting for him to finish.
“They usually work in the herb garden. You'll see them when you go there tomorrow morning.” The Mayor took a puff of his pipe and blew out a thin trail of smoke. “As for joining the Nightwatchers, I won't make that decision for them, nor have I told them about it. On the surface, you're just here to deliver medicine and handle procurement. How you arrange things is up to you.”
Having said that, he nodded to Harold and turned to leave.
Lu Yuan watched his back disappear across the stone bridge. It seemed quite a few people were aware of this recruitment mission.
But that was fine; as long as the targets themselves didn't know.
Harold led the two of them upstairs to a small but clean spare room.
The bed was covered with cotton pads that were old but free of any odor. The window faced the town, offering a view of the oil lamps lit along the wooden houses by the creek, with stretches of darkness between them.
The distant tree line was a dark silhouette, separated from the warm light in the window by only the width of a herb garden.
Occasionally, a breeze would blow in, carrying the faint scent of flowers and herbs from the gardens.
The sound of the creek was very soft, accentuating the silence of the town.
The bed was harder than the ones at the branch, but it felt solid and reliable. There was no electric light outside, only the flickering warm yellow of one or two distant oil lamps.
Lu Yuan closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.
The next morning.
【Sanity: +12... 106/120】
After a simple breakfast, Lu Yuan and Bol followed Harold to the herb fields.
The fields were upstream from the town's perimeter. It was less than a ten-minute walk. Several neat herb gardens were enclosed by low wooden fences, with the creek curving around them to provide irrigation.
The herb fields were already bustling when they arrived.
About a dozen townsfolk were busy in the fields—men, women, young, and old.
Some were carrying buckets, some were turning soil, and several women were squatting at the edge of the plots weeding. Their movements were swift, tossing handful after handful of weeds behind them. A seven- or eight-year-old child ran around behind the adults, was scolded into silence for a moment, then started running again soon after.
As Harold led the two into the fields, the workers looked up one after another. Harold gestured toward the closest group. “From the branch. Delivering medicine.”
A simple explanation was enough.
The people nodded and returned to their work. The townsfolk were no strangers to the Nightwatchers; Harold had been here for over twenty years, and base personnel occasionally moved between the town and the fields. It wasn't an unusual sight.
Lu Yuan scanned the fields.
The most widely planted crop was silver leaf grass. Having seen the dried version in the warehouse yesterday, the difference was even more apparent now; the leaves were thick and full, their silvery-grey luster bright in the morning light.
Climbing along the fences was bitter-root vine. The vines were dark brown with small, dense leaves. The valuable part was the root; when cut, the cross-section was deep yellow and extremely bitter—a core ingredient for antitoxin potions.
Margaret had specifically mentioned it during her last brewing session, saying that high-quality bitter-root vine was becoming increasingly difficult to buy.
In a small plot closest to the creek at the very back of the garden grew dew-core flowers. They were few in number, with thin, long stalks topped by tiny white flowers the size of a fingernail.
Harold said the blooming period was very short—they could only be harvested twice a year—and the petals were a material for sedative potions.
The pest infestation was mainly concentrated in several plots of silver leaf grass.
The leaves were covered in bite marks the size of small fingernails, the edges yellowed and curled. Some had been gnawed down to bare stalks.
Grey borers. They were about the size of a thumb, flat-bodied, greyish-green, and covered in a layer of fine fuzz. At a glance, they looked like a piece of moldy, dead wood.
Sometimes three or four would be huddled under a single leaf. These things didn't bite people, but they devoured herbs at an incredible speed; two or three of them could bite seven or eight holes in a perfect silver leaf grass leaf overnight.
They crawled out from the humus layer at the forest's edge and swarmed into the herb gardens during this season.
There were quite a few of them. Lu Yuan walked around the silver leaf grass plots and estimated that at least hundreds were scattered under the leaves or hidden in the topsoil.
Harold organized people to dilute and apply the medicine. The dozen or so people were split into groups, each responsible for a plot.
When the grey borers touched the medicinal liquid, they would curl their bodies and drop from the leaves, coiling into tiny greyish-green balls on the muddy ground.
The townsfolk swept the dead insects into a pile to be burned. Harold reminded them to burn them thoroughly, as they would cause more trouble if they got back into the soil.
Lu Yuan and Bol stood by, occasionally helping to move a bucket. There was little need for them to intervene.
He stood at the edge of the herb garden for a while, his gaze eventually settling on two figures in the crowd.
Rate on N.U.
