Fang Hetong led Wei Yuan to a small, modified ancestral hall inside the village. In the middle of the room was a square table with a map spread across its surface.

Wei Yuan glanced at the map and immediately recognized it as a hand-drawn topological sketch of the terrain surrounding Quyang County. The map was exquisitely detailed, marking even the smallest streams and earthen mounds with remarkable clarity. The brushwork was superb, with every stroke and curve possessing its own artistic merit.

After Fang Hetong beckoned Wei Yuan to take a seat, they exchanged introductions with each other. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Fang Hetong hailed from a small sect of the local commandery known as White Maple Academy. He was currently thirty-eight years old. It took him over two decades of hard work to forge his Dao Foundation. The headmaster of the academy was the only one who had barely made it to the Avatar stage. The rest of them—eight of them to be exact—were stuck at the Dao Foundation stage, never to advance further. They were the classic example of a small sect and faction. In fact, if Bianning Commandery wasn’t located at the borders, if its population was bigger, and if the foreign races didn’t pose a constant threat against their existence, there was no chance White Maple Academy would have qualified as a fourth-rate sect.

Looking at Fang Hetong, Wei Yuan truly felt the strength of the Palace of Absolute Beginning for the first time. In the Palace, Human-tier Dao Foundation was almost extinct, Earth-tier was treated as trash, and Heaven-tier was the baseline for someone to earn a respectful nod from the sect. But not all of them; only one as rare as Yan Ming’s.

On a related note, the headmaster was also the only Earth-tier Dao Foundation cultivator in the entire White Maple Academy. Everyone else was Human-tier. Unless a junior rose to the occasion, the academy was going to lose their status as a fourth-rate sect once the headmaster had passed away.

Despite cultivating for a whole decade, Wei Yuan still hadn’t formed his Dao Foundation. There was no doubt that he ranked among the bottom rung of the Palace right now. However, despite spending over two decades to form a Human-tier Dao Foundation, Fang Hetong was considered above average in the White Maple Academy.

But of course, Wei Yuan was superior in terms of combat strength. Back then, he had defeated the Earth-tier Hsu Du when he had just finished tempering his flesh. After tempering his blood, he could consistently defeat a Human-tier Dao Foundation cultivator wielding a mystic artifact. Today, Hsu Du would need to wear the full set of Bao Yun’s armor just to survive a single exchange against him.

After they were done with the introductions, someone entered the room and placed a cup and a bowl on the table. Fang Hetong said, “You’re traveled a long way, Junior Brother Wei. I’m sure you’re famished. Unfortunately, we do not have much to offer at the moment, so I ask you to make due with what we have.”

The cup was a cup of water. Sediment was resting at the bottom of the cup, and the water had a yellowish tint to it. The bowl was a bowl of coarse grain rice. A few leaves of wild vegetables were resting on its surface. They had been cooked together with the rice.

It was at this moment a yell erupted from outside the room, “We ran tens of li to get here hoping to get a good meal, and this is what you’re feeding us? Not even a dog will eat something this pitiful!”

Wei Yuan appeared outside the ancestral hall in a flash. He immediately saw an auxiliary soldier—a hooligan-looking guy in his twenties—lifting his arm to throw a wooden bowl on the ground.

Before Wei Yuan could take action, an old auxiliary soldier with half-white hair caught the young auxiliary soldier’s wrist firmly. His grip was so strong and unyielding that the latter’s bones were literally creaking. The young auxiliary soldier immediately cried out in pain, “Ouch! The hell are you doing? My bone’s about to break!”

The old auxiliary soldier let out an unimpressed grunt and growled, “You’re standing on Teacher Fang’s land right now. He skipped his own meal so that people like us get to eat! If you drop even a single grain, then you will pick it up and swallow it, dirt and all!”

The young auxiliary soldier didn’t dare to argue. He reluctantly sat back down on the steps while muttering to himself, “You know I’m new. I have no idea that Teacher Fang is here…”

It was at this moment Fang Hetong stepped out of the ancestral hall and greeted a couple of old auxiliary soldiers. They had appeared like army riffraffs when Wei Yuan first saw them, but right now, they were standing tall and firm before the scholar. Wei Yuan had no idea that Fang Hetong enjoyed such a high reputation among these ruffians.

After they returned to the ancestral hall, Fang Hetong let out a bitter chuckle and said, “To tell you the truth, we should have run out of food a couple days ago. It is only by cutting the food rations by half that we are able to last until now, and only just barely.”

Wei Yuan could see their poverty with his own eyes, but he had no idea that they were on the brink of starvation. A natural disaster hadn’t befallen Western Jin, so why was a part of the frontlines running out of food?

It was at this moment Fang Hetong asked hopefully, “Speaking of, have you arrived with our soldiers’ pay, Junior Brother Wei?”

“Excuse me?” Wei Yuan was taken aback yet again.

Prior to departure, the Palace had told him that Western Jin was wholly responsible for the armies’ pay and supplies. Of course, those bringing their own private servants and soldiers were expected to pay for their expenses themselves. That was why Wei Yuan hadn’t asked when he was collecting his soldiers. Wang Delu had mentioned nothing about this either.

“Have you not been receiving military supplies? Are the ones outside not militia?” Wei Yuan asked curiously.

Wei Yuan had noticed from the moment he entered Flying Sand Village that most of the villagers were male. Only a handful of healthy housewives and elderly were handling logistical tasks. According to Western Jin’s military regulations, males aged between twelve and fifty-five were eligible for conscription, and only those over sixty were too old to qualify. Moreover, most of these men bore traces of cultivation. Although their training was brief—even the most advanced among them had only tempered twenty percent of their flesh—there was no doubt that they were different from your ordinary folk. After all, ordinary peasants would not be tempering their body at all.

A militiaman was a peasant during peacetime. When mobilized, they received half the pay of a regular soldier on the frontier. Under Great Tang’s military system, frontier troops counted as regular forces and were distinctively different from the auxiliary soldiers in a county. Thus, their half pay was roughly equivalent to eighty percent of an auxiliary soldier’s pay.

Wang Delu had said that he would give Wei Yuan additional militiamen. Wei Yuan thought that he meant the three hundred or so people in the village. As they all showed traces of cultivation, he was initially satisfied with what he had found. But now, Fang Hetong was telling him that they hadn’t received their pay at all.

They were currently at war, and this was the frontline. Logically speaking, the court should have issued the funds and supplies a long time ago. To withhold them during wartimes was a coup at best, or a rebellion at worst.

Fang Hetong understood everything just by looking at Wei Yuan’s expression. He sighed. “In fact, I heard that the pay had already been disbursed to the county—a full two hundred thousand taels. I thought that you had brought them along with you, but… sigh! My poor brothers had followed me for three months and fought nearly ten battles with utter disregard for their own lives. Over thirty men had died during this time. Yet, they hadn’t received a single coin of their pay, and who knows when they’ll ever see their compensation?”

“Calm, Teacher Fang. I’ve brought some military supplies with me.”

It was at this moment Wei Yuan recalled the three military supply boxes he was carrying. It was the perfect solution to their immediate situation. He quickly placed them in the middle of a room and opened them one by one.

The military supply boxes were cube-shaped iron boxes measuring one chi in length. Despite its meager size, each box weighed over a hundred catties. Upon opening, two boxes revealed neatly stacked strips of dried meat. They were military rations specially prepared by the Palace of Absolute Beginning. Each strip was no larger than a finger. When soaked in water, they dissolved into a broth that could sustain one for a whole day. Even a burly man who had completed the flesh-tempering stage needed only two strips to last him through the day.

The last box was filled with Water Purifying Pills and various medicines for dispelling plagues and treating external injuries. A single Water Purifying Pill could render an entire vase of water safe for drinking. For a well, three such pills would suffice to provide purified water for an entire day.

Two boxes of military rations and one box of medicine. It was a logical, well-balanced arrangement that could sustain a hundred-man force for half a month of combat. Suddenly, Wei Yuan realized that the sect had distributed everyone three boxes of military supplies despite claiming that the local government was wholly responsible for the army’s funds and supplies. They also mandated them to bring the supplies to their designated defense zones and forbade them from abandoning them en route. It would appear that the supervising Truemen had foreseen the kind of problems they would encounter from the start.

Fang Hetong’s hands trembled when he saw the three boxes of supplies. He grabbed Wei Yuan’s hands and stammered uncontrollably, “He brought coal during winter! Coal during winter!”

The middle-aged man’s eyes reddened, and a few drops of tears slid down his cheeks despite himself.

Wei Yuan hurriedly comforted him and made him sit down. After he recovered his composure, Fang Hetong used his sleeve to wipe away the tears and sighed. “My apologies for making a fool of myself in front of you. These few months have been hard on all of us.”

After taking another moment to collect his feelings, the scholar asked hesitatingly, “I’m aware military provisions should be used for the military only. However, my brothers have been fighting this war for months without seeing a coin or grain, and some of their elderly had already starved to death… Is it possible to spare some of it for their families?”

“Of course!” Wei Yuan answered without hesitation.

Fang Hetong suddenly rose to his feet and bowed so deeply that his head was pointed toward the floor. “On behalf of everyone in the village, thank you!”

A tremor coursed through his body, and he tried to drop to his knees. Wei Yuan caught him before he could do so and hurriedly consoled him. It wasn’t until a few moments later that he finally managed to calm down the man in his thirties.