Surviving the apocalypse with a wife and a system! [GL]

We only collect a small fee to maintain the roads and keep thieves away. The merchants know that. They agree to the arrangement.”

The sweet vendor looked up from his basket. He was an older man with a worried crease between his eyebrows. For a moment he seemed to be deciding whether he could afford to speak. Then Yan Cijin met his eyes, not pushing him, just making it clear that he was allowed to answer honestly.

”We do not agree,” he said quietly. ”We pay because Master Duan’s men come with weapons. When we refuse, they break things. Last month they took two jars of honey from the woman who sells cakes near the bridge. They said it was a fee. She did not have money left to buy enough flour for the next day.”

A murmur moved through the market. A merchant beside a cloth stall stepped forward and confirmed the story. Another said that the Iron Sand Lodge had charged him twice in one week. A third had paid for a cart of grain to pass through the western road and then been told to pay again at the far end. The accounts differed in detail, but the pattern was plain. The lodge had not been protecting the market. It had been taking advantage of it.

Duan Kuo’s face turned red. ”They are exaggerating. People always complain when they have to pay for safety. We have driven off bandits. We have sent men to patrol the road. There are costs. A lodge cannot survive on good intentions.”

”Then your records should prove that the fees were used for patrols,” Yan Cijin said. ”You can show us where the money went.”

He hesitated.

”You keep records, don’t you?” she asked.

His eyes flicked toward his companions. None offered help.

Bai Li folded her arms. ”Return what you collected. Compensate the people whose goods you damaged. Give Lu Wenshu’s investigators your records, and do not send another member of your lodge to demand money from this market while the investigation is underway.”

Duan Kuo stared at her. ”Matriarch, with respect, you cannot expect the entire lodge to accept such humiliation. Our members have sworn to follow our rules.”

Yan Cijin smiled, and the smile was gentle enough to be almost pleasant. ”Then they are welcome to explain their position to us personally.”

Nobody volunteered.

Duan Kuo straightened slightly, as if he were trying to recover some part of his pride. ”We have members who are not present today. Some of them are strong martial artists. If you make an enemy of the Iron Sand Lodge, you may find that the matter is more complicated than it appears.”

Bai Li looked at him for a long moment. ”You have mistaken our patience for uncertainty. I am giving you the opportunity to put things right without anyone being injured. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the offer comes from fear.”

She did not raise her voice. She did not let her aura expand. She simply stood there, tall and still, and allowed the meaning of her words to reach him. The air around her seemed to sharpen. The broken sword lay at Duan Kuo’s feet, a plain piece of evidence that he could not ignore. For the first time, he understood the difference between a threat and a warning. A threat tried to make someone afraid of what might happen. Bai Li was offering him a chance to avoid a result she could already deliver.

Duan Kuo lowered his head.

”I understand.”

”Do you?” Bai Li asked.

He glanced at the vendor, at the merchants who were watching him, and then at the broken blade. His pride clearly wanted him to say something else. His instincts had finally become stronger than his pride. He went down on one knee, then bowed his head properly.

”I understand, Matriarch. I will return the money and compensate the merchants. I will submit our records for investigation.”

Bai Li nodded once. ”Good.”

Yan Cijin stepped forward and set another few silver coins on the vendor’s counter to cover the fruit that had been damaged. The vendor tried to refuse, but she shook her head. ”This is not payment for the trouble you have suffered. The lodge will repay you for that. This is simply for the fruit that fell on the ground. You should not lose your day’s earnings because someone decided to be cruel.”

The vendor accepted the coins with trembling hands.

Duan Kuo remained on his knee until Bai Li told him to stand. His companions gathered the broken weapon and backed away. A few market guards, who had been watching from a distance without knowing how to intervene, finally stepped closer. Bai Li gave them the names of the men and told them to record the incident carefully. She asked that the leader be permitted to return to his lodge under supervision so that he could collect the records and the money needed for restitution. No one was to beat him in revenge, and no merchant was to be told that the matter had been settled until the investigation confirmed it.

The guards bowed. They looked relieved to have clear instructions from someone whose authority no one would question.

As the men left the square, the murmurs began again. People whispered about the Matriarchs of Mount Hua, about the broken sword, about how Bai Li had not even drawn her own weapon. A group of young martial artists who had been watching from the tea shop doorway exchanged awed glances. One of them looked at Yan Cijin offering a frightened child the last piece of candied hawthorn and seemed unable to reconcile the sight with the stories he had heard about her ability to suppress an entire battlefield with a single release of spiritual pressure.

The child accepted the sweet with both hands. Yan Cijin crouched to meet her eye level and asked whether she was feeling better. The girl nodded, then looked at Bai Li with a mixture of curiosity and fear.

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TO BE CONTINUED.