[Historical fantasy | System | Farming | Infrastructure]
In the final years of the Qiyuan Dynasty, the Northern Di swept south to attack the passes, and the fires of war began to spread across Qingzhou. No one expected that, in just one year, a palace coup in Luoyang would plunge the land into a chaotic era of warring states like the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.
When Xie Tang fell into the snow with an arrow in her, she thought she would be buried in the dust of this chaotic age, just like the village that had been massacred.
Then a cold System voice sounded in her mind. She had bound herself to a life-or-death System, with three years to succeed. Failure meant death.
First came Shen Yan, the swordsman who was the first to trust her, then Wang Er, a man of few words, and Lu Linyuan, a world-weary miracle doctor. One had taken a bandit's blade for her, another had braved the snow to barter for grain, and one had said, “This city is yours. We'll defend it with you.”
They had shared thin porridge beneath crumbling walls and shed blood together atop the ramparts. In the accounts office at night, there had been tears of despair over “failing the mission,” and warmth in one another's words: “Just hold on a little longer, and we'll make it.”
When the final brick was laid in the city wall and the System's notification sounded, Xie Tang looked at the lights filling the city and the people by her side, and finally understood. The System hadn't forced her to become a city lord. These people had stood with her in the chaos and fought to carve out a home.
