On the day the Great Sheng Dynasty shut down Qingshi Post Station, the final order Lin Ye received was to put out the lights and leave before sunset.
But that night, a sandstorm blocked the road, and a caravan carrying thirty-four people and fifty-one animals lost its way in the wilderness. Lin Ye burned the last jar of winter lamp oil his family had and relit the post station lamp the court had already decommissioned.
That single flame brought him more trouble than he could imagine.
With no water, he tore down buildings and dug canals. With no food, he reopened the abandoned road. Displaced villagers, miners, merchants, and remnants of defeated armies, one by one, all those with nowhere else to go, followed the light. Pei Zhaoyue, the young master of the merchant caravan, staked her horses, goods, and future alongside him. Together, they turned the dilapidated post station into a market, then built the market into a border city.
Lin Ye had only wanted the people who followed him to survive, but the court kept coming to collect taxes, requisition grain and horses, and seize military authority. In the end, they pointed at the city's people and said:
"Lin Ye, you've gathered men and stockpiled troops. Are you planning a rebellion?"
Lin Ye looked back at the myriad lights glowing behind him.
"They just want to live."
"If that's rebellion, then so be it."
