With her touch on his back, Qingyi finally calmed down.

He looked at Ruyi and asked: “Did the shopkeeper have any nightmares?”

“No,” Ruyi’s eyes sparkled as she smiled and asked, “What kind of nightmare?”

“Monsters wanted to go to Nine Rivers to eat the people building the city wall.” The young man before her clutched his head in pain. “That voice was so real, it didn’t feel like a dream.”

Qingyi was a martial artist, yet he was frightened to this extent—ordinary people would fare even worse.

Ruyi nodded with satisfaction.

Immortals cannot invade people’s minds, but monsters have no such restrictions. In this regard alone, how could Shen Qiyuan possibly gain the upper hand? He thought having the city guards watch for rumors would solve everything, little knowing she had plenty of other methods.

Seeing Qingyi’s genuine fear, Ruyi let him lie beside her, then propped her head with one hand while patting him with the other, coaxing him back to sleep like a child.

On the other side.

Shen Qiyuan also woke from the moonlight, though not from being startled—he was angered awake.

Dream manipulation—truly a dirty tactic favored by monsters.

Even he had such an eerie nightmare, so throughout Lin’an, or perhaps all of Great Qian, few people could escape unscathed.

His brow furrowed deeply as he turned over and got up, wanting to check the labor recruitment office. However, looking outside, it was just past the Yin hour—even if he went to the recruitment office, no one would be there.

Lying back on the bed in frustration, he stared at the window with open eyes, enduring bit by bit until dawn broke.

Early the next morning, Shen Qiyuan went out in civilian clothes. As expected, he saw that the people on the streets all had grayish complexions and dispirited expressions. In the mere two-street distance from his location to the recruitment office, he was bumped into seven or eight times by oncoming pedestrians.

When he finally reached the recruitment office, the line of people visible was less than half of yesterday’s crowd.

Having just recovered from natural disasters, recruiting people to build city walls could both speed up construction and help refugees earn money—it should have been a win-win situation. But with the monster’s secret interference, many people became hesitant, preferring to accept meager relief rather than risk their lives going to Nine Rivers.

Some still wanted to go, like the line of people before him. They all looked quite old, dressed in rags, gaunt and skeletal, their eyes fixed intently on the registration clerk ahead.

Who wasn’t afraid of monsters? But compared to being eaten by monsters, staying put would also mean death. For their wives and children, they might as well take the gamble. Even if they died on the road, they could still collect a few hundred coins when registering.

Shen Qiyuan felt sorrowful and, after thinking for a moment, also joined the queue.

“This gentleman looks so delicate and tender—why are you also here for this life-risking money?” the person ahead asked curiously.

Shen Qiyuan nodded politely: “To make a living.”

“Such a pity for such a handsome appearance.” Several older brothers ahead frowned and shook their heads. Someone said, “In my opinion, you’d be better off going to Shuyi Restaurant. I heard business is good there—there’s a wealthy female shopkeeper who specifically picks good-looking young men to serve her, and she gives generous rewards.”

Shen Qiyuan’s eyelid twitched: “A wealthy female shopkeeper?”

“I know her—she’s the owner of Huixian Restaurant. That female shopkeeper is truly rich. Just yesterday, she spent several thousand strings of cash to buy a blue-gray horse for a handsome young man.”

“…”

He turned his face away nonchalantly, following the line step by step forward.

After moving a few steps, Shen Qiyuan still couldn’t help but ask with a cold laugh: “Was it for that young man in green clothes?”

“I can’t remember what color clothes he wore, but it’s not just one person. Just from what I’ve seen, there are three young men, each more handsome than the last.”

Several people spoke enthusiastically, wanting to persuade this gentleman—why risk your life when there’s such easy money to be made?

But just as they finished speaking, snow seemed to fly into the gentleman’s eyes. Even though he wore coarse gray cloth, the aura around him became somewhat frightening.

They quickly fell silent and turned back, not daring to speak further.

The long queue continued forward.

The registration clerk carelessly marked his ledger: “Next. Place of origin, name?”

The person at the table answered in a deep voice: “Lin’an, Shen Qiyuan.”

Before his bottom could settle properly in the chair, the clerk fell under the table along with his seat. Shen Qiyuan stepped forward to help him up, squeezing his arm: “Sir, please be more careful.”

With these words, the clerk trembled even more violently. A lowly, unranked official like him—what virtue or ability did he have to be called “sir” by Lord Shen?

With a mournful expression, he crawled out from under the table, clutching the table edge as he tremblingly asked: “What is this about?”

Glancing at the other people behind him, Shen Qiyuan said seriously: “I wish to build city walls for Great Qian.”

The clerk: “…”

He didn’t dare put pen to paper, only respectfully asked him to first go to the group of laborers already prepared to depart.

Every day’s registered laborers, once they reached two hundred people, would form one group, led by ten officers, to the next city. Shen Qiyuan blended in among them, waiting quietly.

Everyone around was anxious about last night’s dreams, especially after discovering that everyone had the same dream, panic spread rapidly through the crowd.

“We’re also going to pass through that road where someone died yesterday, aren’t we?”

“Yesterday, there were fewer people, but today we have so many—how could such a thing happen again?”

“I think this money is truly buying our lives. The authorities might have made a deal with monsters. They say it’s for building walls, but they’re sending us to be sacrificed…”

“What nonsense are you talking about? How could the authorities do such a thing?”

Amid the discussion, the soldiers ahead shouted for them to get moving. Though everyone was afraid, having already taken the money, they had no choice but to steel themselves and head outside the city.

The early spring suburbs should have been green with willows and fresh vegetation, but as they passed through, everything felt dim and cold around them.

Dark clouds blocked the sun, the chaotic branches of trees resembled black cracks, cold winds gusted, and over two hundred people huddled together. The sound of chattering teeth mixed with strange bird calls in the distance made it hard not to feel fear.

The leading soldiers also sensed something was wrong. Clutching his stomach, one said: “Brothers, take them forward first. I need to relieve myself.”

“I want to go too.”

“Me too.”

Ten officers disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving the remaining two hundred-plus people, who naturally wouldn’t stay put obediently, immediately screaming and scattering.

“Don’t run, staying here is safest,” Shen Qiyuan shouted.

In such an eerie atmosphere, who would listen to him? The raggedly dressed old brother ran back with a grimace, shouting as he ran: “I don’t want to die!”

As soon as his words fell, an eight-foot-tall woman suddenly leaped out from beside them. Her face lifted from her disheveled hair, revealing two empty black holes for eyes.

The old brother was so frightened he couldn’t even scream, only staring at her in terror.

“Wretched man,” she murmured twice, then struck down at his head with her claw.