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Chapter 7: The Quiet Empire Begins
The skies turned slate gray the next morning, with thunder murmuring somewhere far away, like a bored god clearing its throat. The scent of rain teased the wind, and Shen Ci welcomed it like an old comrade with calloused hands.
She sat on her porch, sipping herbal tea from a chipped porcelain cup, her notebook open across her lap. One page was labeled:
Empire Blueprint (Don't Laugh)
Underneath:
Secure food supply
Diversify revenue
Build local loyalty
Outsmart snakes
And, scrawled in red: Make it look like a fluke.
Let them think she got lucky. Let them whisper "coincidence" while she sowed strategy under every footstep.
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The community garden proposal went live that day.
It was deceptively simple—just a laminated poster pinned on the old community board near the well:
"Free Seeds. Free Tools. Free Training. Keep Half, Sell Half. Let's grow together."
—Shen Ci
The villagers laughed at first. Shen Ci? Starting a co-op?
But the rain came hard that afternoon, soaking their wilted crops, drowning fragile roots. And the next day, three families showed up at her gate with humble eyes and muddy boots.
"We heard… you have extra seedlings?"
She did. Of course she did. Labeled, sorted, pre-treated for pests. She even handed out a printout on crop rotation benefits with cute stick figures drawn in the margins. Xiao Du made those. They were a hit.
In a week, seven gardens were running.
By the end of the month, fifteen.
They called it the Shen Plan behind her back.
She pretended not to hear and updated her spreadsheet.
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Meanwhile, her little herbal distillery started gaining traction online. One of her test batches, "Bitter Truth," accidentally ended up on a niche healing forum when a traveler passed through the village and snapped a pic.
The caption read: "This tastes like pain and closure. I bought two."
It went semi-viral.
Within days, orders started trickling in—ten bottles, then twenty. She had to start an online shop. Xiao Du's cousin built her a basic storefront, and Shen Ci paid him in rice wine and future profit shares.
The kid was ecstatic. Said he'd never been part of a "startup" before.
Shen Ci laughed. "Sweetheart, this isn't a startup. It's a slow-burn siege."
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Then came the inspection.
Two men in black jackets arrived in a government-issue van, stepping out with the stiff shoulders of people used to walking into trouble.
"Environmental audit," one of them barked. "We've had complaints."
"Complaints?" Shen Ci asked, eyebrows arched.
"Allegations of improper waste disposal and unlicensed distillation."
She looked past them toward Shen Li's house down the road. "Imagine that."
The men swept through her home, her garden, her distillery, the co-op sheds. They found nothing but clean records, legal permits, neatly stacked compost bins, and safety gloves labeled by size.
Before leaving, one of them muttered, "Frankly… this is more organized than most county offices."
Shen Ci beamed. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me in a raid."
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She got a message from Shen Li that night.
"You think this is a game. But I know who's watching now."
She stared at the screen, sipping her tea, and tapped out a reply.
"Good. I hope they like the show."
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At dawn, she walked to the edge of the forest—where her parents' land stretched wild and untouched. The soil here was darker. Richer. Sleeping.
The system whispered:
[Rare Earth Mineral Potential: High]
[Survey Equipment Suggested: Geological Pulse Scanner (basic version available via black market purchase)]
[Risk Level: 4/10. Security Risk: 2/10. Opportunity Score: 92%]
She closed her eyes.
Not yet.
She had roots to deepen first. A base to build. Crops to harvest. Trust to earn.
Power, when wielded too soon, only paints a target.
She'd wait.
But oh, when she moved?
The earth itself would feel it.
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That night, thunder cracked wide over the village.
Shen Ci stood beneath it, hair damp, face tilted toward the clouds.
She wasn't just surviving anymore.
She was sowing storms.
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End of Chapter 7
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