Saddleback Town, a two-hundred-soul hamlet, leaned on a low hill at sunset, like a horse’s back under a sky of spilled ember-ink.

Lance reached the gate as dusk clung like moss, stopped a tenant farmer heading home, and asked, “Is there any place to stay the night?”

The farmer pointed toward the square, where a big stone well stood like a gray eye; across that eye, an inn squatted under a sagging roof like a sleeping ox.

“So there is an inn here?” Fulin, wearing Lance’s face, let surprise rise like a startled bird; she’d thought a troubled town meant no travelers and no open doors.

The farmer nodded, his gaze sliding over Lance’s worn cloak like cold rain, then flicking to the big pack-beast like a wary fox; he shook his head for no clear reason.

Curiosity prickled like nettles; Lance drew breath to ask more.

The tenant shut down like a shutter in wind and walked on in silence; man, woman, youth, elder—Fulin asked several more, and all gave the same frost-brittle distance.

“Hah, the local style’s not exactly warm,” Lance joked, a thin flame in a clay brazier.

Because of Lance’s questions, eyes gathered like crows on a wall; passersby watched him with guarded stares, blades hidden in reeds.

That gaze circled like vultures riding a thermal, fixed on prey; unease fluttered in Fulin’s chest like a moth at a lamp.

She let the feeling pass like a wave under a boat, kept Lance’s stride easy, and walked to the inn door on the square.

After confirming the inn still breathed like a hearth at night, Lance sent the big cat back to the wild to rest, then stepped inside alone, a shadow slipping through firelight.

“Oh, guest, staying the night?” The landlady’s voice came like warm tea; not that chilly strangeness from the street, and Fulin felt a thread of comfort unwind.

“Yes. One night. How much?” Lance saw no board with prices, so he asked, words neat as stacked coins.

The landlady’s eyes skimmed Lance’s clothes like a hand over rough cloth, paused on the oilcloth-wrapped rod like a log on a stream, dropped to a refined weapon gleaming like frost—and she named the price. “Thirty copper coins.”

Price-gouging, Fulin cursed inwardly, heat rising like steam; thirty copper coins could cover a night in Mubay City’s East District, city lights bright as fish scales—why charge that here?

“Staying or not? Don’t block my business,” the landlady prodded, a broom tapping a stubborn leaf.

Helplessness sighed through Fulin like wind through bamboo; so this world had its own brand of price discrimination. Lance let impatience spark. “Fine, fine. I’ll stay.”

He drew out a pouch of coin, the clink like pebbles in a gourd. He’d wrung this change from those mercenaries, who’d noticed he carried no small coins and had, seeing his gold, traded him their own.

“Thirty copper, right?” Lance set down thirty red-toned copper coins, their arcanic sheen like a cold ripple on iron.

The landlady’s eyes flashed like a cat’s in lamplight. “Not enough.”

“How’s it not enough?” Lance’s temper snapped like dry twig.

“Thirty’s for board and bed. But for a stranger like you…” She glanced at Lance’s face, voice thinning like smoke. “Then five copper as a deposit…”

A rough voice burst from the kitchen like a kicked door. “What’s this?! Fifty copper deposit! Not a coin less!”

Out stomped the inn’s master, a cook in blood-spattered clothes; he carried a cleaver slick with animal blood, shining like a wet moon.

He slapped the blade on the counter with a wet thud, belly and bravado both heavy as lard. He planted himself before Lance like a stump. “Fifty copper deposit. Not a coin less. That’s our reputation in this town!”

Reputation? In a den that sliced guests like onions? Fulin’s mind curled a smile like a cat’s tail.

But there wasn’t another inn for a hundred li, and the big cat needed rest like parched earth needs rain. Fulin, as Lance, had to grit her teeth and take the knife without bleeding.

“One silver coin. Here.” Lance paid the deposit with a sigh like a candle’s breath—not willing, but the pouch held no more copper.

“That’s more like it.” The cook snatched the silver like a hawk grabs a chick, tucked the cleaver, and lumbered back to the kitchen. “Dinner soon. Sit there.”

The ground floor doubled as tavern, a low-lit pool of ale and smoke; Lance chose a shabby corner like a stone under an eave.

Townsfolk sat a distance away like wary deer, but his sharp hearing combed their whispers like a fine-toothed rake.

“See that kid? Wears poor rags like a beggar’s sack, but that face is tender as tofu. He’s some rich pup, you can smell it.”

“New face, no guards, soft hands like lily stems. He’s some noble brat with too much coin. Look at the gear on his back and hip—treasures, both.”

“Poor fool. With the Charles Brothers around, he won’t walk out clean. He walked into a net like a fish at dawn.”

“Yeah… let’s see if his family buys him back at Golden Bay City’s slave market, like a hen at auction.”

Badlands breed bad folk—worse than thornbushes, Fulin thought, pulse tapping like rain on bamboo. Even those bandits from the afternoon feared this nest.

But the reins sat in her hands like leather warm from sun. If they dared lay a finger, she’d take back principal and interest, copper and dignity, with interest like wildfire.

The cook brought the dish, steam rising like a small cloud. “Seasonal greens with soybeans and minced meat. Cinnamon. Enjoy.”

She scooped a bite; the taste landed like a small stone on water—ripples, not waves.

Against the dishes of Xia with their fireworks of wok-smoke, this stir-fry felt rough as gravel; yet Fulin felt no scorn, only a warmth like old road-dust.

In Lance’s skin, she almost never ate stir-fry; nobles turned their noses like cranes, favoring stews and bakes—lavish “Western” plates with costly spices, time simmered like winter.

She noticed the beer was free, foaming like a lazy brook.

Then she saw it was mash water, a film of unknown slime clinging like pond scum; dread crawled cold as a lizard, and she let the cup be.

After she ate, the landlady brought a key that gleamed like a fish scale. “Top floor, last room. Remember the number. Don’t mind the bedding. One bucket of hot water, free, once. Room’s yours till morning.”

“Understood.” Fulin, as Lance, took the key and climbed, steps soft as cat paws.

The second-floor corridor was narrow and dim, a tunnel of stale breath; most would need moonlight through the small windows like threads of silver. In Lance’s eyes, night bloomed like ink washed with stars; everything lay clear.

He noted five rooms along the hall, the last at the far end like a nail at a board’s tip. He didn’t open it yet. He slid the key into the next door’s keyhole and turned; the metal whispered like a snake.

The door swung open.

“As expected—same locks,” Fulin muttered, voice quiet as a folded fan; the crude key had already told the story.

A door without safety is a mouth without teeth; Fulin’s unease deepened like dusk in a well.

No help for it. Sleep if you can, she told herself, a leaf floating the current. As a Chaos Vampire, she couldn’t truly sleep anyway; she wrapped herself in that truth like a cloak.

Lance entered the last room and lay in waiting, a bow unstrung but ready.

An hour passed, then two, then three, then four—time dripping like wax in the dark.

Past midnight, sounds trembled down the corridor like a spider’s thread plucked.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Creak—

Footsteps walked the hall, boards lifting like curled bark under weight, each complaint a small crow.

They’re coming, Fulin thought, calm tightening like a knot. Lance slid off the bed without a whisper and poised, a drawn arrow in shadow, waiting for the latch.

The steps stopped at the door; a click snipped the silence; the door cracked open like a shell.

Whoosh—Lance flicked a mercenary’s dagger into the door plank; the blade hummed like a dragonfly. He hadn’t missed. The visitor wasn’t a pack of bruisers, but the landlady, face pale as dough.

“They’ve gone mad!” She didn’t even see the dagger by her brow, took it for a stubborn latch, sidestepped it like a puddle, and slipped in.

“What happened?” Since she missed the steel, Lance let the matter drift like smoke.

“Oh! By the Light Deity above, they’ve finally decided to rob and kill a traveler…” Her voice cracked like thin ice; conscience had gnawed her hollow.

Lance asked, and the tale tumbled like stones. The “Charles Brothers,” an unaffiliated mercenary band, had seized the town.

Mercenaries supervising for the local lord is no rare bird in Golden Bay City; but unaffiliated means their nest sits beyond even the crooked branch.

They hadn’t burned or butchered, but they taxed the townsfolk like locusts and forced them to extort travelers like wolves at a ford.

Now they’d sniffed a fat fish in Lance, and planned to net him at dawn, to do a deed that stinks to heaven.

The landlady had long carried guilt like a millstone. Seeing he was young, she couldn’t watch one more boy get sold at Golden Bay City’s slave market, a lamb led by a rope. So she came to warn him, heart pounding like a drum.

So that’s the root, Fulin thought, relief and bitterness mixing like rain and ash; the town’s odd chill finally made sense.

But questions still pricked like thorns.

Lance lit the kerosene lamp, a small sun pooling warm honey; the glow steadied the landlady’s breath. He asked, “If so, why wait till morning? Why not cut a sleeping throat now? Easier than catching dawn wind.”

“Golden Bay City has vampires too,” the landlady said “too” like a pebble in a shoe, then hurried on. “Even the ‘Charles Brothers’ fear vampires. They won’t do crimes at night. They’re cowards, under all that bark.”

Fulin understood; the good woman wanted him to slip away under moonlight like a fox. But Lance shook his head. “Thank you for your kindness, but I can’t risk a night flight.”

“Why? You should be flirting in the city with those young ladies, not gambling your life with alley dogs. Foolish child!” Her pain rose like a keening wind.

In ordinary eyes, Lance was a noble youth chasing a knight’s dream like a moth chasing flame; the Doran Kingdom swarms with boys like that, and reality burns.

But Lance was not the usual moth.

He held a certified knighthood, a name given by the Iron Duke himself—“Flame of Chaos.” Who would teach whom a lesson was still sky and dice.

“Madam, you need not worry.” Fulin, as Lance, stood like a pine in snow and swore, voice steady as an oath-stone. “Justice is never late. I, a Flame of Chaos Knight, give you my word.”