By the time Wei Cang began scrubbing the first pot, Qinghe had learned that hunger did not merely weaken the body.
It loosened the seams of a people.
One stolen ration had been enough to turn grief into accusation, accusation into judgment, and judgment into law. Ji Yuan watched Yin Meiniang shove the blackened pot into Wei Cang's hands and understood that if every crisis required a debate in the mud, Qinghe would collapse before dawn of the second day.
The settlement could not survive by improvising morality one theft, wound, and grave at a time.
It needed rules.
Not grand laws. Not the polished statutes of fallen nations. Not declarations of liberty or imperial codes carved on bronze. Those belonged to worlds with courthouses, granaries, armies, and roads. Qinghe had a smoking fire, a cracked seal, a medical zone beneath leaning stones, and a forest whose roots moved when unwatched.
So Ji Yuan called the living together.
Not all came. Some could not stand. Some slept from exhaustion where they had fallen. Some remained beside the graves, unwilling to leave the newly buried. Li Qingluan stayed near the medical stones, but even she lifted her head to listen. Han Yue stood with his arms crossed, a broken axe handle resting against one shoulder. Qin Moxuan held the bark ledger and watched Ji Yuan with the severe patience of a man waiting to see whether words could become structure.
Wei Cang scrubbed the pot near Yin Meiniang's fire, head lowered, though Ji Yuan knew he was listening too.
Rain fell in thin silver threads.
Ji Yuan stepped onto the same half-buried root he had used before. The root shifted faintly beneath his boot.
He chose not to look down.
"Qinghe cannot continue like this," he said.
The clearing quieted in pieces.
A few people turned toward him. Others continued whispering. A child coughed. Somewhere near the medical stones, a wounded man groaned in his sleep.
Ji Yuan raised his voice.
"We have spent this day reacting. Someone screams, we run. Someone bleeds, Doctor Li chooses. Someone dies, we dig. Someone steals, we judge. If we keep living only after disaster reaches us, we will always be too late."
Zhang Bei stood near the burial slope, face gaunt beneath the rain. "And what do you suggest, Lord of Mud?"
The title carried mockery.
Ji Yuan accepted it.
"Seven rules," he said.
That drew more attention.
Qin Moxuan's eyes sharpened. Luo Qingshu, seated on a flat stone nearby, lifted his charcoal at once.
"Write them," Ji Yuan said.
Luo nodded.
Ji Yuan looked over the gathering of survivors, then spoke slowly enough for the words to be repeated.
"First: no one enters the forest, riverbank, or outer clearing alone. Gathering wood, searching for water, scouting, or hunting will be done only in assigned groups."
Han Yue grunted approval.
Yue Lingxi was still away with the deadwood group. Ji Yuan wished she had returned before he said it, but waiting for every voice would mean never making a rule at all.
"Second: no food leaves the common store without record."
Wei Cang's scrubbing slowed.
Ji Yuan looked toward him, then at everyone else.
"Not for children. Not for parents. Not for friends. Need will be heard. Theft will be judged."
A few murmurs rose, but no one challenged him openly.
"Third: all wounded and sick are brought to Doctor Li's zone. No hiding fever. No hiding bites. No hiding weakness because of pride."
Li Qingluan's expression changed slightly at that. It was not gratitude, but it was recognition.
Qin Moxuan murmured, "Good."
Ji Yuan continued.
"Fourth: all wood brought into Qinghe will be divided between shelter, fire, tools, and defense. No private hoarding of timber until the first palisade line exists."
Someone shouted, "Palisade? With what wood?"
"With what we gather," Ji Yuan said. "With what the forest allows us to take and what our hands can shape."
The answer satisfied no one, but it named the problem.
"Fifth: every able person will have a function."
That line caused the loudest reaction.
An elderly man near the fire barked, "And who decides what a person is able to do?"
"Doctor Li decides if the body cannot work. Han Yue decides if someone can stand watch. Mo Tieheng decides who can assist with tools. Yin Meiniang decides who can help with cooking. Qin Moxuan records it. I confirm disputes."
Qin lifted his head. "There should be categories of labor and exemptions."
"There will be."
"There should also be penalties for refusal."
"There will be."
The exchange passed quickly, but the crowd heard it. Ji Yuan was not speaking alone. The shape of administration was beginning to form around him, crude and ugly, but real.
He raised his hand before Qin could continue.
"Sixth: every death is recorded."
The clearing became very still.
Ji Yuan's gaze moved to the burial slope.
"Name if known. Description if unknown. How they died if we know. Who spoke for them if someone did. No one vanishes into mud."
Bai Suyin stood near the edge of the crowd with her gray bundle of bones in her arms. Her eyes closed briefly.
Luo Qingshu wrote that rule with hands that trembled more than before.
"Seventh," Ji Yuan said, "every dispute that affects food, safety, labor, burial, shelter, or punishment will be heard before witnesses. No private revenge. No secret beating. No one settles law with a knife in the dark."
Han Yue's expression hardened. He understood the necessity. Perhaps more than anyone.
Qin Moxuan, however, frowned.
"These are principles," he said. "Not yet laws. They lack specific punishment, jurisdiction, and enforcement hierarchy."
Ji Yuan looked at him. "Yes."
"That is dangerous."
"Not as dangerous as waiting to define perfection while people act without boundaries."
Qin's mouth tightened. "A rule without punishment is a suggestion."
"A punishment without a shared rule is tyranny," Ji Yuan replied.
The words landed heavily.
Qin studied him for a long moment. Then, reluctantly, he lowered his gaze to the ledger.
"We will need punishments by morning."
"We will need to survive until morning first."
A bitter voice rose from the back.
"I escaped Earth to get away from governments."
The speaker was a broad-faced man Ji Yuan had seen carrying stones for the graves. His hands were raw. His eyes were not rebellious in the manner of a schemer, but desperate in the manner of someone who had seen too many uniforms before the end.
"My city had rules," the man said. "Then ration lines. Then checkpoints. Then soldiers. Then people with stamps deciding who got medicine and who died outside fences. Now the sky throws us here, and before the first night you make laws."
Several people nodded.
This was not ordinary defiance. It was memory.
Ji Yuan stepped down from the root.
He approached the man until they stood close enough that neither needed to shout.
"What is your name?"
"Gao Renjie."
"Gao Renjie," Ji Yuan said, "you escaped Earth."
The man's jaw clenched. "Yes."
Ji Yuan looked toward the forest.
"You have not escaped death."
The clearing seemed to hold its breath.
Ji Yuan turned back to the people.
"Rules did not destroy Earth. Men used rules as chains, shields, excuses, markets, weapons. Men abandoned responsibility and called it policy. Men abandoned mercy and called it order. Men abandoned order and called it freedom. I cannot promise Qinghe will not repeat their sins."
His voice lowered.
"I can only promise this: every rule made here will be spoken where witnesses can hear it. Every burden will have a name. Every punishment will be judged before eyes, not hidden behind walls we do not yet have."
No one cheered.
But no one walked away.
That was enough for the first night of civilization.
The cracked seal warmed in Ji Yuan's palm.
The Record appeared, pale gold against rain-dark air.
Initial survival directives established.
Social cohesion: fragile, improving.
Authority structure: provisional.
Risk: enforcement failure.
Recommendation: establish defense perimeter.
Before Ji Yuan could fully read the final line, branches cracked at the edge of the clearing.
Every head turned.
Yue Lingxi emerged from the mist.
She was soaked, breathing hard, and streaked with mud. Behind her, two survivors carried a man between them. His leg dragged uselessly. Blood darkened his trousers. Deep claw marks crossed his side.
The deadwood bundle had been abandoned.
Yue's eyes found Ji Yuan.
"We are not alone," she said.