Silos of the Red Harvest

The high kings won their empire by stripping every surrounding province of grain, sealing their conquest inside the cyclopean silos of Yanzhou. Now the empire has withered, leaving Chief Conservator Tan Fenglan to guard mountains of grain against thousands of starving nomads camped outside. But the true threat burrows from below. Chthonic earth-leeches, bloated on centuries of temple slaughter, are chewing through the mudbrick foundations. When sappers breach the lower cisterns, Fenglan must join forces with enemy infiltrator Xie Yunshan and a disgraced ritual butcher. Together, they must navigate the collapsing tiers of a rotting monument to conquerors, where the cost of ancient greed is paid in blood and falling stone.