The Farming Emperor: I'll Raise My Empire from Fields

Let's move forward with Chapter 9: "Market Day and the Man with No Shadow" in The Farming Emperor: I'll Raise My Empire from Fields. This chapter deepens the mystery around Sylas while introducing a new antagonist-like figure—a stranger who may not even be human.

Chapter 9: Market Day and the Man with No Shadow

🐓 Early Morning Stirring

Market Day.

It came once a month, when carts rolled from distant villages, spices returned from river routes, and traders bargained like wolves fighting over bones.

Sylas woke before the sun, sensing a shift. Not danger—difference.

He stood by the window of their wooden hut. Outside, Lira packed jars. Aldric sharpened knives. Maelis stitched labels onto bundles of dried herbs. Serra sneezed, but dressed in her best shawl. Bran loaded baskets. Even Olma, the old goat, had a ribbon tied between her horns.

Bud sat on the windowsill beside him. "Smells like strangers."

Sylas nodded. "And… no smell."

Bud blinked. "No… smell?"

🧺 Market Row

The market was loud, colorful, and filled with clashing smells—fried dough, pickled radish, goat butter, and tobacco. But amidst all the chaos, Sylas noticed one man he couldn't smell.

Not sweat. Not earth. Not anything.

He wore a wide-brimmed hat, eyes hidden in shadow. His long coat shimmered black-green, like beetle shells. He moved like water poured too slowly—controlled, but unnatural.

No one else seemed to notice.

The man stood behind a stall of oddities—no sign, no name—just items: feathered masks, teeth in velvet pouches, scrolls written backward, fruit that glowed faintly.

Sylas approached. Bud hissed softly but stayed close.

🎭 The Bargain of Nothing

The merchant looked down at Sylas and smiled. His teeth were wrong—too uniform, too many.

"Little one," he said, voice like silk scraped across glass. "Would you like something from before names?"

Sylas tilted his head. "What's the price?"

The merchant's smile widened. "A question fit for a king."

He held out a silver scale, the kind used by magistrates.

"Place one truth on the left," he said, "and I shall match it with one lie."

Sylas thought for a moment.

Then whispered, "I was born with silence in my bones."

The scale trembled.

The merchant placed a black seed on the other side.

"A lie for a lie," he said. "This is not a seed. But it will grow."

Bud whimpered. "Bad seed. Wrong roots. Burn it."

Sylas tucked it into his pouch.

He didn't know why.

👁️ The Mirror Cloth

Behind the merchant, a cloth-covered object pulsed faintly.

Sylas reached for it—but the merchant's hand snapped forward like a snake.

"Not yours. Yet."

"What's under the cloth?"

The merchant leaned closer. "Your reflection, in a future you will never choose."

Then he turned. "Leave now, child of root. You've already seen too much."

Maelis's voice called from behind, "Sylas? There you are!"

The merchant turned back to his stall—

—but the stall was gone.

No items.

No scent.

No trace.

Just dirt.

But someone had drawn a symbol in the dust before disappearing:

A spiral with thorns.

🐖 Trouble Among the Stalls

Not long after, a pig pen collapsed. One merchant accused another of theft. A cart of healing roots went up in smoke. Small accidents rippled through the market—nothing fatal, but unnatural.

Maelis frowned. "Something's stirred the market's breath."

"Bad energy," said old Crone Yellen, chewing a sage leaf. "Spirit trickery. Or worse—unclaimed debt."

Sylas felt it too.

The earth below the market pulsed wrong.

The stranger had left something behind.

🧼 A Cleansing at Home

Back home, Elly burned cleansing herbs. Bran repainted old warding signs on the fence. Lira offered three eggs to the soil. Maelis hummed old lullabies from the east mountains.

"Sylas," she said quietly, brushing his hair, "If anything follows you home—tell me."

He looked up. "It didn't follow. It's… watching."

"From where?"

He pointed to the shadows beneath the eaves of their old barn.

There, in the hayloft window, two pinpricks of silver light blinked once.

Then vanished.

🕯️ Night Whispers

That night, the dream returned.

A black seed pulsed in Sylas's palm.

It sprouted, but not upward—down. Its roots pierced through dreams and memory and meaning.

And somewhere, far away…

…someone whispered: "So the Root Emperor takes his first lie."

Sylas woke covered in dirt.

The black seed was gone.