Chapter 38

Thirty-Eight: Rebirth

"Calm down, calm down, Magistrate. You can't flip the table. If you flip the table, how can we play? It's no good for anyone, everyone will be finished!"

Magistrate Diao was anxious and trembling as he spoke.

"Getting rid of them is the greatest benefit."

"But the Magistrate will be finished too if you mobilize troops without following the procedures. A person of great wealth shouldn't sit on a dangerous wall. How can the Magistrate trade lives with them?"

"Why do I feel like it's a great deal?"

"..." Magistrate Diao was speechless, "You are a Grade 7 Magistrate, a Metropolitan Graduate and third-place scholar, a scholar whose name is remembered even by the Empress of our Great Zhou. Your future is limitless; how can you let them ruin your career?"

"Are you done?"

Magistrate Diao carefully observed his expression and tentatively said: "The subordinate is done..."

Ouyang Rong nodded, grabbed the hilt of the sword, and pressed down, intending to cut off this "old dog's" head, which scared Magistrate Diao into immediately collapsing and howling: "There's more, there's more, there's more..."

"Speak."

Magistrate Diao turned his head to block his face from the blade and said urgently:

"If the Magistrate is finished, what if the next magistrate who comes is a corrupt official? Not only will all the grain and silver obtained from copying the homes be gone, but the disaster relief camp on the outskirts of the city will probably be demolished. All the Magistrate's hard work these days will be destroyed in one fell swoop.

"Magistrate, you don't know, the previous few magistrates were all bastards who only knew how to rake in money. It was hard to finally get a clear-sky official like you, and everyone is counting on you to uphold justice. Trading one for one is simply overestimating them; you can't just let them off so easily...

"So the Magistrate must not be impulsive, you must be calm! If you can't bear small things, you will mess up great plans. As long as the green hills remain, you don't have to worry about running out of firewood..."

Magistrate Diao's mouth was tripping over his words. After a round of racking his brains to explain, he found that the man in front of him had stopped moving. He carefully lowered his palms and looked up, only to see that this young magistrate didn't know when his expression had calmed down and was looking at him silently.

"Mag…istrate?"

Ouyang Rong suddenly said: "A mouth full of doggerel, is Magistrate Diao also planning to take the postgraduate exam?"

"..." Magistrate Diao was stunned. What is... postgraduate exam? Also?

But before he could ask, he felt a sudden lightness on his body.

Ouyang Rong had already stood up and was quietly patting the dust off his hem.

Magistrate Diao, who had escaped death, secretly wiped away his sweat. The look in the man's eyes just now was truly terrifying. Years of experience in observing people told him that if he hadn't answered well just now, he would have truly lost his head... Speaking of which, what kind of immortal magistrate has come to Longcheng County? Do you people outside call this a gentleman?

Magistrate Diao cursed in his heart, carefully avoided the terrifying sword edge near his neck, climbed up, pulled out the short sword, and handed it to Ouyang Rong with both hands while stooping.

The latter glanced at him, took it with a normal expression, sheathed it, and left a sentence behind as he turned:

"Magistrate Diao is indeed used to kneeling, but what you just said actually makes some sense."

"May I ask Magistrate, which sentence? The subordinate will ponder it, so I can say more things the Magistrate likes to hear in the future."

Ouyang Rong narrowed his eyes at Commandant Qin, his junior sister, and Beside Yan Liulang, who were gathering around, and said softly: "Flipping the table is simply too cheap for them..."

"It's fine not to flip the table, it's fine not to flip the table... The Magistrate is wise!" Magistrate Diao nodded with relief.

Ouyang Rong didn't look at him, looked at the dark night sky before dawn, and said loudly: "General Qin."

"The subordinate is here!"

"Light the fires, set up the pots, feed the horses with millet, and let the soldiers have a good meal before dawn."

"As you command!"

Commandant Qin didn't ask much and immediately went to execute it.

Magistrate Diao almost fainted upon hearing this. Didn't he say he wouldn't flip the table? Why is he gathering troops to eat a "farewell meal"?!

"You've worked hard all night, you should go eat something too." Ouyang Rong said softly to his junior sister and Beside Yan Liulang, who also looked confused, then turned and left alone without explaining.

Right now, whether the table in Longcheng County is flipped or not is up to him, and the Liu family and the other twelve families are the ones kneeling and begging for food.

……

Someone was accustomed to going to the disaster relief camp on the outskirts of the city every morning, and then returning to the office to work. If there was no official business that day, he would stay on the outskirts to handle affairs among the refugees and meddle in more business.

Even after so many things happened last night... including killing for the first time and neatly cutting off a head... it was no exception.

After Ouyang Rong left behind a command that sounded like flipping the table, he left the office and subconsciously walked to the disaster relief camp on the outskirts.

The disaster relief camp was filled with refugees who had become homeless in the floods. The poor right now had no qualifications to sleep in, and there were no entertainment activities at night, so they slept early and rose early; not everyone was like Magistrate Diao.

So every morning, the camp, which had been silent all night, seemed to suddenly revive; it was the liveliest time of the day.

Ouyang Rong used to quite like this vitality.

The marketplace in the morning was the most real pulse of this county, not the pipa music of Yuanming Tower, the debauchery of the high-ranking families, or the solemnity of the Longcheng County office.

He again distributed the dates, wheat sugar, and other snacks his aunt had stuffed into his pockets to the dirty children passing by at the camp entrance, and then found a hill where he could bask in the morning sun to sit down; it was actually an old spot.

This time, Ouyang Rong noticed a group of children following behind him, timid and afraid to come forward. He seemed used to it, waved his hand, and called them to his side.

Ouyang Rong didn't seem to be affected by the changes in the east storeroom last night.

He rubbed his stiff and tired face, turned around, put on a straight face, and pretended to be serious: "Don't move yet, let me guess... oh my, are you here to bribe this official again? You're so young and you don't learn well. What will happen when you grow up? You'll have to go to heaven..."

A few of the younger children were scared and shrank behind the older ones, and the latter hurriedly explained with red faces.

Ouyang Rong pretended to frown and sigh: "Coming every day to feed this official with pickled radishes, oh, there really are bad people among the masses..."

While criticizing them, the young magistrate's hands were not idle; he accepted all the bags of pickled radishes they brought with a smile, touched their heads here, and asked a few concerned questions there. If it weren't for the fact that these children didn't need to study, he might have had to give them some homework... Before long, Ouyang Rong let the children, who had cautious but happy little faces, go.

Actually, this could be considered a daily routine. Since the big aunts and little aunts in the camp found out that a certain handsome magistrate liked to eat pickled radishes, they often found opportunities to "feed" him.

At first, they came themselves, but later they seemed to find that this handsome magistrate had a somewhat thin skin, and every time they surrounded and teased him, he would blush and be tongue-tied, and he would start walking around them... So these ladies were understanding and changed to letting the children in their families deliver them.

Ouyang Rong actually used to be quite indifferent to the kind of "fish and water" relationship between officials and the people in movies, but after it fell on him, he found it truly fragrant.

It's just that after sending the children away with a "forced smile" today, his expression immediately returned to calm, and he sat alone on the hillside.

This night was... his body felt a bit cold.

But at this moment, someone behind him suddenly called out timidly: "Master."

Ouyang Rong turned his head to look; it was a familiar small figure.

"Aqing? Why are you here?"

The young girl with a character tattooed on her forehead was still wearing her old clothes, which had many worn-out patches, but they were neat and clean. Her face, tanned to a healthy wheat color, was also clean. This was a girl who looked as clean as white clouds at first glance, and only the unpolluted green mountains and clear waters of this era could nurture such a spirited girl.

"A... Aqing came to return Master's clothes... clothes..."

Under his gaze, the little girl stuttered her first sentence, then seemed to summon her courage, raised her little head, and stared at him with those big, spirited eyes without blinking, saying crisply:

"I heard them say that Master often comes to this area in the morning, so Aqing came... But Master didn't seem to come yesterday, and I waited all morning... But Master finally came today."

Aqing stepped forward cautiously, lowered her head, and handed over a neatly folded literary robe with both hands. It was the one Ouyang Rong had draped over her during the misunderstanding when he took off his clothes last time. He had forgotten about this garment later, and he didn't expect this little girl to come in person.

"There was a banquet yesterday noon, so I didn't come over." Ouyang Rong said somewhat embarrassedly: "I'm sorry, thank you for your hard work."

She handed it over with both hands, and he took it with both hands. His peripheral vision caught a glimpse of some nice embroidery on the sleeve of the robe.

Ouyang Rong was silent.

"It's not hard work." Aqing blushed, lowered her eyes to look at the two shoes below, and the two were speechless for a while.

Then, this girl with the character "Yue" on her forehead seemed to think of something, and her little face said excitedly:

"By the way, Master, the divine prescription you gave, Mother and I have been giving it to Brother every day, and we also listened to your words, letting the room ventilate and covering him with fewer quilts... Now Brother's condition has improved a lot, it's not as scary as before... The old abbot also said that Brother has held on, and there is hope for a full recovery if he persists."

Ouyang Rong nodded and forced a smile, "That's good." Actually, he had directly asserted that Ashan would be fine that day just to give Ashan's family confidence; sometimes giving people a bit of the idea of "life" is very important.

Aqing didn't know what Ouyang Rong had experienced not long ago, nor did she know how cruel the adult world was.

The two sat together on the hillside. Her eyes were bright, and she said many words of gratitude, to which Ouyang Rong responded.

However, although Aqing was introverted, she was also sensitive. She seemed to have noticed something, looked at the young magistrate whose smile seemed tired, and took the initiative to say goodbye. Ouyang Rong thought about it and didn't ask her to stay.

Before she left, his sharp eyes caught the ribbon on the little girl's skirt waist; it seemed to be tied in the same butterfly knot he had made last time.

Her hands are quite skillful. I remember Mother Liu mentioned that Aqing does embroidery work somewhere to support her family... Ouyang Rong thought.

Watching the little girl's back disappear, he sat on the hillside for a long time, quietly watching the twenty-four disaster relief camps in the fields ahead gradually return to their usual liveliness, as if they had gained a new life in the morning sun. Ouyang Rong felt that some kind of power was also returning within him.

It was also a rebirth.

"Isn't it just playing dirty under the table? Who doesn't know how..." A new strategy formed in his heart.

By the time the morning sun warmed his body, the young magistrate rose to his full height, draped the literary robe over his shoulder, carried the bags of pickled radishes, and turned his back to walk toward Longcheng County, which was waking up in the morning light.

"No, I've been a gentleman for too long, I'm starving, I have to take a bite of 'meat' first..."