Chapter 792: Village Chief Colludes with Liu Daba, Borrowing a Tiger

Chen Yan stepped over the paifang's threshold, and walked forward along the village's main yellow mud road, whose deep ruts were carved by Herd of Cattle carts.

Hongye fell half a step behind him, and the five fingers of his right hand were already fully pressed against the hilt of the short sword in his sleeve, the pads feeling the icy touch of coiled copper wire.

The crying grew ever nearer.

After passing two rows of low earthen houses, the view opened up: in the village center lay a smooth Mudi about half a mu in size, and in its exact middle stood a decades‑old dead Lao Huai Shu, its trunk wrapped with several loops of yellowed grass rope.

Two people knelt beneath the Lao Huai Shu.

A white‑haired old man, whose facial wrinkles resembled a plowed Hantian, a dark‑red scab of dried blood hanging at the corner of his mouth, his right eye swollen to a mere slit, and his left arm hanging at an unnatural angle, likely dislocated.

His body arched like a tiny shrimp, pressing something tightly between his chest and knees; no matter how the heavy wooden sticks behind him were swung, he would not release his grip.

Beside the old man knelt an equally disheveled white‑haired old woman, whose forehead had a Blood Cavity from striking the ground, her throat torn from crying, her voice sounding like sand grinding on iron.

"Please, sirs, grant a two‑day grace, just two days. The old woman can go borrow, go beg for food—anything. Do not touch my girl; she's still a child."

Standing before the old couple were five broad‑shouldered, stout thugs.

The leader was half a head taller than the bald man encountered in the alley; a fierce slash scar ran from his brow bone down his left cheek to his chin, the scar tissue flaring outward like a centipede that could never close its mouth.

Liu Daba.

He stood with hands on his hips before the old man, his right hand holding a blood‑stained white wax wood stick, its tip still clinging to a few white hairs.

"Grace period, grace period, you mother‑fucker."

Liu Daba jabbed the stick into the hard mud ground, the tip bouncing twice.

"The one‑guan loan from last lunar December, written in black on white paper with a fingerprint, the three‑percent interest compounded to today—how much is it? You can't calculate it, so I'll do it for you."

He extended his scar‑covered large hand, counting the fingers one by one.

"One guan principal, three percent interest, compounding monthly; after four months the total principal and interest is ten guan and three hundred wen. Can you produce that?"

The old man lay on the ground, his whole body trembling like dry leaves in the wind.

"Sir, the loan was at one percent interest, how did it become three percent? The old man can't read, but the contract…"

Before he could finish, a foot kicked his lower back.

The old man let out a muffled hum, spitting a mouthful of blood‑tinged sour liquid onto the mud before him.

"You old undying thing, one percent or three percent—does I decide or you decide?"

Liu Daba crouched, yanked the old man's collar upward, lifting his blood‑smeared face up to his own.

"Listen up, the contract is crystal clear. Your illiteracy is your problem; signing the fingerprint means you accepted the terms. I've been stamping money on this Qinghe ground for ten years, and no one has dared to cheat me."

He released his grip, and the old man's body slammed heavily back onto the Mudi.

The surrounding villagers gathered in increasing numbers.

Local farmers, Liuren from Qi State, men, women, old and young formed a massive circle, three layers deep inside and three layers outside, hemming the dead Lao Huai Shu so tightly that no water could pass.

But not a single person stepped forward.

A young Liuren youth clenched his fists and took half a step forward, only to be seized by an old farmer beside him.

"You're courting death; last year the second son of the Wang family said one too many words, and the next day he floated away in the ditch."

The young man's fists tightened and relaxed inside his sleeve repeatedly, and finally he retreated back into the crowd.

Chen Yan stood with his hands behind his back at the outer edge of the crowd; he was half a head taller than most, yet he deliberately slumped his shoulders slightly, compressing the oppressive aura of superiority into the very joints of his bones.

His gaze lingered on Liu Daba only briefly, then swept over the faces of the surrounding villagers.

Fear.

Anger.

And something more glaring than fear and anger—numbness.

Some faces had lost even fear, leaving only the dead‑water indifference that comes from being accustomed to such things.

Chen Yan's right hand clenched inside his sleeve.

Hongye stood behind him, sensing the subtle shift in his breathing; her cold eyes swiftly scanned the surrounding terrain, marking every possible hiding nook and alleyway in her mind.

Liu Daba, clearly having lost all patience with the old man's pleas, straightened his back, tossed the stick behind him, and craned his neck toward the tiny, curled figure behind the old man.

It was a fifteen‑ or sixteen‑year‑old girl.

She was as thin as a bamboo pole, her coarse cloth garments faded to a washed‑out white, hanging on her like a sack, two thin hemp braids hanging from her shoulders, the tips of her hair brittle, yellowed and split from chronic malnutrition.

She squatted behind the old man, her arms gripping his back tightly, her whole face buried between his shoulder blades, trembling all over like a winnowing sieve.

Liu Daba tilted his head, glanced at her twice, then grinned, exposing a set of smoke‑blackened teeth.

"Your old man can't produce the money, so your girl will have to bear the shame of repaying your father's debt."

He lifted his chin toward the henchmen behind him.

"Go, pull the person out."

Two henchmen, grinning mischievously, rushed forward—one pulling the old man's finger, the other grabbing the girl's arm.

The old woman, like a madwoman, lunged and clutched the henchman's thigh.

"Beast, you bastards, she's still a child!"

A stick struck the old woman's shoulder.

The old woman's body lurched, emitting a scream like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

Suppressed sobs rose from the onlookers.

At that moment, a heavy, chaotic clatter of footsteps came from the village entrance.

The crowd was violently pushed aside, opening a path.

A plump middle‑aged man dressed in the soap‑colored uniform of the Xiazhou prefectural government swayed his rotund body, swaggering into the scene surrounded by four or five sword‑wielding henchmen.

Embroidered on his chest was the character "Village Chief", his facial fat jiggling with each step, his small eyes narrowed to slits, a greasy smile curling at the corners.

The crowd, already quiet, fell silent as soon as he appeared, cutting off the last few sobs.

Several of the Liuren youths who had been clenching their fists in the dark saw the embroidered characters on the soap‑colored uniform, and the color drained from their faces.

Someone recognized him.

"It's Zhao Lìzhèng."

"Zhao the shorty is here, it's over; now there's even less anyone to manage it."

The old woman saw the soap‑colored robe, her knees went weak, and she rolled and crawled forward, kneeling at Zhao Lìzhèng's feet.

"Lord Zhao, please arbitrate; Liu Daba and his men are trying to seize my daughter. My old husband borrowed one guan of money, and the interest rolled up to ten guan—this is a matter of life and death."

She stretched out her trembling hands to grasp Zhao Lìzhèng's trouser leg.

"Chen Zhuguo said he would grant us tax‑free land allotments so we could live peacefully; please, Lord Zhao, be our arbiter!"

Zhao Lìzhèng lowered his head to glance at the old woman clutching his trouser leg, a flash of crudely concealed disgust passing through his narrowed eyes.

He yanked the mud‑stained cloth boot from the old woman's hand and kicked it into her shoulder socket.

The old woman's body toppled backward, her occiput striking the mud, emitting a dull thud.

"You old scoundrel even dare to invoke Chen Zhuguo's title."

Zhao Lìzhèng placed his hands behind his back, puffed out his round belly, and looked down from his height at the old woman on the ground.

"Chen Zhuguo's allotting of land is his grace; your failure to repay debts is your own affair. Chen Zhuguo may govern heaven and earth, but he cannot force you to repay."

He fished a filthy handkerchief from his chest, wiped the oil‑slick sweat from his neck, and glanced at Liu Daba.

"Repaying debts is a natural law; those words aren't mine, they're written in the Da Zhou Law."

He turned his head again, shoved the handkerchief back into his chest, and surveyed the surrounding Liuren whose faces were the color of earth.

"Listen to me clearly: Chen Zhuguo's new policy is for you to farm peacefully, not to cause chaos here."

He exhaled a thick spit from his nostrils and precisely spat at the old woman's feet.

"If anyone thinks I act unjustly, feel free to go to Xiazhou Prefecture and beat a drum to lodge a complaint."

The corner of his mouth curled up, the smile warped by his flesh into a nauseating curve.

"But I warned you: a Liuren who goes to the prefecture to cause trouble shows great disrespect to Chen Zhuguo's new policy—it's rebel mischief."

He extended a short, thick index finger and waved it slowly in the air twice.

"You should know the fate of rebels who cause trouble."

He pointed that finger toward the distant, rolling ridges of fields.

"The twenty mu of good land allotted to you—the Red Seal on the Field Deed can be stamped, or it can be crossed out."

He turned his finger toward the north.

"If you cross it out, you go back wherever you came from; Qi State is full of starving corpses. If you're not afraid of death, go ahead and complain."

With those words finished, the last ounce of movement in the whole arena was sucked away.

The young Liuren's fists loosened, hanging at their sides, the crescent‑shaped blood marks from their nails in their palms fading to white in the spring breeze.

The old man lay on the ground, pressing his daughter beneath him, muttering incomprehensibly; his voice sounded like an old dog trapped in a cage whimpering.

Chen Yan stood at the outer edge of the crowd.

Frost seemed to cover his face.

Hongye stood behind him, clearly seeing the blue vein on his nape pulsing at an extremely slow rate—a signal she had learned to recognize after following Chen Yan for so long.

The slower the vein thumped, the deeper his anger was suppressed.

The deeper the suppression, the more lethal the eruption.

Chen Yan's lips moved; his voice was so faint that only Hongye, a half‑step away, could hear.

"This huge rat is not striking Liu's banner."

Hongye tilted her head slightly.

"It strikes this Duke's banner."

Chen Yan's right hand slipped out of his sleeve, the five fingers slowly spreading then closing.

"Using the tax‑free rules I set to frighten my own subjects, using the land I allotted to threaten my own Liuren, using the official rank I granted to reap lives for the Liu family."

At the instant his fingers closed tightly, his knuckles emitted an extremely faint crack.

Zhao Lìzhèng's voice echoed through the arena; the more he spoke, the more vigorous he became, and the smile on his fat face grew increasingly brazen.

"I'll say one more thing: you outsiders from Qi State, the fields you were given are a favor from Chen Zhuguo, not something passed down from your ancestors. The Field Deed bears your names because Chen Zhuguo has no time for such trivialities; when he someday frees up his hand to audit the household registers…"

He deliberately paused, letting the words ferment in everyone's mind.

"When that time comes, whoever obediently follows will keep the land; whoever rebels will lose it."

His small eyes scanned around, finally landing on the still‑whimpering old man.

"Then don't blame me for handling this officially."

The air in the arena was no longer air at all, heavy as a wet blanket soaked in sweat and blood, layering over each person's chest and choking them.

Chen Yan watched the whole scene without missing a word, and heard it all.

His gaze left Zhao Lìzhèng's greasy, fat face and turned toward the muddy road in the distance that led toward Qinghe County Town.

Liu Daba.

Liu Dabao.

Zhao Lìzhèng.

And the mute, deaf officials in the county office.

And the vermilion boundary stakes nailed into the most fertile irrigated land.

And the exquisite report submitted by Qinghe County Office, filled with words of peace and prosperity.

This layer after layer peeled away, revealing rotten flesh thicker than he expected, with more maggots than he imagined.

Chen Yan inhaled a breath of spring wind scented with yellow mud and blood, pressed it deep into his chest, and exhaled slowly.

His gaze returned to the center of the arena.

Liu Daba was already impatient; he slapped the struggling old man away, and his rough, large hand immediately grabbed the girl's collar.