Chapter 48: The Black Household Dilemma

Exciting chapter "Chapter 48: The Black Household Dilemma" is now online; click to read first! Daily Read Novels ->ttks. tw

Heavy rain fell for three consecutive days.

The entire city was soaked in cold, damp mist.

Cold wind, mixed with rain threads, slapped against the glass window.

"Cough, cough."

Two short, dry coughs sounded in the living room.

Lin Xuan's hand, holding the electric kettle, paused.

He set down the kettle and his gaze swept toward the side of the coffee table.

Xiao Sizi sat cross-legged on the carpet, holding two red-and-blue Lego bricks in her hand.

She sniffled, rubbing her reddened nose tip.

Lin Xuan strode over. He extended the back of his hand and pressed it against the girl's forehead.

Temperature normal, no fever.

But he dared not be careless.

With the lung illness, the lungs can least tolerate cold wind and dampness. Once it triggers a deep infection, a few Western pills simply cannot suppress it.

"Cold?" Lin Xuan asked.

"Not cold." Xiao Sizi shook her head, pressing a red plastic brick onto the baseplate, "These past few days I haven't seen the sun; my chest feels a bit stuffy. Resting for a while will make it better."

Lin Xuan stood up and pulled out his Mobile Phone.

He opened the weather app.

For this city, thunderstorms will continue for the next week.

His finger slid, switching the city. He input "Sanya".

Data popped up on the screen.

Sunny, twenty-eight degrees Celsius, air humidity suitable.

"Stop playing, I'll take you to move to a new spot." Lin Xuan locked the Mobile Phone screen and tossed it onto the sofa, "We're going to a warm island to soak up the big sun for a few days and disperse the cold air in your lungs."

Xiao Sizi lifted her head, dropped the bricks, and a light shone in her eyes.

"Take that iron dragon that flies close to the ground?"

"Too far; the iron dragon would run for a whole day."

"This time we'll take a passenger plane, take you up into the sky, fly over the clouds, and we'll arrive in just over three hours."

To be able to fly above the clouds.

Xiao Sizi excitedly climbed up and moved close to Lin Xuan.

Lin Xuan opened the ticket-buying app.

Selected the flight. Clicked "Add Passenger".

In the name field, he input: Li Mingda.

His fingertip moved to the next field. "Identity Card Number". A red mandatory asterisk followed behind it.

Lin Xuan's finger hovered above the screen, unable to press down for a long time.

Xiao Sizi poked her head out, looking at the glowing screen, blinking her eyes and asking:

"Lin Xuan, why did you stop? Is the travel money not enough?"

Lin Xuan's thumb pressed the return key, exiting the ticket-buying app.

He laid the Mobile Phone flat on the coffee table, turned his head, and looked at the girl.

"The travel money is enough to charter the whole plane, but you cannot board."

"Why?"

"You have no identity."

"In Great Tang, you are Li Mingda, the Jinyang Princess."

"But in our era, you are a non-existent person; this is called a Black Household."

Xiao Sizi's face showed confusion.

"In Great Tang, when traveling, one must have a Road Permit checked when leaving the border or entering a city."

"Could it be you cannot obtain this Road Permit of the later ages?"

Lin Xuan pulled over a cushion and propped his elbow on it, "It is ten thousand times stricter than a Road Permit."

"Here, everyone is issued a string of numbers at birth. This is called an Identity Card Number."

"This string of numbers follows you for a lifetime."

"Buying plane tickets, riding the High-speed Railway, staying at inns—all require this string of numbers to be checked via network."

"Not only that; without it, one cannot even complete the hospitalization procedures to see a doctor at a regular hospital."

"They do not accept people with unknown identities."

All the excitement on Xiao Sizi's face faded away.

She was exceedingly intelligent.

She had been steeped in the laws and regulations of Great Tang.

Fleeing households and hidden, unregistered people were serious crimes in Great Tang.

At best, exile to Lingnan; at worst, execution and collective punishment.

She looked at Lin Xuan, and in her mind floated the image of herself dragging down this young man.

"I... am I a lawbreaker here?"

"You took me in; if the officials investigate, will they chain you with iron chains?"

A tear dropped onto the back of his hand, shattering into several fragments.

She felt she was a troublemaking burden.

Not only could she not see the sea, but she would also get Lin Xuan thrown into prison.

Seeing her shed tears, Lin Xuan immediately squatted down.

He pulled out a tissue, pressed it to the corner of her eye, and wiped away the tear tracks.

"What nonsense are you thinking? This is a society ruled by law; we don't practice collective punishment."

"You are a four-year-old child; who would lock you up with iron chains?"

"Can I really not ride the big iron bird anymore?" Xiao Sizi asked through sobs, her face full of grievance.

Lin Xuan rubbed the top of her head. "Not for the time being."

"But rules are dead, while people are alive."

"I will try every legal and compliant method, go through the adoption procedures, and surely get your household registration settled for you."

"Let us wait for a while."

The Taiji Palace of the Great Tang.

Inside the main hall, the civil and military officials felt a chill rising from the back of their necks.

They had always viewed the later generations as an era that disrespected Heaven and Earth, refused to kneel before kings, spoke and acted with laxity, and was surely a barbaric realm with no hierarchy and relaxed laws.

Until this very moment.

That invisible giant net named "Identity Card" descended right over their heads.

Tang Jian, the Minister of Revenue, who managed the household registers of the world, understood best the difficulty of registering the common people.

"A string of numbers... locking a whole life..."

The household registers of the Great Tang relied on village heads and village elders to manually compile the lists.

Refugees fleeing into deep mountains could change their names and hide again.

The court's control over the lower population was riddled with loopholes.

But the later generations were different.

A string of numbers bound birth, aging, sickness, and death.

Without that string of numbers, inns would not accept you, and clinics would not treat you.

The state would not need to send troops to capture anyone; it only needed to cut off the permissions of that string of numbers on the terminal, and a person would be unable to move an inch in society.

Such extreme information penetration.

Such grassroots governance methods so tight they were suffocating.

Far beyond the imagination limits of emperors of past dynasties.

The Ming Dynasty timeline.

Outside the Fengtian Hall.

Zhu Yuanzhang strode quickly across the white marble plaza outside the hall, the hem of his dragon robe fluttering.

His eyes shone. "What an Identity Card Number! What an inability to move an inch!"

Zhu Yuanzhang slapped the railing with one palm, his palm turning red.

He founded the Ming Dynasty and established the Road Permit system.

If common people traveled more than a hundred li from their hometown without a Road Permit, they were treated as fugitives.

He used this as the strictest household registration investigation in the world.

But he knew that Road Permits were extremely easy to forge.

Paper was easy to damage.

The system depicted by Lin Xuan in the Sky Screen showed Zhu Yuanzhang the ultimate form of population control.

"Where is the Commander of the Brocaded Guard!"

A general wearing a Flying Fish Robe flashed out, dropping heavily to one knee on the stone slab.

"Your humble subject is here!"

"Issue an edict to the Ministry of Revenue: The Ming Dynasty immediately abolishes the paper Road Permit."

"Go to all parts of the world to requisition hard wood, copper, and iron."

"Forge a special Identity Waist Tablet for every living person in our Ming Dynasty!"

"The waist tablet must not only be engraved with the name and native place, but also carve the person's facial features and height measurements, and stamp it with the top-secret fire seal of each prefecture."

"When entering or leaving the city, staying at inns, or buying and selling, everyone must have their waist tablet inspected."

"Those without a tablet, or those whose appearance does not match the tablet, shall be immediately arrested and thrown into the Imperial Prison!"

"I want the world of the Ming Dynasty to be such that not even a fly of unknown origin can fly through!"

On the fourth day of the heavy rain, the rain threads were fine and fragmented, sticking to the Glass window and sliding down.

The air pressure in the living room was somewhat low.

Xiao Sizi was curled up in a single-person sofa, her arms hugging a cushion, her chin resting on the soft pad.

Ever since learning she was a "Black Household" with no identity and could not go to the island, she had lost her usual liveliness, staring blankly at the rain curtain outside the window all day.

Lin Xuan leaned against the kitchen island, drinking a mouthful of warm water.

Only the one who tied the bell can untie it.

Since they could not go out, they had to find something to distract her.

Ding-dong—!

The doorbell sound broke the gloom inside the room.

Lin Xuan walked over and pulled open the security door.

A same-city courier handed in a long, flat cardboard box.

Lin Xuan signed for it, then walked back to the living room holding the box in one hand.

He placed the box flat in the exact center of the coffee table and rapped his knuckles against the cardboard.

"Stop zoning out and come collect your gift."