Chapter 289: My Name Is Yue Saonu

South of Liangzhou city, great batches of able-bodied men had their ankles bound with hemp rope, both feet tied.

Under the escort of overseers sent out by each clan and household, they were prepared to leave Liangzhou city and begin the task of repairing Liangzhou's city defenses.

Matching the hemp ropes that bound them were faces full of numbness.

These numb faces were yellow, some dark brown, and every face bore filth of one kind or another.

Dried mud, crusted residue left after smearing on grease in winter, even small bits of livestock dung.

As for their heads, they were guaranteed to be a tangled mess, covered all over with bits of straw and grass, their faces and hands crisscrossed with deep lines, just short of having the word "suffering" carved directly onto them.

Most of them — no, it should be said all of them — had no shoes, their huge black-soled feet planted directly on the ground.

The plump, sturdy overseers cracked their whips with sharp snaps, driving the laborers ever forward.

The numbness on the laborers' faces came from complete despair at life; those sent out by the clan heads and elders of each clan and household to build the city walls at this time of year were, even among the already hard-pressed Wenmo Six Valleys tribe, the lowest of the low.

This could be seen from their physical condition: it was already the end of the ninth month, the harvest season of the year, when by rights they should have had their rare chance to eat their fill all year, yet they still looked gaunt and emaciated.

With bodies in such condition, taking part in the heavy manual labor of repairing Liangzhou's city walls, the foreseeable result was that during the wall repairs, large numbers of laborers would inevitably die from labor exceeding what their bodies could bear.

Dying of exhaustion was, in this era, a very common way to die — in fact, in the later republic, when Zhang Zhao was young, he had seen men in his hometown coal mine work themselves until they coughed blood and died, just to earn a bit more money.

'Crack!' The sound of a leather whip rang out crisply. From the Zhaowu Gate on Liangzhou's south wall, Zhang Zhao watched as a staggering laborer somehow fell to the ground, then brought down the laborers around him in a tangle.

Amid the tumbling chaos, an overseer raised his horsewhip and lashed out wildly, and those who were struck only scrambled to get back up — not one of them cried out in pain.

Something called habit and resignation to fate, carried in the air along with the crack of the whip, sent ripple after ripple racing through Zhang Zhao's heart.

'Hah!' Zhang Zhao drew a long breath. The laborer who had caused the chaos in the ranks was dragged out of the crowd by the overseer.

This time what he got was not the horsewhip, but the overseer's fists and kicks, and he was quickly beaten to the ground, stirring up clouds of dust.

Zhang Zhao looked left and right: everyone on the south gate turned a blind eye to this. Whether it was Guo Tiance or Wu Yuan'er, or even people of hard-luck origins like Shanzhu'er and Dunzhu, none of them saw anything wrong with it — clearly this was something everyone in this era was accustomed to.

'Hah!' Zhang Zhao drew another breath. He still could not bring himself to look on as if he saw nothing; in these respects, he feared he would never manage to blend in.

"Dunzhu, go tell that dog-fucked bastard to stop beating him. These are Laozi's men for repairing the city wall. If he beats them injured or dead, I'll make that dog-fucked bastard come repair it himself!"

Perhaps in the Central Plains, Zhang Zhao would have brought out a whole set of grand principles about the benevolent loving the people, but this was Hexi — anyone who could do two-digit addition and subtraction and recognize a hundred or so characters counted as a man of learning. If you preached those principles to them, they simply could not understand.

"Light the fires and cook. Don't overdo the meat for the first meal — plenty of flatbread and meat paste will do. Have every one of them wash themselves clean. Yin Yaozi, you're in charge here."

Zhang Zhao suddenly left, somewhat dispirited; his wish to see how city-building was done in this era had suddenly faded a great deal.

Zhang Zhao never imagined that after he left, the laborers who had barely resisted even when beaten would kick up an enormous fuss over being made to bathe.

These poor laborers thought the lords of Liangzhou city had some unknown method in store to torment them, and so weeping, wailing, and struggling broke out everywhere.

Yin Yaozi gave a few cold laughs, then with a great wave of his hand, the cooks drawn from the Guiyi Army immediately set to work at full speed.

Before long, cooking smoke rose in wisps, and the fragrance of food drifted over.

Snow-white steamed wheat buns steamed with hot vapor, soft and sweet, one bite more blissful than ascending to heaven.

Crisp sesame flatbread dotted generously with sesame seeds, incomparably crunchy.

The thick soup, seasoned with salt, pepper, sauce, and radish, was exceptionally savory.

"If you want to eat, you damn well have to wash yourselves clean. If you don't wash clean, with this many people living together, the Dharma King says there'll be some... uh, anyway, it's some kind of spreading disease!"

"Not only must you wash your bodies, you'll all have your hair cut short too. Whoever dares say half a word of no, Laozi's long blade doesn't recognize anyone!"

Zhang Zhao only wanted to give these laborers a bath to get rid of the lice, to avoid a large-scale epidemic.

But Yin Yaozi did not believe that; he thought Zhang Zhao was doing this specifically to put these laborers in their place, to give them a show of force for easier management later.

So he went a step further than Zhang Zhao's approach: since lice and such all lived in hair and beards, he simply followed the style of Buddhist nuns and shaved it all off.

This would also better give the laborers a show of force, making them easier to manage.

Quicklime mixed with boiling water, big shears straight to the head — for a time, south of Liangzhou's gate, screams like pigs being slaughtered rang out.

The first batch of more than two thousand laborers were "served" by Yin Yaozi's operations until they howled like ghosts and wailed like wolves.

Large numbers of idle residents of Liangzhou city also gathered around the south gate, watching and laughing merrily. When the laborers saw they had an audience, they wailed even louder.

"What are you crying for? This was ordered by the Military Governor himself. His Excellency is a Dharma King of the Buddhist gate — maybe he's shaving your heads and bestowing blessings on you!" A Guiyi Army soldier holding a big pair of shears scolded them disapprovingly.

The merry watching and jeering continued until the steamed wheat buns, sesame flatbread, and big bowls of thick soup were brought out — then the situation changed at once.

These were steamed wheat buns and fine sesame flatbread; even people inside Liangzhou city rarely got to eat a meal of them except at festivals.

It made them so envious that their jeers turned directly into curses born of envy and resentment.

The laborers outside the south gate took a bite of steamed wheat bun, then a mouthful of thick soup. They had never expected such treatment, and while overjoyed, they had not forgotten the mockery from the Liangzhou people just moments before.

Some of the more spirited ones, after eating good food, finally let the other side of their souls burst free of obedience and numbness.

Holding up steamed buns and sesame flatbread, they sang and danced, infuriating the Liangzhou onlookers so much that smoke practically poured from their seven orifices, and they itched to rush over and give them a good beating.

The two sides, like monkeys at a show, traded songs and dances inside and outside the south gate, the atmosphere extraordinarily lively — except each side thought the other was the monkey and themselves the human.

Yue Saonu sniffed hard. Unlike the others, Yue Saonu had been chosen to build the city walls because his father had died young, the family had fallen on hard times, and he had been bullied by his second uncle.

Back when his father was still alive, and his mother had not yet remarried and vanished without a trace, Yue Saonu could eat steamed wheat buns once or twice a month.

The other laborers might have smelled the fragrance, but they did not know what it was or how delicious it could be. Yue Saonu knew.

"Grab it!" His hair shorn, his body scalded red by quicklime and boiling water, Yue Saonu tied a strip of cloth around his crotch just for appearances, then howled and charged over.

These were steamed wheat buns — if you were late, they'd be gone. Among the Wenmo tribe, no matter what it was, as long as it was a resource for survival, grabbing was the most direct and most effective method.

'Thunk!' As he ran over, Yue Saonu felt a hard blow land on his head. The stick must have been fairly thick, because it made his head buzz.

But it did not affect his speed, because he had experienced beatings with sticks of this caliber more times than he could count since childhood.

So much so that when the stick struck his head, he had no concept of pain at all — he only thought the stick that hit him must have been quite thick.

Guo Guangcheng was stunned. He had clearly just used the stick in his hand to strike that fellow hard on the head — why did he show no reaction at all?

It was a stick! In his daze, Guo Guangcheng swung the stick in his hand hard onto his own head.

'Thunk!'

'Aow!'

The pain made him scream! How could that be? Hitting people really does hurt!

Yue Saonu still didn't get his white-flour steamed bun, because the moment he let out that shout of "Grab it!", the whole ring of laborers around him exploded into chaos, and countless people surged forward with him to snatch the food.

But Dunzhu had, after all, known hardship, and was far more experienced than Guo Guangcheng, that son of a Nestorian Christian elder.

Under his leadership, several hundred men had long been standing ready. They didn't use clubs, because they didn't quite dare put force behind those; they used leather whips instead—painful, and no need to hold back.

What a beating that was! It finally brought the situation under control.

He hadn't gotten his white-flour steamed bun, and had taken a beating besides. Yue Saonu, along with several dozen laborers who had been the first to rush forward, was driven to the edge by Dunzhu.

They watched the others eating with relish, and the craving in their hearts was worse than being lashed with a whip.

"The Troop Commander has the heart of a bodhisattva. Even for corvée labor, he gave orders that no matter what, you must be fed your fill.

However many come, that many go back. If you fall ill, you get treatment; if you work well, there's meat.

But you dog-slaves had better remember this: rules! You follow my rules. You do whatever you're told. Anyone who makes trouble—this is your example!"

Dunzhu was shouting, but Yue Saonu didn't hear a word of it. Only one voice roared in his head: steamed buns! White-flour steamed buns! There are white-flour steamed buns to eat here!

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