Chapter 123

Do not finalize this chapter; take a day off today, and after tomorrow's replacement, finalize it again.

In Huizhou, at the dock of Yuliang Town, various boats were moored; it was just after noon, the early hour, the sun hung high in the sky, resolutely spreading its warm love over the world.

The people on the boats, except those guarding the vessels, were either huddled in the cargo holds or had gone ashore to find a place to leisurely escape the heat.

On the shore, pedestrians were few, but a troupe of riders still moved back and forth continuously between the pier warehouses and the ships.

In the huge teahouse, only three or four patrons were resting; the elegant rooms on the second floor had at most two servings of tea snacks.

The shopkeeper and the waiter were so idle they were almost falling asleep.

Just after noon, the scorching sun made everyone reluctant to go outside.

The teahouse proprietor was rather diligent; despite the few patrons, he still attended to them attentively, and his voice, resonating through the large upside‑down jar at the four corners of the stage, rang throughout the building.

All that could be heard was his slow recitation:

The constellations shift, and worldly affairs grow ever more orderly.

After 189 years, Great Qi had founding heroes and also emperors who restored the nation, but in its final years, Emperor Qingfeng became enamored with the art of longevity; countless alchemists and mystics were summoned, temples and shrines sprang up one after another, yet they visibly grew old.

Emperor Qingfeng's obsession did not waver; after only ten years on the throne, he ignored state affairs, pursuing personal gain, raising taxes year after year, increasing levies annually, imposing summer grain taxes, autumn taxes, corvée labor, miscellaneous duties, annual tributes to the court, military supply allocations—countless in number—resulting in corrupt administration and a populace unable to survive.

Noble families hurried to consolidate lands and shift tax burdens.

Men of insight were either marginalized or retreated to the countryside.

Peasant tenants not only had to grow grain, deliver grain, and perform corvée labor, but also had to pay their own travel expenses to transport grain to the capital; some village grain officials, even after exhausting their fortunes, could not meet the forced quotas.

Artisans labored day and night yet could not earn a single full meal.

Merchants' trades were layered with exploitation; even their bones seemed stripped of two taels of oil.

Later, after three years of severe drought, the people starved, refugees rose, and banditry proliferated; at this time, heroes across the realm began to champion righteousness.

The Great Zhou Founder emerged, aligning with the people's will to establish a dynasty; since the third generation, taxes have been reduced almost every year, grain relief requires only going to the local provincial office, and now an imperial edict promises never to raise taxes again, with Huguang piloting a system that merges two taxes and miscellaneous duties into a single silver payment…

At this time, in the elegant second‑floor room of Zhongyi Bo's manor, the second branch placed the fourteen‑year‑old Fourth Young Master Shen Ruoyun by the window of Room Three Tianzi, listening to the storyteller recount ancient times while also looking out at the riders moving on the shore some tens of zhang away.

Those people numbered several hundred; most wore tattered clothes patched together, and their sweat, splattered on the ground, was just as clearly visible.

Under the urging of officials brandishing rods and long whips, they toiled under the scorching sun, loading grain onto rows of cargo ships.

At the slightest pause, the whip struck them; a person stumbling with a grain sack had to clench their teeth and keep carrying.

After a short while, a strong laborer was pinned to the ground by two grain sacks on his shoulders.

Several strong men hurriedly moved the grain aside, still bearing the officials' whips, fanning with a torn cloth, and pressing on throats, moving the bleeding man aside.

One middle‑aged man took out several copper coins from his waist, nodded and bowed, and slipped them into the official's hand; the official slipped them into his sleeve, turned and shouted for everyone to continue moving grain. The man walked to a shady spot and exchanged a few words with someone, who then ran toward Yuliang Town.

Soon, from a distance, a half‑grown teenager sprinted toward the wounded, his voice, still in the change‑of‑voice period, letting out a hoarse "Father!" that shattered a cloud in the sky.

Shen Ruoyun…

Rubbing the ears, turned to the young servant Hu Wu and said: "Go help the injured get to the infirmary and watch them carefully."

"Fourth Master, there are many pitiful people in this world, you…" In the corner, Lao Mai stood up and spoke, unable to help.

"Uncle Mai, that child is the one who helped me go into the water to catch the mandarin fish yesterday." Shen Ruoyun's eyesight has always been excellent; within a hundred steps they can see faces clearly, and Zhongyi Bo often laments that they are physically weak and cannot practice martial arts or serve in the army.

Lao Mai was startled, recalling that yesterday morning, the Fourth Master, who had been lacking appetite for several days, wanted to eat mandarin fish but complained the market fish were not fresh; while fishing on the shore, a teenager jumped into the water to help, and finally they ate the delicious ao‑hua fish.

Realizing that the Fourth Master's diet had returned to normal since yesterday, he sat back in the corner.

Hu Wu gave Shen Ruoyun a goofy smile, then hopped and ran down from the teahouse.

The teenager in the distance had already wiped the blood from the wounded's mouth, speaking loudly as if that could dispel his anxiety, "Father, wake up! The Emperor has issued an edict; starting next year, the boys who become adults will never be taxed again; Uncle just a few days ago delivered goods back and said that in Huguang, since last year taxes no longer require grain deliveries, farmers no longer need to transport grain to the provincial office, they can just pay silver directly."

He said as, with the earlier middle‑aged man's help, he lifted his father onto his thin shoulders, "Father, good days are clearly arriving for our family; you must not get into any trouble."

Others could not offer further assistance; the delay in storing this batch of tax grain meant they would all be punished, and even total ruin would not cover the penalty.

The teenager suddenly dragged the injured a few zhang, and Hu Wu chased after, forcibly taking the wounded and carrying him onto the sliding pole he had called for.

The teenager was momentarily stunned, a bit confused.

Shen Ruoyun saw Hu Wu pat the teenager, pointing this way while saying something.

The teenager suddenly lunged toward the teahouse, knelt and kowtowed, then turned and hurried with Hu Wu toward the town.

It wasn't until the second quarter of the eighth hour that Hu Wu returned, saying he had inserted a needle and given medicine; the doctor said the wounded had starved, was slightly heat‑stroked, and the blood came from a broken lip.

Now the person has woken up and, after a few days of recuperation, will be able to return to the fields.

Shen Ruoyun no longer worried and, at the exact eighth hour, still boarded a boat heading south.

At the beginning of the year, the new emperor changed the era name and issued many edicts.

Among them, the former emperor had piloted for a year in the Two Lakes a system of measuring fields and consolidating taxes and duties into a single silver payment, which would gradually be implemented across five provinces in the Jiangnan region.

Earlier, when he received a letter from his elder uncle Zhongyi Bo, he was with the masters of Dragon Tiger Mountain in Wuyuan, selecting lime for the mountain.

Realizing the gravity of the matter, he immediately bid farewell to the masters he had lived with for four years, took a boat from Tunxi, passed through She County, and headed to the Shen family's old home in Huzhou to supervise those clan members already branching from the uncle's manor, coordinating with the local prefectural office.

At this moment, at sunset, the scenery on both banks was mesmerizing; shortly after the boat passed the Xin'an River Junction Wharf, Shen Ruoyun, having finished dinner, strolled on the deck and saw a person floating in the river.

When Hu Wu and the boatman's son pulled the person up, they found the individual dressed in brocade armor with a knife wound on the back.

"Boatman! Are there water bandits nearby?" Lao Mai shouted, his eyes fixed intently on the boatman.

"No, no, no," the boatman trembled, saying, "The nearby river has always been peaceful; I've never heard of any water bandits..."

"Cough, cough! Cough, cough!" The person, after being lifted out of the water by the boatman's son, was carried by Hu Wu into the warehouse for treatment.

Shen Ruoyun felt the person looked familiar and asked, "How long until we reach Chunan?"

"A one‑hour journey with the wind," the boatman's son replied calmly, "Sir, should we report to the authorities?"

Shen Ruoyun gave a sharp glance; the young boatman swallowed nervously, "Sir, I just slipped and fell into the water; I saw nothing."

"Hmm." Shen Ruoyun nodded, indicating he should leave.

Outside the warehouse, Lao Mai said to the father and son, "Life has only one thread."