Protect Our Chief

His sons and daughters were all already married, and his old wife had also passed away a few years back. Setting up a little stall was just to kill time when he was bored, and by the way have some people to sit around and chat with him.

Right now, a few burly men who worked as laborers for a trading firm were sitting under the shade awning, drinking tea and resting their feet while chatting idly. Old Liu was also pricking up his ears, listening with great interest from the side.

"Have you heard? A few days ago the South City Li Family got spot-checked too. Quite a few of the estates and shops under their name were in an uproar, chickens flying and dogs jumping. This time the South City Li Family has really hit bad luck. If they can’t make up the back taxes, they might have to pawn off their properties to plug the hole." Burly Man No. 1 sighed as he spoke.

"Serves them right!" The burly man next to him, No. 2, didn’t take it seriously. "If they’d just been like us and paid their taxes honestly, how would they be this miserable now? And it’s not like there’ve been few Noble Families getting checked these days. Look at the South City Sun Family, the North City Hang Family; back in previous years they relied on the protection of the Masion of Duke Protector of the Nation and made a killing. Which one of them didn’t deserve what they got?"

"Heh heh~ I’m not sympathizing with the South City Li Family. I’m pitying the Li Family’s Sixth Young Master’s eighteenth concubine he just married this year." Burly Man No. 1, who had spoken earlier, chuckled with a lewd grin. "That little lady is really something—so delicate and pretty she’s almost like a fairy in the heavens~ With the Li Family in such a mess, she’s definitely going to suffer along with them~"

"Get lost! You’re talking like you’ve actually seen her." Burly Man No. 3 scolded him with a laugh.

"Why wouldn’t I have seen her?" Burly Man No. 1 bared a mouthful of white teeth proudly. "That little lady is from the same alley as me. When she was little, I even bought her candy and held her little hand. A few days ago when she went back to her parents’ home to visit, I heard her family complaining, saying that Li Sixth Lang is really something—just to make up those damn taxes, he’d already given away Cuiyun’s belongings, and then still had the nerve to take them back."

Listening to the three of them talk, Burly Man No. 4 on the side bared his teeth, feeling depressed: "I don’t even have a wife, and that Li Family’s Sixth Young Master actually has eighteen concubines. Damn those Noble Family brats..."

"I’d say you’ve just got too much strength with nowhere to spend it and are itching for a woman..."

The few burly men chatted and then burst into loud laughter, the atmosphere quite lively.

These burly men were all long-term laborers for a large trading firm, each of them with cultivation at about the Second or Third Layer of the Qi Refining Realm.

Some of the larger trading firms, in order to boost their long-term workers’ enthusiasm for labor, strengthen their physical power, and also to improve their safety when transporting goods through wilderness stretches, would teach their long-term workers some basic Cultivation Methods.

Although these were all non-mainstream Cultivation Methods that could never break through to the Spirit Platform Realm even if you cultivated them your whole life, and they had no matching combat techniques, only served to strengthen the body, even so, these long-term workers more or less counted as Black Tortoise Cultivators. The circles they came into contact with were broader, their knowledge a bit greater than that of ordinary commoners, so naturally their information was also more well-informed.

As they chatted, they drifted back to their original topic.

"Speaking of which, our Boss is pretty steady. Look at ’Furui Trading Company’ next door—their Shopkeeper’s lips have been blistering from anxiety these past few days. I heard their Boss was anonymously reported too, and it seems something was found. If it goes badly, the whole Furui Trading Company might be doomed."

"That’s why picking the right Boss really matters. Because our Boss hasn’t had any trouble, we can sit here chatting so leisurely. Otherwise, we’d have to be running around looking for new employers right now." Burly Man No. 1 clearly had more inside information. "I’ve got a brother who works as a long-term laborer at a trading firm under Prince Kang’s name. He came to drink with me a while back and was complaining, saying their firm is about to shut down. They say once the Three Talents Department checked, they claimed the firm owed decades of taxes, and directly sealed their Warehouse, hauling off sack after sack of Gold Notes to the Three Talents Department... Their Shopkeeper vomited blood on the spot and is still bedridden now..."

"Good heavens, that tax evasion must be like ’tens of billions’ of Qian Gold, right?" Old Liu, getting excited as he listened, couldn’t help chiming in.

"Heh heh~ we wouldn’t know about that; we just know it’s a lot." Burly Man No. 1 chuckled. "All I know is that even if we worked our whole lives, we couldn’t earn a fraction of what they skimmed."

"If you ask me, they should’ve been thoroughly investigated long ago." Burly Man No. 4 curled his lip. "Those High Gate clans all like to look down their noses at people. Relying on their high Cultivation and good family background, they strut around all day, hogging the best resources while doing nothing decent. Not a single one of them is any good!"

"Hey, hey, hey~ you can’t put it like that." Hearing him talk this way, Burly Man No. 1 immediately took offense and grumbled, "Didn’t the Duke Dingguo’s Mansion, Prince Deshun’s Mansion, and Prince Anjun’s Mansion all come up clean? And our Boss too—he doesn’t have any problems either, right? That shows there are good ones among the Noble Families as well. We’ve got to call it as it is; we can’t tar everyone with the same brush."

"True. Whatever else you say, our Boss really treats us well." Burly Man No. 4 nodded, unable to come up with a rebuttal.

"Actually, compared to Prince Kang, I think Prince Anjun is a lot more reliable—at least he really has commoners in his heart." Burly Man No. 3 held his cup of cool tea, talking at ease and gesturing grandly. "If Prince Anjun could ascend the throne, then in the future, even if nothing else changes, at least life for us commoners would definitely be much better, and Noble Families bullying commoners would happen a lot less. But if Prince Kang takes the throne, well, then who knows."