Chapter 11 - 9: Let the People Suffer First
The little girl cried as she gently patted her younger brother’s back, staring hopelessly at the group of intruders.
Jiang Mu watched this scene, his brows tightly furrowed.
He was just about to speak.
His sleeve was suddenly tugged lightly.
Jiang Mu turned his head to see Shi Lang gesturing with his eyes toward the gate. "Sir," Shi Lang whispered, "a word outside?"
Jiang Mu hesitated for a moment before following Shi Lang out of the courtyard gate.
After the two left, Village Chief Cheng Yuan, with his hands behind his back, paced over to the slumped figure of Old Lady Yuan. He bent down and sighed.
"Granny Yuan, you think I don’t know your difficulties? But the Court has its own difficulties. Demon Fiends are rising up everywhere, wreaking havoc in the countryside. Every one of the masters from the Demon-slaying Bureau is risking their neck to fight.
This ’Demon Subduing Tax’ is being collected precisely to give them the strength to vanquish Demon Fiends. When it comes down to it, isn’t it all to protect our lands and keep us safe?"
He paused, then his tone shifted.
"Right, where’s your son, Elder Wu? I saw him just a few days ago. He looked quite sturdy. I heard he went to the city to work as a hired hand not long ago. He must have earned some hard-earned money, right?"
A flicker of something passed through Granny Yuan’s eyes. Her chapped lips trembled as she said:
"My... my son has no money either. Village Chief, you know this. His body isn’t suited for heavy labor."
"Enough! Stop crying poor here!"
Zhang A’wu strode forward impatiently and squatted casually in front of the old woman.
"Granny, look, we masters aren’t unreasonable. See him?"
He pointed to Accountant Zhao, who had been standing to the side.
"We’ve even brought a man from the pawnshop. If you really can’t come up with the cash, there’s another way. Your few meager acres of land must be worth something, right? Mortgage them to get through this. Or..."
His gaze swept over the two children trembling in the corner, and the corners of his mouth split into a grin.
"Selling this pair of grandchildren of yours is also an option. The little one may be a sickly wretch and not worth much, but some noble family might take him as a child for testing medicines.
As for the older one, if she’s quick with her hands and feet, you could sell her into the city as a maid. If she’s lucky and gets into... ahem, that’s also a way to make a living. You could get a few bushels of rice for her, couldn’t you?"
The moment the words left his mouth, two of the thugs rushed over.
The little girl shrank back in terror, but they grabbed her by the arm and yanked her away as roughly as if she were a little chick.
The boy in her arms, now without support, fell to the ground, crying out.
"My grandchildren! Don’t touch my grandchildren!"
Granny Yuan, as if driven mad, tried to rush forward and fight, but one of the thugs twisted her arm behind her back and pinned her to the ground.
She struggled in despair.
Her dust-covered forehead struck the ground, making a dull THUD, THUD sound:
"Great Master, have mercy! The land can’t be mortgaged, that’s our lifeline! And the children can’t be sold! I beg you, give us a few more days. Even if this old woman has to work like an ox, beg on the streets, I’ll definitely scrape the tax money together..."
Just then, another thug emerged from a corner holding a speckled old hen, and said with a grin, as if seeking praise:
"Chief, I found this in the cellar. The old biddy hid it pretty well."
"Perfect. We can make some soup for the two masters to replenish their strength."
Zhang A’wu’s eyes lit up. He walked over, snatched the chicken, and pinned it to the ground.
The startled old hen flapped its wings frantically.
Its sharp claws dug up clumps of yellow earth as it let out a pitiful "CLUCK CLUCK" from its throat.
Zhang A’wu sneered, stomped on the chicken’s feet, and viciously gripped the base of its wings with his left hand. His forefinger and thumb clamped around its neck like iron pincers.
The hen, which had been struggling desperately, instantly went rigid. It flapped its wings twice more in vain, then fell still.
He pulled out a small deboning knife tucked into his belt.
The blade glinted coldly in the autumn sun.
Zhang A’wu’s gaze swept over the despairing old woman and the terrified, trembling little girl. As if to intimidate or show off, he deliberately gestured toward them with the tip of the knife.
"See this? This is what happens when you don’t pay up..."
The little girl’s frail body shivered violently.
She wanted to look at her crying brother, but the thug behind her held her neck in a death grip, pressing her cheek against the muddy ground.
The posture was somewhat similar to that of the hen in Zhang A’wu’s hands, awaiting slaughter.
"Master, that’s the only egg-laying hen we have! It’s to help my sick little one get stronger... I’m begging you..."
Granny Yuan’s mind was already going numb. She kowtowed instinctively, her old face smeared with a mixture of blood from her forehead and dirt.
"I fucking don’t get it! Are your heads full of shit, you bunch of mud-legs?!"
Zhang A’wu’s fingers quickly tore at the taut downy feathers on the chicken’s neck, spit flying from his mouth.
"The masters from the Demon-slaying Bureau, risking their lives to fight those man-eating Demon Fiends and monsters—who are they doing it for? Isn’t it so you lot can sleep soundly at night, so your crops don’t get snatched by fiends!
And now we ask you for a bit of grain, and you act like we’re taking your lives. Without them, you’d have been fucking devoured, with not even bone fragments left! Understand?!"
As he spoke, he flicked his wrist, and the small knife made a swift, light slice.
A stream of dark red chicken blood gushed out, pattering into the dust like beads from a broken string, splashing up little blossoms of dark red.
Granny Yuan collapsed to the ground.
She stared blankly at the pool of chicken blood, muttering to herself, though no one could tell what she was saying.
Just then, a ruffian who was loitering near the kitchen suddenly exclaimed in surprise, "Huh?"
"Chief, I think there’s a sound coming from inside the kitchen."
Everyone’s gaze snapped to the low, dilapidated kitchen.
Granny Yuan, who had gone limp, jolted as if electrocuted. Terror flashed in her eyes as she shouted incoherently:
"No... no one! There’s no one there! It’s just... just us, the grandchildren and me!"
"Heh heh, I knew it. That spineless Elder Wu is hiding at home after all."
Zhang A’wu casually tossed the still-twitching dead chicken aside and cursed.
"Letting his own old mother and kids suffer out here while he hides in the kitchen like a coward in his shell. What a disgrace to manhood!"
He strode over.
The old woman cried out, wanting to lunge forward and stop him, but the thugs beside her held her back tightly.
Zhang A’wu kicked open the dilapidated wooden door.
He stood in the doorway, his gaze sweeping the interior before finally landing on two large piles of firewood in the corner.
Through a gap in the firewood, he could faintly make out a piece of tattered clothing.
"Hiding pretty well, aren’t you."
He sneered, stepped forward quickly, and ripped away the firewood blocking the view.
"Get the hell out..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Zhang A’wu froze.
He saw a man, bound with thick hemp ropes, with a ferocious expression and split skin on his face. His eyes were as red as blood, and he lunged forward with a low roar...
—
「Outside the courtyard, under the old locust tree.」
Shi Lang took a pipe from his robes, packed the bowl with shredded tobacco, and sighed.
"Sir, from what I’ve seen on this journey, I, your subordinate, have observed that you are a kind-hearted man who cannot bear to see such suffering.
But the bureaucracy has its own rules. There are some things you can choose not to see, but you cannot be soft-hearted. Once you show weakness, the rules are broken, and everything descends into chaos."
Jiang Mu’s voice was tinged with coldness. "Why?"
Shi Lang lit the tobacco, took a deep drag, and exhaled a ring of pale blue smoke. He spoke in a low, somber voice.
"The common folk suffer. Do you think we don’t know that? But if this tax can’t be collected, who will bear the consequences?
Today, you see this family is pitiable, so you exempt them from the tax. Tomorrow, that family over there will act even more pitiable and beg you for an exemption too.
Once you open that floodgate, it’s like a great river bursting its banks—impossible to stop. When everyone learns that crying poor is the way to evade taxes, who will be willing to pay?"
He looked at Jiang Mu through the smoke, his tone helpless:
"If Village Chief Cheng can’t collect the full amount, he can’t answer to the County Magistrate. If the County Magistrate’s numbers are short, how can he answer to the Lord Prefect, or even to the great lords at the Court’s Ministry of Revenue?
If the Demon-slaying Bureau’s provisions are short, who will go slay the fiends? If the Demon Fiends run rampant, it won’t be just one or two families that die.
Sir, we are all just insects trying to survive in this great net. If you poke a hole today, and he rips a tear tomorrow, the net will break.
And when the net breaks, no one, from top to bottom, will benefit.
At that point, it won’t just be a minor official like me who loses his head. I fear even you will be held accountable by those above, charged with ’ineffective administration and indulging unruly peasants’.
Is it worth risking your own future, and even disrupting the entire tax regulations of Hu State, all for a few mud-legs you don’t even know?"
Jiang Mu gazed at the gray, hazy village and said nothing.
Shi Lang sighed.
"These are difficult times. There are rebellions rising from within, powerful enemies at our borders, and we still have to guard against the evils of Demon Fiends. Natural and man-made disasters are endless.
The Court has it hard, His Majesty has it hard, the esteemed ministers have it hard. For us grunts running errands at the bottom, we’re squeezed from both sides. It’s harder than hard."
He tapped his pipe.
"Since everyone is having a hard time, then we can only... let the common folk suffer a bit first."
’Let the common folk suffer a bit first?’
A cold glint flashed in Jiang Mu’s eyes, and he was about to say something.
Suddenly!
"AH—!!"
A blood-curdling scream erupted from within the courtyard.