activa-t Chapter 6 Eating the Emperor's Salary
Chapter 6 Eating the Emperor's Salary
If you don't cut the weeds at the root, they'll grow back in the spring!
When Liu Feng reached the edge of the reeds, there was a simple thatched hut there, with a faint light shining from inside.
This made him hesitant to act rashly. Not knowing how many people were inside, he could only lie in the grass and wait.
The moon was obscured by clouds, with only a few stars twinkling in the sky.
After a great flood, the land was covered with swamps and shallows, overgrown with wild grass, and filled with the chirping of insects.
After an unknown amount of time, Liu Feng gently moved his body. The ground was too damp, his clothes were already soaked, and his hands and feet were stiff with cold.
Suddenly all the insects stopped chirping, and Liu Feng quickly lay down.
A burst of vulgar laughter, filled with obscenities, came from behind him. The footsteps grew closer, and two burly men walked past him along the riverbank.
Liu Feng felt a surge of regret, wishing he could slap himself. There was only one person in the shed, and he had missed such a good opportunity!
After the two entered the shed, Liu Feng remained lying still, quietly waiting to see if someone would come out alone to urinate...
As a result, even after the moon came out, not a single person came out to pee. They must all have bad kidneys!
Liu Feng grumbled and slowly moved forward. Suddenly, a loud snoring sound came from inside the thatched shed, which startled him. He quickly lay down on the ground and didn't move.
After waiting for a while to make sure everyone was asleep, I carefully climbed towards the door.
By the moonlight, I could see a man dozing off by the door; there was even a sentry post there.
Liu Feng curled his lip in disdain, gripped the piece of iron in his hand, and silently crept over.
He covered the other man's mouth tightly with one hand, and with the other hand, he swiftly and decisively slit his throat, the movement so fast that it made no sound, thus eliminating the "sentinel" in one fell swoop.
After finishing, I instinctively touched the corpse, and unexpectedly found a shovel, the kind of short knife used to cut mutton in short videos.
They've upgraded from slingshots to cannons!
Liu Feng reached out and gently lifted the tattered curtain. By the moonlight, he almost vomited when he saw that two grown men were sleeping in each other's arms. It was truly disgusting.
However, this saves trouble and allows us to get everything done in one go.
Liu Feng slowly crept inside, and the razor blade swiftly sliced across the necks of the two men. Screams erupted, but it was too late...
They lit candles they had stolen from who-knows-where and began to count their spoils.
They're truly birds of a feather! They even found a lot of women's undergarments on their bodies. What a bunch of beasts!
These were just low-level thugs; all we found on them were a few loose silver coins and a handful of copper coins. There was some dry rations left in the hut—a dozen or so flatbreads made from a mixture of sorghum flour, sweet potato flour, buckwheat flour, and wheat bran.
For more than a year since Liu Feng transmigrated, he has been eating this almost every day. It is dry, hard, difficult to swallow, and scratches his throat.
There were also some pickled vegetables, which made him very happy, so he decided to collect the bodies of the three people.
Including the gold and silver jewelry and loose silver that he had buried before, Liu Feng had indeed made a small fortune. He estimated that after the disaster, he could buy two acres of medium-grade land and a few acres of low-grade land, and live a stable life as a small farmer.
The most important thing is these pickled vegetables. The salt that Liu Feng boiled himself contains too many impurities. Eating it for a long time is extremely harmful to the body and may even be fatal.
A dozen or so flatbreads with river clam meat would definitely last until Lin Ruhai came to provide disaster relief.
For the next few days, Liu Feng stayed there, catching clams, fishing for shrimp, and digging for wild vegetables every day—he didn't let anything edible go to waste. He ate his fill and even seemed to have gained a little weight.
With nothing to do after a good meal, Liu Feng practiced according to the illustrations in the book. After a few days, he not only felt refreshed and energetic, but also became much more agile.
During this time, some disaster victims came this way, but before they could get close, Liu Feng scared them away with his knife. It wasn't that he was heartless; it was just that in chaotic times, one can't be too careful.
There's an old saying: "A half-grown boy can eat his father out of house and home."
Liu Feng was at the age where he was growing, and with his daily exercise, his appetite increased dramatically.
Since the day before yesterday, after Liu Feng finished eating in the reed marshes, he would take a broken bowl and run to the porridge stall to queue up and get some porridge.
The porridge for disaster relief is getting thicker with each meal, and this morning they even gave everyone some pickled vegetables.
Liu Feng understood that Lin Ruhai was coming.
We haven't seen anyone from the White Lotus Sect for a while now, so it seems they've really left.
"The Imperial Envoy has arrived! The Imperial Envoy has arrived—"
"Hurry to the dock! Boats upon boats are full of grain!"
Liu Feng, carrying a broken bowl, had just reached the shack when he was swept along by the chaotic crowd and pushed towards the dock.
He was furious. "I came here to drink porridge, not to see some imperial envoy!"
"Clang—Clang—"
Before they even arrived at their destination, local officials from Xuzhou were already clearing the streets with gongs, holding up signs that read "Silence" and "Avoidance," and sternly rebuking the disaster victims on both sides of the post road.
Immediately following was a troop of cavalrymen in full armor leading the way, followed by a long procession of ceremonial guards. The disaster victims were so frightened that they all knelt down in a rush.
Liu Feng stood there blinked, then plopped down on his back, kneeling on the chicken feathers!
Before long, a group of officers and soldiers escorted a sedan chair carried by eight men, which slowly came in.
Liu Feng stared intently; this was power!
My gaze swept across the dock, and lo and behold, why were all the local officials from Xuzhou standing around one person on the dock?
Could it be that Lin Ruhai wasn't in the sedan chair?
Just as the imperial envoy's procession passed by in a grand procession, an elderly man who looked like a steward approached and loudly announced, "His Majesty the Imperial Envoy has ordered the recruitment of laborers for the river works! Two liters of rice will be provided daily, with dry rice at noon and porridge in the morning and evening... Anyone willing to work, come with me now."
Liu Feng was pushed and shoved towards the dock by the surging crowd, and he was furious!
"Name?"
"Liu Feng".
"age?"
"I'm eighteen."
"Where's the household registration certificate?"
"It's all been washed away by the flood, but I have a register of refugees..."
"Give it to me."
"Um, I was swept along by the crowd..."
The clerk's outstretched hand froze in mid-air. He looked up at Liu Feng, his face saying, "Are you kidding me?"
"I'm so sorry to bother you."
Liu Feng coughed awkwardly twice, wanting to slip away, but there were people lining up to receive their wages and food in front of him, and people waiting to be registered behind him; there was nowhere to escape.
Seeing the clerk's face darken, Liu Feng quickly stepped forward, grabbed the clerk's hand, and swiftly stuffed a piece of silver into his palm, smiling apologetically: "You're a magnanimous person, please don't take it to heart."
The clerk withdrew his hand, glanced discreetly at the loose silver in his palm, then deftly stuffed it into his pocket. A smile appeared on his face as he sized Liu Feng up and down, asking, "Judging from your build and appearance, you must be a martial arts expert, right? Want to work for the government and find a proper job?"
Eating government grain?
Seeing the clerk staring at his chest with a smile, Liu Feng smiled on the surface but cursed inwardly. He then reluctantly took out two pieces of silver and secretly slipped them into the clerk's pocket.
The clerk accepted the silver with satisfaction, got up, and left.
A short while later, the clerk returned with a man dressed as a steward.
The manager glanced at Liu Feng a few times, said "Come with me," and turned to leave.
Liu Feng followed, completely bewildered.
It was the old man, squatting beside a small stove with a medicine pot sitting on it, gently fanning himself.
"Uncle Lin." The steward walked to the old man's side, pointed at Liu Feng, and whispered a few words.
Uncle Lin put down his palm-leaf fan, picked up a damp cloth, pinched the lid of the jar, blew on it, looked inside, then placed a pair of chopsticks across the jar's opening before closing the lid. He then picked up a small pair of tongs, removed two pieces of charcoal, turned the fire down to a simmer, and then stood up and walked over.
"Quickly call Uncle Lin."
Uncle Lin.
Uncle Lin looked Liu Feng up and down a few times: "I heard your family has practiced martial arts for generations?"
Liu Feng was completely dumbfounded. How come I didn't know?
The supervisor quickly gave him a push: "Try it out for a bit."
Damn it, I'm not a monkey, why should I show off?!
Liu Feng ignored him and took out the two books from his pocket and handed them over.
Uncle Lin took the book, flipped through a few pages, and then handed it back to him, instructing the steward, "Register him, and he can come back tomorrow to test his skills."
The manager bowed and replied "Yes," then led the still bewildered Liu Feng away.
It wasn't until he spent another silver coin that Liu Feng understood the situation: the Salt Inspectorate was recruiting salt soldiers.
Remembering Uncle Li's dying words, since we can't go north, let's go south...