18: Chapter 18 Four Times the Tax

The people had just returned, and the tablets were already being replaced.

Early the next morning, as the sky was just turning white, the errand runners from the Main Peak arrived at the entrance of Niubei Hollow. It wasn't Accountant Zhou Chengli who came, but just two ordinary runners. They stood outside the courtyard, didn't enter, and simply dropped the message.

"Manager Zhou says that since Jiang Yuhe and Jiang Xingchuan have returned home, they must go to the back hall before noon to have their Life Tablets re-registered."

Zhao Xing was squatting by the door washing vegetables. Her hand trembled, and some water sloshed out of the basin. Zhao Zhi and Ah Shi were sitting on the steps shelling beans. They didn't understand what "Life Tablet" meant, so they instinctively looked up at the adults' faces.

Lin Suwen was poking the fire by the stove. Her hand paused slightly, but she quickly returned to normal and asked, "Just them two?"

The runner nodded. "They weren't on the mountain before, but now that they've returned, the tablets must naturally be replaced."

After saying this, he lifted his lantern and turned to leave.

The courtyard was silent for a moment.

Jiang Chengning sat by the door, his face still showing the fatigue of long-term illness.

These past few days, relying on Jiang Yuhe to help him smooth out that strand of Pseudo-Spring, his life had been saved. Over time, he would be able to slowly refine this breath into the most ordinary first-grade Start of Spring.

However, it was as if a layer had been scraped from his bones by that misaligned winter chill; he felt weak even after standing for a while. Yet, after hearing these words, his expression remained calm as he looked at Jiang Yuhe and Jiang Xingchuan.

"Go."

Jiang Xingchuan frowned first.

"Must we go?"

"You must go," Jiang Chengning said. "If you don't, the Main Peak will send people to drag you there. Being dragged there is uglier than walking there yourself."

Lin Suwen dampened the fire and walked over to straighten their collars. "Once you enter the hall, look less, ask less, and don't talk back."

Jiang Yuhe nodded.

Since returning, her Grain Rain Qi had stabilized a bit more. She was still thin, but much more composed than before. Jiang Xingchuan, however, though he didn't talk back, had his shoulders and back visibly tensed.

Zhou Wang, hiding in the family genealogy, had not made a sound.

But when he heard the four words "re-register Life Tablet," he hesitated for a long time.

However, there wasn't much he could do right now. At the very least, he didn't dare move at this moment; the genealogy ink had already been exhausted last time.

Over at the Main Peak's back hall, the Zhou Family had just finished setting up the tablets and were watching closely. Being able to secretly pull back those three wisps of soul energy from Jiang Chengning, Lin Suwen, and Shoushan while the tablets were unstable had already been a huge stroke of luck.

If he tried to touch them again now, he might not be able to pull them, and it would be easy to expose himself instead.

So he could only watch. Watch Jiang Yuhe and Jiang Xingchuan go up the mountain.

The place for replacing the tablets was still the side hall of the back hall.

When Jiang Chengning and the others were dragged over last time, there were mountain patrollers and guards standing outside. This time, there was an additional old tablet-making elder.

The old man's back was as thin as a withered bamboo, and his eyelids were half-drooped. Hearing footsteps, he wiped the small knife in his hand on a cloth.

"Two?" Accountant Zhou Chengli stood to the side, hands in his sleeves, and nodded. "Replace two."

He wore a smile on his face today, even more amiable than usual.

Accountant Zhou Chengli looked at Jiang Yuhe first. "I heard you sat steadily by the well, and even when two Qi-Refining cultivators attacked you, you managed to fend them off."

Jiang Yuhe didn't respond to this, just lowered her eyes as if she hadn't heard.

Accountant Zhou Chengli wasn't annoyed and turned to look at Jiang Xingchuan. "You recovered from your injuries quite quickly."

The sting in these words was too obvious. If it were before, Jiang Xingchuan would have already retorted. But remembering Lin Suwen's words before they left— "don't talk back"—he ultimately restrained himself, simply shifting his gaze to the side and avoiding eye contact.

The old tablet-making elder finally spoke: "The girl first."

Jiang Yuhe stepped forward. On the table lay a thin wooden tablet, greenish in color, with smoothed edges, as if it had been prepared beforehand.

The old elder told her to sit down and raised his hand in front of her brow. His hand was extremely withered, with fingers like old branches, yet the fingertips felt extremely sharp.

Jiang Yuhe suddenly felt the silence around her ears. All sounds seemed to distance themselves. The wind blowing outside the hall, the sound of footsteps passing under the corridor, and even the sound of the Grain Rain within her body slowly sinking, all gradually faded.

Immediately after, a slight stinging sensation at her brow entered her mind. It was like a needle precisely piercing in, gently hooking away a wisp of something.

Accountant Zhou Chengli watched from the side, a trace of imperceptible doubt flashing in his eyes.

The old elder guided that extremely faint wisp and dropped it into the wooden tablet. The surface of the wooden tablet flickered slightly, then slowly dimmed, leaving only an extremely thin pattern that flashed through the middle of the three characters "Jiang Yuhe" and then submerged into it.

"Next."

When Jiang Xingchuan walked up, he had been prepared, but when that hand truly reached in front of his brow, he couldn't stop himself from wanting to dodge.

Don't move, he told himself repeatedly. If you move, the Zhou Family will know you're afraid.

What it takes from your body is not muscle, not blood. What it takes is that momentary feeling of emptiness where, even though you clearly know you are still alive, you suddenly feel as if your whole being has become a fraction lighter.

It was like the Thunder Bud that should have emerged from his palm during the Awakening of Insects, suddenly cut short. Such errors are often catastrophic in magical combat.

When he opened his eyes again, a layer of fine sweat had broken out on his back.

Accountant Zhou Chengli stared at him for a moment and then suddenly smiled. Jiang Xingchuan's heart gave a violent jolt.

But Accountant Zhou Chengli didn't do anything else. He just gathered the two new tablets and handed them to the old elder to put away, his tone as flat as if he were announcing something long decided. "The Jiang Family's two tablets are replaced. From now on, since you are on Duansang Ridge, you must follow the Main Peak's rules."

After coming out of the back hall, when the mountain wind blew, Jiang Yuhe and Jiang Xingchuan simultaneously felt a sense of emptiness. Their feet felt inexplicably less solid on the stone steps than before.

The two didn't speak the whole way until they left the West Mouth of the Main Peak and walked down to the mulberry slope halfway up the mountain; only then did Jiang Xingchuan finally curse.

Jiang Yuhe didn't stop him. She felt awful too. The path of Grain Rain emphasizes composure and steady accumulation. Now that the wisp at her brow had been extracted, listening to the subtle sounds around her felt as if separated by a layer of water. It wasn't that she couldn't hear, but it wasn't as real as before.

This was the Life Tablet. It wasn't meant to take your life. It was meant to make you remember forever that a corner of your life was in the hands of the Main Peak.

Zhou Wang listened to their heartbeats and breathing from within the genealogy, and not until they returned home and their names settled back onto the page did he see that the characters "He" and "Chuan" had both dimmed a fraction. He did not move. He only kept these two dark marks in his heart. This debt would have to be collected sooner or later.

The Jiang Family didn't rest for long; the very next day, they went to take over the Feng Family's accounts.

The Main Peak hadn't given the Feng Family a small amount of things, but once they were actually in hand, none of them were easy to deal with.

When Zhao Xing carried the account books back to the room, she first thought the Main Peak was deliberately suppressing the Jiang Family again. "These are all bad accounts."

Jiang Chengning didn't rush to speak; he just took Shoushan and Jiang Xingchuan to inspect the place in person.

The Feng Family's grinding shed was in the most sheltered place at the lower slope. Behind the house was a ridge of black stone, and the ground beneath the ridge was soaked in water year-round, making it extremely damp. The stone mill was covered in a layer of moss, and embedded in the grooves were some fine, dark-green particles that looked neither like soil nor rice husks.

Old Crow Chen followed behind to take a look, squatted down, wiped a bit with his finger, and sniffed it under his nose. "This mill wasn't ground for nothing," he said, looking up.

Jiang Chengning looked at him. "What is it?"

"Grinding Yin Sand." Old Crow Chen rubbed the dark-green fine sand on his finger. "It's good stuff, but the Feng Family didn't know its value, and they didn't have the life to keep it and use it."

As he spoke, he scraped out the layer of fine sand hidden under the stone mill bit by bit and spread it on his palm. The sand looked much finer than usual, and after getting wet, it became even heavier.

"The lower slope is a kind of damp land. The stone mill has been pressing wet grain for years, and the millstone has absorbed enough gloomy water Qi. The imagery is very strong—I can't explain it too clearly, but it is indeed possible to produce this kind of peculiar sand," Old Crow Chen said.

"It can be used for grinding medicine, quenching iron, and making talisman clay. People at the Sangyin Small Market have always collected it, but the Feng Family previously thought it was just dirty rice husk powder and swept it out every time."

Jiang Xingchuan squatted down and pinched a bit. The sand, moistened with water, felt significantly heavier than ordinary sand and even felt slightly numbing. His eyes lit up immediately. "Can it also quench blades?"

"Yes." Old Crow Chen looked at him. "If you're willing, quenching it into the blade can make the back of the blade absorb more Evil Qi, making it much more resistant when tainted with magic power, and its toughness will be better. It's just that this stuff is produced extremely slowly; you can't scrape much in a month, so you have to save it up slowly."

The Feng Family's damp land wasn't entirely useless. Looking further down, although that land wasn't suitable for growing proper spirit rice, it grew a patch of gray-white cattails. The roots were shallow, the leaves thin, and after drying, the core was blue-white and extremely tough.

Old Crow Chen identified it again. "Cattail Heart Silk," he said. "It's a spirit material for making talisman cores, and the Zhou Family pharmacy buys it every year. This is the Foundation that the Feng Family has cultivated over many years."

Fortunately, there was still a way out. One path was for earning a living. The other was a backup plan for slowly exchanging for money, maintaining equipment, and supplementing medicine. It was precisely this accumulation of information asymmetry that caused the Feng Family's otherwise unremarkable sneak attack to have an unexpected reversal.

But these things couldn't see the light of day. Especially not before the Main Peak figured it out.

So after returning to the house, Jiang Chengning called everyone over and divided up their tasks. "The damp land will be registered as usual, and outside we'll still just call it the Feng Family's bad land," he said. "Don't rush to sell the Cattail Heart Silk; dry it first. As for the Grinding Yin Sand, no one is to say anything about it to outsiders. Wait until you've saved up enough before acting."

If the Jiang Family wanted to rise, they had to hide some Foundation that others didn't know about. Before, it was Shoushan and Jiang Xingchuan, but that was exposed by the crazed Feng Family, so now they had to find a new way out.

Jiang Xingchuan looked back at the old stone mill, feeling as if something had hooked his heart. What he lacked most now was something he could hold in his hand to truly protect his life. Thunder Bud was an offensive technique. Grinding Yin Sand, however, seemed like the kind of thing that could anchor a "technique" onto a blade.

After the End of Heat, the two mu of land at Gudu turned golden, and the thin spirit fields at Niubei Hollow also sprouted ears of grain. Zhao Xing was drying grain in the backyard; Ah Shi and Zhao Zhi were sitting nearby picking out broken husks; Xiao Tao was still small, holding a handful of rice grains and only knowing how to blow at them. Lin Suwen's shoulder injury had long since healed; although her movements when harvesting rice weren't as fast as before, she was no longer hindered.

This year, the Jiang Family's harvest was actually not bad. The two mu at Gudu were nourished by the Huilu Mulberry Roots and were more stable than in previous years; the thin spirit fields at Niubei Hollow, though thin, had also produced some spirit rice. Adding the Cattail Heart Silk exchanged from the Feng Family's damp land and the Grinding Yin Sand from the grinding shed, logically, this should have been the first time in two years the Jiang Family could truly save up a breath of energy.

But when the tax arrived, everything was gone.

The person from the Main Peak wasn't Accountant Zhou Chengli, but someone from the accounting office, bringing scales, ledgers, and two mountain patrollers.

Fourfold tax. The penalty tax doubled, and the stewardship tax doubled.

They didn't argue, didn't drink, and didn't lose their tempers; they just stood by the grain-drying ground, recording item by item in the ledger. The spirit rice went on the scale first, followed by the ordinary grain; even the small bag of seeds that Zhao Xing had kept for planting wasn't spared.

The Song Clan held Xiao Tao and stood in the distance. When she saw that bag of seeds for next year being taken away, her eyes immediately turned red.

Zhao Xing stood by the grain pile, her fingers turning white from clenching, but she didn't speak. The Main Peak was aiming to empty out the Jiang Family. It wasn't just clearing out your surplus grain, but also clearing out that thought in your heart of "this year, we can finally catch a break."

When the last scale was weighed, the accountant closed the ledger, and as if just remembering something, announced, "You are still short fifty percent of the regular tax."

The courtyard was suddenly so quiet that only the sound of the wind blowing the rice husks at the edge of the drying ground remained.

The accountant looked up at Jiang Chengning, his tone mild: "Uncle Chengning, the Main Peak is benevolent and doesn't want to force your family to death. If someone is willing to cover the deficit today, we'll record it on the account. If no one covers it—"

He didn't finish. But everyone knew that if no one covered it, whether it meant forced labor, forfeiting fields, or stripping more accounts later, the Zhou Family could say whatever they wanted with one word.

Sun Changshui arrived at this moment. He leaned on his wooden crutch, limping up from outside the grain-drying ground, followed by Sun Jingxiu. Sun Jingxiu was holding a tightly wrapped cloth bundle in his hands, his face pale, but he held it very steadily.

Behind them, Old Crow Chen also arrived. He was carrying a bamboo basket on his back; inside wasn't medicine, but several strings of copper coins and a small pouch of silver fragments. Chen Xiaoyan followed behind him; her eyes rested on Jiang Xingchuan for a moment before quickly looking away.

Sun Changshui thumped his crutch on the ground and spoke first: "Beijian Mouth will cover twenty percent."

Old Crow Chen followed closely: "The Chen Family will cover thirty percent."

The accountant raised his eyelids, as if he had expected this, or as if he were just waiting for this line. He dipped his pen in ink and recorded it in the ledger. "Good. The tax is cleared for today."

After saying this, he left with his men. He didn't even give the Jiang Family one extra glance.

Once they left, the weight that had been pressing on everyone's chest by the grain-drying ground seemed to loosen slightly. But looking down, the grain was gone, and the granary was empty. Even the few bundles of seed rice that had been drying by the wall were gone.

When the wind blew, there was truly a feeling that everything had been scraped clean.

Jiang Chengning stood for a long time before cupping his hands in a salute to Sun Changshui and Old Crow Chen. "I will repay this debt next year."

Sun Changshui waved his hand. "Don't talk about that yet."

Old Crow Chen also said, "You should first keep the family's breath going. If it's truly cut off, what will you use to repay us tomorrow?"

But Jiang Chengning kept that phrase "repay next year" firmly in his mind. He could not owe this favor in vain.

After returning to the house at night, no one in the family had much appetite. Zhao Xing still boiled thin porridge and forced everyone to eat a bowl each. Under the lamp, the account book was spread open, the grain was gone, and the room was stiflingly quiet.

Finally, Lin Suwen spoke first. "Tomorrow, go separately."

She looked at Jiang Yuhe and Jiang Xingchuan. "Jiang Yuhe, go to the Sun Family; Jiang Xingchuan, go to the Chen Family. Deliver the money first, and bring the message. Since they were willing to stand up for us today, we cannot act as if nothing happened."

Jiang Chengning nodded. "It is time for you to go out and walk around."

By "walk around," he meant more than just repaying the favor. It was also to let the two children look outward.