134: Chapter 134 Green Ox Village

The story dates back to over a thousand years ago.

At that time, Qingniu Village was just a dirt-poor little hamlet in the mortal world, as ordinary as could be.

There was a family surnamed Wang in the village; the head of the household was named Wang Tianci, an honest and simple farmer.

His wife, Lady Wang, was gentle and virtuous, while their son, Wang Lin, was the hope of the entire village.

From a young age, Wang Lin was incredibly intelligent, well-known throughout the surrounding countryside.

Before the age of twenty, he earned the rank of Xiucai, which was a monumental event in such a remote backwater.

He had a rival, the son of the village chief Su Laogun, named Su Mu.

This kid was a real troublemaker who had enjoyed bullying children his own age since he was little, and Wang Lin had suffered his fair share of it.

But ever since Wang Lin became a Xiucai and gained an official rank, he had essentially set one foot onto the path of officialdom, with the shadow of the imperial court behind him.

Su Mu lost his nerve then, no longer daring to brazenly trouble Wang Lin like before; he even had to take a detour whenever they met.

Everyone in the Su Family also warned Su Mu not to provoke the Wang family for the time being.

But how could Su Mu possibly stomach this?

Instead, he grew even more envious and hateful of Wang Lin.

Why should a poor boy be able to climb over his head?

In the blink of an eye, Wang Lin turned twenty-two and went to the capital for the imperial examinations; he actually passed every trial and emerged as the top scholar, the Top Scholar!

In the Golden Throne Room, he not only won the Emperor's appreciation but also unexpectedly gained the favor of the Emperor's most beloved sister—Princess Zixia.

This Princess Zixia was said to possess beauty that could eclipse the moon and shame the flowers, a grace that could make fish sink and birds fall; she was the dream girl of countless noble sons in the capital.

Yet, she specifically took a liking to Wang Lin, a scholar from a humble background.

Faced with the opportunity to stay in the capital and rise rapidly through the ranks, along with the beauty's deep affection, Wang Lin made a decision that left everyone dumbfounded.

He politely declined the important position arranged by the Emperor, only requesting to take the Princess back to Qingniu Village, the place that had raised him.

He wanted to do everything in his power to change the impoverished state of his hometown.

He wanted to ensure that the elders and fellow villagers could all eat their fill, occasionally have some meat, and enjoy a bit of wine.

Moved by his sincerity, the Emperor finally granted his request.

Thus, the newly minted Top Scholar, Wang Lin, returned to Qingniu Village with the noble Princess Zixia to serve as a lowly grain official.

Wang Lin truly wanted to do something practical for his fellow villagers.

Relying on his own wisdom and some of the resources brought by the Princess, he worked hard to govern well, introducing new farming techniques and dredging the waterways...

Life in Qingniu Village visibly improved day by day.

To expand the cultivated area, he even paid out of his own pocket to buy two-thirds of the land from the village's largest landlord—the Su Family—and distributed it to landless villagers for farming.

Wang Lin's prestige among the villagers was at its zenith.

Meanwhile, the Su Family's reputation plummeted in the hearts of the villagers because they stubbornly held onto the remaining land rents.

What Su Mu found even more unacceptable was that the villagers began to gossip.

They said the next village chief should be Wang Lin.

Su Mu was so angry he was about to explode!

He locked himself in his room, smashed several teacups, and growled with a distorted face:

"Why! Why does Wang Lin get all the good things!"

"The top scholar title is his, the Princess is his, and now he even wants to snatch the position of village chief?"

"A poor boy like him, is he even worthy?!"

His eyes were bloodshot, his chest heaved violently, and jealousy and hatred coiled around his heart like poisonous vines, tightening their grip.

He swore that he would make Wang Lin's family pay the price and strip away everything Wang Lin possessed!

Finally, the opportunity Su Mu had been waiting for arrived.

A drought, the likes of which hadn't been seen in a century, swept through Qingniu Village.

The scorching sun baked the earth; fields cracked, seedlings withered and died, and there was no harvest at all.

As the grain official, Wang Lin did not hesitate to open the official granary to distribute food for disaster relief.

It was only by relying on this grain that the villagers of Qingniu Village were able to barely scrape by.

However, in Su Mu's eyes, this was a godsend.

A malicious plan began to take shape in his mind.

Su Mu began to spread rumors among the villagers; his voice wasn't loud, but it slithered into people's hearts like a venomous snake:

"Sigh, do you really think Wang Lin has the heart of a Bodhisattva?"

"What he hands out every time is nothing but old rice mixed with sand and throat-scratching sorghum, barely enough to keep you alive."

"You just haven't seen it, but behind closed doors, the Wang family is feasting on meat and fish, smelling delicious!"

"The Princess is of noble blood; would she really eat husks and wild vegetables with us? Who are they kidding!"

...

At first, the villagers were skeptical of these words, as everyone had witnessed Wang Lin's past actions.

But Su Mu's goal wasn't to make them believe immediately.

He knew the weakness of human nature well—people remember the bad and forget the good.

He only needed to plant a seed of doubt in everyone's heart.

As the days passed, the grain in the official granary was clearly running low.

Wang Lin did not hesitate and immediately opened his own private granary to continue aiding the villagers.

He believed that as long as they worked together, they could definitely survive this natural disaster.

However, resources are finite when there's no income.

No matter how deep Wang Lin's pockets were, he couldn't sustain such an outflow with nothing coming in.

Finally, one day, his family's grain was completely exhausted.

That day, Wang Lin stood on the stone mill at the village entrance and announced with a raspy voice to the gathered villagers:

"Fellow villagers, the official grain is gone, and my Wang family... has no more grain left either."

As soon as he finished speaking, the crowd below erupted into an uproar.

"No more grain? How is that possible!"

"Official Wang, please don't joke around. Your house is so big..."

"Yeah, even one piece of Her Highness the Princess's jewelry would be enough to buy a lot of grain, right?"

"I think they've just hidden it and don't want to give us any!"

...

Countless gazes focused on Wang Lin.

In those eyes, there was no longer the gratitude and respect of the past.

Instead, there was thick suspicion, distrust, and even...

A faint trace of hostility.