Chapter 290: Daily Life

Shengle City had four gates, and each gate had its own Gate Lieutenant Commander.

As official posts went, the title of Lieutenant Commander had become thoroughly overissued.

Back in the day, Zheng Fan had complained more than once about the State of Yan’s military system. Beifeng Commandery had been particularly absurd—Lieutenant Commanders were practically as common as dogs. It reminded him vividly of bought offices in the later Qing Dynasty, when even an overseas Chinese merchant with a little standing could dig through the family coffers and come up with a full set of embroidered official robes, rank badge, cap button, and peacock feather.

But in the end, where you sat determined how you thought.

When Zheng Fan himself had only been a Lieutenant Commander, he had naturally denounced the devaluation of the title with righteous indignation. The moment he became a City Defender responsible for an entire city and the surrounding territory, however, his attitude instantly became: delicious.

Military pay naturally came from the government treasury, but compared with the title itself, that bit of silver mattered mostly to ordinary soldiers. For men who had already made something of themselves—especially the fortified-estate lords and local magnates of the Jin lands—it was hardly enough to impress them.

That was when the great “Lieutenant Commander” technique came into play.

One for you.

One for him.

No need to rush, no need to fight over it. There was enough for everyone.

Once everyone had an official position under Great Yan, naturally they were all one family. The rain and dew of imperial favor had to fall evenly upon all.

So there was nothing strange at all about a single city having four Lieutenant Commanders just to guard its gates.

The actual gate garrisons, however, were still built around Zheng Fan’s old foundation. Barbarian soldiers made up the overwhelming majority.

They had worked themselves half to death building this city. They were guarding their own home. Naturally, the keys to the gates had to remain in the hands of trusted men.

Zheng Fan and the Demon Kings would never feel at ease letting outsiders guard the gates.

After all, they themselves had once been extremely fond of stealing other people’s gates.

When you had done too many wicked things, you naturally started worrying about karmic retribution landing on your own head.

If, after all the work they had poured into raising these sturdy walls, some subordinate got bought off and opened the gates from inside, turning the entire fortification into an expensive decoration, then they really would have to compete with France in the Second World War to see who had more reason to be depressed.

At dawn, when the sky had only just begun to brighten, Yu Huaping put on a suit of leather armor.

He did not bring a sword.

Instead, he took a Yan-made saber and left the relay station.

Breakfast was available there.

There were filled steamed buns with shredded radish, pickled vegetables, or red-bean paste; pure meat buns; rice porridge; and also shaomai, pan-fried buns, and other dishes.

The old story of the King of Chu admiring slender waists had been demonstrated perfectly in Shengle City.

The daily food eaten at the Grand General’s Residence had gradually become the standard fare throughout the city.

Of course, taste was not something that changed overnight.

But whether people liked it or not, there was little choice. Shengle City had been under military administration almost from the beginning.

The relay station belonged to the Grand General’s Residence.

Leave the relay station and walk down the street, and practically every open business you passed also belonged to the Grand General’s Residence.

In other words, state-owned.

Military personnel made up the majority of Shengle City’s population, which indirectly made the city easier to manage.

Soldiers who had families living inside the city received monthly allocations of rice, flour, grain, oil, and other necessities according to household size, with different amounts for adults and children.

Single men ate and drank in the military camps anyway.

Merchant caravans entering and leaving Shengle City were all lodged and received at the merchant hostel, which also belonged to the Grand General’s Residence.

For every completed transaction, the Residence took a ten-percent tax.

It was not that no merchant caravan had ever tried to evade taxes.

In fact, tax evasion was practically a merchant’s instinct.

But after one fortified-estate lord privately established a market inside his own estate and Shengle City promptly sent troops over and wiped out his entire clan, that sort of thing suddenly became much less common.

The Grand General’s Residence explained it very simply:

The only reason everyone could do business here without being robbed, killed, or caught up in chaos was because the Residence maintained public order.

Therefore, if people made money here, it was only natural for the Residence to take a cut.

There was a vegetable market inside the city.

Naturally, that also belonged to the Grand General’s Residence.

Originally, the sign hanging outside had read: Shengle City Supply and Marketing Cooperative.

Later, for reasons no one quite understood, General Zheng saw it and decided he disliked the name.

He ordered it changed to Shengle Marketplace.

If you wanted vegetables, you bought them there.

Coal, cloth, and every other daily necessity had their own designated storefronts open to people from both inside and outside the city.

In other words, every business that could be done within Shengle City had been swallowed whole by the Grand General’s Residence.

Yu Huaping instinctively found this uncomfortable.

Walking through the streets of this city gave even the Sword Saint of the age a faint sensation of someone tightening a hand around his throat.

Government-run commerce had existed since ancient times and had always occupied a large share of the market.

But a place like Shengle City, where the private economy had been comprehensively strangled to death, was genuinely rare.

Even outside the Marquis of Zhenbei’s estate there were plenty of ordinary people opening shops and doing business.

Back then, Zheng Fan and the Sixth Prince had even gone there together to drink mutton soup.

But the Marquis of Zhenbei’s estate had the entire State of Yan providing blood and resources.

Shengle City, by contrast, received so little support from the imperial court each time that it could only be described as better than nothing.

According to the establishment recognized by the court, Shengle City should have had no more than three thousand troops.

In reality, once everything was counted together, its total military strength had already passed ten thousand and was approaching fifteen thousand.

Most of them were Jin people.

Between the five-thousand-man Jin Camp Zheng Fan had just brought back, the Jin troops already serving here, and the sons of fortified-estate lords and local magnates who had recently come to pledge themselves, Shengle City now had nearly ten thousand Jin soldiers.

Among the remaining five thousand, barbarian troops formed the majority.

As a result, inside Shengle City’s military camps, hearing someone speak with a Yan accent was actually unusual.

The region itself could not provide outside support.

Everything had to be centrally coordinated.

That was why Feng Siniang and the Blind Man had adopted this method.

Extraordinary times demanded extraordinary measures.

Yu Huaping might find it uncomfortable, but he had little room to criticize.

He was a man of the jianghu. By instinct, he disliked restraint and valued freedom.

Yet there were no refugees or beggars wandering the streets.

Any able-bodied person inside the city, man or woman, could find work.

The workshop districts outside the walls were desperately short of labor.

If someone wanted to live in Shengle City as an idle pauper, surviving off public support while doing nothing, that was almost impossible.

At the same time, school-age children could enter private schools for basic education free of charge, while the medical halls provided treatment at extremely low prices.

Yu Huaping sometimes felt that the benevolent rule of ancient sage-kings praised every day by scholars might not have amounted to much more than this.

The city’s greatest den of consumption also belonged to the Grand General’s Residence.

It was an enormous restaurant capable of hosting everything from ordinary family banquets to high-level welcoming feasts.

Behind the restaurant stood Shengle City’s largest—and only—red tent establishment.

Prices were clearly posted, covering every level of customer and every depth of purse.

Shengle City might well have been the only city where no privately run brothel existed.

First, there was simply no need.

Feng Siniang handled this business with truly effortless skill.

All the rules and procedures were mature.

Physicians were even brought in regularly to conduct collective health examinations.

The women themselves were willing to come.

After all, working here at least came with protection.

Naturally, some brothel madams had tried to start their own “businesses.”

The result was that the madams and every woman working beneath them were dragged out and thrown into the city jail together.

Yu Huaping knew Shengle City’s soldiers were paid extremely well—on the same level as the Jingnan Army.

At first glance, it looked like an unbearable financial burden.

But look a little closer.

Once the pay reached the soldiers’ hands, the money they spent eating in the city, visiting the red tents, and doing practically anything else went straight back into businesses owned by the Grand General’s Residence.

Often, within half a month of payday, roughly half the money that had just been distributed had already flowed back.

Breaking even completely was naturally impossible.

But once the money circulated in this fashion, the true cost of maintaining those high wages was nowhere near as crushing as it first appeared.

As he walked, Yu Huaping eventually reached the eastern gate.

Two hundred armored soldiers were stationed there.

The Gate Lieutenant Commander was a barbarian named Jin Shuke.

He spoke the Xia Tongue, though his accent was rather heavy, and commanded one hundred barbarian soldiers and one hundred Jin soldiers.

When Yu Huaping arrived, Jin Shuke personally handed him a box of pastries.

The box bore the mark of the Grand General’s Residence, proving it had been bought from one of its pastry shops.

“This is yours.”

Jin Shuke placed it in Yu Huaping’s hands.

Yu Huaping nodded.

Only then did he remember that a few days earlier, someone among the gate guards had gone around collecting contributions.

Their Lieutenant Commander’s wife had given birth.

Everyone was expected to show some goodwill.

Jin Shuke’s wife was a savage woman he had bought from the slave market inside the city.

Naturally, that market also belonged to the Grand General.

Only people bought and sold under contracts issued there received the protection of the Grand General’s Residence.

Private slave transactions were not recognized at all.

There had even once been a case where a privately traded slave escaped and was caught again.

Because the owner could not produce a contract bearing the official seal of the Grand General’s Residence, the court ruled that the slave was free.

Originally, many of Jin Shuke’s subordinates had assumed that a man like him would marry far above that.

The barbarian troops had always formed the trusted core around General Zheng.

Jin Shuke himself had come from the earliest group of three hundred barbarian soldiers.

As a barbarian officer, his standing was already high, never mind what might happen in the future.

Perhaps taking some extravagantly beautiful young woman from Lower Hang in Yan would have been excessive, but marrying a Jin woman should have been easy enough.

Yet he had not.

Instead, he bought a savage woman as his wife.

Privately, quite a few Jin soldiers under him had mocked the match.

A barbarian marrying a savage turtle meets mung bean, and somehow their eyes line up perfectly.

But in truth, Jin Shuke had never forgotten the first Qian fortress he helped his Master conquer.

That fortress had contained a little red-tent establishment.

There had been women inside.

The barbarian soldiers had stared so hard their eyes nearly fell out, drool practically hanging from their mouths.

But Jin Shuke had noticed something.

At the time, displeasure had appeared in his Master’s eyes.

So Jin Shuke did not dare touch women of Qian.

He did not dare touch women of Yan.

And as far as possible, he preferred not to touch Jin women either.

That was why he bought a savage female slave.

The woman had proved extremely “productive.”

Only five months after Jin Shuke bought her, she gave birth.

And she gave birth to three boys at once.

Jin Shuke nearly went mad with joy.

Yu Huaping knew plenty of the Jin soldiers beneath him secretly thought Jin Shuke was a bit simple-minded.

Wasn’t it obvious those children were not his?

But Yu Huaping understood that barbarian culture viewed such matters differently.

As long as the child grew up under your roof and inherited your family name, then he was your child—a member of your branch of the family.

When barbarians went to war, males taller than a wagon wheel were killed because they believed children already that old could no longer be assimilated.

Small children, however, were no problem at all.

Jin Shuke’s happiness was genuine.

It was even possible that when he bought the savage woman, he had already noticed she was pregnant and thought he had secured an incredible bargain.

No matter how much his subordinates joked about him in private, however, he was still their superior.

Everyone had tactfully contributed to the celebratory gift.

Jin Shuke understood proper reciprocity as well.

He had deliberately bought pastries and handed them out to everyone.

Then he announced, “After duty tonight, I’m treating everyone at Juyi Restaurant!”

Juyi Restaurant was the largest dining establishment in Shengle City, as well as the only restaurant openly serving outside customers.

“Many thanks, Commander!”

“How generous, Commander!”

“Thank you, Commander!”

Whether barbarian or Jin, every soldier was delighted.

Yu Huaping stood at his assigned place with the saber hanging at his waist.

The city gates were already open.

Merchant travelers delivering goods had begun entering.

There was none of the usual scene seen in ordinary cities at dawn, where crowds of vegetable sellers and peddlers surged through the gates to catch the morning market.

The Grand General’s Residence sent its own buyers out beforehand to purchase such goods from the surrounding areas and transport them in centrally.

And although the clouds of war were already hanging overhead, with the savage uprising liable to spread here at any moment, merchant caravans still continued to arrive as long as fighting had not actually begun.

Yu Huaping found that rather interesting.

A merchant’s pursuit of profit, he thought, was remarkably similar to a swordsman’s obsession with the Sword Dao.

Jin Shuke began assigning men to inspect the incoming caravans.

They were only the first layer of inspection, responsible mainly for making sure no spies or covert agents slipped inside.

Beyond the city gate was a transfer zone.

A large area had been deliberately set aside there, with specialized clerks responsible for inspecting, registering, and recording cargo.

Anything that entered Shengle City necessarily left a paper trail.

Those records also became the basis for taxation once a transaction was completed.

Merchants could trade among themselves inside the merchant hostel.

Or they could directly sell their goods to the commercial yamen under the Grand General’s Residence, though the latter would press the price somewhat lower.

It was not that corrupt clerks never tried to profit from the system.

In the past month alone, Yu Huaping had heard of more than ten clerks being executed and flayed.

In reality, the number punished was certainly much higher.

The chair used by the official responsible for inventory already had two layers of human skin draped across it.

The chair was not allowed to be replaced.

Whoever took over the job had to sit there and continue working.

Jin Shuke walked over and patted Yu Huaping on the shoulder.

That gesture patting a subordinate on the shoulder had originated with the master of Shengle City, General Zheng of the Grand General’s Residence.

According to rumor, he loved patting subordinates on the shoulder while speaking with them.

Gradually, other people began copying it.

Now the gesture had spread throughout the army and the yamen.

“Little Yu.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Yu Huaping answered calmly.

Aside from Zheng Fan and the others, no one knew his true identity.

“You haven’t started a family yet, have you?”

Jin Shuke’s Xia Tongue carried a heavy accent, but he spoke it fluently enough.

“Not yet, Commander.”

“Want me to introduce you to a wife?”

At that moment, the expression on the Sword Saint’s face became extremely complicated.

He genuinely feared Jin Shuke would tell him that another batch of savage slaves had recently arrived, and that one particular woman was excellent, perhaps even conveniently pregnant already so he could get an extra bargain.

To be fair, the Sword Saint could understand certain barbarian customs and even respect them to some degree.

But asking him to personally assimilate into those customs?

Impossible.

There was a gate guard nicknamed Sigui who had recently gone to the red tents to lose his virginity.

Trying to save money, the man chose a savage woman.

According to the story, the moment she took off her trousers, the smell knocked him unconscious.

The incident had become a running joke among the eastern-gate guards.

Yu Huaping never participated in such conversations.

Unfortunately, when everyone around you kept talking about something, there was no way not to hear it.

“A decent woman,” Jin Shuke continued. “A Jin woman. A widow. She has a daughter with her, and an elderly mother-in-law above her.”

Yu Huaping blinked.

“She looks good.

“More importantly, by the way you Jin people judge these things, she’s the sort of woman who knows how to run a household.”

“Commander, I don’t want to think about marriage for now.

“I want to earn some military merit first and look later.”

Yu Huaping could only use that excuse to refuse.

He had his own code of conduct.

Since he had agreed to help Zheng Fan guard the eastern gate, he naturally would not allow personal entanglements to make him abandon the job halfway.

Swordsmen and swords could sometimes be stubborn in precisely this way.

“Looking won’t hurt.”

Jin Shuke patted Yu Huaping’s shoulder again.

Then he lowered his voice and whispered, “You brat.

“I can tell you’re definitely not an ordinary person.”

“What?”

“You’re different from us.

“Different from them too.”

“Different?”

“Yes.

“I don’t believe that excuse you just gave.

“They care about those things.

“We care about those things too.

“Money. Women. Status.

“But you?

“You don’t care about any of it.”

“I do care.”

“Don’t lie to me.

“Whenever I’m not on duty, I attend Mr. Bei’s evening lessons.”

“Hm?”

The Blind Man’s evening lessons centered primarily on brainwashing.

But whenever the mood struck him, he also talked about life philosophy.

In other words, the transmission of values.

Put more plainly slipping in his own ideological baggage.

That was the Blind Man’s instinct.

He could not change it.

Or perhaps one could say that anyone who thought highly enough of himself eventually developed the same illness: if he did not smuggle in a little personal doctrine, he felt uncomfortable.

“Mr. Bei said there are people who look the same as us but are actually different.

“They are like wolf kings.

“When the pack cheers over the meat lying in front of them, the wolf king is already worrying about the winter ahead.

“Master is the wolf king.”

By Master, naturally, he meant Zheng Fan.

Zheng Fan was lazy and rarely attended public functions.

But that very mystery actually made it easier for the Demon Kings beneath him to shape his public image.

If Zheng Fan had spent every day bouncing around for no reason and showing his face everywhere, the result might not have been nearly as effective.

That was why, whenever Zheng Fan did appear, the armored soldiers around him became extraordinarily excited, like fanatics seeing their idol in the flesh.

After witnessing how the soldiers of the Jingnan Army reacted whenever Tian Wujing appeared, the Demon Kings had been deeply stimulated.

Recently, they had spared no effort whatsoever in this campaign of manufacturing divinity.

“Commander, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Ever since you started serving at this gate, Master has been using the eastern gate more and more often.”

“General likes using the eastern gate.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Nothing?

“The smithies are in the western part of the city.

“But when Master goes to inspect the smithies, he deliberately leaves through our eastern gate.

“Then after inspecting them, he circles all the way around just to come back through our eastern gate.

“Leaving the city to inspect things is one matter.

“But Master normally dislikes crowds and excitement, yet lately he’s been patrolling the streets constantly.

“And every time he patrols, he comes to look at our eastern gate.

“The day before yesterday alone, Master came here four times.”

Hearing that argument, Yu Huaping felt rather helpless.

It was true.

Recently, whenever Zheng Fan had nothing to do, he came wandering toward the eastern gate.

Once or twice would have been one thing.

Now even his post-lunch and post-dinner walks seemed to have turned into strolls in this direction.

Yu Huaping understood exactly why Zheng Fan kept coming.

A Sword Saint was guarding his gate.

Of course the man wanted to come look every so often.

Every visit, Zheng Fan compressed the corners of his mouth and forced himself to look solemn and dignified.

Inside, however, he was practically blooming with delight.

“Brother, I won’t ask what kind of demon you are.”

“Sacred being,” Yu Huaping corrected.

“Mm. Sacred being.

“I won’t ask.

“You perform your duties diligently every day and never make a single mistake.

“That makes me very satisfied.”

“Many thanks for your appreciation, Commander.”

“You’re coming to Juyi Restaurant tonight.”

“I have something to do tonight.”

Every evening, without exception, the Sword Saint had to teach the Little Sword Attendant swordsmanship.

That was a lesson that never changed.

Jin Shuke did not become angry.

Instead, he nodded.

“Fine.”

Then he turned and pointed at several guards behind them.

“Save the pastries until you’re off duty!

“Stand properly, all of you!

“Or when the discipline officers come around, they’ll beat your asses!”

...

Inside a bedroom in the rear residence of the Grand General’s Residence, the Young Marquis lay on his stomach atop the bed, little bottom raised in the air.

“Wah-oh. Wah-oh.”

No one knew what he was trying to say.

After seeing the child, Zheng Fan had immediately sent Xue San back to Litian City to deliver the news to Tian Wujing.

The Marquis’s residence remained tightly sealed.

The armored soldiers outside were completely unmoved by personal relations.

Eventually, Xue San had no choice but to infiltrate the Marquis’s residence and leave Zheng Fan’s letter inside.

As for whether someone else might accidentally pick up the letter and cause trouble, Xue San patted his tiny chest and swore there was absolutely no chance.

The moment he slipped into the Marquis’s residence, he had felt as though a tiger were staring directly at him.

Clearly, every little movement he made had fallen under Tian Wujing’s “eyes.”

So there was no possibility the letter would be picked up by someone else or simply lost.

What Zheng Fan could not understand was this: ever since the letter was delivered, Tian Wujing had neither come himself nor sent anyone to look at the child.

It was as though he had forgotten his son was still here.

According to the Blind Man, however, looking at it another way perhaps the Longyuan Sword and those five thousand Jin troops were the milk-powder money.

At that moment, the little baby being raised on this “astronomically expensive milk powder” was still struggling forward across the bed.

There was no one in the room watching him.

Leaving an infant alone on a bed like this was extremely dangerous.

And this particular infant’s identity was absurdly precious.

At last, half the Young Marquis’s body crawled over the edge.

He was just about to tumble down when a stone that had been lying on the bed suddenly flew into the air and pushed him back.

The Young Marquis rolled head over heels across the bedding.

He did not cry.

Instead, his bright little eyes fixed themselves on the stone.

“Wah-oh. Wah-oh.”

The stone stopped moving.

Seeing that, the Young Marquis started crawling toward the edge of the bed again.

Finally, the being inside the stone could no longer endure it.

A black infant-shaped shadow emerged.

The terrifying Demon Child appeared, standing directly in front of the Young Marquis.

The Young Marquis did not cry or fuss.

Instead, he rolled onto his side.

Looking at the Demon Child, he waved his hands and feet and laughed happily.

The Demon Child stared back with an expressionless face.

Slowly, the Young Marquis crawled upright again.

He crawled toward the Demon Child.

Raised his head.

Stuck his little bottom into the air.

“Wah-oh! Wah-oh!”

The Demon Child opened his mouth and let out a sinister laugh.

“Jie-jie... jie-jie... jie-jie...”

“Wah-oh... wah-oh... wah-oh...”

“Jie-jie...”

“Wah-oh...”

[End of Chapter 290]