Chapter 61

Chapter 61: Eating Your Fill

With the two of them working in tandem, Gong Shu Wu finally gave in.

Zhai Le waited until they were done, then spoke. “If you ask me, Brother Shen, you’d be better off finding a way to leave the Northwest and go to the Southeast.”

“The Southeast?” Shen Tang asked. “Isn’t the Southeast at war?”

She expected something like “the Southeast is stable.” Instead, Zhai Le said, “Of course it’s at war. How could it not be?

Is there any feudal lord country that isn’t fighting right now?

But the Southeast has one thing better than the Northwest—it doesn’t have droughts every other minute.”

Qi Shan didn’t even bother lifting his eyelids. He let out a soft laugh. “The Southeast has plenty of rain, yes. It doesn’t get droughts as often. It floods instead.”

Zhai Le opened his mouth, but Qi Shan kept going.

“Some floods are natural disasters. People can’t fight the sky. Others are man-made.

The feudal lord countries upstream control the waterways. Before the rainy season, they cut off the river and let the downstream dry out.

When the rainy season comes, they dump water and release floods to keep the upstream safe…” He sounded almost amused. “And it doesn’t stop there.”

As far as Qi Shan knew, one feudal lord country had even gotten rich by “selling water.”

If the downstream countries didn’t obey or didn’t pay tribute, they cut off the water. If that still didn’t work, they deliberately released floods and drowned the smaller country, then stuffed their own coffers by collecting “protection fees.”

They pushed it so far that everyone wanted them dead. In the end, feudal lord countries down the tributaries joined forces and wiped them out.

“Same mess across the mainland,” Qi Shan finished. “I’d rather squat in the Northwest than run to the Southeast.”

Most importantly, he didn’t say: he couldn’t swim. He hated water.

Zhai Le pouted, visibly crushed that his pitch hadn’t sold.

Then he thought about it and felt better. A golden nest and a silver nest still couldn’t beat your own doghouse.

He’d grown up on the Southeast frontier. He was good in water, good at hunting and fishing, and he hadn’t suffered much. No matter how chaotic his homeland got, it still felt better than anywhere else.

Qi Shan, sir, probably felt the same.

Zhai Le still wouldn’t give up. “Even if you won’t go south, Geng State isn’t safe either.

You should either go to a feudal lord country with relatively stable politics, or live apart from the world and stay far from the flames of war… Brother said Geng State has at most five years of national fortune left.”

Qi Shan’s brows moved. “Your brother?”

“My clan cousin. We’re the same age. We grew up together—closer than real brothers.

He’s amazing. He plans to enter service after this journey ends.

He said Zheng Qiao, the ruler of Geng State, is a narrow-minded man with a rotten temperament—high ambitions, low ability. Wolves in the Northern Desert, tigers and leopards in Ten Wu, and he still dares to bargain with predators. He’ll end up with nothing but bones.

I think he’s right…”

Qi Shan watched Gong Shu Wu from the corner of his eye. The man looked distracted, but his attention never left the conversation.

Qi Shan said, “Your brother read Zheng Qiao pretty accurately. His virtue is thin for his position, his wisdom is small for his schemes. Add in a narrow heart and spiteful grudges, and he really doesn’t have the look of an enlightened ruler.”

“In your view, sir,” Gong Shu Wu said suddenly, “what counts as an enlightened ruler?

Is it a ruler of great merit who expands territory?”

Qi Shan didn’t answer him. He turned to Shen Tang instead. “What do you think, Young Master Shen?”

Shen Tang blinked. “Me?”

“Yes. You.”

She shrugged. “People live by their mouths. An enlightened ruler is someone who lets the commoners eat their fill, stay warm, and live in peace.

When the granaries are full, people learn propriety. When food and clothing are sufficient, people understand honor and shame.

If the commoners live well and have surplus grain in hand, their hearts settle. The country settles. Politics get cleaner. Isn’t that the point?”

Gong Shu Wu went silent. So did Qi Shan.

Shen Tang felt their stares prick her skin, so she pushed on. “Conquest and glory look good on a ruler, sure. But how much do the commoners actually benefit?

Usually they get nothing. The court raises taxes to fund the army, and it all lands on their backs.

Every extra bit of tax is one less bite of food. Sometimes it’s enough to starve people to death.

Look at Xin State. It got destroyed—how many remnant subjects truly mourned the old country? Most just dusted themselves off and kept living.”

If Geng State fell later, the commoners would do the same.

Some might even raise a cup to celebrate the tyrant over their heads finally croaking, so they could breathe.

No one spoke for a moment.

Then Qi Shan shook his head. “In this world, that doesn’t apply.”

He glanced at Shen Tang like he was watching a stubborn student. “Take your own ‘feudal lord way.’ Other feudal lords use it to recruit talent, gather the worthy, raise troops.

Yours is agriculture. You can farm until your granaries overflow, but if you can’t defend them, what’s the point?

It doesn’t attract talent, and it can’t reward them. Grain is something people with force can simply take.”

“Yuan Liang has a point,” Shen Tang admitted. “There’s a saying: farm without stockpiling guns and your home becomes a granary; stockpile guns without farming and everywhere becomes a granary.

Your own grain can’t compete with someone else’s granary, right?”

She sighed, then added, “Still, why choose? If you can, you take both.”

Then she laughed at herself. “Anyway, if I ever go find a feudal lord to enter service and get a job, I’m not working for the ones who delay pay and offer lousy wages.”

You worked to eat.

Forget ideals. Talk stomachs.

“If an owner can keep the place running, pay wages on time, give raises, and actually pay what the work is worth—enough for employees to support a whole family—then that’s a good owner,” she said. “Forget 996. I could do 007.”

“You want to enter service?” Qi Shan asked, his gaze sharpening.

Shen Tang’s smile stiffened. For some reason, that question felt dangerous.

She shook her head. “I’m just talking.

Why work for someone else if I don’t have to? It’s not like I can’t eat.” She spread her hands. “I can use word-spirit to conjure food. Maybe I can’t help everyone, but I won’t starve.”

Qi Shan’s expression eased.

“That’s good.”

Shen Tang frowned. “What’s good?”

“Trying your best to eat your fill is good,” Qi Shan said quietly. “Not just for one person. For tens of thousands.”

His eyes looked distant for a heartbeat, as if he could see a road no one else had walked. “Maybe an agriculture-based ‘feudal lord way’ can carve out its own path. If no one has tried it before, how do we know it won’t work?”

Shen Tang stared at him, baffled.

She didn’t understand what Qi Yuan Liang was brewing this time, but her gut said it wasn’t bad. So she let it go.

Gong Shu Wu kept glancing between them, like he sensed something and hated that he sensed it.

The campfire burned low. Night thinned into dawn.

After resting enough, they prepared to enter the city.

Shen Tang, Zhai Le, and Qi Shan blended in well enough. Gong Shu Wu did not.

When the light fully came and Gong Shu Wu stood, Shen Tang finally realized just how huge he was—nearly two meters tall, broad and solid, shoulders wide, waist narrow, arms and legs packed with hard muscle. He looked like he could take two of her without breaking a sweat.

Drop him into a crowd and you’d spot him instantly.