His Majesty is a sick beauty

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"Here comes the water, how much food is there in the urn?"

In the dilapidated thatched hut, a lame old woman put down the sackcloth that had been mended many times in front of her and said that she could no longer see its original appearance.

In the room, a man with a bare upper body and protruding ribs walked to a haystack in the corner of the room, and lifted the hay to reveal the pottery urn inside.

When the water came in and the lid was opened, there was only a thin layer of shriveled black and yellow beans left in the pot-bellied pottery urn.

The silence of the incoming water made the old woman realize something, so she had no choice but to say dryly: "It's okay, just add more water when cooking in the future."

For people like them, the so-called cooking is to cook the miscellaneous grains collected in various ways. There is no skill, as long as it can fill the stomach.

but……

Dahe looked at the two children hiding in the corner, a boy and a girl, twins, but at the age of four, they had already learned to endure pain in a poor life.

Due to hunger, the two children looked a little big and small, and their thin limbs were like dry branches, poking on their swollen torsos.

The beans in their house are the worst kind. No matter how long they are boiled, they are hard as hell and difficult to digest.Their previous meals were already boiled with a lot of water, and there were hardly any grains in each bowl, and the mother would secretly put the beans in her own bowl into the bowls of the two children. She had been drinking continuously Bean water for days!

Laishui scratched his hair irritably, and then suddenly touched his belt: "I still have copper coins, we can exchange some food, mother, wait for me, I..."

"Bring water!" His mother stopped him. "Now, it's early spring, and the food price is too expensive. We can wait a little longer, and the food will be cheaper..."

"Daddy, we're not hungry either."

"..."

Laishui sat on the ground in pain: "If we had known earlier, we should not have..."

He didn't understand how things turned out like this. Last year's severe drought caused all the crops in their ancestral fields to wither. At a time when everyone in the village was desperately guarding the dead crops, not knowing where to find the rations for life tomorrow. One day, an official lord suddenly beat the village chief.

He told them that the princes in the city took pity on them for the disaster, and planned to give them a sum of grain, and then return the grain after the spring grain came.

The official said to them: "Think about it, it's just returning the grown grain, and there is no usury. This is entirely due to the kindness of the young masters. Don't hesitate."

He also said: "What can you do if you don't want this grain? The grain in your fields can survive this autumn. It's better to pray for some snow in winter, at least until spring."

Laishui can't read, or rather, no one in the whole village can read except the official.But he was right, they had no choice.

They lined up and pressed their fingerprints, and each brought back two bags of grain and rations.

But they didn't know until the food was distributed that the food was not given to them in vain.

"If you refuse to return the grain in the spring, relatively..." the official looked at the submissive farmers with sunken eyes like eagles, "your land will be taken back."

It's a small trap, but it's enough to deal with people like them who have been farming honestly for generations.

The drought and high temperature that lasted the entire summer and most of the autumn have passed, but what awaits them is indeed a more terrifying winter.At this temperature, a large number of crops they planted died again. On a certain day, everyone in the village realized that they could not keep the food.

They can't keep their ancestral property.

Dull weeping filled every corner of the village. At this time, the official lord came again, and he comforted them that it would be fine to become tenants of the princes, so that they would not have to worry about being hungry again due to natural disasters.

"As long as you obey the orders of the young masters and take care of the property for the young masters, the young masters will give you what you deserve."

The people in the village are still farming in the familiar fields, but from then on, everything produced in the fields will no longer belong to them.

They no longer cultivate miscellaneous grains, but more refined and difficult to care for wheat.

Laishui only heard that neighboring countries bought wheat at a high price, and the price almost doubled compared to before!

neighboring countries!

At that moment, Laishui felt as if a bolt of lightning pierced the night sky. He was so excited that he even trembled a little. He moved to his mother and said in a low voice, "We can escape to Yangcheng."

The old woman's eyes widened, she quickly covered her mouth from the water, and then looked around to make sure that the words just now would not be heard by anyone, then she caressed her beating heart and said: "Are you crazy?"

"Mom, there is one thing I haven't told you before." Laishui hesitated, and told her what he had heard before, "Young masters don't plan to send us food anymore, they plan to send us food directly." Issuing copper plates is like... just like those factories in the Yu Dynasty."

The old woman was struck by lightning: "What did you say?"

She still couldn't believe it and continued to ask: "How many copper coins?"

"One month's money." Laishui snorted coldly, "It's the same as in previous years."

"How can this be the same?!" The old woman raised her voice uncontrollably after hearing the words of the incoming water, "How can this be the same?"

She murmured several times that the price of grain is skyrocketing now, especially after most of the fields in the Mongolian Dynasty were planted with wheat, the price of coarse grain has skyrocketed even more.

Today's food price is more than three or four times what it used to be. It's a month's worth of money. In today's world, it is very difficult to support Lai Shui alone, not to mention that his family has an old and two young children to support!

The old woman's face was ashen, and she just kept murmuring in disbelief: "How can this be the same?"

Looking at his gray-haired mother, thinking about his wife who died young, and his two children who were so hungry that they couldn't sleep every night, Laishui's slightly cloudy eyes shone with light: "Mom, you also heard As Yangcheng said, we can pretend to be refugees and sneak over there, and then we will have new fields and new houses."

and a fresh start.

But the old woman is obviously still not very relieved: "Is it really possible? Before, the official who came to the village said very well, saying that those young masters are just kind, and they can't bear to make us suffer and want to help us. But, but ..."

But the end result is that they lost the only land they owned and became the most humble tenant farmers.

"It's definitely possible. I've heard people say that in the next village, a family's son ran away, and he sneaked back later to pick up the family." He whispered, "This is what I heard from others. Said."

People are like this, and they will give greater trust to the whispers they hear.

"Also." Laishui looked sideways at his two children. Due to the lack of nutrition, the development of these two children was obviously delayed, and they even started to be in a daze from time to time recently, "They can't hold on anymore."

The old woman had tears in her eyes. For farmers like them, the affection for the land is extremely deep. How painful it was when they lost their ancestral property, how painful it is now when they decide to leave here.

Even though this land did not leave them any good memories, they are still so attached to this place where they have lived for generations.

However, the old man looked at the two disheveled children hiding in the corner, and finally gritted his teeth and nodded.

"Okay, let's, let's get out of here."