IBGSW Chapter 139
The Menial Workers Make Trouble
In Wan'an County, Zhao Fusheng had been resting for a whole month.
It was now the seventh day of the ninth month. The weather was no longer hot, and had a crisp, pleasant autumn quality.
It was the most leisurely and comfortable stretch Zhao Fusheng had had since her rebirth in the Great Han.
During this month, the gold that the gentry of neighboring Baozhi County had promised to donate had been delivered bit by bit.
With money in hand, the road repairs and shop rebuilding in Wan'an County were proceeding in an orderly way.
Xu Yachen and four other gentry and merchants, who had agreed that day to move their households to Wan'an County, had already sent over some of their holdings and were now looking at houses.
The ordinary people, who'd had a stretch of peaceful days, had temporarily overcome their fear and were gradually coming out of their homes.
Because the bureau had been repairing buildings and hiring a lot of hands lately, a few peddlers even summoned their courage to carry their loads onto Baoding Road and try hawking some goods.
In front of the bureau yamen, there was gradually some life again.
Zhao Fusheng sat in the bureau yamen. Magistrate Pang, the secretary, the Fan brothers, Zhang Chuanshi, and the others sat around her.
Besides them, Wu Shaochun, a survivor of Goutou Village, was also there.
He'd been badly injured in the Substitute Ghost case, and had survived thanks to Zhao Fusheng taking him into the bureau. After half a month's recuperation, once his injuries stabilized, he'd been sent into the county by Wu'an Town and formally enrolled among the bureau's subordinates.
After the Substitute Ghost case, having seen his mother die with his own eyes and barely escaped death himself, Wu Shaochun had become much quieter. In the half month or so since entering the Wan'an County Bureau, he had spoken very little, and most of the time simply followed quietly beside Zhao Fusheng.
In the hall, Magistrate Pang said cheerfully:
"The method my lord suggested last time was excellent. After the Ghost Mausoleum case, the county yamen has set up thirty menial positions at seventy wen per person per month. These people come the moment they're called, which also saves the trouble of scrambling for hands whenever something comes up, as before."
Zhao Fusheng nodded.
From the corner of her eye she glanced at Wu Shaochun, standing quietly behind her.
Since he'd entered the Wan'an County Bureau, Wu Shaochun had been like this. His mother's death had hit him hard.
Although he'd escaped with his life in the Goutou Village ghost case, the Substitute Ghost had left terrible marks on him.
Most of the skin on Wu Shaochun's body had been stripped, and now it had healed into scars, so his looks were no longer as clean-cut as before. He was also taciturn, and many of the yamen's menial workers were a little afraid of him, which made him seem even more withdrawn.
"Shaochun, suppose someone earned 840 wen a year. If it were you, would you do it?"
She meant to draw Wu Shaochun out. At her question, he answered without hesitation:
"If you tell me to, my lord, I'll do it!"
Cheeky brat! Zhang Chuanshi shot Wu Shaochun a glare without making it obvious, dragged his stool a step closer with one hand, and hurriedly said:
"If my lord tells me to, I'll do it too."
Between the Goutou Village case and the Ghost Mausoleum's loss of control, the old man's fear of death had been on full display.
He was lazy and terrified of dying, and Zhao Fusheng didn't believe he'd want the job. But she didn't expose Zhang Chuanshi and instead smiled: "I don't mean me telling you to. I mean paying you 840 wen a year, would you do it?"
"Then no."
Zhang Chuanshi shook his head like a rattle drum and began to count on his fingers:
"Working myself to death for 840 wen a year? No, no. When I ran my coffin shop I made several hundred taels a year—"
"Several hundred taels?"
Zhao Fusheng sat up, a little surprised, and looked at the old man.
Then she seemed to think of something and leaned back in her chair:
"Ill-gotten money."
"How could that be..."
Zhang Chuanshi said guiltily.
He too had evidently remembered his first dealings with Zhao Fusheng.
If he hadn't been careless that time, and Zhao Fusheng hadn't caught him out and pulled him into the bureau, who knew how carefree and comfortable he'd still be.
"Heh."
Zhao Fusheng laughed and ignored him, turning back to Wu Shaochun:
"Shaochun, would you do it?"
Wu Shaochun thought:
"If Goutou Village hadn't had a ghost, I would—"
"My mother said a couple of years back that my dad died early and didn't leave me much money."
When he mentioned his mother, his face changed, and the numbness in his eyes gradually gave way to a look of pain:
"When she was alive, she often asked around about girls in nearby villages and about bride-prices."
At that time Wu Shaochun's mother had been very frugal, famous in the village for being stingy; she picked up even the rotten vegetable leaves others threw away.
Others sometimes looked down on her, and when they got angry, there were sometimes quarrels.
"I knew she worked hard. When I was young and foolish I went out running goods for others, and when she found out she beat me with a stick. She said it wasn't an honest living and that if the court caught me I'd be beheaded—"
The Fan brothers looked cold.
Zhang Chuanshi was also unmoved by Wu Shaochun's misery.
In this world, everyone had a hard time. Besides the ghost calamities, there were all kinds of troubles in life.
Wu Shaochun wasn't usually talkative, and only when he mentioned his mother, who'd died to a malignant ghost, had he said more. Seeing that no one was interested, he knew when to stop.
He was about to turn away and blink to hold back his sorrow when Zhao Fusheng said:
"Huanggang Village?"
Her words made Wu Shaochun freeze, even his effort to blink the tears from his eyes halting. He asked, a little surprised:
"How does my lord know?"
"You've mentioned it twice."
Zhao Fusheng looked at his startled face and said:
"I wanted to ask then what business you did in Huanggang Village, but the timing wasn't right."
Then the Substitute Ghost had been at work, and her memory and perception were reset again and again, and she'd forgotten to ask.
Later, when she remembered, the case had been solved, Wu Shaochun was badly hurt, and Zhao Fusheng was busy, so there'd been no chance to bring it up.
After Wu Shaochun came to the county bureau, Zhao Fusheng could see he was gloomy, and he hadn't volunteered anything about Goutou Village either. Now that he'd raised it himself, she followed up:
"What business were you doing in Huanggang Village?"
Her question dispersed his sadness.
He looked embarrassed and flustered and instinctively glanced at Magistrate Pang, who sat beside him.
"I thought my lord was asking about income..." he mumbled.
Pfft.
Zhang Chuanshi couldn't help laughing.
Zhao Fusheng looked at him with a smile: "It's all just chat anyway. I ask whatever comes to mind. We'll talk about work later. Tell me about running goods in Huanggang Village."
"All right."
Wu Shaochun nodded helplessly.
That interruption had dispelled most of his grief.
The business in Huanggang Village wasn't glorious for him. It was the kind of trade that got you beheaded. But he had now joined the Demon-Suppression Bureau, and Magistrate Pang was a guest of honor at the bureau. Even if he told this, Magistrate Pang would at most scold him, and certainly wouldn't have him seized and beheaded.
Thinking so, Wu Shaochun grew bold and said:
"My lord, behind Huanggang Village there's a barren mountain. They say decades ago a great rainstorm brought a mudslide in the mountain, and many houses in the village were flooded. While people were rescuing others and digging out their property, someone dug up gold, silver, and jewels, said to have been washed down from the mountain."
At the mention of money, everyone grew interested.
Wu Shaochun continued:
"After that the villagers stopped rescuing people and all swarmed into the woods. They found many old tombs in the mountain, no one knew from what year, and many of them had burial goods. So the people of Huanggang Village often went into the wilds to dig up graves."
The Great Han strictly forbade digging up ancestral tombs, and anyone caught was severely punished.
The people of Huanggang Village were committing a banned act. After digging up the burial goods, they had to find ways to dispose of them, turning these dead things that couldn't be shown in daylight into money.
So there was something called "running goods."
When villagers dug up something valuable, they had to find a way to carry it elsewhere and sell it to rich people to turn it into cash.
But the world was hard and bandits were everywhere.
These bandits were almost all made up of desperate and vicious people, entrenched in the mountains, robbing villagers and travelers on the road, becoming a major scourge in the prefectures and counties of the Great Han alongside ghost calamities.
Though the village had tried hard to hide the fact that many old tombs had been found behind the mountain, the villagers had money, and it was easy to show it, which attracted the attention of people with designs.
So when people from Huanggang Village traveled, they always went in groups.
Especially when running goods, they hired many able-bodied villagers, so the trip would be safe.
"My mother was always worried about my marriage. When I was young and foolish I went out running goods a couple of times, and my mother beat me back."
The people of Huanggang Village were committing a grave crime.
Besides grave-robbing, they privately moved goods. The silver was from unknown sources and evaded the taxes of every yamen, and being caught meant certain death.
"Actually my mother worried too much. Even if she hadn't beaten me, after those two trips I didn't plan to go again."
Wu Shaochun, remembering the past, looked dejected.
Magistrate Pang looked awkward on hearing about this kind of business.
He was a scholar and by nature had a proud streak. He knew the people of the Demon-Suppression Bureau were mostly a rabble, but hearing Wu Shaochun bring up such dealings to his face still made him feel contempt.
But because of Zhao Fusheng's position, he'd been forced to put up with it.
"Why?" Zhao Fusheng did not look down on Wu Shaochun for it. She asked curiously:
"Wasn't the pay enough?"
Such a past wasn't something for polite company.
Wu Shaochun had brought it up in front of everyone purely because Zhao Fusheng pressed him, and she was his savior.
He'd thought that after saying it, he'd inevitably be looked down on, and Magistrate Pang and the others did look as uncomfortable as he'd expected. But to his surprise, Zhao Fusheng didn't look down on him at all and chatted with him as if talking about household matters.
Wu Shaochun felt it was strange and was at a loss, and scratched his head.
The moment he did it, Zhang Chuanshi felt his scalp itch agonizingly.
The memory of the agony of being flayed during the Substitute Ghost case surfaced again. His face changed and he hurriedly scolded:
"Wu Shaochun, don't scratch your head."
"..."
Wu Shaochun stopped quickly, his face changing too. Then he answered:
"Actually the pay was enough. It was eight hundred wen per trip."
Generally such business was better the farther you went, so no one could trace the source. A round trip took two or three months and earned eight hundred wen.
"By that count, the income is decent. So why did you stop after two trips?"
Zhao Fusheng did the math from what he said. On a trip like that, with food and lodging covered along the way, all of it was net profit. If he could hang on to it, two or three trips a year would earn two-plus taels of silver.
That wasn't a small sum.
Back then Wu Dajing had mentioned that his family had more than twenty laborers, worked hard farming all year, and in idle time worked outside, earning thirty taels a year.
But Wu Dajing's family alone paid more than twenty taels in tax, so after a year of hard labor the money left was meager.
And the money still had to feed a family of old and young. Even so, Wu Dajing's family was among those who lived relatively respectably in Goutou Village, as you could tell from the blue, unpatched clothes he'd worn that day.
For a man like Wu Shaochun, running goods like this could earn two-plus taels of silver a year, and it was tax-free, so the figure was quite considerable.
"Those people aren't good people—" Wu Shaochun said after holding it in for a long time.
"Not good people?"
The answer was beyond Zhao Fusheng's expectation.
Fan Bisi said now:
"People who travel outside, there are no good ones. They dare dig graves, smuggle, defy the court's laws, and hire people to face off against bandits. Killing and arson probably wouldn't stop them either."
He seemed to understand human nature very well.
After he finished, the others said nothing, and even Wu Shaochun looked as if he agreed.
His reaction made Zhao Fusheng pause:
"I see."
The past in Huanggang Village was not glorious, and Wu Shaochun didn't want to say more. He said:
"If I'd known the county had a job paying seventy wen a month, I'd have broken my head to get it, and my mother would have thought my Wu family's ancestral graves were smoking with good fortune1—"
Mentioning his late mother made him want to laugh, and as he spoke, tears fell.
While people in the room were talking, suddenly a clang of a heavy object came from outside, and someone shouted:
"Zhuang Laoqi, are you looking for a fight!"
"What if I hit you? Who told you to stand behind me and scare me—"
A noisy shouting came into the room, as if a fight had broken out outside.
Zhao Fusheng turned to look out. Seeing this, Fan Bisi rose first and said with a frown:
"The menial workers we hired must have started a quarrel. I'll go look."
The Demon-Suppression Bureau had only recently been reestablished, everything was still being rebuilt, and many posts had not yet found suitable people, so most of the miscellaneous work in the yamen fell to Fan Bisi.
The people were in the middle of talking, and now menial workers were fighting outside. He felt it was a loss of face and feared Zhao Fusheng would rebuke him for not managing his subordinates.
He was angry and about to go out and teach these people a lesson when Zhao Fusheng said:
"I've nothing else on, I'll go see too."
At that, Magistrate Pang and the others all stood up.
They left the hall, crossed the wide, clean courtyard, and saw a group of people outside surrounding the shop across the street.
These workers who should have been working were crowded around, as if two people in the middle were arguing. The people around were trying to calm them, but the two quarreling would not let it go.
Zhao Fusheng walked in front. As they came out of the bureau's main gate, the argument outside grew fiercer, as if they were about to come to blows.
Zhang Chuanshi shouted: "What nerve! Lord Zhao's come out, and you're still slacking off!"
