Chapter 309 - Three Years in Langye (IX)
Chapter 309: Three Years in Langye (IX)
The first snow that year lasted for half a month. It was getting colder day by day. Many houses had been crushed by the snow, and it was unknown just how many casualties there were. A few aristocratic families in Shangjing had opened up granaries and set up gruel stalls. Most of the aristocratic families continued to lead a dazed life as if they were drunk or in a dream.
Jiang Pengji was staying in the Feng residences for the time being. She heard that there were gruel stalls, so she went out with Feng Jin to give gruel to the people.
The snow continued to fall outside. There was already a long line of people in front of the gruel stall. Almost everyone had a withered face and wore thin clothes. Some people were wearing pretty thick clothing, but they were full of patches.
“So many people have been crushed and frozen to death in this heavy snow…”
Seeing the endless queue, a manservant at the gruel stall muttered to the manservant beside him with a hint of pity and sympathy in his voice. Although two large pots had been set up, there was not enough gruel to give to the people.
His partner was running around with jobs to do. “…Stop chattering. Work is more important… How can the lives of the aristocrats and the rabble be the same?”
The people lined up to receive the gruel with stupefied looks spread across their faces. Jiang Pengji was either helping ladle the gruel or was carrying firewood to make a fire. Feng Jin, who was a frail scholar, was so exhausted that his forehead was sweating.
No one made a lot of noise or jumped in the line. The active audience in the streaming room had been silent for a long time. The atmosphere was very depressing. While watching, some audience members could not help but cry out of pity and did not have the courage to continue watching. No one posted inappropriate bullet screens.
Tusiji Tiaowu: “…Although we keep complaining about how cold winter is and how there’s no natural heating in the south––which makes it very cold during winter––we do live a very happy life. We really do…”
Tusiji Tiaowu: “There’s no natural heating in this area, but we can buy a heater on Taobao and turn on the heating system of the air-conditioner if you’re not afraid of wasting electricity. You can even wear summer clothing inside the house during the winter… All of that was almost impossible in the ancient times. The wealthy people could wear thicker clothes and burn high-quality charcoal to keep themselves warm, but what about the commoners?”
Yes. What about the commoners? Too many commoners could not afford to buy warm clothing for cold weather, live in wind-proof houses, or burn charcoal to keep themselves warm. That was even in Shangjing City where the emperor lived! The situation was already that bad… What about the places around Shangjing? How many houses had crumbled and how many innocent people had been crushed and frozen to death due to the heavy snowfall?
Without having any external advantages, they had no choice but to fight against the cold. If they could not withstand the cold, they would have to freeze to death… They would be frozen to death!
“System, can I exchange my popularity points for food? Clothes for cold weather would be good too…” Jiang Pengji secretly asked the System.
“No, you can’t. Your level is too low––unless you choose to upgrade.” The cold mechanical sound of the System rang in Jiang Pengji’s ears, giving rise to an unprecedented desire for Jiang Pengji to murder someone.
Jiang Pengji secretly counted the points of her back-end account and asked, “I can exchange for food just by upgrading? What’s the ratio?”
The System replied, “10,000 points can be exchanged for 100 pounds of food.”
10,000 points can be exchanged for 100 pounds of food? Jiang Pengji currently had more than 1.3 million points. It seemed like she would be able to exchange it for a lot of food…
However, Jiang Pengji was not someone that could be easily fooled.
The System avoided answering the previous question. Even if she upgraded her streaming to level three, she would still not have any redemption authority.
Regardless of that, to upgrade to a level three streamer from level two would cost her 1,000,000 popularity points.
If all the points were exchanged, according to the ratio given by the System, the remaining popularity points could only be exchanged for a small amount of food. It was a trap.
“Forget it. You’re not reliable at all,” Jiang Pengji answered coldly. She continued to think of other ways.
The System choked with resentment, but it did not dare to challenge Jiang Pengji.
Unless Jiang Pengji chose to upgrade by wasting her popularity points, the System could not do anything to Jiang Pengji.
The Feng family was one of the few aristocratic families in Shangjing who chose to set up gruel stalls. They had been cooking gruel from morning until night, but the gruel was still in short supply.
A bowl of gruel was not thick. It was very watery, but it could at least fill up one’s stomach and warm one’s cold body.
Jiang Pengji helped out at the gruel stall for a few days. She still had not heard any instructions on disaster relief, let alone a plan for providing rice and warm clothing.
Liu She came back from the morning meeting. He looked more and more tired day by day.
With a somber look on his face, he said, “I’ve already submitted a written statement many times, but the government keeps using the marriage of the second prince as an excuse and puts them off ambiguously. The emperor has finally relented today, but he has given this errand to an imperial secretary with the surname Shi… That secretary is greedy by nature. He takes advantage of every opportunity to benefit himself… I don’t know how many people will embezzle the 20,000 teals of silver distributed before the silver is given to the commoners. How much will be left for the commoners…”
In their world, although it had yet to turn chaotic, was it any better than troubled times?
Jiang Pengji had either been helping out at the gruel stall over the last few days or had been distributing some warm clothing to the people. She knew what the snowstorm was like the most.
She snorted coldly. “20,000 teals of silver aren’t even enough––not to mention the amount that will be left after the embezzlement and corruption in each tier… What purpose can it serve?”
Liu She sighed. “I’ve already secretly purchased a batch of grain to be sent up to Shangjing, hoping that it can ease the extremely urgent situation a little.”
In the current world, everything he did was useless. It was better to solve the hidden peril at its root.
******
The heavy snow finally stopped after three days.
Looking at the invitation card, Jiang Pengji smiled very coldly. “I’m not related to the second prince. Why should I go?”
The snow was gleaming in Shangjing City. The heaven and earth were boundless.
The Princess of the royal family of the Northern Borderline wore a red wedding dress. With the exception made by the emperor of Dongqing, she had permission to sit in a palanquin carried by 16 people.
The palanquin was embellished with gold, silver, and jade and it was covered with red satin. It sparkled under the sun’s reflection and was very luxurious.
Wearing festive new clothes, the groom’s procession beat gongs and blew horns and entered from the gate of Shangjing City. They walked around the city once and the people on both sides of the street cheered and gave their blessings. Hundreds of tables were set up for the banquet held in the prince’s residence. Courtiers and ladies went in and out of the place. It was very festive.
In stark contrast to that, stiff corpses were being dug up from the ruins in the remote corner of Shangjing City. The frozen corpses piled up one cart after another.
Jiang Pengji wore plain clothes. She pinned her hair with a wooden hairpin. Her facial expression was as cold as ice.
This world… should really change! Jiang Pengji exhorted the manservant that was cleaning up the corpses, “Bury them well. The weather is now cold, so the corpses won’t decay easily, but you can’t slight the matter because of this. If the bodies pile up and they’re not dealt with, epidemic diseases will emerge easily after spring.”
“Don’t worry, Langjun. I’ll handle it properly.”
******
In another place in Shangjing at the same time.
Lu Zheng was holding a plate and chewing a piece of white cake that was somewhat cold and hard. He sighed and said, “Almost a month has passed after the assessment. The palace still hasn’t issued any appointment letters. I think there’s no hope for this year…”
“The Master has already decided to return to Langye in two days… I really don’t want to come back to Shangjing again.”
Hearing the beating of gongs and blowing of horns outside, Han Yu felt unusually fretful.
So many commoners had frozen to death and died of starvation. However, the government still held such a grand wedding for the second prince. The scale of the wedding was even greater than that of the crown prince.
How could Dongqing behave in such a way?