Ergouzi returned to Snake Creek Village. His first stop was his uncle’s house, where he lingered nearby, keeping an eye out for Xiao Ezi.
He had no desire to set foot inside the courtyard or see his Auntie’s face again, so he could only wait outside.
Fortunately, he did not have to wait long before Xiao Ezi appeared.
“Xiao Ezi, look at all the good things I bought for you!”
The two of them squatted down together in an inconspicuous corner by the wall, and Ergouzi brought out the pair of hair ornaments.
“Ah! They’re so pretty!”
“Are they really for me?”
Seeing the hair ornaments, Xiao Ezi was clearly delighted. Her dimples deepened as she smiled.
“Of course they’re for you. I certainly have no use for them.”
“Thank you, Brother Gouzi!”
Xiao Ezi took the hair ornaments. Without even needing a mirror, she fastened them directly into her hair and shook her head, looking quite satisfied.
“There’s more. Look!”
Then, as if presenting a trove of treasures, Ergouzi pulled out candied haws, malt sugar candy, and osmanthus cloud-slice cake, one after another.
At first, Xiao Ezi was thrilled. Her eyes shone as she stared at the pile of delicious treats.
But soon, she seemed to realize that buying all this must have cost a lot of money.
“Brother Gouzi, don’t buy so many things next time. What if you run out of money and go hungry later?”
“Just yesterday, Third Pockmark from the west end of the village starved to death. It was all because he was gluttonous and lazy, leaving his family with no surplus grain.”
Xiao Ezi reluctantly wrapped the osmanthus cloud-slice cake back up.
“Take this back for a refund. It doesn’t taste good.”
Her tone was resolute when she claimed it didn’t taste good, but her little tongue betrayed her, darting out to stealthily lick the crumbs from the corner of her mouth.
“Don’t worry, Xiao Ezi. I won’t go hungry now.”
Ergouzi stuffed the pastries firmly back into her arms.
“Old Moneybags Huang has already sold me the land on Snake Mouth Mountain, and he even agreed to let me pay him back slowly over time.”
“Really?”
Xiao Ezi’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“Of course it’s true.”
“My eldest brother has always wanted to buy that land. I heard Old Moneybags Huang absolutely refused to sell, so who would have thought he’d sell it to you?”
Now it was Ergouzi’s turn to be surprised.
“Your family already has dozens of mu of good farmland. Why is your brother so dead set on buying a barren mountain?”
“Hehe… you might not know, but my eldest brother recently bought some more fields. Our family now has over a hundred mu of good farmland.”
Just as they were chatting idly, the main gate of his uncle’s house creaked open.
Ergouzi hurriedly shrank back, wanting to avoid running into anyone else from the household.
A yamen runner stepped out first, with Zhang Youliang following closely to see him off.
The two exchanged pleasantries at the doorway for a while before the yamen runner finally took his leave.
“Why did a yamen runner come to your house?”
Ergouzi asked curiously. Normally, commoners avoided government officials like mice fleeing from cats. None dared to associate with them.
“That was Head Constable Wang. He’s my eldest brother’s friend. He came to the village to arrest someone and dropped by to catch up with my brother.”
“Arrest someone? Whose family crossed the government?”
Snake Creek Village was far from the county town—a full day’s journey on foot. Unless it was a major incident, the government rarely bothered to intervene.
The local gentry and village heads would usually gather to discuss and settle the matter privately, without ever alarming the County Yamen.
Take the time Baldy Wang had an affair with Deaf Li’s wife. The gentry fined Baldy Wang a dan of grain and drowned Deaf Li’s wife in a pig cage.
Afterward, everyone praised the gentry for upholding the law and handling matters fairly.
On the day of the drowning, men, women, the old, and the young of the entire village had flocked to the riverbank to watch the spectacle. It had been livelier than the Lantern Festival.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you.”
“Old Moneybags Huang’s eldest son killed someone, and the victim’s family reported it to the County Yamen.”
Xiao Ezi recalled the day’s biggest news and added the details. The source of this chapter is g.com.
“Old Moneybags Huang’s family is in trouble. I need to go check on them—I still owe him several hundred taels of silver.”
As Ergouzi spoke, he had already scrambled to his feet, sprinting toward Old Moneybags Huang’s estate.
Head Constable Wang and his men had long departed, but a massive crowd of tenant farmers still surrounded the doorway, watching the spectacle. They chattered noisily, pointing and gesturing, though not a single person dared to step closer.
Ergouzi pushed his way through the throng and went inside.
The main hall had been turned completely upside down. Chests and cabinets lay overturned and pried open, with clothes and various items scattered across the floor.
Second Daughter sat crying by the doorway, several dirty footprints stamped across her clothes.
Old Moneybags Huang sat blankly on a stone block, staring hollowly into space, letting the women of his household wail around him.
This was exactly why ordinary commoners feared yamen runners the most.
When yamen runners came to your door, they never just grabbed their suspect and left. Having traveled so far, they made absolutely certain to scrape up enough grease money.
They usually took the opportunity to sweep away all the valuables in the accused’s home.
That was why villagers used them to frighten their children. Simply saying, “The yamen runners are coming,” was enough to stop a child’s tears instantly, leaving them too terrified to even twitch.
“Landlord Huang!”
Hearing the call, Old Moneybags Huang slowly turned his head, his eyes gradually regaining focus.
“Ergou… wu wu wu…”
At that moment, Old Moneybags Huang actually broke down like a child, grabbing onto Ergouzi and sobbing bitterly.
“Landlord Huang, don’t panic. We can figure something out.”
“I still owe you eight hundred taels. I came today to repay the debt.”
After a raid by the yamen runners, the house was surely stripped of anything valuable.
The silver Ergouzi brought might just save Old Moneybags Huang in this emergency.
Hearing that Ergouzi was here to repay money seemed to jolt Old Moneybags Huang’s senses, and he gradually calmed down.
“Do you want me to find a way to pay off the full eight hundred taels ahead of time?”
Since the landlord was in such desperate straits, Ergouzi figured he could just make a few more batches of Great Strength Pills to sell. He could scrape together eight hundred taels quickly enough.
“No!”
“Absolutely not!”
Even having fallen to such a wretched state, Old Moneybags Huang suddenly displayed a rare streak of stubbornness.
“We stick to the original agreement: forty taels a year, fully repaid over twenty years.”
“Tomorrow, we will go to the County Yamen to get the official seal stamped.”
Generally, private land sale contracts had to be brought to the yamen for the official seal. Only then was the handover complete and legally recognized.
Since Old Moneybags Huang insisted, Ergouzi didn’t argue. He immediately took out forty taels of silver and handed it over.
“I have to go to the County Yamen tomorrow to grease some palms anyway. I needed the silver.”
The two agreed to set out early the next morning. Ergouzi took his leave and headed back to Snake Mouth Mountain.
Upon returning to the mountain, the two adult geese waddled up with a gaggle of newly hatched goslings, honking and demanding feed.
Since buying the two large geese, he had constantly fed them grass fodder rich in Spiritual Qi. They had grown incredibly robust.
Recently, they had laid eggs and hatched a brood of little ones.
Ergouzi willed the gourd to enlarge, poured out some grass fodder, and scattered it into the stone trough.
The geese immediately swarmed the trough, wolfing the fodder down.
After feeding the geese, he watered all the crops on the mountain. Then, he worked through the night to produce more Great Strength Pills.
He had tasted the sweetness of success—nearly a dan of Great Strength Pills had just sold for over two hundred taels of silver.
He planned to convert all two hundred dan of grain currently stored in his gourd into Great Strength Pills to sell.
After kneading dough for most of the night, he only managed to produce a single dou of Great Strength Pills.
Early the next morning, Ergouzi and Old Moneybags Huang hurried together to the County Yamen.
At the gates of the County Yamen, Old Moneybags Huang bent his waist. Piling a brilliantly obsequious smile onto his face, he respectfully offered up two packets of crushed silver with both hands.
The two gatekeepers maintained cold expressions. They took the silver, weighed it by hand, and slipped it into their sleeves.
“Go in!”
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
Old Moneybags Huang bowed repeatedly to the men, expressing his gratitude as if the two gatekeepers had just done him an enormous favor.
As they went further in, wherever Old Moneybags Huang encountered a checkpoint or an official, he piled on his brilliant smiles, bowed deeply, and offered up silver. Enjoying the story? Read on at NovelPing.
Even when the men in the yamen met him with cold words, sarcasm, and insults, Old Moneybags Huang never dropped his beaming smile.
Ergouzi followed silently behind him. He watched Old Moneybags Huang hand out silver sixteen times and say “thank you” one hundred and six times before finally navigating all the obstacles to reach Huang Fugui in the jail cells.
In just a single day, one of Huang Fugui’s legs had been broken. Both his cheeks were swollen high, and blood crusted at the corners of his mouth. He had clearly suffered terribly.
“My son!”
“Father!”
“Father, I didn’t kill anyone! I only pushed that beggar once…”
Old Moneybags Huang hadn’t known the specifics of the incident until now. Hearing Huang Fugui’s side, it did indeed sound suspicious.
That day, Huang Fugui had been eating at a wonton stall in town when a beggar spat a thick glob of yellow phlegm into his bowl.
Enraged, Huang Fugui cursed at the beggar and shoved him a few times, knocking him to the ground.
The beggar hadn’t said a word. Laughing loudly, he scrambled up from the dirt, grabbed Huang Fugui’s bowl of wontons, and scarfed them clean.
After that, Huang Fugui had left.
Who would have thought that the beggar’s family would suddenly go to the County Yamen and report him for murder?
Normally, a dead beggar or two was something nobody cared about.
On their journey to the county town just today, they had passed several beggars who had frozen to death.
Anyone willing to dig a shallow pit and bury them was considered to be doing a great deed of charity.
Forget beggars—even if ordinary villagers got into a brawl and killed one or two people, as long as no one officially reported it to the County Yamen, the county magistrate wouldn’t bother with such trivial matters.
Yet this time, for the sake of a mere beggar, Head Constable Wang had gathered his men and braved the biting wind and snow to travel all the way to Snake Creek Village for an arrest.
“Father! I’ve been wronged! Save me! I can’t take it anymore. They beat me, they don’t feed me, and they even forced me to drink… urine…”
Old Moneybags Huang quickly offered several basketfuls of flattery to the jailers and the head guard, slipping them more silver.
Having received the bribe, the head jailer promised to provide Huang Fugui with two prison meals a day.
Leaving the prison, Old Moneybags Huang and Ergouzi went to process the sale of Snake Mouth Mountain.
The procedure was relatively simple, but it still required constant smiling and three separate bribes of silver before it was finalized.
When conducting business at the yamen, if you didn’t grease the wheels with silver, you could forget about accomplishing a single thing.
Ergouzi held the Land Deed for Snake Mouth Mountain. It was stamped with the County Yamen’s bright red official seal. From today onward, he was officially the owner of Snake Mouth Mountain.
However, Snake Mouth Mountain carried an annual Tax Grain burden of twenty dan, payable to the County Yamen.
This was only the rate for a barren mountain. If he cultivated fields and planted soil, the tax requirement would increase further.
On the journey back, Old Moneybags Huang remained silent.
“Landlord Huang, if you’re short on silver, I still have some on hand. I can lend it to you.”
Ergouzi had seen it clearly: just securing a visit to a prisoner had cost Old Moneybags Huang twenty or thirty taels of silver.
Trying to buy Huang Fugui’s freedom later would require a massive fortune.
Old Moneybags Huang smiled bitterly.
“From now on, don’t call me ‘Landlord’ anymore. I am the same generation as your father. If you think me worthy, just call me Uncle Huang.”
“There’s no need to borrow money. If you have surplus silver, I can sell you those fields at the foot of Snake Mouth Mountain too.”
“Why?”
In the past, Old Moneybags Huang had guarded his land more fiercely than his own life.
With land, a family could take root and grow. As long as you held land in your hands, you always had a chance to rise again.
“The foundation our Huang family accumulated over generations… I probably can’t hold onto it anymore.”
“If I had known it would come to this, I should have sold every pot and pan I owned to fund Fugui’s martial arts training so he could test for a scholar’s rank.”
Old Moneybags Huang lifted his head and sighed. Though he was the wealthiest man in the village, before the government, he was as lowly as an ant. A few mere yamen runners were enough to ruin his family entirely.
“Ergou, when you earn money, I advise you to never be stingy with it. Spend your wealth to practice martial arts and obtain a scholarly rank. Studying books is useless; a Literary Scholar’s status is far inferior to a Martial Scholar’s.”
As Old Moneybags Huang spoke, his heart twisted with deep regret.
As everyone knew, martial training required an enormous amount of resources. It wasn’t just about eating your fill; you had to eat meat, eat eggs, and even buy expensive medicinal herbs to aid your cultivation.
A single Origin-Nourishing Foundation-Fortifying Pill cost the equivalent of six or seven dan of grain.
Even he, the wealthiest man in Snake Creek Village, couldn’t have sustained such consumption.