Chapter 12: The Straw Man Strikes Back
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Zhao Xing’s actions in the grassland fell under the eyes of the three examiners aboard the flying vessel.
He had been among the clerks to react fastest and begin making straw men, and both his speed and craftsmanship were quite impressive.
The straw men made by the others swayed unsteadily, but Zhao Xing’s could run and leap, appearing almost alive.
“Hmm? The Eighty-One Weaving Methods of Liu Chuan. Is this fellow a clerk under Lord Gao or Lord Tang?” Chen Shijie asked.
Gao Linong and Tang Wanchun exchanged glances. Neither of them had mastered the complete technique. At first, they had not even recognized what method it was, much less taught it. How could they teach something they themselves did not know?
“He is not one of my clerks.”
“Nor mine.”
“Oh? His straw-man technique is quite exquisite. I wonder whose clerk he is.”
Tang Wanchun pondered. “Apart from Lord Chen, the only person who probably knows the complete Eighty-One Weaving Methods of Liu Chuan is Senior Agricultural Minister Xue.”
Chen Shijie nodded slightly. Xue Wenzhong had served as an agricultural minister for more than sixty years. It was only natural that he knew a little more than most.
Prompted by this remark, Gao and Tang also began observing Zhao Xing.
Before long, they witnessed him fighting someone over a pile of straw, hurling stones at the other man, and forcing his colleague to retreat.
Gao Linong snorted. “Hmph. This man is ill-natured. He actually attacked a colleague over a pile of straw. Truly disgraceful.”
Tang Wanchun merely glanced at him without speaking. He was watching Chen Shijie’s reaction. The chief examiner had only just praised this clerk, and yet Gao was contradicting him at a time like this. He was being rather tactless.
Chen Shijie said mildly, “Those who serve as agricultural officials contend with Heaven and Earth for their food. It is perfectly normal for them to possess a certain sharpness. Take Li Chengfeng, one of Lord Gao’s clerks—I find him quite ostentatious in his daily conduct.”
Gao Linong’s eyelid twitched. Only then did he realize that he had spoken out of turn. Even if he thought that way, he should not have said it aloud.
“Chen Shijie came from the barren mountains of the north and endured many natural disasters and hardships. Perhaps this boy’s conduct simply suits his temperament.”
Gao Linong immediately changed his tune.
“Lord Chen is wise. I was looking at the matter too superficially. Besides, he reached that pile of straw first, so he was in the right.”
What did it mean for a superior official to crush a subordinate simply by virtue of rank? This was precisely what it meant.
With a slight admonition from Chen Shijie, Gao Linong immediately had to agree. Gao was the deputy; Chen was the chief.
…………
Zhao Xing had no idea what the three examiners aboard the flying vessel were discussing. After using up the third pile of straw, he finally left the grassland.
By then, the straw-man puppets he had made numbered seventy-six.
Under the pressure of the situation, he had become even more focused. By the time he made his sixtieth straw man, the proficiency of [Reanimate Straw Man] had broken through one thousand, reaching the level of a First-Turn Spell.
Thus, the final sixteen straw men were made faster, with greater agility and considerably more strength.
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“That should do.”
Beside the responsibility field, seventy-six straw men entered the paddies and stood holding bamboo poles, resembling soldiers awaiting battle.
Zhao Xing glanced at his status panel.
His vital energy had fallen below fifty.
“Given the current situation, [Summon Clouds] and [Call Thunder] won’t last much longer. Maintaining those two spells consumes far more energy than making the straw men.”
The straw men were, after all, supported by physical materials. Once they had been made, they no longer required an ongoing supply of vital energy, whereas Summon Clouds and Call Thunder consumed considerably more.
Even so, Zhao Xing decided to keep forcing himself onward until he could hold out no longer.
The straw men were not as effective as the clouds and thunder. There were bound to be numerous oversights.
…………
During the first quarter-hour of the Minor Heat examination, [Summon Clouds] and [Call Thunder] obstructed nearly all the grain-eating birds.
During the second quarter-hour, the straw men reached the fields and waited below.
During the third quarter-hour, the thunder grew weaker. Some grain-eating birds began breaking through the clouds to descend and peck at the Primordial Rice, but the straw men stopped them.
During the fourth quarter-hour, Zhao Xing abandoned Call Thunder entirely and relied only on Summon Clouds to block the birds. One-third of them still managed to descend, and the straw men began driving them away with all their strength.
During the fifth quarter-hour, the straw men knocked down a considerable number of grain-eating birds, but five of the straw men were destroyed as well.
During the sixth quarter-hour, one-third of the birds, unable to find anything to eat, flew away. The number of destroyed straw men, however, had risen to twenty-five.
During the seventh quarter-hour, the cloud cover shrank. Under the scorching heat, Zhao Xing’s vital energy was gradually running dry. He used the straw men to lure away the grain-eating birds, since the straw men were made from the stalks of Primordial Rice—the very part the birds loved to eat. But as a result, he lost more than half of them.
During the eighth quarter-hour, the clouds shrank by another half, and half the fields were exposed. Zhao Xing sent all the remaining straw men out as sacrifices, allowing the surviving birds to devour them while the fields below also began to suffer damage.
From the ninth quarter-hour onward, a bell rang out in the sky. Every grain-eating bird above the public fields flew away, vanishing into the white clouds.
“Huff… huff…”
Zhao Xing’s mouth was parched, and sweat drenched his body.
But he had no time to concern himself with that. He hurried to inspect the responsibility field.
“The half-acre in the south suffered the worst damage. It was exposed first, so I used it as bait and drew all the birds there.”
“The other several acres suffered only minor losses.”
Zhao Xing circled the fields and looked them over. Only then did he feel slightly relieved.
When he looked at the straw men again, only eight remained, and each was damaged. If those eight had not reached First-Turn strength, they would have collapsed long ago.
“It’s over. You can rest now.”
Zhao Xing waved his hand. The remaining eight straw men lost their luster and toppled beside the fields.
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The heat was unbearable, and after another hour of struggle, Zhao Xing felt exhausted in both body and mind. He wished he could fall asleep immediately.
All around him, clerks wailed in despair.
This examination had been far more difficult than in previous years, and many people’s responsibility fields had suffered catastrophic losses.
Most had lost more than half their crops. Some had even had their fields stripped completely bare.
“I worked for more than a month, and it’s all gone just like that?”
“Damn those grain-eating birds! The little beasts!”
“Sigh. If your skills are inadequate, whom can you blame? Just wait honestly for the retest.”
“The retest only gives you a Grade C at best. That’s barely a passing mark. You’ll still have to waste your energy on it—and how are you supposed to deal with the next examination?”
“Do you think becoming a ninth-rank official is easy? The Agricultural Bureau is already considered one of the better options. Only five hundred or so people are competing for three to five places. Do you know how many contend for a ninth-rank military officer’s post in the East Lake Army? Three to five thousand for a single place!”
“Don’t even mention joining the army. The artisan officials of the Heavenly Works also have nearly a thousand people competing for each position.”
“I wish I had been born a woman. I hear the competition at the Weaving Bureau isn’t nearly so fierce.”
“Ugh! You have no ambition at all.”
“…”
Just then, dark clouds suddenly spread across the sky, and rain began to fall.
Pitter-patter.
At first the raindrops were sparse and fine, but they soon grew larger and denser.
The temperature in the air dropped sharply with them.
Zhao Xing dropped heavily onto the field and let the rain wash over him.
The shower came quickly and passed just as quickly.
Clearly, it had been manipulated by human hands.
The clerks were given a quarter-hour to rest and recover. Then the sky suddenly cleared again. The dark clouds turned white, and everything returned to the normal conditions of the Minor Heat season.
A flying vessel descended from the clouds into the grassland. Three people stood at its prow: Chen Shijie, the chief official of the Agricultural Bureau, and his two deputies, Gao Linong and Tang Wanchun.
“They’re here. They must be about to announce the results of the Minor Heat examination.”
Zhao Xing gathered his strength and made his way toward the grassland.
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