Chapter Eighty-Six: Are kings, nobles, generals, and ministers born to a higher fate?
A lush green plain stretched out before them, dotted with countless houses of red and yellow, a small town built of red clay brick and tile.
The town was empty of people. Its homes had all suffered varying degrees of ruin, the streets a wreck. Their doors stood open, the interiors pitch-black, with spiders, rats, and insects coming and going. Where the roads had once been thick with filth, blades of vivid grass now forced their way through the cracks, greeting the newborn sunlight. A few snow-white rabbits nibbled at the shoots and darted freely through the human town.
Several green-skinned imps lay in the middle of the road, basking contentedly in the sun, now and then stuffing fistfuls of grass mixed with dung into their mouths.
Clip-clop, clip-clop!
Suddenly the ground trembled faintly. Hoofbeats rolled in from afar, growing louder and closer with terrifying speed.
Before the few goblins could react, their bodies were crushed to red pulp beneath a burst of black shadows racing past.
They were armored knights mounted on towering warhorses.
“Looks like this place has been emptied too,” said the knight in the lead, frowning deeply as he surveyed the deserted town.
The nearer they drew to the borders of the Death Marsh, the more deserted towns they encountered. They had seen almost no humans at all.
A knight beside him asked, “Captain, should we stop here and rest?”
“Rest for three hours. We still have a long road ahead, and I don’t want those common rabble dying off before we even reach our destination.” The knight commander turned to glance behind him.
At the far edge of the horizon, figures were slowly appearing one after another, an immense number of them, nearly blanketing the entire line of sight. The scene was reminiscent of the calamity of the green-skinned horde.
Their faces were sallow, their bodies caked in filth and reeking of a nauseating stench. Their eyes were dead, like those of corpses. They staggered along crookedly, zombie-like, as though they might collapse at any moment, each one draped in vine tendrils as thick as a man’s arm.
Around them, even the sunlight seemed to dim a little, and an indescribable heaviness hung over the crowd. The shadows beneath their feet seemed, in a daze, to move of their own accord, warping into all manner of shapes.
But on closer inspection, they were only ordinary shadows.
The extraordinary knights sensed that foul aura and could not help frowning, disgust naked on their faces.
Refugees were, to the entire eastern border, no different from a mobile natural disaster.
No one wanted to take in such burdens, yet no one dared strike at them either. They were a time bomb, ready to explode at any moment.
“A pack of rabble, always making trouble,” one knight cursed, his face twisted with disgust.
“Would have been better if they’d all died in the green-skinned disaster. Why did they have to run out?”
After months of ferment, the refugee masses had begun to show deeply troubling changes. No one knew exactly what would happen, but it would certainly not be good.
The Hunters’ Guild and the king had issued repeated warnings, urging the lords to settle the refugees as soon as possible. Yet to this day, none of them had truly done so. The demands from above only grew more urgent; the king had even, for once, offered generous grain assistance, while those below continued to prevaricate.
After all, the noble lords would never lower themselves to such a losing bargain. Spend my own money to help these common wretches? Not a chance! They would sooner use every last coin to buy wine, soak in baths, and wash their feet than waste a single copper on such people.
...
At the Xuanyin base.
The next morning, just after the sun had shown half its face, the refugees sleeping in the open ground were gathered by their respective group leaders.
The old man called Cartwheel yawned and stood in line with a bunch of children, intending to see just what these mysterious people were up to.
As on the previous day, all the refugees were assembled again, only this time they were no longer mixed together. Everyone stood with the district, group, and squad to which they belonged. They were still uneven and untidy, but at least not the chaotic tangle of yesterday.
At the front of the crowd, a middle-aged blond man in plain black clothing and dressed with meticulous care had joined them. The refugees did not know who he was, but from his bearing and manner, they guessed he must be some noble lord.
Count Dainer stood quietly and looked toward the platform, curious why that great personage had summoned him here.
Before the dark mass of people stood a makeshift wooden stage. A black-haired human in military uniform, stern-faced and holding a strange object in his hand, stepped up onto it.
“Welcome to the Xuanyin overseas base. I am your chief instructor, your administrator: Yan Yuxing.”
His voice, carried by the amplifier, reached every refugee clearly.
At once the crowd stirred. People spoke all at once.
Though they did not understand what an instructor was, they knew it must be some astonishing and important figure, certainly not someone they could afford to offend.
Yan Yuxing waited in silence for more than ten seconds, then raised the little megaphone again.
“Since you have chosen to join us, you must abide by our rules. Anyone who refuses to obey will be severely punished.”
“First, understand this: here, no one stands above another, and there is no such thing as nobility. I do not care what you were before—free folk, serfs, border settlers. Once you come here, everyone is the same. Everyone is equal.”
As soon as he said this, the already noisy scene fell instantly silent. All eyes stared blankly at the black-haired human on the stage.
Was this lord out of his mind? How could beings as lowly as they compare with a noble lord?
Disbelief was everyone’s first reaction. Their understanding of the world could not even begin to grasp what the man above was saying.
“Do you not understand me?” Yan Yuxing repeated with a stern expression. “Here, everyone is equal. No one may look down on another. That includes me. I am equal to all of you.”
Looking at the bewildered, fearful faces of the people in work clothes below, Yan Yuxing understood very clearly that however he spoke, they would not yet comprehend equality.
Their worldview had already been twisted. Servility had sunk into their bones. Mere words could not pull them back.
They were sick, and they needed treatment. The course would be long and arduous, and it would be accompanied by blood and fire.
The old man called Cartwheel narrowed his eyes. He suddenly felt that something about the black-haired human standing on the platform was off.
An indescribable feeling, as if this mortal had awakened to something. Yet when he looked closer, that spark remained murky and dim.
“Repeat after me.” Yan Yuxing closed his eyes slightly, drew a deep breath, then suddenly opened them. In those black eyes there seemed to flash a glint of light, and a stern majesty rose from him in full.
“Why should kings, nobles, generals, and ministers be born into a different order?”
Silence.
Everyone stood dumbly in place. Not because they were frightened, but because they did not understand what the words meant.
“Say it!”
“Why should kings, nobles, generals, and ministers be born into a different order...”
The response was scattered, very weak, like the voice of someone on the verge of death.
Yan Yuxing did not mind. Instead, he smiled faintly. He knew they did not understand; what he was doing was merely laying a seed.
“Do you know what that means?” he asked, then answered himself. “It means this: those born into noble families, those who can become nobles, why are they more honorable than us?”
Most of the people below instinctively nodded. Was that even a question? Nobles possessed noble blood, of course they were more honorable than commoners.
“It seems you all agree. Then tell me—why is it that, when we are all human beings with two legs, they can stand high above us? Why is it that you live in houses crawling with rats and insects, while they sit in luxurious palaces? Why is it that the grain you work so hard to grow must be handed over to nobles who did nothing at all?”
“Tell me—why?” Yan Yuxing’s expression grew heated, his face full of fury, nearly shouting the words out.
“In the past you surrendered the grain you labored to grow to those nobles. But when disaster struck you, they would not even give you a single bowl of food. Just yesterday you were still lying outside like dying dogs, one breath from death. And the nobles were inside warm and beautiful castles, feasting on exquisite delicacies! They would sooner feed precious food to dogs, let it rot, or throw it away than give you even a mouthful!”
“What you grew was yours. Why, in the end, did you not even get half a bite? Why should you starve to death?”
Everyone was stunned, and within them there arose questions they had never had before.
Why?
In the past they would never have thought this way, but the torment of these recent days had left everyone with a bitterness they could not put into words.
Though servility had seeped into their very bones, they were still human beings with complex emotions. And as long as one is human, one knows anger. What Xuanyin needed to do was guide that anger toward the nobility—not to make them truly understand the oppression of nobles, only to teach them how to feel rage.
Yan Yuxing clenched his right hand into a fist and raised it high.
“Why should kings, nobles, generals, and ministers be born into a different order!”
“Why should kings, nobles, generals, and ministers be born into a different order!”
The actors planted among the crowd below immediately raised their hands and roared.
That bitterness inside everyone seemed to find an outlet. Their expressions slowly turned to fury, and more and more people raised their hands and shouted.
Human beings are creatures of herd instinct; all the more so the common people swept along by the tide.
“Why should kings, nobles, generals, and ministers be born into a different order!”
“Why should kings, nobles, generals, and ministers be born into a different order!!!”
The voices gradually merged into one another. A thunderous roar shook the heavens and swept across the entire base.
At the horizon, the sun finally rose fully, and the first ray of light cut through the dim world from the edge of the sky.
Those called slaves had, for the first time, learned anger.
At present, this was only rage stirred by Xuanyin’s manipulation of their emotions. That was merely the first step: to make them shout the slogan. Xuanyin would let them grow used to this anger, and silently give them the courage to question the nobility.
Count Dainer stood amid the seething crowd, fists clenched, his body trembling faintly, a wild smile on his face.
“That is how it should be. We are all human beings with two legs—why should they stand above others? Just wait. I will strip away your so-called nobility layer by layer!”
At last Count Dainer also raised his hand and roared, “Why should kings, nobles, generals, and ministers be born into a different order!”
Hidden among the crowd, Cartwheel looked at the furious faces around him, his expression completely frozen, his eyes full of terror.
“No, impossible, impossible, impossible...”
In his eyes, the whole world had been dyed red. A crimson surge of spirituality rose into the sky, stirring the spirit world.
The spirit world of this region was actually roiling, agitated by the spirits of the mortals before him! A crowd of ordinary people with no extraordinary power had actually managed to affect the spirit world!
Unheard of. It was like a swarm of ants suddenly lifting a human being.
...
On the right side of the base, the barbed wire fence had been dismantled, and the flat stone desert now bordered the compound.
Huge excavators dug away rocks larger than a meter across, while workers carrying all manner of tools laid the railway tracks.
Truck after truck carried the materials needed for track-laying to the site, and the workers unloaded them swiftly, placing them onto handcarts.
Other workers, responsible for transporting the rails, pushed the carts and delivered the tracks to the predetermined line.
Some carried materials, some leveled the ground, some installed the rails...
Tens of thousands of people stretched out like a long dragon for several kilometers. Everyone was burning with unprecedented enthusiasm, exerting every ounce of strength in their work.
Each person was drenched in sweat under the sun, their backs completely soaked through, yet not one of them complained of fatigue.
At that moment, a whistle sounded. Everyone instinctively paused and looked up.
The instructor in military uniform held a loudspeaker and said, “It is time to change shifts. Everyone, go rest.”
“Instructor, we’re not tired yet. We can keep going a little longer.”
“Exactly. We eat three meals a day and only do this much work, then go rest—we feel almost embarrassed about it.”
This heavy-haul railway was of vital importance, and since construction began it had never stopped for even a single minute. Xuanyin adopted a three-shift system, with each person working an average of eight hours a day.
Three meals a day were provided, with only one meat dish a week, and the daily wage was one copper coin.
Aside from the wages, the rest was basically according to domestic standards: each person only needed to work eight hours a day, and the remaining time was theirs to spend freely.
“It’s the rule. Move along, move along—don’t stand here taking up space. The next shift is here.” The instructor gave them no chance to continue.
From behind, a group carrying tools of all kinds had already come running at full speed, quickly pushing the workers out of their posts.
The sight of people scrambling for work made the instructors unsure whether to laugh or cry.
At the same time, they could not help sighing that no matter what world it was, the working people were always the most honest and lovable. They were very easy to satisfy; as long as they had a bowl of food, they were happy.
“All right, everyone go rest. You still have your night shift.” The instructor led the hundred or so people under his charge out of the worksite.
“And has everyone finished today’s lessons? You need to recognize at least five characters a day, or you won’t pass the end-of-month assessment.”
Aside from extraordinary beings, almost everyone in this world was illiterate. Of the common people taken in by the base, nearly ninety-nine percent could not read.
Since they intended to awaken the people’s minds, Xuanyin certainly would not ignore this. Literacy education was launched at once, though what they taught was not the writing of this world, but Xuanyin script.
...
That night, inside the castle.
Qin Le stood in his room, looking helplessly at his bed.
On the foldaway single bed lay two slender figures. Their snowy skin and ample bodies were half-revealed beneath the bedcovers.
“Do you really think I won’t do anything to you?”