The steward of Shakumen walked silently in the procession. Not long ago, he thought he was a shrewd man, much better than his barbarian master. Shakumen was born a slave master, but he became a slave through his own efforts. Lord, few people know that when he was born, he was not a barbarian. He was born outside the mountains. When he was six or seven years old, he was caught in the mountains. After being raped a few times, he entered the Chimon family. His impression of his hometown, apart from his parents whose faces were blurred, was the tall white temple next to the village cemetery, but that was all a long, long time ago! Because he was still a child when he was captured, and he quickly learned to cleverly say that he did not remember things at home, he gained the trust of his masters more than other slaves. Soon, they regarded him as a real barbarian. Let’s look at it.
He is a bat among people, which means that as a slave, he can speak the Yi language better than ordinary slaves from outside the mountains and can flatter his master better; as a Yi person, he also remembers many things about labor and is better than the real people. The Yi people are better at taking care of the land and livestock. Some people may wonder how good a child can be at farming. Why, if they had seen how the barbarians managed their estates, they shouldn't be in any way surprised by this!
In the spring, they go to the fields to sow seeds, in the autumn they go to the fields to harvest, and after the harvest, they drive the pigs into the fields, which is considered to have plowed the fields. This is how the Yi people understand farm work. It is not so much that they are farming. , it is better to say that they are herding crops like sheep. And their ability to herd sheep is comparable to their ability to farm. Each has its own merits. They neither know what good seeds are nor what disease prevention is. It is said that these Yi people are more industrious than the less industrious ones. Woolen cloth? They would choose a valley with a narrow entrance and exit, drive the pigs and sheep in, and then block the entrance with stones. Whenever they wanted to eat meat, they would bring bows and arrows to shoot... Build a sheep pen? Drive the sheep up the mountain and back down every day? nonexistent!
They are quite proud of their abilities, and even made up many folk songs to praise their attitude towards crop work, such as: "If the barbarians don't work, it's not the barbarians who do the work." "To be a warrior, You can't work." "The hand that has touched a hoe cannot touch a bow and arrow for three years."
This gave the Shomon steward a great opportunity. The barbarians didn't like to work, and pies didn't fall from the sky. So someone had to work for them, farming the land, herding sheep, and serving the pies. Come to them.
If a mountain is managed by the barbarians, the harvest in a year will only be enough for them to eat for three months. But the housekeeper of Shomon promised that they would not need to go to the mountain, and he would be able to send them enough food for half a year. There is still such a thing in the world. Is it a cost-effective thing? The barbarians happily agreed to his request, but in order to maintain the dignity of the slave owner and intimidate him, they additionally asked him to give him two more sheep and five chickens every year. After many bargainings, this condition was agreed upon. Compressed to one sheep and three chickens.
In this way, a slave from outside the mountain obtained the management rights of a barbarian mountain. Naturally, he would not scatter the seeds into the ground and go back to sleep like the barbarians did. On the contrary, he would plow the ground and chop again. Shu was busy in the fields every day. In autumn, his mountain's harvest was more than that of his master's three mountains. He sent the promised grain to his master's house.
"You promised to give me two more sheep and five chickens!" Shomon said with eyes wide open.
"It's a sheep..." He didn't say any more, because Shomon had already taken out the rope that tied up the traitor and swung it in front of him, and he was surrounded by warriors from the Shomon family.
If he thought that handing over two extra sheep and five chickens would bring peace for a year, he would be totally wrong. Every time the Shomon family encounters weddings and funerals, visits by distinguished guests, and wars with other families, in short, whenever When his master needs money, he must show "filial piety" and bear a lot of expenses. He is not like a tenant, but more like the wallet of the Shomon family.
However, with his shrewdness and nimbleness, he soon won the favor of his master. He no longer buried himself in his own fields. On the contrary, he often went to work on his master's land, and he no longer talked about redemption. That's it - the redemption here doesn't mean that he will be a free man. It's a joke. Don't talk about him. Even his master is likely to be captured as a slave if he wanders too far and gets lost. Since he can't get involved He flew out of the mountain with his wings, and where he was hanging around was not just hanging around - redeeming himself meant that he could never work on his master's land and concentrate on taking care of the mountain he was assigned. With his busy work, the harvest of the master's family has improved slightly. It is not like before. Although it is still not comparable to the fields he manages, the Shomon family also feels that he is loyal and must give him some benefits.
The so-called benefit was that he was given another mountain. This time the condition was to provide the master with food for the whole year and five sheep. But this time he cleverly did not bargain, but asked the master for two slaves as assistants. He himself often went to the master's fields to help work as usual, and sometimes he even brought one of the two slaves to help. So the Shakumon family finally felt that they had not suffered a loss in the business this time. Of course, from time to time, extra Filial piety is still necessary.
The steward of the Shomon family gradually owned four slaves, many livestock and several mountains through his own shrewdness. He knew that he was richer than his master, and the Shomon family did not let him go in vain - until the disaster One day like this, he just realized that the Shomon family was not satisfied with the annual land rent and occasional filial piety. They wanted to "make a fortune" by first selling him as a slave and then devouring all his belongings in one go. idea!
Because of this, when the strange girl burned down the house, food and fields he had accumulated over the years, he not only did not feel sad, but instead felt liberated. After working as a servant of the Men family for so many years, there was always a chance to escape. However, he was always thinking that he had earned the status of butler and a lot of property in the Shomon family, so he refused to take the risk of escaping. More plunder. He was clearly an unjust soul devoured by a hungry tiger, but he also dreamed of being promoted to a tiger by being a marionette. On that day, if that little girl hadn’t been a true immortal with magical power, wouldn’t he have been with those barbarians who plundered and sold civilians? Are there no differences between people?
However, after all the extravagant property that he could never use up was burned, he saw the Chimon family's plan to exterminate him, and he no longer had the idea of continuing to work for the Chimon family, and immediately changed his mind from being a slave owner. When he woke up from his dream, how could he think of selling a girl with whom he had no grudges? Didn't he hate these barbarians who plundered and traded people the most in the past? Didn't he always want to go back to his parents? Why would he do the same thing as those barbarians, take away their children from them and sell them to distant places?
Therefore, he didn't have any ill will toward this girl who kept driving them forward like Shomon and the others. On the contrary, he was more curious.
