Zhang Zhixu suddenly realized that the Chen Baoxiang of his memory had always been a blurry, indistinct outline.

He knew her voice and her body. He knew her ways and her feelings. But what he didn’t know was how she appeared through the eyes of an observer — what manner of person she truly was.

And now, on a field ridge in the May breeze, that shadow began to grow at breathtaking speed — taking root, blossoming, bearing fruit — slowly sharpening into the full shape of who she was.

Vivid and alive, radiant and unrestrained, with habits he understood completely and thoughts he had never glimpsed before.

She was not simply a person of petty greed and cowardice. Nor was she simply someone of pure kindness who held the world in her heart. She had the most ordinary grain of character, the most commonplace desires, and also a quietly glimmering ambition and ideal.

He stared at her for a long moment, then said, “When we get back, I’ll have someone write those words of yours and post them at the entrance to the Department of Works yamen.”

“You can.” Chen Baoxiang nodded and kept walking forward. “But make sure you write Young Master Zhang’s name as the signature.”

“What?”

“He said all of that before. I just happened to overhear it and repeated it here — it suited the moment.”

Zhang Zhixu: “……”

He had nearly forgotten — never letting anyone think too well of her was another one of her consistent specialties.

He shook his head, resigned, and walked on behind her.

Going barefoot in the mud was something Zhang Zhixu found deeply uncomfortable. The filth quickly worked its way up his trouser legs, and every now and then he would step on a stone or a root that dug sharply into his foot, drawing his brow into a tight knot.

He had thought this was already hard going — but when they reached the grain collection point, Zhang Zhixu was stopped dead in his tracks.

The barren ground spread outward in every direction from where he stood, and the heaped summer grain rose like a mountain on the verge of collapsing. At its base, gray and grimy farmers shuffled like hollow shells, and a single glance was enough to see how their bodies had been reduced to skin stretched over bone.

Each rib visible through their sides, their bellies sunken, their legs bent nearly to deformity after years of crouching labor, their shoulders permanently dented where carrying poles had worn grooves that would never heal.

He could barely believe what he was seeing. He stepped quickly forward and seized a man by the arm. “Excuse me — are you people tenant farmers or agricultural serfs?”

The old man looked at him blankly, his hoarse voice like the creak of a broken bellows. “Farmers. Free farmers, of course.”

Zhang Zhixu’s eyes contracted.

Free farmers — commoners, the very people mentioned in official documents and imperial memorials again and again as the lifeblood of the land, those in whose name every edict of benevolence and every governor’s report was written, people who were said to live in peace and contentment, people who were said to be always held close to the heart.

And yet the people before him were no different from the most abused agricultural serfs seized from enemy states.

If free commoners lived worse than serfs, then what kind of lives were the serfs living?

Zhang Zhixu asked the old man again, “Has the Department of Works been collecting three-tenths of your grain?”

“Three-tenths?” The old man stared at him, face twisting into a crooked smile. “If it were only three-tenths, I’d kowtow until my forehead wore through, facing east until the day I died, in gratitude for the Emperor’s boundless grace.”

He turned and pointed behind him. “Do you see what’s over there?”

Zhang Zhixu followed his gaze. “Two weighted measuring baskets for collecting grain?”

“That’s the official character — it has two mouths. One mouth devours your flesh and blood. The other spits out the bones! The flesh and blood get scraped away clean, the bones stay behind to till the fields again next year. What boundless grace, what boundless imperial grace…”

The old man pushed him aside and shuffled onward.

Zhang Zhixu stood rooted to the spot, feeling as though the blood in his entire body had frozen solid. The characters from the memorials and reports seemed to scatter loose and drift through the air, blurring together with the half-skeletal farmers moving before him.

Great Sheng flourishing, five grains in abundance. The Son of Heaven virtuous, his name to endure ten thousand ages. The court upright and just, an era without precedent.

Three phrases, twenty-four characters. Not a single one spoke of the people before him — and yet all of them pressed down on the people before him.

Zhang Zhixu drew a sharp breath, at a loss for what to do.

Chen Baoxiang stood behind him in silence, watching.

She watched the Great Immortal pull one person after another aside to question them. She watched him walk to the weighing scale platform. She watched him seize one of the grain collection clerks.

“Someone from the Department of Brewing?”

“What do you think you’re doing? How dare you!”

People crowded in from all sides. Chen Baoxiang finally moved.

She stepped forward, pushed aside the closing clerks, and flipped out her official badge. “Same side. Stand down.”

The clerk looked carefully, then grew even more incensed. “Why is someone from the Military Guard Yamen getting in the way instead of helping? Can’t you see how busy we are? If we don’t collect a thousand dou of grain today, we’ll all be punished.”

“All you can see is the grain collection — can’t you see what state these people are in?” Zhang Zhixu pointed to the distance.

The clerk gave a helpless, bitter laugh. “Who looks out for me while I look out for them? I have elderly parents above and young children below. Miss a month’s pay and the whole family starves for a month.”

“But the order from above clearly stated only three-tenths of each household’s grain.”

“That’s right — look at our ledger here, it says three-tenths per household, doesn’t it?” The clerk flipped the ledger open impatiently and held it out. “Look — bold clear characters: three-tenths per household.”

Zhang Zhixu looked — and wished he hadn’t. His eyes went red. “Yanglin Village averages roughly seventeen mu of land per household, with less than six dou of grain per mu. You’re collecting a hundred dou per household and you still dare call it three-tenths?!”

The clerk’s temper flared. He narrowed his eyes with a look of implied threat. “You say that — do you have evidence?”

“It’s plain for anyone with eyes to see. You’re asking me for evidence?” Zhang Zhixu fumed — and then went still, hearing his own words.

Wasn’t evidence exactly what was needed? He could come and see for himself — but he couldn’t drag every official to come and see with their own eyes. Without documented proof to support the claim, even if a complaint were filed, it would most likely be quietly buried and shelved among discarded documents.

First, he needed to obtain the fish-scale land registry from the county. Then he would need to have the Department of Brewing cross-check the grain records they had collected since spring against the official ledgers.

Somewhat calmer, Zhang Zhixu turned and walked back.

Han Xiao and Ningsu found them and hurried to catch up. Ningsu looked at his master’s clothes and immediately furrowed his brow, just about to speak — but his master spoke first. “Go to the county yamen on my behalf.”

“Shall I also bring the head records officer of those clerks back with me?”

“No need.” Zhang Zhixu stared coldly at the road ahead. “They’re only following orders.”

He needed to trace it upward to find where the real problem lay.

After giving all the necessary instructions, Zhang Zhixu came back to himself and looked around for Chen Baoxiang.

He turned — and found her gone. She had disappeared to who knows where.

Something seemed to have cut the sole of his foot. It stung. His skin was burning and itching from the rash. He was covered head to toe in filth.

Zhang Zhixu drew a long, steady breath, pushed those things aside, and asked Han Xiao, “When the grain is collected, what money do the farmers receive? According to the Department of Works documents, they should be receiving over four hundred coins per dou.”

Han Xiao stared at him with eyes wide. “Over four hundred coins? Wasn’t the imperial decree set at a hundred and twenty coins per dou?”

“What?”

“Yes, a hundred and twenty coins.” Han Xiao thought back carefully, then nodded with certainty. “Last year our family’s harvest was sixty dou of grain — they gave us a little over seven thousand coins total. Not even enough to cover seed money. With nothing left to eat or drink, we had to borrow from Xiaohui Moneylending House just to get through.”

Last year, when the grain collection triggered mass resentment, the official had reassured the people by promising that the coming winter wheat harvest would not be collected in full — only three-tenths would be taken. The family had calculated and figured that the remaining grain could be sold to cover the loan, so they pressed their thumb to the contract.

But the official who had made that promise was transferred away before this year’s collection. The new official demanded the full harvest all the same. The loan couldn’t be repaid. There was barely any food left. And then the moneylending house made everything worse, altering the contract to seize their land in lieu of payment.

Grandmother had fallen ill with rage and never recovered. Uncles had died — some from starvation, some beaten to death.

Han Xiao felt the tears coming, but caught Zhang Zhixu’s eye and bit her lip, forcing them back. “There are twelve villages in An Xian. Not just our family. Every single farming household has no way to survive.”

As if in answer to her words, a skeletal farmer in the distance crumpled to the ground. Someone wailed. Someone cried out in shock. But the grim scene was swallowed up and hidden behind the towering mountain of grain.

Seen from a distance — the very image of an abundant harvest.