Chapter 908: Chapter 123: The Family Subdued by a Single Word
In brief—
Unification, unification!
Those who do not strive for unification are but rats!
"I just don’t know, after casting one of the Nine Cauldrons, what transformation will occur." Li Guanyi extended his hand, faintly sensing that the cauldron forged from a part of the Nine Cauldrons’ Divine Charm would integrate with the two thousand li of Jiangnan’s territory.
A metamorphosis would occur.
Yet he did not know the exact nature of this transformation.
"Emperor’s Divine Skill?"
"Nine Provinces Tripod."
"Yet, which is superior, which is inferior?"
......
The command from the Marquis Qin Wu was passed down. Although the populace across various regions was unaware of the significance of this command, the young Lord’s reputation in Jiangnan was overwhelmingly strong, to the extent that it surpassed even the knowledge of the monarch.
The Lord seeks this used but now useless iron and metal.
What is there to say?
They naturally brought it out.
Old Wen was a seasoned farmer, having endured decades of worldly experiences. He possessed the habit of thrift, not the thrift of saving money, but thrift regarding objects, picking up anything he thought might be of use.
"This thing might be useful, you never know when it might come in handy."
Saying this, he would collect objects bit by bit and bring them home.
Walking along thus, his family members passed away one by one in the chaos of war.
He had a room just to store these things.
Pieces of wood he came across, broken furniture from home, all stored with the thought they might be useful one day, unknowingly accumulating a lot. Upon hearing the decree today, he unusually began to sort through them.
Rustle—
Old Wen barely touched them, and like an avalanche collapsing, decades of collected items fell apart. If not for the young man passing by who lent a hand, Old Wen might have been buried.
Old Wen promptly invited the young man to sit down, expressing his thanks, fetched a teapot, poured tea, brought out some fruits, and a stack of peanuts.
Settling the young man, he busied himself again.
The young man seemed around seventeen or eighteen, clad in a washed-out garment barely recognizable as blue, presumably from a less affluent background, not wealthy at all.
Old Wen chatted idly while searching for things, finally pulling out the items, breathed out, and laughed: "I told you, these things kept, will certainly be useful someday!"
Then he realized, his wife had long passed, and he couldn’t quarrel incessantly with her.
Old Wen seemed accustomed to it, like other old people his age, lacking someone to answer their questions, habitually mumbled to himself: "I said it would be useful, isn’t it now being used?"
"Still they say me, say me."
"Look, isn’t this grand, isn’t it useful!"
The young man glanced, seeing the item in Old Wen’s hand, a hoe, though only the iron part remained, the wooden handle had rotted some, the iron hoe half-covered with rust.
Old Wen brought a basin of water, sat by the well to rub off the rust, muttering:
"Young man, sorry for the spectacle, but this is something I must handle myself."
The impoverished young fellow, yet wearing a jade hairpin, said:
"The hoe is..."
Old Wen replied forthrightly:
"A hoe, what more is there to say?"
"I still remember, I forged it when I was fifteen. Though I say forged, it was actually made by melting my father’s broken pot and having the village smith forge it. That time, as I recall, was several years before the Ying Country’s Empress fell ill and passed."
"The heavens high, and the emperor afar, it’s hard to recall."
"After I crafted the hoe, I married the girl from the same village."
"Don’t let my current frailness fool you, back then, I was strong, with this hoe, I helped her family open fields and till the land. Those who saw me praised what a good young man I was. My wife married me seeing my strength."
"Hey, within a few years, a big plump boy was born."
Old Wen gazed at the hoe in his hand: "I relied on this hoe to feed my family and keep our life going. Later, when my son grew up, I gave him this hoe, and also forged a new iron pot for him, and he found himself a wife."
The young man asked: "And then?"
Old Wen laughed softly, saying: "Then? Wars broke out, initially heavy taxes, later conscription to battle, every one or two years something like this occurred without pause. When I was in my forties, I was separated from my son’s village."
"Seems the Royal Army went through, few days later I went to take a look, hey, the village was gone, my son’s home burned, I searched but found nothing of them, everything charred, even the house had collapsed, only this hoe remained."
"I took back the hoe, and two sun-dried old cabbages."
"Isn’t this a good hoe."
"My son is gone, but the hoe remains, those two pickled cabbages lasted days, pickled so well, couldn’t throw them away..."
Old Wen whispered:
"The old man ended up taken to transport military supplies."
"Encountered bandits blocking the road, then spotted my son missing an arm, in the bandit hideout, even holding a blade, seeing me seemed he wanted to say something, later couldn’t say anything, official forces broke out and attacked, my son got stabbed to death."
"I clutched this hoe."
"Covered in blood."