Why it never ends

Chapter 955 Freedom

The shack dwellers ignored them, and no one stood up, still blocking Trion and his party on the road. The person kneeling in front of them said words of thanks, tears streaming down her face. She tightly grasped Trion's calf and pressed her cheek against it.

"Oh my God! Someone hurry up and drag them away!" Trion stamped his feet in disgust. "Is it appropriate for a group of people to stand here crying and screaming?"

Several bodyguards at the side finally stepped forward and began to expel them, but some of the shack dwellers were so devout that they continued to kowtow until they were dragged to the side of the road.

"I can't stand it! They have to make me suffer like this every time they come here," Trion straightened the hem of his clothes, "I've told them so many times not to make it so exaggerated, but no one listened to me."

Ximoya sneered: "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes today, I would never have believed that there are still people who perform the real foot kissing ceremony in Emanlia - there are really strict rules in your garden, Sir Trion."

"Are you mocking me? I've had enough of this misunderstanding!" Trion shouted, "I never asked them to do this. I have told these people countless times in private that we are all equal - and we have been equal since birth. Do you think these people can understand what freedom and equality are with their pig brains? They insist on doing this, what can I do? Arrest all those who come to salute me and whip them twenty times?"

"This is true." Fatima said softly, "The Baron has never forced anyone to kneel down to him. He has always been clearly against anyone doing so."

Ximoya was too lazy to refute, she just turned around and glared at Hesta.

Hestaton was puzzled.

"Most estates leave illegal squatters to fend for themselves," Fatima continued to explain, "but the Baron has always felt that he has a responsibility to make these people live a better life. Not only has he vaccinated all the free people in the estate and provided them with clean food and water, ensuring the health of the squatters materially, but he has also intervened in their spiritual lives, such as enforcing monogamy in the estate..."

"District 12 has always been a monogamous society." Ximoya interrupted, almost gritting her teeth.

"The rules on paper are different from the reality of life in the countryside, ma'am." Fatima looked at her with a smile, "Our plantation practices true 'monogamy'. Each man can only marry one woman."

"How can you guarantee that?" Hesta suddenly asked, "If this is a deep-rooted folk custom, just by a new rule——"

"Everyone here has to get their marriage stamped by me!" Trion was obviously dissatisfied with Hesta's questioning, "Without my notarization, they can't--"

"You didn't answer my question," Hesta interrupted Trion. "No matter what rules you set, someone has to enforce them to maintain them. Their daily lives here don't need your stamp, so how can you control what they do?"

Trion was furious, but he didn't want to waste time arguing with the censor's little follower, so he turned around and whispered, "Fatima!"

"That's true in the world outside the plantation. You're right," Fatima looked at Hesta. "But it's different in the plantation. The Baron, as the highest authority here, not only legally owns part of the shack dwellers' property, but also their bodies..."

Eucalyptus was surprised: "...then what kind of free people are they?" "Freedom is relative. How can there be absolute freedom? For example, the shack dwellers in our plantation can freely dispose of the fruits of their labor. This is almost impossible in other plantations." Fatima looked at Hesta again, "Back to your question. In our plantation, everything is self-sufficient. Women go out to work with other women and are not isolated in the family. They often go to the fields together, wash clothes, cook, and raise children together. Their labor in family life is also part of public life and will not be erased. Therefore, although the laws of District 12 recognize that husbands have the right to beat their wives to a certain extent, because women have close ties and support with each other, wives are fully capable of competing with their husbands. The relationship between the two is not a subordinate relationship, but a cooperative relationship. Women are fully capable of ensuring that their legitimate rights and interests are not violated."

"You just said that the laws of District 12 recognize that a husband has the right to beat his wife, right? Or did I hear wrongly?"

Fatima gave a wry smile: "...for religious reasons."

Eucalyptus took a deep breath.

"You mean," Hesta thought thoughtfully, "if a husband in a family wants to challenge the rules here, the wife can respond immediately. Not only because she has the support of other women behind her, which makes her dare to say no, but also because everything in this plantation belongs to Baron Trion, so the final right of interpretation of all disputes falls on the baron, and the men here have no right to make any decisions for her."

Fatima smiled and said, "That's right."

Ximoya laughed out loud, her eyes sharp enough to kill people: "So Baron Trion is a friend of women?"

"I am a defender of indigenous women and a pioneer of human rights," Trion corrected. "Now you know why people here come to worship me? People are not all fools. They know where their good life comes from."

"You are a pioneer, why don't you pay them?" Ximoya said coldly, "You are blowing up this Silver Age manor of lords - why don't you look at what kind of freedom you are enjoying?"

"You are too naive!" Trion also sneered, "Do you think that if you show them good intentions, they will accept them obediently? You said I was a lord of the Silver Age, eh? I really am a lord of the Silver Age, because these people are basically the same as slaves of the Silver Age - would you talk about freedom to a group of slaves? They don't understand at all, they will only suspect that you are going to abandon them!"

……

Along the way, there were several such crowds rushing to flatter Trion. Every time Trion acted helpless or disgusted, waiting for his bodyguards to drive them away.

At first, Hesta walked in the middle of the team, but then she fell to the end. She saw a few women squatting in a mountain stream washing clothes from a distance, but before she could get close, the women ran away with the clothes in their hands.

"Why are you always walking around?" Ximoya came back, "If you feel bored, we can leave now."

"It seems that no whale people have been seen so far." Hesta lowered his voice, "I have heard that some people would come to Trion's plantation before."