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Chapter 1: The World Doesn't Want People to Live

"Where's your man?"

"To answer your Excellency's question, he is still on the sickbed."

"When are you going to pay your taxes?"

"Don't worry, the deadline will never be missed."

……

In the darkness, Chen Sanshi heard a conversation between a man and a woman.

The man is aggressive and the woman is compromising.

"hiss……"

He struggled to pry open his eyelids, and what came into view was a completely unfamiliar environment.

‘Where is this? ’

'Am I not working overtime?'

"hiss……"

Chen Sanshi suddenly felt a severe headache, and a memory that did not belong to him flooded into his mind like a tide, forcing him to accept a fact.

'I traveled through time?'

The name of this place is Poyang County, which was a small border county during the Dasheng Dynasty.

He originally lived in Yanbian Village outside the county town. He was a poor unemployed scholar. His family relied on his father's hunting for a living, and they lived a decent life.

Until half a year ago, my father went up the mountain at night and never came back.

The family lost its pillar, and he failed the imperial examination. The double blow finally caused him to fall seriously ill.

Chen Sanshi then came through.

"Hey, Shi Ge'er, you're awake!"

A woman came into the room carrying some medicine and was very surprised to see the boy waking up.

She hurriedly trotted to the bed. Her clothes, which were already ill-fitting to begin with, shook violently as she ran, as if there were two rabbits tumbling inside them.

The woman's name is Gu Xinlan.

She was a child bride bought by the original body's father when the original body was very young.

The other party has always taken care of the original body like a sister, and never left her side even when her father passed away and the original body was sick.

only……

The original body seemed to look down on this sister.

Because the other party was a descendant of a criminal, he was exiled to the frontier and was almost sold to a brothel, a position of the lowest class.

The original person had a very high opinion of himself, thinking that one day he would be able to pass the imperial examination and marry the daughter of a wealthy family and become a successful son-in-law. He thought that the other party was not worthy of him, and usually treated her like a servant.

"Brother Shi, how are you?"

Gu Xinlan sat down in front of the bed, put her hand on the boy's forehead, and said in surprise: "Is the fever gone?"

Chen Sanshi sat up and tried to move his body. Apart from feeling a little weak, there was nothing serious wrong with him. The symptoms had completely disappeared as he traveled through time and space.

“It’s really the blessing of the Bodhisattva.”

Gu Xinlan was visibly happy: "Brother Shi, drink the medicine first. I'll get you something to eat."

Looking at the millstone that seemed to be about to appear when the other person walked, Chen Sanshi took ten minutes to digest the current situation.

"They come, the security."

He has always been able to adapt to the environment quickly. Now that he has come to this world, he must find a way to live well.

Chen Sanshi picked up the bitter medicine and drank it all, then went to the next room.

He saw that Gu Xinlan had almost crawled into the rice jar, with only the millstone stuck outside, and was digging out the grains with great effort.

After much trouble, they only managed to scoop out a small handful of corn.

Ever since the original body's father died, the family has lost its source of income. In addition, the original body fell ill not long ago and completely spent the family savings. Now they are out of money and food.

"Just now, was it the tax collector who came to collect the autumn tax?"

Chen Sanshi stood behind Lan Jie'er and asked, "How much do you want?"

"Three taels of silver." Gu Xinlan replied.

"Three liang?"

Chen Sanshi gasped: "Are they including my father in this?"

"Ah."

Gu Xinlan nodded gently: "The tax collector said that since my father's body has not been found, he is not considered dead and his account cannot be cancelled. He still has to pay taxes as usual, and the hunting tax cannot be reduced."

Chen Sanshi cursed in his heart.

The heavy taxes and levies of the Great Sheng Dynasty were also very severe. In addition, due to the frequent wars in various places in recent years, taxation was still increasing.

"Brother Shi, don't worry."

Gu Xinlan had a worried look in her eyes, but she consoled him by saying, "I recently found a job in a tailor shop, and with the help of doing laundry, I can make some money."

Obviously, the original body is usually completely absent from work.

Even after his father died, he was unwilling to find another way to make a living, and would rather ask Lan Jie'er to work harder. "Don't you think about whether you are cut out for this..."

Chen Sanshi was quite speechless. He couldn't even pass the exam to become a scholar, but still dreamed of passing the imperial examination in the future. Wasn't that just wishful thinking?
He couldn't go on like this, he had to find a way to make a living.

Otherwise, if they couldn't pay the taxes, the men would be sent to perform forced labor and the women would be sold to brothels, and they would end up living a life worse than death.

"I'm going to cook."

Gu Xinlan got busy.

Soon, the meal was ready.

The staple food was two bowls of corn mixed with bran, without even a pickle.

This was probably the last meal for the family.

Chen Sanshi noticed that there was a larger proportion of corn in his bowl, while most of what was in Gu Xinlan's bowl was bran.

Bran is the husk of grains such as rice, wheat, and soybeans. It is rough, dry, and difficult to swallow.

In previous lives, it was basically feed for livestock.

"Eat it, Shige."

Gu Xinlan picked up the chopsticks and ate in small bites. Her fingers were visibly red and there were small ulcers on the joints.

That's caused by doing too much laundry for other people.

As a woman, she did everything to support her family, except for the hard labor that only men could do.

Chen Sanshi saw it all and kept it in mind, while he buried his head in eating the hard-to-swallow bran.

"Brother Shi."

Halfway through the meal, Gu Xinlan put down her chopsticks and said hesitantly, "In fact, in addition to the tax silver, we also owe Aunt Li two cents for medical treatment.

"Otherwise... I'm just making a suggestion. Take a few more days to recover and then find a job. I heard that if you can't collect the tax money before the end of the month, they will arrest you..."

As she spoke, she secretly looked at the other person's face and nervously picked at the corner of her clothes.

Whenever this matter was mentioned in the past, Shi Ge'er would get furious and say things like how could an educated person do rough labor.

"Let's eat."

Chen Sanshi shoveled rice into his mouth and silently calculated the account book in his mind.

Gu Xinlan didn't dare to mention it again. She finished her meal quietly, washed the pots and dishes skillfully, and hurried to do her maid work.

Chen Sanshi sat there without moving, thinking seriously in his mind.

In ancient times, unlike modern society, you could find a job as long as you had some strength.

His family had no land, and he had not achieved any academic success. The only thing he could do was hunting.

I learned a few skills from my father when I was young, but most of them have been neglected over the years. However, at least the basic skills are still there, so it shouldn't be difficult to get started.

Besides, you have to pay hunting taxes anyway, so it would be a waste not to hunt.

There happened to be an old bow left at home.

Chen Sanshi went to the inner room and took down the dusty longbow from the wall.

“It should still work.”

"I just have a bow but no arrows. I need to find a way to get some money to buy arrows."

In order to survive, the family sold almost all their books, and now only the four treasures of the study that the original owner regarded as his lifeblood are still worth a little.

Without any hesitation, Chen Sanshi packed up all the pens, ink, paper and inkstone and took them away.

Even though they were all low-quality goods, they were sold for a full two hundred copper coins, which is about two cents of silver.

This is enough to prove that being poor in literature and rich in martial arts is not absolute, and studying is also a money-burning thing.

Chen Sanshi took the money and came to the stall in the market that served hunters.

"Little Stone, are you here to buy arrows?"

The stall owner, Old Xu, was born into a military family and was an old acquaintance of the original body's father. "Are you going to go hunting in the mountains? Are you not going to study anymore?"

"Well, I'm going to buy some old arrows."

Chen Sanshi picked out five second-hand willow leaf arrows from the stall: "How much?"

"Seventy cents."

Chen Sanshi bargained: "Uncle Xu, old arrows are not worth this price. Fifty coins is the most."

"Okay, fifty cents for you."

Old Yu was quite straightforward: "If you ask me, you should have gone up to the mountains a long time ago and learned all your father's skills. At least you could make a living. Why do you insist on reading a bunch of books? How can a poor kid be an official?"

"What the old man said makes sense."

Chen Sanshi did not refute. After confirming that there were no quality issues with the arrow, he put it on the bowstring and aimed at the ground.

Suddenly, a few lines of small words appeared before my eyes.

[Skill: Archery (Not yet started)]

[Progress: (20/100)]

(End of this chapter)