Can't a princess ascend the throne?

Chapter 136 Exploring the Salt Fields
It has to be said that the stall owner's skills were indeed quite good. After Jiu Que sat down and sullenly stuffed a mouthful of noodles into his mouth, he couldn't help but show a sigh of admiration.

The noodles are very chewy and smooth. The sauce on top has added salt, and after being mixed well, it coats the noodles completely. You can feel the savory and salty flavor the moment it touches your mouth.

But Jiu Que found it hard to swallow this bowl of noodles.

Chunyu Shuang quietly tugged at her sleeve, and Jiu Que then shoveled the whole bowl of noodles into her mouth and swallowed it whole.

She never imagined that salt in Yancheng would be so expensive. Those adorned in silk robes are not the silkworm farmers. It was one thing for Yancheng's salt to be expensive when sold to other counties, but for the salt consumed by the people of her own city to be so pricey and of such poor quality—how did the Prince of Binyang manage his fiefdom?!
Rising salt prices are no small matter; they can trigger price increases in other commodities. In the end, it's the ordinary people who suffer the most from these price hikes.
As His Majesty's adopted son, the Prince of Binyang was once a poor commoner. How could he have forgotten all the suffering he had endured in the past after only enjoying a decade or so of wealth and luxury?

That wasn't the end of it. Jiu Que was already holding back his anger when the stall owner's youngest daughter, probably thinking that Jiu Que thought their noodles were too expensive, hesitated for a long time before taking something up and quietly speaking.

“My esteemed guest, what my mother said is the truth. Salt is expensive, and we ourselves can’t bear to eat it. Look, this is what we use when we cook.”

Jiu Que looked down and was hit by a pungent smell. Holding her breath, she examined it closely and found it was a dark, grimy piece of cloth. Not only did it look unpleasant, but it also smelled strange. She had never seen such a peculiar cloth before.

"What is this?"

Bai Yichun, who was standing next to her, sighed softly, her expression showing some pity.

"It's natural that you haven't seen this before, young lady. This is vinegar cloth. For a long time, the Miao people used this kind of thing, which was just enough to add some flavor."

Jiuque still doesn't quite understand.

"Vinegar cloth, is vinegar cloth made by boiling cloth in vinegar? Why...?"

Jiu Que suddenly fell silent, her face growing increasingly grim. She remembered now; vinegar cloth was indeed cloth boiled in vinegar. It was only used as a seasoning when people couldn't afford salt, a way to fool themselves into swallowing their food. Some vinegar cloths were boiled with coarse salt, but the problem was, this was the salt capital of the world! For the people of Yancheng to be unable to afford salt and have to use vinegar cloth for seasoning was utterly absurd!

No wonder that man surnamed Lu repeatedly told them to leave, only letting them have a meal because of the bribe. He was afraid his misdeeds would be discovered. Those scoundrels! They just stood by and watched the common people use only vinegar and cloth for seasoning, completely indifferent!

Life is nothing more than eating, drinking, sheltering, and traveling. Now even salt is being interfered with. Very well, very well indeed. I suppose His Majesty is unaware of the specific situation in Yancheng. If this imperial envoy were to leave like this, wouldn't she be betraying His Majesty's trust? And betraying the God-Slaying Whip bestowed upon her by His Majesty?

Seeing her expression, Chunyu Shuang silently put down her bowl and chopsticks, and sighed softly. It seemed she was going to be busy again.

It's strange, really. Some things, to avoid being discovered, the mastermind would hide them from everyone except themselves, yet these very things seem to happen to Jiu Que. It's truly bizarre. Senior Cui even said she was an unlucky person, always encountering bad luck. But that's nothing compared to Jiu Que; Jiu Que is the unluckiest of them all. She always seems to stumble upon events that could lead to the confiscation of property and the extermination of an entire clan. Who can say she isn't unlucky? Yet, this person is also like a lucky star, always managing to resolve every situation perfectly, albeit with narrow escapes. No wonder His Majesty likes to use Jiu Que; he's clearly very convenient to use.

After bidding farewell to the mother and daughter, Jiu Que and his group sensibly left Yancheng, with the person silently monitoring them returning to report to General Lu. General Lu sneered, thinking they were quite sensible; it seemed he no longer needed to be overly wary of people from Miaozhou.

On the surface, this group of people quickly set off after joining up with their own team, and soon covered thirty or fifty miles. However, at a fork in the road on a certain official road, a rickety blue cloth carriage drove out, and the people inside were heading towards the salt lake and salt wells of Yancheng with a clear goal.

It was Jiu Que and his group.

"I'm really baffled. I knew before that our Great Jing was plagued by natural disasters, but now I realize that man-made disasters have also been a problem. Do those people really only owe the people food and money for saving their lives? They even make money from such unscrupulous sources. It's utterly absurd!"

Seeing Jiu Que puffing up in anger, Chunyu Shuang patted her back to calm her down, but her charcoal pencil kept moving as she drew something. Jiu Que became interested and glanced over, only to find it was a drawing. It depicted the scene where the little girl had been explaining things to her with the vinegar cloth. Although it was only drawn with a few strokes, it was vivid and lifelike, making it easy to understand what had happened at a glance.

Jiu Que was even angrier after seeing this. The little girl was only ten years old, a blossoming age, yet she had to use a vinegar cloth to season her food. A child that age should be enjoying the good things in the world, but instead, she was faced with such a predicament…

"Wow ah ah-"

Xie Mingchen and the others were already quite used to Jiu Que's tantrums. Xie Mingchen even managed to find a moment to pull out a calming pill and give it to Jiu Que. The sights they'd seen along the way were all infuriating; if they all got angry too, wouldn't they have died of anger long ago?
Crunching the sweet and sour herbal pill, Jiu Que began to ponder his memories related to this salt lake and salt wells.

In the story she knew, this salt lake and salt wells appeared very rarely; she only knew that all the salt implements in the world came from Yancheng. She had actually seen salt mines when she traveled before; it was a kind of rock salt with a light rose color, which was very popular in later generations when people talked about health preservation.

However, it seems that the salt in Yancheng is all extracted from a salt lake and many salt wells.

Moreover, the salt that is dug out cannot be used directly. It must go through a complex process such as steaming, boiling, drying, and filtering before it can be used directly.

Therefore, there is a heavily guarded salt field here that specializes in the production of table salt.

Ok……

Why did this plot seem so familiar to her? Did people in Yancheng also kidnap passersby to boil salt? No, no, people as audacious as Liang Heng were rare; at least, there were no such rumors in Yancheng. This was also confirmed by Bai Yichun, who was standing beside her, dumbfounded.

(End of this chapter)