Chapter 71: Helpless Bao Zheng
Now the people of Bianjing City are very convinced of Lu Sen.
The civil service group generally has a very good impression of him. One reason is that Lu Sen is really a good person. Although he has great supernatural powers, he never speaks out in the court.
Another reason is that Yang Jinhua has done a good job in ladies' diplomacy, and she is even showing signs of becoming the leader of the Ladies Alliance.
After all, everything produced by the home system, whether it is raw vegetables, fruits, or honey, is real hard currency.
Much more valuable than gold.
Hard to find one.
What’s even worse is that Yang Jinhua never sells these things, she only gives them away.
There seems to be a reason for giving to whom and how much to give.
The trend of the Ladies Alliance was established in a short period of time.
But as I said, no one can be liked by everyone, and the same goes for Lu Sen.
Bao Zheng was a guest at the home of the Eighth Sage King, eating rice wine and delicacies, and slowly said: "Master Lu took the initiative to participate in this shipping business. Does the Eighth Sage King have any opinions?"
“What opinions can I have!” The Eighth Sage King raised his head and drank a sip of wine, smacking his lips. This action was very indecent, but the Eighth Sage King’s title, the official’s uncle, and a 63-year-old man, the triple identity made him not care about these small etiquettes at all. Besides, he and Bao Zheng had a very good relationship, and between friends, there was no need to care about these etiquettes: “He is the only young man I have ever seen who is hard to see through.”
"Well, even the Eighth Wise King can't see through him?"
Putting down the cup in his hand, the Eighth Sage King pinched his beard, thought for a while and said, "He is more like an old guy than this king."
"Be serious." Bao Zheng chuckled, then poured a glass of Fenjiu for the Eighth Sage King and said, "If Master Lu heard this, he would probably be angry with you."
"I am not talking nonsense." The Eighth Sage King tapped the table with his fingers angrily. "No desires, no demands, no money, and no interest in fame."
"But he is now famous all over the world." Bao Zheng chewed a piece of dried salted fish. There was nothing he could do. In the middle of winter, only Lu Sen could produce fresh vegetables. A few days ago, Yang Jinhua also sent a basket to the Bao family, but it was not eaten. Now chewing the dried salted fish, Bao Zheng really missed the fresh green vegetables he had eaten a few days ago: "Why did the Eighth Sage King say that he was not interested in becoming famous?"
“If such a person with great supernatural powers wanted to be famous, he would have done it long ago. He would not have waited for more than a year on the hill before being discovered by the government.” An incomprehensible look appeared on the face of the Eighth Sage King, and his brows were tightly knitted. “Besides, he is not close to the government, and he also asked the government not to cultivate immortality ask for the Tao. This is very interesting.”
After listening to the words of the Eighth Wise Kings, Bao Zheng couldn't help but nodded slightly.
He actually felt the same way.
Before, he had always been worried that if the emperor knew about Lu Sen, he would suddenly start practicing Taoism and make the emperor ignore state affairs.
However, he did not expect that he could actually outwit the government.
Moreover, ever since he entered the court to listen to meetings, he has never expressed his political views. Although his influence in the court is already quite good, he has no intention of using it at all.
"Although he is old, he has a wife and a concubine at home, and he has never been unfaithful to other women. It is said that he has been visiting brothels for a while, but he has never had sex with any young ladies. He is not a fan of sex." The Eighth Sage King snorted, "Young people don't care about power, fame, or sex. Isn't this more like an old man than this old man, the King?"
Bao Zheng laughed out loud. He was not a lustful person, but when he was young and unmarried, he had visited brothels a few times.
In this era, this is elegance and nothing out of the ordinary.
"Master Lu has taken the initiative to participate in the spice shipping business this time, and even wants to build a large ship for the immortals." Bao Zheng thought silently for a few breaths, put down the chopsticks in his hand, and said, "I think that looking at this matter, he seems to be guiding us to do something."
"I also have this thought." The Eighth Sage King frowned. "Even with that image, I think he released it on purpose. The current business in the Spice Islands is just a part of his grand plan."
Bao Zheng sighed.
He was really worried. In his eyes, people like Lu Sen who had great supernatural powers were very dangerous.
The whole world can't stand his torment.
The more dormant and motionless such people are, the more worrying they become.
I don’t know what he is planning.
In fact, Lu Sen was indeed making a plan, and it was a big plan.
What he has to do is to find a way to stir up the general trend. Once the tide of the times is formed, it will be impossible to stop it even if someone wants to.
After the morning court session, Lu Sen was resting at home in the afternoon. He was practicing calligraphy when Ringo suddenly walked up to him and said shyly, "My dear, I want to ask for your permission for something."
"Go ahead."
Lu Sen is still practicing calligraphy with pornographic books. To be honest, he feels that the characters he practices in this way are more passionate.
"I want to go home and take a look." Ringo raised his head and looked at Lu Sen expectantly: "I want to see my father and my brothers."
She didn't want to see her mother because she often beat her, didn't give her much food, and finally abandoned her. If she hadn't met her husband, she would have died long ago.
But she didn't hate her mother either.
Life in the refugee street was indeed poor, and she could understand why her mother abandoned her.
"Okay, but Hei Zhu and I have to go with you." Lu Sen put down the wolf hair brush in his hand and said, "Bring some souvenirs with you."
The refugee street was too chaotic, and Lu Sen was worried about leaving Ringo alone.
And Heizhu has been eating well and sleeping well over the past year. Now his body has begun to gain weight. In addition, he has started to practice qigong, and Yang Jinhua taught him a set of common tiger subduing fists. Now Heizhu has no problem fighting a few ordinary people.
As for Lu Sen, although he is already at level 1 and his attributes have been improved, they are not obvious.
In addition, although he had a sense of Qi, he still couldn't use it.
It seemed as if something was restricting his energy and preventing it from flowing within his body.
Fortunately, his 'internal energy' value has been increasing. As long as he practices, it will increase by at least 1 point every day, and occasionally there will be an increase of two or three points. It's very strange and there is no pattern at all.
But Lu Sen didn't care. He just kept practicing. Little by little, a tower can be built.
After Lu Sen explained to Yang Jinhua, he took some rice, oil, salt, vinegar and other things and put them in the system backpack.
He didn't dare to give away the products produced in the yard. For ordinary people, handing such good things to them would be harming them.
Especially now that Lu Sen is already very famous.
After getting ready, the three of them set off together. For safety reasons, Heizhu even carried a wooden stick in his hand.
It took the three of them about half an hour to reach the refugee street.
Because of the cold winter, there were almost no people on the muddy roads of the refugee street... everyone was huddled at home to keep warm. The poor probably didn't even have shoes to wear, so how could they possibly run around?
Walking on the familiar dirt road, smelling the stench that he was once familiar with and accustomed to, Ringo felt a little nervous.
As they were almost home, Lu Sen stopped and gave Ringo a small bowl of rice and a little oil and salt.
Lu Sen didn't dare to give too much, for fear that giving too much would harm Ringo's family.
Ringo stood at the door of her house holding the letter in her hand. She looked at the tattered wooden door and hesitated for a long time before she knocked gently.
No one answered the first time.
Then Ringo knocked a second and third time, and then an unpleasant woman's voice came out from inside, very weak: "Who is knocking on the door? We have no money, no rice, and no one left. If you want to find food, eat me."
"Mother, it's me, Xiaoya."
Ringo's voice was a little timid.
Lu Sen pulled Heizhu back more than ten meters.
At this time, the door opened a crack, revealing a sallow face that was so thin that it looked almost like a skeleton.
Those eyes were cloudy and numb.
Looking at the clean and fair Ringo outside the door, the scary-looking woman finally had a little light in her eyes.
She looked Ringo up and down for a while, and said in disbelief, "Is it really Xiaoya?"
Ringo nodded vigorously.
Even though she had lived a good life with her lover for more than a year, Ringo would still dream about the day when she was thrown away by her mother every once in a while.
Then I was awakened.
She had always believed that although she did not hate her mother, she would no longer miss her. But when she saw her standing in front of her, looking so miserable and sick, she immediately felt so sad that tears fell.
"Mom, can you let me in?" Ringo said with tears in her eyes, "I miss you, Dad, and my brothers so much."
"Come in." The woman opened the creaking, rotten wooden door.
Ringo walked in, and the familiar smell of moldy earth rushed into her nose. Although she had long been accustomed to the birdsong and fragrance of flowers in Lu Sen, she did not hate this smell.
After all, this was the scent of understanding that she had smelled since she was a child.
Looking around, there was only a low earth pit and two ugly benches made of rotten wooden boards.
She put down the souvenir in her hand, looked left and right, and couldn't help asking, "Mom, where are Dad and my brothers?"
"It's gone." The woman slowly sat down on the pit and said slowly.
Ringo's face suddenly turned pale.
"It happened last year. About a month after you were picked up, your father caught a cold. His face burned red, and he died a few days later." The woman said with tears in her eyes, "Before your father was buried, the second and third brothers also caught a cold and followed your father. Your father must have been worried that I was not capable of feeding your two brothers, so he took them away to prevent them from suffering in the human world."
As she spoke, the woman's eyes shed more tears. She did not cry out loud, but the sound of her words was even more unpleasant and sad than crying.
Ringo squatted on the ground, buried her face in her arms, and sobbed.
After crying for a long time, she looked up and asked with tears on her face, "Where are my father and brother buried?"
"It's in the ditch behind the house. I'll take you to see it." The woman slowly stood up, but as soon as her body left the pit, her eyes rolled back and she fell to the ground.
Ringo was startled, and then screamed, "Mom, don't scare me!"
Lu Sen and Hei Zhu heard the noise outside and rushed in quickly.
Seeing Lu Sen, Ringo felt like she had found her backbone. She rushed over and hugged Lu Sen's legs, crying, "My dear, please save my mother. I only have my mother left."
Heizhu looked around and saw that the house was bare, and he understood something.
He had seen too many similar things when he was a beggar.
In places like the Refugee Street, when winter comes, if there is no food, every family will die.
Very normal.
So sometimes, going to Wuyou Cave to be a beggar is also a way to make a living.
This is also why the Worry-Free Cave is difficult to clean.
As long as there are poor people who have no food to eat, the Wuyou Cave will never be cleared.
Wild fire, in spring.
Lu Sen patted Ringo's head and said, "Step aside first, let me take a look."
He squatted down, used his fingers to feel the woman's breath, looked at her face, and then pulled open her sleeve. He saw an arm that was almost bone-like. Through a thin layer of skin, he could see the shape of the arm bone.
"She fainted from hunger . She has been malnourished for a long time." Lu Sen took out a peach from his system backpack, handed it to Ringo, and said, "Don't worry, feed her something first."
Ringo nodded vigorously.
Then she chewed the peach and fed it to the woman.
He didn't care at all about the foul smell coming from the woman.
In less than three minutes, the woman woke up, and her energy and blood seemed to be better.
Seeing his mother wake up, Ringo hugged her and cried for a while in fear, then took some rice and started busying himself in the house.
She wanted to make some porridge for her mother.
Lu Sen walked out the door, and he probably guessed what had happened in Ringo's house.
There were clusters of low mud-brick houses in front. There were obviously at least tens of thousands of people in the refugee street, but there was not a single person on the street. It was as quiet as a ghost town.
Lu Sen knew what was happening in this area.
Many people are waiting to die.
He felt that once the ship to the Spice Islands was formed, if he recruited a group of people here to go there, he would be able to provide a lot of people with a chance to survive.
But distant water cannot quench immediate thirst. That will take at least two months to happen. Right now, there should be many people in the homeless street facing the same life-and-death catastrophe as Ringo's mother.
Lu Sen waited outside the door for a long time, until Ringo finished feeding his mother the porridge and left the souvenir, and then the three of them returned to Aishan.
He asked the two to go home first, and he went to Kaifeng Prefecture.
Bao Zheng was reviewing official business when he heard Lu Sen coming to visit him, so he invited him to his study.
"What wind brought Master Lu here?"
Bao Zheng did not put on airs as an official.
Lu Sen said calmly, "The refugee streets in the north are freezing cold, and people are disappearing one after another. Do the government and officials really have no intention of solving the problem?"
Hearing this, Bao Zheng was stunned for a moment, first showing a helpless look, and then said angrily: "We tried to find a solution, but there is no way, they are simply stubborn and unyielding!"
Hearing this, Lu Sen was a little surprised and asked, "What's going on?"
Bao Zheng immediately told the story.
It turned out that all officials had long been aware of the problem of the refugee street and had long been willing to solve it.
They introduced a series of policies, providing farm tools and land in the county. As long as they were willing to settle down somewhere else, the government was even willing to provide food rations for the journey.
But even so, only a very small number of people are willing to develop elsewhere.
Most of the people stayed.
"All the prefects of Kaifeng have been troubled by this matter, and so am I." Bao Zheng slammed the table and said angrily, "Before winter, this prefecture took Captain Zhan and other constables to the refugee street to persuade people, hoping that they would settle in other counties with vacant land. Even if they could not get rich, they could at least have food to eat and survive. As a result, those people did not even bother to pay attention to me. Many of them even threatened the Kaifeng prefecture to help them settle on a piece of land in the city, otherwise they would not leave. Several constables were so angry that they drew their knives and even put the blades on their necks. These people would rather lose their heads than leave."
Lu Sen was stunned for a moment, then he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
At the same time, I feel a little sad.
