Volume 6: Helping the World Chapter 169 Workaholics Talking about the System
The sun had already set, and the darkened sky could not provide sufficient light, but this group of people appeared with torches. When they came out from the path on the other side of the woods, Primo, a human, and Harris, a snake walker who was born with limited vision, could see the group of people clearly at the first sight.
There was no change in their expressions. The human kingdom was the area where they had lived (had lived) for a long time. Primo and Harris had enough knowledge about this continent that was independent of other continental plates.
The Snow Wolf Clan and the Cat Clan were not able to remain as calm as they were. Even Xiao Yun, who "knew humans well enough", was so shocked that he forgot to control his expression for a moment.
They were just a group of ordinary humans, the most common local residents, wearing cloth clothes and straw sandals. Some of them wore greasy hats, some had pipes stuck on their waists, and most of them had obvious marks of time on their faces. Their faces, necks, arms and other parts of their skin had sunburn marks that were common among residents of the southern coastal areas. They were the kind of civilians who were hard to leave a deep impression on people and were found everywhere.
The only thing that was unusual was... there were two people who were in disheveled, covered in bruises and blood, being dragged by a few stronger locals walking in front.
The stranger standing on the road did not attract the attention of the locals. They walked towards this side naturally after coming out of the woods and did not care too much about bumping into strangers. If the blood dripping on the dirt road was not too glaring, and if the low moans carried by the wind were not a little creepy, this scene would look extremely normal and harmonious. At least judging from the behavior of these locals, it was not worth making a fuss about.
"Eh..." Ah Shan turned to look at Xiao Yun in confusion, "Ah Yun, aren't those two people injured?"
The local man walking in front heard Ashan's question, looked over here with a somewhat unfriendly expression, as if he was annoyed by outsiders meddling in his affairs, and gave him a warning look.
Xiao Yun gave Ashan a soothing look and looked at the group of locals with a frown.
The two people who were dragged away were obviously relatively young, a man and a woman. They were dressed exactly like the locals, and their exposed skin also had sunburn marks. The male, who was more seriously injured, had limp hands covered with calluses and black mud under his fingernails. It was obviously not an attack by locals on outsiders, but more like... a local lynching.
"Wait." The moment the two groups of people passed each other, Xiao Yun walked out of the queue and stretched out his hand to stop them.
At the front of the team, the sturdy farmer was extremely impatient, but seemed to be concerned about the strong men who made up half of the group of outsiders. He suppressed his anger and asked stiffly, "What's the matter?"
"We are just travelers passing by." Xiao Yun introduced himself, pointing his hand at the two dying young men, "I don't mean to meddle in other people's business, but these two look unwell. May I ask what they did wrong?"
"Since you know you are meddling in other people's business, then just mind your own business!" The leading farmer shouted rudely with his eyes wide open.
Xiao Yun looked at the other person with a strange look, and said with a half-smile: "I think it is more appropriate to satisfy our curiosity than to anger us. What do you think?"
The grassroots chief took a step forward and stood firmly behind Xiao Yun with his body as strong as an iron tower. Mumu and Ashu also surrounded him from both sides.
"..." The farmer took a half step back, exchanged glances with his companion, and said reluctantly, "We are just dealing with the young people who eloped in the village. You'd better not get involved, outsiders."
"Elope?" Xiao Yun laughed when he heard this. "When a young man and woman elope, they must bring some valuables or something, but they are empty-handed, and none of you are carrying anything. Even if this couple is extremely poor and doesn't even have a change of clothes, why do I see that... although their faces are more swollen, their eyebrows and eyes are extremely similar? Could it be that this young couple who eloped are actually incestuous?"
For a wild model geek who can sculpt pottery figures that are 70% similar to real people, quickly identifying and remembering people's facial contours and facial features is the most basic skill (those who have learned sketching will understand); in Xiao Yun's eyes, the man and woman had bruised faces and noses, and even if they were disfigured, the similarity of their facial bones, especially those above the cheekbones, was as obvious as lice on a bald man's head.
“Strangers, are you looking for trouble?!” The leading farmer’s face flushed and his eyes widened.
Xiao Yun, who had experience working at the grassroots level in provincial construction, felt very familiar with the boy's reaction... This was basically the behavior of a self-taught contractor or a "troublemaker" who wanted to embezzle the wages and property of his relatives and fellow villagers and tried to muddle through after being exposed.
In his heart, Xiao Yun didn't want to cause trouble, but this was obviously a good opportunity to teach his people a lesson - he had never encountered a similar opportunity when he assisted Laura Philip in reorganizing the Bolton Territory. The Bolton Territory, which had had a large amount of blood sucked away by Valentine, was so sparsely populated that there was no breeding ground for internal oppression among the people - so he would definitely take care of this trivial matter today.
"Obviously, if you don't keep this couple, both of us might be in trouble." Xiao Yun said honestly and bluntly.
“You—” The farmer was about to get angry, but his companion reached out and pulled him, motioning him to look back.
The two travelers, Primo and Harris, had already drawn their weapons and blocked their group's retreat.
The locals look down on foreigners, but that doesn't mean they are so ignorant that they don't even know who they can offend and who they can't. The group of villagers who came out to catch people with empty hands still knew to be afraid when they saw the foreigners holding sharp blades.
In desperation, the villagers had no choice but to abandon the young man and woman and ran away quickly, cursing under their breath.
Xiao Yun ignored the people who ran away and squatted down to check the injuries of the man and woman.
Both of them had fractures of varying degrees, and there were outward-turned wounds on their body surfaces caused by irregular sharp surfaces (such as stones and branches). If the bleeding was not stopped quickly, they might go into hemorrhagic shock. They rinsed the wounds with clean water on the spot, sprayed some alchemical potion to disinfect and stop the bleeding, and then wrapped the wounds with white cotton cloth. The woman with fever symptoms was fed a pill provided by Harris, and she woke up briefly, only weakly called out "Save my brother" and then fainted again.
"They are indeed direct blood relatives." Xiao Yun took a clean blanket to wrap the woman, held himself tightly, and asked the grassroots chief to pick up his brother, then he quickened his pace to the town.
This small town near the border usually deals with travelers and caravans. They don't ask the guests' backgrounds at all . They pay and provide a relatively hidden independent courtyard. The group moved in and made a fire to boil water, washed their faces and sweat, and cooked food. Harris saw that there was nothing he could help with, so he cleaned his face and hands and rushed to the room shared by Xiao Yun and Primo.
"The wound here should have been caused by a bramble. The skin is rotten. If there is no medicine to treat it, it will definitely become infected and fester, and he will die." Just now, he simply stopped the bleeding. Now Xiao Yun had time to use a knife to cut open his brother's clothes to treat the injury. The more he looked at it, the tighter his brows frowned. "It seems that this brother was beaten to death. There is no plan to leave him alive. What a big grudge!"
Primo used a knife to pick out the thorn that was broken into his brother's flesh. He shrugged and said, "I grew up in town. When I was a child, whenever I made the old man unhappy, he would threaten to send me to the countryside. In my impression, the countryside is a barbaric and terrifying place."
"What do you mean?" Xiao Yun took out the medicine bottle and poured it on the bloody flesh that had been pierced by the thorn.
"For example, in Sean's hometown, Cronin. Where there are country nobles, the villagers are all the nobles' livestock. Where there are no country nobles, the nobles' butlers become the 'gods' of all the villagers. In order to let their sons run errands for the butlers, they can even push boys of the same age into the well... If a strong male owner dies in a family, then the women had better remarry with their children and give up their original land, houses and property. Otherwise, they will lose everything and their lives at the same time."
Xiao Yun paused while shaking the powder. As he applied the powder, he sighed, "Well... I have to be careful about how I teach my tribe members."
"Ayun, your people are so lucky to have you." Primo couldn't help himself.
"I should put it another way, Primo. I am so lucky to be a member of the Snow Wolf Clan." Xiao Yun said sarcastically, "If I were a human born in a human kingdom, and was not lucky enough to be born into a prestigious family and become a highly valued and cared-for child, can you imagine what would have happened to me?"
Primo: “This…”
"If that's the case, I should be quietly turning into bones in some wasteland now, right?" Xiao Yun said self-deprecatingly.
"That's not funny at all," Primo said with a wry smile.
Harris stood outside the door and listened for a while, then left quietly.
The seriously injured brother never woke up, but the less seriously injured sister woke up in the middle of the night after receiving treatment. Xiao Yun whispered to comfort the unknown farm girl for a while, and found out the cause and effect of the accident of the brother and sister, and then he became troubled.
As the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. The experience of this unfortunate brother and sister did not seem surprising to Xiao Yun, who had experienced the era of information explosion on Earth. However, the sister, who could barely be described as having regular features, was favored by a family in the village that had connections with the nobility (the son worked as a coachman for the noble's steward). The brother fled with his sister and was seen by the villagers. The angry and embarrassed "wealthy" family organized the villagers to chase them out... and then they were caught red-handed by Xiao Yun and others.
No matter leaving the two siblings in the town or sending them back to the village, it would be the same as asking for their lives. Xiao Yun had no choice but to take them on the road after daybreak and settle them in the next town... The locals have very low mobility, and it's almost another world after a hundred miles away. Only if they stay far away can the two siblings have a chance of survival .
They left the town in the last darkness before dawn, carried the brother and sister on a simple stretcher and ran over a hundred miles in one breath. In the afternoon, they found a place near a water source to stop and rest, and had a picnic. Xiao Yun then gathered everyone together and used the experience of the brother and sister as an example to teach the tribesmen.
"In other words, someone wanted to form a partnership with my sister, but she disagreed, so she and her brother were bullied?" The grassroots chief heard a lawsuit in his head, "Wait a minute, Ayun, we know that in the human world, it is the male... the male who has the final say on partnerships. But no one else wants to, so how can you still do this?"
"Yes, even if they are forced to become a pair, the cubs will always be born by the younger sister. If the younger sister is unwilling to hatch the cubs, then what's the point of forcing the union?" Dahe said.
"We need to peel off the surface and look at the inner meaning of this issue." Xiao Yun could understand why the female Snow Wolf tribe was so reactive to this. He raised his hand and pressed it down to signal Dahe to calm down. "On the surface, it seems that this is just anger because of the failure of courtship. But in fact, this incident, from its inception to its end, has nothing to do with courtship, and it has nothing to do with forming a family or raising offspring."
“???” Not to mention the Snow Wolf and Cat tribes were full of questions, even Primo and Harris, who knew enough about the human world, were confused.
"In this incident, the farmer who oppressed the brother and sister did not do so out of a need for a partner or family member, but rather to demonstrate his desire to convert the tiny power in his hands into actual benefits." Xiao Yun said calmly, "The farmer's son worked as a groom for the noble's steward. This relationship created an extremely weak but real connection between the farmer and the noble. This connection made the farmer's identity clearly different from that of ordinary villagers, and he held the lowest, most terminal tiny power. This power enabled him to command the support of hundreds of villagers, and it became extremely easy to force or discipline the villagers who were ignorant and did not kneel to him."
"He demonstrated his power and showed the villagers his ability to deal with those who disobey him. In the future, he will have more say among the villagers, and no one will challenge his authority. This is the realization of power."
Everyone: “Uh…”
"But why should other villagers listen to him?" Da He still couldn't accept this unreasonable logic. "Don't other people think it's wrong to do so?"
Xiao Yun smiled slightly: "This is what I told you about, the end of the power division system. I said that the power division system is extremely harmful and has a great impact on the development of the collective. Everyone can't always understand it intuitively, so today, let's use this incident to do a drill... If a collective or a team does not establish a correct and orderly rule system, but is managed by the feudal system of power division, what a terrible situation will be caused."
"First, let's assume that I am the leader with the most say among our group, and all of you are used to listening to me and doing things according to my instructions." Xiao Yun raised a finger and tapped his chest, "As a leader, I have the obligation and responsibility to manage our team well. If you don't form a team and gather around me, then I, the so-called leader, will be worthless."
The first half of the sentence was fine, but the second half made Harris sweat profusely... Although the sage Ayun was speaking in a metaphor, the content of his words was really - too straightforward and blatant!
"I am alone and have to face so many people. I have to treat and take care of everyone equally, which is obviously very tiring. At the beginning, I treated everyone equally, but after a long time, I became impatient, so I thought, is there a simpler way to manage you guys who always cause trouble for me, so that I can save some trouble? Be a little lazy?" Xiao Yun continued, "After thinking about it, it is indeed very troublesome for me to be responsible for everyone alone. I should find two people to assist me. I will share the power of the management team with them, and they will manage people and things for me. Wouldn't it be easier for me?"
"So... I chose Primo, who has the strongest military power, and the grassroots chieftain, whose authority is second only to mine." Xiao Yun pointed his finger at the two of them. "I gave Primo and the grassroots chieftain the power to manage the team. Everyone has to listen to them in addition to me. Of course, they still have to listen to me in the end."
"But Primo is very strong, and the grassroots chief is very authoritative. Why should they serve me honestly instead of kicking me away and becoming the team leader themselves?"
The Grassroots Chief stroked his chin and thought seriously, while Primo, who was always informal, couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed...
"As two people who are directly responsible to me, I naturally have the energy to work hard on them. So when I divide the power between them, I have to set up a power division system that can guarantee my uniqueness. I must define the scope of power and let them each take charge of one side, and they are not allowed to cross the line."
"I can do this: the financial income of the team is managed by the grassroots chief, and the soldiers who have armed forces and protect the team are managed by Primo. Primo needs money to lead the soldiers, and he can only ask the grassroots chief for money. Whether the grassroots chief gives money or not must be approved by me. If they have a dispute, the right to decide lies with me. When I found that the two of them did not fight with each other, but discussed and discussed things, I took the initiative to create points of conflict between them, so that they always maintained an unharmonious relationship. This is extremely effective for me to manage the two of them. Don't you think so?"
The chief of the grass-roots tribe, Dahe, Qingyan and other tribesmen who understood nodded in unison. Primo was thoughtful. He found that Ayun's theory seemed to be connected with many power struggles he had seen, allowing him to see clearly things that he could not see clearly before.
Harris's hands on his knees were trembling slightly, and the beads of sweat sliding down his temples were about to drip into strings...
"I exploit the Grassroots Chief and Primo to work for me, while I enjoy a comfortable life. Over time, they will inevitably be dissatisfied." Xiao Yun continued, "So in order to ensure that they always listen to me, I will also give them a certain degree of power to exploit others. I will assign Balk and Mumu to Primo, and Dahe and Qingyan to the Grassroots Chief. They can ask the four of you to work diligently for them, define your scope of activities, and have the right to take away your snack subsidies, extra income, etc."
"Huh?!" Everyone was shocked.
"Primo and the Grassroots Chiefs have power, and they can exploit and oppress Balke and the other four at will. The rules I established allow them to do so, and they will certainly be more loyal to me." Xiao Yun said with a smile, "But the problem still exists. Why should Balke and the other four be obedient? Then we might as well continue to divide the power down. Chiefs Xia, Ashu, Rosemary, Ashan, and Ali will have to listen to Balke and the others, and be enslaved, oppressed, and have their way with them. If you, Xia and Ashu, don't want to be enslaved by Balke and the other four, and want to resist, then I, Primo and the Grassroots Chiefs, as well as Balke and the others who have benefited from this power-sharing system, will unite to deal with you and make you obedient."
Everyone: "……(o言o)"
Primo raised his hand to wipe the sweat off his face.
Harris turned extremely pale.
"There are only so many people in our team. It's not very decent to divide them into classes and oppress them layer by layer. Then let's expand this class oppression to the entire tribe. The five of you, Xia and Ashu, who are oppressed at the bottom of our team, will also gain the power to oppress others through the power-sharing system I established. While you are oppressed by Balk and others, you also gain the power that seems legitimate, in line with the rules, and can oppress others openly. Then, will you still think of resisting?"
Ashan, who was unaware of the situation throughout the whole process, had a pure face, while Xia, Chief Ali, Ashu and Rosemary all looked serious... If you think about it seriously, this question is really very torturous!
"This feudal power system based on lazy and shortcut management of the team can ensure that anyone who has power in this system, even if it is only a tiny bit of power, can convert this power that has been passed down layer by layer into actual benefits, until the very end, such as the farmer who forced the brother and sister we just saw last night." Xiao Yun's face became serious and he said in a deep voice, "Then in order to ensure that the power in their hands, whether big or small, can always be held by themselves, everyone, or the vast majority of people, will transform themselves into loyal defenders of this worst system; because in this system, you can indeed gain benefits and get better privileges than those of lower class than you. When this feudal system is large enough and covers a wide enough population, when someone stands up to fight, even without my personal action, those who gain benefits in this system will take the initiative to suppress the protesters."
Except for Ah Shan, who was not in a good mood, everyone else looked extremely serious. Balk, who had not listened carefully at first, showed a look of shock as if his worldview had been refreshed...
Xiao Yun looked at everyone's reactions and smiled as he spread his hands: "This system can effectively and simply manage the collective. At least everyone has his place in this system. It looks good, right?"
The Grassroots Chief almost nodded, but suddenly came to his senses and quickly shook his head, his brows almost knotted: "No, if this is the case, it looks like everyone is working, but in fact the work that needs to be done is pushed to the people below by the people above, which is not good at all!"
Xiao Yun happily gave a thumbs up to the grassroots clan leader: "That's right! This power-sharing system is said to give everyone their own position, but in fact it is still based on layers of oppression. The superiors naturally have the privilege of bossing others around because of their position in the system. So, will these so-called superiors still work diligently and fulfill their duties? Even if there are, they are a minority!"
"And what about the lower classes? Because their positions in the system are too low, they are naturally oppressed. They are required by those in higher positions to do specific jobs and are restricted to a fixed range. Even if they have different gifts and talents, they can hardly get room to display them! This is a huge waste! This is destroying the team and the collective's development possibilities!"
From the standpoint of a workaholic, Xiao Yun fully expressed his disdain for the feudal system of power division. He said solemnly, "Any collective that wants to develop must liberate as much manpower as possible and tap into all the potential of the labor force. Only with unity can we move mountains and fill the sea, and only then can we conquer nature. Any lazy management method that takes shortcuts is absolutely not allowed and must be put to death once and for all."
The Snow Wolf Tribe and the Cat Tribe nodded in unison, and even Balk shook his head.
Primo also nodded, but his expression was particularly strange... The great principles that Ayun talked about were still as vivid and easy to understand as before, but he always felt that something was wrong...
Harris, the snake walker, held his breath in his chest, neither excited nor frightened.
"Our tribe has always adopted a management model where managers take the lead and charge at the forefront of work, but there are occasionally guys among us who want to be lazy and take shortcuts." Xiao Yun cast his eyes seriously at Dahe and glared at him fiercely, "We will deal with such guys as soon as we find them, and kill them if they show their heads. (Dahe shuddered) But none of us can guarantee that in the future work, the tribe will not have the idea that managers should have privileges and should be reasonably lazy. Therefore, on this trip to St. Bridge, I ask everyone to open their eyes and observe carefully to see what the difference is between the human kingdom that adopts the feudal power division system and the country that has continued to operate under this management system based on laziness for thousands of years and our tribe's work style and spirit."
Primo's expression became extremely exciting: "..."
He finally realized what was wrong. Ayun's disdain and hatred for human countries was so strong that it made people feel uncomfortable without any description. As for the royal families of the human world, even if Ayun didn't mention it at all, Primo could sense that Ayun had absolutely no respect for the so-called royal families. Maybe he should just get a negative score and get lost...
