Chapter 20

Chen Jue slung his medicine basket over his shoulder, ready to leave, when Zhou Hehua called out to him: "Aren't you the least bit worried about your husband? Aren't you going to wait here? Look at Zhang Shuier—he's out here every day after the fields, waiting. He's practically turning into a waiting statue."

Zhang Shuier made a move as if to swat her, but didn't actually follow through. Even a married man who'd given birth was still considered half a man, and wouldn't raise a hand against a woman.

Zhang Shuier looked up toward the village entrance. No one was there. He sighed silently.

He really was becoming a waiting statue. It wasn't just that he worried his husband wouldn't come back—there were other reasons too.

Aunt Liu overheard Zhou Hehua's words and also sighed: "When will they come back?"

Aunt Liu had become a broken record, repeating herself endlessly. Chen Jue felt a heaviness in his chest—this was the sword of Damocles hanging over all their heads.

He didn't know when they'd return either.

As Chen Jue passed by Uncle Liu's house, he handed the rabbit to Zhou Qingzhu, who was absolutely astonished.

"Jue Geer, you actually did it! You caught a rabbit about to give birth. But wild rabbits aren't easy to keep—they rarely survive in captivity. Back when my brothers went hunting, they'd often catch wild rabbits and specifically bring live ones back for the little girl to raise, but they'd die within days."

Uncle Liu explained: "Wild animals don't do well in captivity. Wild rabbits especially—they're skittish and timid. Being caught by humans would stress and scare them to death! Also, wild rabbits are very hard to feed—the grass can't have even a drop of dew on it. But—"

Uncle Liu looked at the mother rabbit with its two injured legs and swollen belly, speaking hesitantly: "Since she's about to give birth, maybe she won't be so skittish. She might not spend all her time trying to escape. Perhaps she can be kept for a while."

In other words, motherhood had tamed her wild nature. She'd made peace with her situation.

The little girl was thrilled to hear this: "Then Grandpa, I'll take good care of her! Daddy! Come quick, look at the rabbit Uncle Chen brought!"

Zhou Qingshan had already heard the commotion and hobbled out of the house, carrying a bamboo cage: "Put her in here, cover it with a cloth, and don't disturb her for now. Let her settle down."

Chen Jue could tell he knew what he was doing, so he headed home.

"I'll come back tomorrow to change the dressing on her legs."

The sword hanging over everyone's heads finally dropped that day.

The men who'd been conscripted and hadn't returned finally came back—but only some of them.

Ragged and weary, straggling back to the village in twos and threes, looking like survivors of a catastrophe. They looked like a defeated army, plain and simple.

Chen Jue's heart sank. He'd known the war would be hard, had prepared himself for it, but he'd still hoped for a miracle—that the soldiers would win and bring peace to their small mountain village.

But now, those hopes seemed dashed.

Aunt Liu and the others, with sharp eyes, spotted their loved ones in the crowd. Even ragged, unsteady, and unshaven, mothers and fathers could still recognize their sons.

They stopped their idle chatter and rushed forward anxiously, grabbing their loved ones and fussing over them.

Those who didn't see their sons or husbands returning grew frantic, bombarding the returnees with questions: "Why didn't Shi Tou and the others come back? Weren't you all together?"

"The county magistrate sent you back, right? It's over now, isn't it? This forced labor lasted way too long!"

"Qinghe, why haven't I seen your husband Tiezhu come back?" Zhang Shui, not seeing his own husband, couldn't help grabbing hold of a bearded, disheveled man and asking.

Zhou Qinghe shook his head, his voice low: "We came back in groups. He might still be behind us..."

No one asked whether the war had been won. Not because the villagers didn't care about the war, but because it never occurred to them that their sons had gone to battle.

Military service was once every three years—the previous year, over ten men from their village had gone, and the term was long.

Forced labor, however, happened once a year, for road repair and dam building.

It lasted about a month and never interfered with the farming season. But this time it had dragged on far too long—three whole months.

It never even crossed their minds that they'd gone to war.

Even though some had collapsed from exhaustion, fallen ill, or been unlucky enough to have their legs crushed by rocks—like Zhou Qingshan.

Because of unlucky ones like Zhou Qingshan, everyone was even more worried about their own loved ones who hadn't returned.

The returnees, ashen-faced, said: "We're the ones who could walk back. Those who can't walk are still behind us."

What did "can't walk back" mean?

It meant missing arms or legs. The crowd erupted into an uproar.

When they learned the men had been sent to the battlefield, many collapsed to the ground on the spot, too stunned even to cry.

Forced labor took the able-bodied men from every household. If they didn't come back, the family would fall apart.

From that day on, they waited with desperate, straining eyes for their return—even missing limbs would have been acceptable.

But they never saw the maimed return. What came instead were funeral urns and compensation money.

Pingshan Village had sent fifty-five men. Fifty returned, including one with a broken leg. Five had died.

The government runners arrived carrying four funeral urns.

Village Head Zhou had Zhou Shuyao beat the drum, summoning all the villagers to the threshing ground to hear what the runners had to say.

The villagers hadn't expected to hear a roll call of the dead.

Five dead, yet only four urns. Each bore a name, and the soldier holding each urn read them aloud:

"Zhou Tiezhu, died for the nation, awarded two taels of silver..."

Four names were read in succession, and no one reacted. The crowd—especially the families of the deceased—stood as if their souls had been ripped away.

Chen Jue listened carefully. Huo Lin's urn wasn't among them.

But Zhou Qingshan, refusing to believe it, hobbled over on his crutches to check each one himself. He knew a few written characters—at least enough to recognize Huo Lin's name. After confirming it wasn't there, he asked insistently:

"Brother, what about Huo Lin's? Didn't you go looking for him?"

He'd given up hope before, but if everyone else had ashes, Huo Lin should have some too!

"Huo Lin's body was never found. He wasn't in our unit," the soldier said flatly.

Chen Jue closed his eyes briefly. What the soldier said matched what Zhou Qingshan had told him earlier—Huo Lin had been selected for the suicide squad.

And according to what Zhou Qingshan had said before, even if they'd gone to collect remains after the battle, buried under layers of bodies, it would have been nearly impossible to find him.

He wasn't surprised by Huo Lin's death or the loss of his remains. Objectively speaking, he'd died too horribly.

Subjectively—well, Chen Jue had one idealist thought he could never quite suppress.

If this world had been designed solely for him to give birth, then it was meant for him alone to suffer punishment. No one else would have existed.

Those NPCs only exist in legends.

While Chen Jue was lost in thought, Zhou Qingshan beside him swayed slightly. The last shred of hope Zhou Qingshan had been clinging to was finally shattered, leaving him in utter despair.

His body swayed a few times before he buried his face in his hands and wept bitterly.

Chen Jue watched him and thought, *He's more fit to be Huo Lin's husband than I am.*

He didn't mean anything by it—it just made him feel inadequate by comparison.

Zhou Qingshan's wailing was like a fuse, sparking grief in the other four families.

Zhou Tiezhu was Zhang Shui's husband. Zhang Shui had gone to the village entrance every day to wait for him, never imagining he'd be receiving an urn of ashes instead. He let go of his child's hand, staggered forward, and clutched the small urn, crying out repeatedly, "Impossible... this isn't him, it's not..."

The last word came out as a roar, his grief indescribable.

Aunt Six's son, Zhou Qingshu, was also among the fallen. So when Aunt Six finally noticed the pitying looks around her, she clutched the urn and burst into hysterical sobs.

Another was a husband from the north end of the village, who sank to the ground with his mother-in-law.

The scene was one of utter grief.

The villagers fell silent, some of the elderly already wiping away tears.

The yamen runner and the soldier had likely delivered death notices to countless villages by now—their faces were numb.

Still, they didn't rush anyone. Village Head Zhou was nearby, speaking to them in a low voice.

He was probably asking about the war situation.

The yamen runner said coldly, "That's not for you to ask!"

Chen Jue's expression turned cold as well. At a time like this, refusing to explain anything to the people could only mean the situation on the battlefield was dire. It wasn't hard to figure out—if even the cooks had been sent to fight, how could things have gone well?

There were likely countless dead and wounded.

In such a small village, one-tenth of the men had died—a staggering proportion.

Village Head Zhou had been rebuffed and couldn't afford to lose face, so he tried to negotiate for the best deal he could get.

"But this compensation is far too little... these fallen young men all have elderly parents and young children to support..."

The yamen runner cut him off impatiently: "That's all there is. The county magistrate has already shown extraordinary mercy! This money was fought for by our magistrate—other counties haven't even gotten their turn yet!"

Chen Jue gave the man a cold look. He understood it to mean that the county office, unable to withstand the pressure, had sent out compensation for at least some of the dead.

Two taels of silver for a life.

And the fee to be exempted from forced labor was five taels. This dynasty gave its people no way to survive.

The yamen runner, seeing that the wailing families were in no state to come forward and collect the silver or sign, urged impatiently, "Hurry up! We can't afford to waste time—we still have to go to Sun Family Village!"

He repeated the names again: "Zhou Qingshu, died for the country, compensation two taels of silver—come forward to collect;

Zhou Tiezhu, died for the country...

Huo Lin... compensation two taels of silver;

Zhou Qingshan, severely wounded, compensation one tael of silver! Come forward to collect and sign!"

At his shout, the families who had lost sons and husbands rushed at him.

"Give me back my son! He was my only son—how are we supposed to live?!"

"Tiezhu! How could you just go like that—how are we old folks supposed to go on?! It's you! You said it was forced labor—why did he end up on the battlefield?! Why?! Give me an answer!"

Zhang Shui set the urn in his child's hands and charged at the yamen runner like a man with nothing to lose. Chen Jue didn't even have time to react, much less stop him. The yamen runner wasn't about to let him get close—he kicked him square in the chest and grabbed his sword hilt, snarling, "You want to die? Take one more step and I'll kill you!"

Zhang Shui's eyes turned red in an instant. He scrambled up from the ground and lunged again with the same ferocity, shouting, "Then kill me! Go ahead and kill me! He's dead anyway—I don't want to live either!"

A man with nothing to lose fears nothing. The yamen runner probably hadn't expected him to actually charge again, and that moment of hesitation allowed Zhang Shui to knock him off balance.

The other families surged forward too—some grabbing at his legs, others ripping at his clothes...

When all the anger and grief surged up together, even ordinary people stopped fearing officials.

Chen Jue stood at the edge watching. Grief needed an outlet. If it couldn't be released, it would fester into something much worse.

The scene descended into chaos. Village Head Zhou was shouting himself hoarse from the sidelines, and Zhou Shuyao was circling the chaos, pleading: "Aunt Six, get up! Do you know what crime it is to attack a yamen runner?!"

"Are you all tired of living?!" the yamen runner shouted, clutching his sword hilt, though he didn't dare draw it.

The people were already drowning in grief. If he drew his blade and spilled blood, it would spark a riot—the consequences would be unthinkable.

The county magistrate had strictly forbidden it.

Aunt Six grabbed his scabbard and kept throwing herself against it: "I don't want to live anymore! Kill me! Just kill me! Let me go find Dashu! My boy!"

"Exactly! They lost sons and husbands, and all they get is two taels of compensation? I wouldn't accept that either!" Zhou Hehua called out in her loud voice from the edge of the crowd.

The yamen runner traced the voice and glared at her. Zhou Hehua immediately turned her face away, and her husband stepped in front to shield her.

Zhou Hehua was fearless in her own way.

Her words were like a drop of water in a vat of boiling oil—the bereaved families clawed and ripped with even more fury.

The yamen runners' attempts to beat them back with their scabbards were useless. One runner even had his sword snatched away, which enraged the runners. One of them snarled, "Attacking government officials! I'll report this to the magistrate—you'll all be charged! Get back, all of you!"

Another disheveled runner added viciously, "Fine—then you don't want the compensation money at all! Let's go!"

"We won't sign! A life is worth more than two taels of silver!"

Zhou Hehua took the lead again.

The relatives and villagers around her all joined in. Now not only the yamen runners' faces changed—Village Head Zhou panicked too. He could understand these people, but they couldn't riot, and they couldn't keep fanning the flames! If the officials got provoked into drawing their blades and blood was spilled, what would happen then?!

"Everyone, listen to me! I'm grieving too, but to be honest, none of this is the fault of these runners and soldiers. We shouldn't be getting in the way of their duty."

He saw the fierce, anguished looks on their faces and said heavily, "What's done is done. Our grief won't change anything. What matters most is getting them properly buried as soon as possible. We still have to live our lives—we can't let them rest uneasily in the afterlife... Don't worry. These men who died for their country are heroes of our village. I'll make sure they get a grand funeral, and the village will remember them forever..."

Chen Jue watched Village Head Zhou, whose face was etched with sorrow, and thought: *If he hadn't known the truth all along and still refused to tell the villagers, refused to let them go to war, he'd be a better official.*

And so it ended. After the crying and wailing, they had to accept reality.

Those two taels of silver that were supposed to save lives.

The yamen runner looked at the people who had just been fighting him now coming back to collect their money. He wanted to sneer, but seeing the expressions on their faces, he couldn't bring himself to.

Delivering death notices and compensation money was never a good job. It wasn't like announcing exam results—that kind of pleasant duty never fell to low-ranking runners like them.

At the end of the day, they were all at the bottom of the heap—no one had the right to mock another. The yamen runner doled out the silver with a stony face.

There was nothing to skim off—it had already been squeezed dry at every level.

When the runner reached the fifth person, he had to call out: "Huo Lin's family, step forward to receive the silver!"

Chen Jue stepped forward. The runner gave him a once-over, finding the man rather odd—he hadn't come forward earlier to tussle with them.

He didn't look like a man who'd just lost his husband; the runner even suspected he had been waiting specifically for this day.

The runner eyed him suspiciously: "Are you Huo Lin's man?"