Chapter 182 — Letters and a Mess

"Yet their actions do not come without traces. From the facts I have sensed, each of their 'calculation nodes' requires a great number of living people as 'consumables.' In the southern frontier they may be able to slowly gather what the ritual requires by secretly seizing the displaced, but in other places where the displaced are fewer and order is better kept, one need only observe carefully the disappearances and movements of the population to find their traces.

"I have already reported these matters to His Majesty the King, and at the same time I hope you will heighten your vigilance—watch for the followers of the Ember Shadow rising again from the ashes around you. In this fading southern kingdom, you are already the people's only hope.

"Victor Kant, a guilty man who once truly wished to be a good man."

Gao Song's gaze moved among those lines. He turned the sheets of parchment over one by one, until the very last sheet lay before his eyes.

Amber's eyes were sharp, and at a glance she saw that this one did not seem to be a letter: "Hey! This one doesn't look like it's written to anyone!"

"That's right, this is a lord's decree, published throughout the domain after it was signed," Gao Yang made out what was written there and could not help sighing softly. "He has forgiven all the people of the domain their debts to House Kant, and freed all the serfs directly under the lord as well as the servants in the castle, declaring that they have the right to leave the domain freely."

Amber blinked, and suddenly remembered something Gao Yang had once said: "Hey, I remember you saying that this kind of emancipation should be carried out gradually and all that..."

"That's right, it should be gradual. Freeing serfs into free commoners outright only strips them of the basic protections their landlords provided. Without sound, follow-up arrangements for land distribution and safeguards, these servants turned free commoners cannot survive long on a bit of severance pay alone. They will soon lose their freedom again, and in the end sell themselves back onto the old road of servitude, or even slavery," Gao Yang shook his head. "But Viscount Victor Kant was no fanciful idealist. He must have thought of all this too—he simply had no other choice. House Kant is gone, and given the present administrative efficiency of the Ansell royal house, a new lord likely will not arrive for a year or two. Under Ansell law, all property in Xuanque Castle belongs to the noble himself, and no servant has any private property. So during this period, the people the old lord left behind are the most wretched of all. They can either run off and try to make a living on their own—but for those registered as serfs, making a living on one's own is a crime—or they can steal the castle's valuables and sell them, but that too is a crime.

"That is why Viscount Kant had to free all these people as commoners and let them leave the domain freely—at least he left them a way to survive."

Amber was taken aback, and suddenly felt her head swell: "That feels like... an awfully big mess!"

"It is indeed a mess, but someone has to clean it up," Gao Yang curled his lip. "And I have a feeling this business has already fallen on my head."

Amber blinked with an air of sheer provocation: "And that's why our line of work is so good. Usually when the job's done we just pick up our feet and go, not a thought for the aftermath—it's only when we leave too slowly that someone gives us a bit of aftercare..."

Gao Yang shot her a glance, stepped up and caught her by the arm: "Yeah, last time you were too slow getting out of that grave, so now come with me and clean up the mess."