Chapter 323 — Our Path

"It was in the Southern Frontier, in Earl Berry's domain..."

The elven ranger could no longer hold back the urge to speak, and poured out everything he had seen and heard that night. In seven hundred years of wandering, he had by no means never witnessed the dark side of society, nor seen people and things more miserable and unfortunate than that. But as a high-tier transcendent, he had always viewed it all from the lofty perspective of a bystander. Only on that night in the Eastern Frontier had he personally witnessed, personally heard, those dark details he had never before noticed. Ansu's present degeneration shocked him to the core, and he could not help but speak of it all.

Some in the room fell silent. Some fell to thinking. But some, amid the silence and thought, felt mostly surprise.

Rebecca could scarcely believe what she was hearing: "How can they do that? That Earl Berry, and the knights collecting rent... how can they just seize the peasants' land like that?!"

"Such things are many, my young lady," said Pi Yun, who had held his tongue for a long while, in a low voice. "Why do you think the lands in so many landed nobles' hands keep growing? Why do you think that although the kingdom reclaims new land year after year, there are more and more peasants who have lost their land, and more and more serfs? Even without looking outside, just look at this domain—where did the vast majority of its population come from? Serfs, slaves, displaced vagrants who lost their land and had nowhere to go. Were these people born to have nothing?"

Rebecca's eyes went wide, her knuckles white from clenching her fists: "But... aren't nobles supposed to protect their people...? Since I was little, my father and my aunt have both taught me that, and the precepts our ancestors left behind also say..."

"If ancestral precepts actually worked, there wouldn't have been that Bastard War a hundred years ago," Amber shot Rebecca a look. "You think every noble is as single-minded and easy to fool as you?"

By Rebecca's usual habit, hearing Amber tease her like that would have meant a sweeping staff strike and a rout of all before her. But this time she was mired in turmoil, and she could not make sense of it at all: "But... don't those peasants realize it's a trap?"

Gao Yun lightly patted Rebecca's hair: "Rebecca, you've forgotten one thing. The vast majority of commoners don't know what a third or two-thirds of a taka of grain is, nor do they know what twice one-third of a taka is. Still less can they estimate how much rent they'll owe five years from now. In fact, they cannot read a single word of that 'Tenant Rent Amnesty Act' the lord issued. The people who read out the lord's decrees are noble soldiers, and noble soldiers never explain anything. So the reality is this: the lord issues a decree, and the vast majority of commoners know nothing of its contents. They only know that when the lord declares he is collecting rent according to law, they must not resist. And as for whether the lord actually follows the law... if the lord says he does, then he does."

"But surely there are a few who understand..."

"Of course there are a few who understand. Some can even recite the decree from memory after hearing a soldier read it aloud, can keep it in their hearts. But what use is that?" Heidi, standing behind Rebecca, shook her head. Deep sorrow and sympathy lay on the lady's face. "Do they have the power to oppose the lord? The power to find the loopholes in these decrees? The power to make other commoners realize those loopholes? If not, then all they can do is memorize these things, and then, after losing their land, tell them to some outsider who happens to pass through."

Rebecca looked at Gao Yang: "Isn't... isn't there any way to change this situation?"

"Of course there is," Gao Yang could not help but smile at this silly doe who had so earnestly followed the "Noble Code of Self-Discipline" and now found herself lost. "We are walking that very path."

Though... it is only the first step.