Chapter 292: Tangent (4)

As they rode the carriage towards the company district, the devastated scenery gradually disappeared and surprisingly, the view of a perfectly intact city unfolded.

“It’s fine?”

“Doesn’t the Luohe River overflow every year?”

The Luohe River is straight and narrow for a Yellow River tributary, so it floods every year.

So companies and martial arts halls usually set up on the high ground of the connected Gamsan foothills, and by this time they empty the riverside warehouses and move them to higher ground.

“But they just did flood control construction now?”

“It’s not an easy task.”

The river is straight but narrow. And with high water volume, the current is fierce and violent.

With high volume, deep water, and strong current, it’s an extremely difficult waterway for people to control from the start.

“The authorities generously released gold and silver to bestow a great favor, but it ended up like this. Hmm. In fact, we should consider whether that was really a favor.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Wouldn’t such large flood control construction require enormous gold and silver? There’s rampant bribery from the project selection stage, and there are rumors the Henan governor will change, so some say he planned to make a big profit before retiring. Of course, believe it or not. There are also rumors the Henan governor is relatively uncorrupt, well, how can we know what’s in people’s hearts?”

The imperial court is stingy, but once they open their purse the scale is no different from Buddha’s.

Gold and silver come down in a line of several carriages.

So even after officials take their cut, it’s still a huge amount of money.

The rest is handed over with the design saying to build it like this, so the structure was for the company that received the construction to build it properly and pocket the leftover gold and silver.

“Is that all? Isn’t there anyone watching to make sure the construction is done properly?”

“Originally, the flood control officer should oversee and manage the construction…”

However, flood control officer is a very mysterious position that exists in name only with no substance.

It’s not that the authorities don’t send people for supervision, but from the start they don’t understand the design and are ignorant of construction, so no matter how closely they watch they can’t tell.

You could call them extremely upright officials just for watching, and these supervisors are usually capable people with clairvoyance who can grasp how the construction is going while being entertained with women at high-end restaurants.

Of course, Geol Taran says he just heard such things, it may or may not be true, believe it or not.

From what he heard it’s completely messed up, but since he says believe it or not, Qing thinks surely it can’t be that messed up.

As the carriage arrived at Taecheong Company’s Luoning branch like that, there was a crowd of commoners in ragged clothes.

“Oh thank you, thank you.”

“Enough with the thanks. Next!”

Men with “Qing” written in large characters on their bodies were scooping out grain by the measure to the lined up commoners.

The unusual point was that the evil karma of the men distributing grain was all quite concerning.

But Qing watched in real time as their evil karma decreased by 1 point each.

What’s this? Did the old man gather bad guys from somewhere to set up a company?

Hmm. Are they escapees from the demonic cult or something?

Given the old man’s background, he may have taken in people from that side.

It seems they were already providing relief though they said they were preparing, and seeing the evil karma decrease made Qing feel a bit uncomfortable again.

At times like this she has very complicated thoughts, but the more deeply she thinks the worse it is for her mental health, so Qing forcibly turned her gaze away.

Ah. Looking at Miss Seol’s face is healing.

I think lookism is bad, but what can I do if seeing pretty things makes me feel pretty?

As Qing got out of the carriage entering the company, a gasping sound came from somewhere.

When Qing turned her head, a man who had collapsed was looking this way with an expression of disbelief.

What’s this, why is he like that? Is he sick?

As if it was contagious, another employee moving sacks asked “Hey Dan, what’s wrong?” then saw Qing and immediately threw down his load and bowed his head.

“Miss! Is it Miss!”

“My goodness, to be so beautiful!”

“Glory, such glory! Glory of three lifetimes, no, glory of a thousand lifetimes!”

“Qing generation! Qing generation! Qing Qing generation!”

And then they rushed over oh? What’s this?

Qing just blinked at the extremely passionate and fiery welcome.

There’s a limit to welcomes, isn’t there? Complete strangers getting emotional with reddened eyes and bowing their heads.

“No, why are you all like this?”

“W-well you see. Hey you guys, aren’t you going to finish your work? No matter how overwhelmed you are seeing Miss’s face, this is too much, isn’t it?”

“Ah. Excuse us, excuse us.”

At Geol Taran’s shout, the company employees hurriedly retreated.

“Hehe, actually, all the employees are people who received great favors from Chief Choi? Yes, it’s like that, that kind of thing? So seeing Miss, they’re truly overwhelmed.”

Qing narrowed her eyes at this.

Since when has the old man been going around the martial arts world bestowing favors to gather this many people?

And they’re guys with concerning evil karma too.

It really does seem like they’re demonic cult escapees?

Didn’t he say Seol Family Company, did he command some mass escape operation to steal people away?

Qing has no self-awareness of being the Heavenly Demon.

To Qing, the Heavenly Demon was just an enemy she had already defeated, so only traces of the collapsed parasite’s ego remained in a corner of her mind.

The Heaven-Shattering Demonic Qi stuck in a corner of her dantian just laughs while getting hit.

So she also didn’t know that Choi Leeong was rekindling ties with the demonic cult to put down roots in the Central Plains as a sect, burning with the very evil ambition of making Qing an eternally immortal supreme dignity and sacred idol.

After unpacking at the company like that.

But, Seol Iri’s condition seemed a bit concerning, moving clumsily like a patient, looking quite unwell.

“Miss Seol? Aren’t you feeling very unwell? You should get your pulse checked.”

“No.”

“Your ‘no’ just sounds like agreement, but. Then at least answer in order if I ask multiple times. Are you saying your body is fine, or that you don’t need a pulse check?”

“I understand. Yes. Yes.”

I understand I’ll answer in order.

My body is fine and I don’t need a pulse check so yes. Yes.

Seol Iri obediently follows orders when given.

Qing nodded with a smile at this.

How nice that she listens well.

After telling Seol Iri to rest in a room and coming out, Geol Taran who had checked the gold loaded in the carriage made a fuss:

“Oh my, where did you get so much gold, your abilities are truly unfathomable Miss, as expected this servant is overwhelmed again and again by Miss’s abilities that are infinitely great from a commoner’s view, I’m just overcome with emotion at the overwhelming grace. How can you be so kind-hearted and compassionate, how can such good fortune exist in this world! Ah, surely it was bestowed by heaven.”

“No. It’s not that much…”

“No. People usually covet others’ gold while being stingy with their own coins. To so casually give away a fortune you could live comfortably on for life, this Geol Taran is moved, so moved…”

“No, well. It’s not like I worked particularly hard to earn this money. Don’t gild it too much.”

“Kuhup. Thanks to Miss’s grace, there will be no major setbacks in the relief efforts. We were running out of funds. We requested additional funds from headquarters but it takes ages going and coming.”

“You ran out of funds?”

“Oh my. Don’t even mention it. The food prices are so inflated. Grain prices are already nearly ten times the previous market rate. We’re distributing one day’s worth of grain at a time from what we have, but it’s hard to recklessly buy more before additional funds arrive, we were worried we’d just be twiddling our thumbs.”

And then he started praising again-

“But at such a time, Miss personally descended with your noble jade body and conveyed gold with grace like the sea and sky, truly-“

“Enough. Enough. Aish my face is getting red just listening. That’s enough. This much is good, right? Will reconstruction work and such need more money?”

“Urk. I’ll speak honestly. Construction is too much, but we can at least feed the city for twenty days.”

“Huh? It’s not even gold coins but over 40 guan of silver, and it’ll only last twenty days? Are you planning to throw a feast to stuff people’s bellies instead of relief efforts?”

“Well, it’s not easy to secure grain even with gold and silver. Right now it’s ten times, but if we flash gold and silver they’ll ask for thirty or fifty times, and even then they won’t give it all.”

“Aren’t those complete thieving bastards? Why?”

“That’s just how merchants are.”

The flood was unfortunate, but for merchants it was a golden opportunity to properly increase their wealth.

Those whose homes were washed away by the flood of course, but even those who preserved their homes have nothing to eat right away when mud and muddy water rise.

At this time they raise grain prices wildly to sell, and if people have no money they give out expensive promissory notes, so people quickly lose all their assets buying grain to avoid starving right away and are left with only debt.

All that debt becomes the merchant’s wealth intact.

“No, what kind of bastards…”

Qing frowned hard.

“Anyway, to properly provide relief we need to secure grain first, is that what you’re saying?”

“It’s ten times now, but if we flash gold they’ll ask for twenty or thirty times. They’re not bastards who will sell when lending a few measures of grain later becomes fields and cows and slaves, but we’re giving them gold and silver.”

At this, Qing shook her head.

“It’s because the sincerity wasn’t properly conveyed. If we earnestly ask them to sell with desperate hearts, how could those people turn a blind eye?”

“Oh Miss. It would be nice if the world worked that way, but…”

“Come on. Let’s go. We should go buy now that it’s come up.”

Geol Taran just stamped his feet in frustration.

Because Miss was still so pure, he was worried what if she becomes disappointed learning the world’s cruelty.

But this could be said to underestimate Qing’s sincerity too much.

Because Qing is truly sincere when it comes to making bastards she doesn’t like eat shit.

So the place Qing headed was right in front of Taecheong Company.

By then, commoners who had heard news of the relief efforts had gathered like clouds.

At this, Qing climbed up on the desk distributing relief grain and took a seat.

“Everyone, unfortunately, we don’t have much grain left.”

At this, the expressions of the people in line darkened.

Getting darker further back in line, those at the very end had faces close to despair.

No grain? When we don’t even have anything to eat right now. Other companies were asking for one tael per handful…

As murmurs spread through the crowd, Qing raised her fist to the sky.

Deng…

The righteous resonance of the Buddha’s Palm instantly quelled the commotion.

Qing raised a beautiful smile of peerless beauty under heaven and continued speaking:

“However, this young lady will use her private funds to fill and distribute grain.”

At this, people’s expressions brightened again.

You could say she’s a natural at handling people, really squeezing and releasing.

As people stared entranced at Qing’s beautiful face, she continued speaking again:

“But they say it’s difficult to secure grain even with gold and silver, so if we all together, everyone, gather our hearts and ask them to sell grain, won’t they be moved and open their warehouses? Shall we all go ask together?”