The young man knelt in front of the two of them, his forehead pressed tightly to the ground, and his whole body was shaking.
After accidentally seeing the exposed corner of the malachite, he vaguely guessed that this child in civilian clothes must be the child of a noble or a wealthy businessman, because only they could have malachite.
He went to the street today to do odd jobs, because he barely knew a few numbers, so even if he was still young, some shops were willing to let him do odd jobs, guarding the shop to count the goods. After he got today's wages, he has been worrying all the time. The family is almost full of apprentices, and his mother is still seriously ill. With this money, he can barely buy some ointments, but it can't help his mother get better.
Originally, although their family was poor, but with the little money left by the deceased father and the hard work of the mother, the family was still able to provide food and clothing. The mother even saved a small amount of savings, and then found a master who knew how to count to teach him. Recognize numbers and some simple and commonly used words.
The commoners can only learn the crude and simple writing of the commoners at most, but the Aaron Landis script, which is beautiful and noble in shape, is a writing that only nobles and priests can learn and use.
noble.
The young man thought about it, and at the same time he felt a huge fear in his heart, he couldn't help but grit his teeth with hatred.
If it weren't for those damn-
His mother wouldn't fall to the point where it is now!
Not long ago, because of the kindness bestowed by King Camos, he and his mother were still looking forward to a brand-new, clean and bright new house, full of hope for the future.
Not only them, but the people around them, all who lived in the slums beamed about that, grateful for King Camos' grace, and eagerly looking forward to the day they moved into the new house.
However, just a few days later, they were cast from heaven to hell.
Facts have made them realize that these lowly poor people do not deserve a bright future.
It was because of this incident that his mother was seriously injured, and the house was smashed, and all the savings that she had had was spent.
When he picked up the purse, he didn't think much about it, but when he saw the corner of the malachite, he was secretly fighting with the child for a long time, and he was at war in his head, telling him that he couldn't do it, and then he went back and forth. I thought of my mother who was dying in bed with a serious illness.
He thought, if it goes on like this, my mother may not be able to last long. Although he was ashamed of robbing a child of something, but... but his father is dead, if even his mother died, he would be forced to become a slave of the nobles who killed his mother, then he would rather Go to hell!
[Malachite is the favorite gemstone of Solga, the god of wisdom. It can drive away evil, drive away sickness, and regain the soul of the dying from the god of death.]
The boy who had these words echoed in his mind finally couldn't hold back the temptation and snatched the child's malachite amulet.
As long as he can save his mother, he is willing to pay any price!
The boy kneeling on the ground gritted his teeth and thought.
He has indeed given it his life, even if he uses his life to make amends to this noble child, as long as he can save his mother—
Looking at the boy kneeling in front of him, Garlan did not speak, but bypassed the boy and ran to the stake.
On the low wooden stake, the original beautifully carved malachite token has been smashed to pieces, and the emerald gravel is covered with the wooden stake, both large and small, and the characters originally engraved on it can no longer be seen. Can't tell it's a token.
Fataya, who came over, let out a snort.
"You actually have such a gem... You are not a child of a commoner, are you?"
She asked, "Are you a lower class noble?"
Because Gallan has a fair complexion like her, Fataya guessed that the child should be from a lower-level noble family like her, and it should be a very wealthy family.
She looked at the smashed malachite amulet with regret.
Just by looking at the hollowed-out lines and patterns on the slightly larger stone, you can guess that the complete amulet must be very delicate. This child also said that it was handed down from his ancestors, and it was broken like this, which is really a pity.
Fataya sighed and turned around. Her trousers were a little tighter, showing off her slender thighs. When she saw her long legs, she stepped directly over to the boy and stretched out her hand to hold him.
"Okay, follow me to the city guard."
Hearing this, the boy struggled for a while, but the female knight held him down with one hand, and he couldn't break free.
He pleaded, "I won't run away, but, please, my mother—"
Fataya just remembered that the boy who stole just now shouted that he wanted to use the powder of malachite to save his mother. She turned her head and found that the blond child had reached the door of the low wooden house at some point.
She dragged the boy over, stood behind the boy and looked into the house.
I saw a middle-aged woman described as haggard lying on the bed. Although the things in the house were worn out, they were cleaned very well. The woman in the coma was covered with wounds, her face was dark, her breath was weak, her lips were dry and cracked, as if she would stop breathing in the next second.
And looking at those wounds, many of them are already inflamed, and there are even a few serious ones that are beginning to fester and pus.
The female knight was stunned for a moment, and the young man broke free from her hand, ran to the wooden stake and rushed into the house holding the broken malachite, and then carefully rubbed the malachite powder in his hand on the pus-filled wounds. While wiping, he looked nervously at the woman's face.
Garlan looked around the room and felt a little strange, but he couldn't say anything strange, and after a closer look, he suddenly understood. It turned out that the table and chairs and other supplies in this room are all wrong. Not only are they old, but they are almost all rotten, and it can be seen that they were all smashed recently, and they were barely repaired and continued to be used.
It feels like... someone came and smashed it recently.
Garlan was still thinking about it, when he suddenly heard a thud from outside, followed by the sound of a cracked wooden fence being smashed.
The boy who was kneeling beside the low bed and applying malachite powder to the woman suddenly shuddered when he heard the sound, his face became pale, he looked at his sleeping mother, gritted his teeth, got up and walked out.
"Get out of here! You are not welcome here!"
He yelled at the person who came.
"Little guy, what's the noise?"
A flirtatious voice sounded, very frivolous, Garlan followed the sound and saw a tall, thin man who looked very frivolous standing there, followed by more than a dozen strong men of five big and three thick.
He looked at the young man's face with a smile, but there was malice written in those bent eyes.
"Master is here to give you money, do you understand?"
He took out a purse, weighed it, and the sound of coins crashing sounded. The tall man squinted and listened to the crashing coins, as if he had heard the most beautiful music in the world.
He smiled and handed the purse to the boy.
"Well, money, don't even have money, are you stupid?"
"Seeing that this place is about to be renovated, you need money to buy a new house. I'll send you money. It's just right for you to buy a new house."
The man squinted and smiled and said, "That is, the uncle has a good heart and is willing to lend you money. Why don't you accept my kindness, uncle? Isn't this throwing my kindness to the ground?"
The teenager gritted his teeth and said, "Go away! I'd rather die than borrow your money!"
The man groaned, a vicious light shot out of his eyes.
"Just say your child is ignorant, come on, I'll 'reason' with your mother, your mother is in the house, right, come on—"
As he walked forward, he winked at the dozen or so big men behind him, and those people continued to smash.
They smashed the wooden fence surrounding the yard, some labor tools, and crock pots to smash them.
"What are you doing? What are you doing! Don't touch my mother!"
The young man's eyes were red, and he rushed to stop the tall man, but he was pushed hard by the man, staggered backward, and almost fell.
A hand stretched out from behind and pressed his shoulder, which prevented him from falling to the ground.
"What are you doing?"
A clear female voice sounded, and the female knight who came out of the house appeared in front of everyone.
The man was stunned for a moment, and he stopped the steps he wanted to break into the house rather fearfully.
"Yo, isn't this Fataya-sama? What are you doing in a place like this?"
"you know me?"
"If so, who wouldn't know about your female knight who became the chief guard of the city gate at such a young age."
The man smiled and said that although he was a little afraid, he was obviously not afraid.
"The master asked us to do something today, who would have bumped into you here... Oh, by the way, we are from Kabe Qian."
The female knight frowned.
"I'm here to do something and I'll be leaving soon," she said.
"Is that so, then my brothers and I will not disturb you for now."
After saying that, the man simply turned around and left.
This city gate guard is here. Although he is supported by someone behind him and is not afraid of her, it is not appropriate to make a scene. After all, it is a serious crime for civilians to harm nobles. He will come later, and he is not in a hurry at this time, anyway, the family is desperate.
He first went to another shop and asked that one to borrow the money.
Tsk tsk, why are these untouchables so disobedient, and they have to let him bring people to fight and kill, how ugly it is, if you are honest and obedient, you can borrow this money, and you have to let him come and go run-
While complaining in the bottom of his heart, the man took him away.
Garlan, who was on the side, was a little confused when he watched this play. Those ferocious people over there insisted on giving money to this young man, and the young man did not want to live or die.
It feels like one wants to forcibly borrow money, and the other refuses to lend it.
What the hell is this
"Are they... are they going to lend you money?"
Garland asked.
The boy was originally staring blankly at the backs of the group of people leaving, but he was suddenly excited again when Garland asked this question.
"I won't borrow it! Even if I'm beaten to death here! I'll never borrow a penny from those thugs!"
He gritted his teeth.
After speaking so ruthlessly, he slumped and sat on the ground, holding his head in his hands, looking dazed and helpless.
"I'm sorry... I'm really sorry..."
He muttered an apology, his eyes reddened.
"I'll go with you, I'll go to jail, as long as my mother is okay, she's okay..."
Fataya frowned and watched the group of thugs leave, and then asked, "Kabe Qianxing, the actual controller behind it is the Chief Secretary."
The chief director is the most powerful person in the royal court, second only to the left and right prime ministers. At the same time, his family is also the in-laws of the previous king, and he is very prominent in the royal city.
She didn't dare to provoke lower-level nobles, how could the pariahs in the slums provoke that money shop
"How did you provoke Kabe Money?"
The boy who was sitting on the ground with his head slumped paused for a while, and then began to speak in a choked tone.
…
"Is Garland still up?"
Heimos asked, this was the second time he had come to see Garland in the afternoon.
The maid knelt on the ground and lowered her head to answer: "Yes, Your Highness, Prince Garlan has been sleeping all the time."
Because Garland had instructed them not to wake him up, they just stayed in the courtyard and didn't dare to go into the house.
Did you sleep so long because you were too tired from archery in the morning
Heimos thought so, and glanced at the other side of the room again.
The room was quiet, and through the cracked window, one could vaguely see the bulging blanket on the bed. The kid seemed to especially like to wrap himself up in a blanket on the bed, like a ball.
He shook his head, turned to leave, and came back at dinner time. With a sudden swish, a golden figure rushed past his feet like an arrow.
As soon as he turned his head, he saw that the little lion had already fallen on the door, scratching the door with its claws.
Nega now comes here almost every once in a while, and the originally delicate carved wooden door was scratched with claw marks.
Heimos walked over quickly, wanting to take away the little guy who disturbed Garlan's rest. Who knew that before he walked over, the little lion heard his footsteps, turned around, snarled fiercely at him, then turned around and ran and jumped directly to the side to hide the window, Dive in from there.
This guy-
Heimos didn't have time to pinch it as soon as he reached out, he could only watch it jump up the window, rush into the room, and threw excitedly onto the mass on the bed.
Ow!
Just as the little lion snorted excitedly, the whole lion suddenly fell down.
The bulging mass on the bed was pressed down by its small body, and the blanket spread out, revealing a large mass of down.
Nega's entire lion threw itself into the large group of feathers, and the feathers that were smashed by it flew all over the room.
The fluffy little lion sat in the pile of feathers with his head covered and his head covered, his face stunned, and then he sneezed because of the thin down.
Heimos, who followed Little Nega jumped into the room from the window, looked at the empty bed and the feathers in the room, but Garlan was the only one who could not see him, and his eyes suddenly froze.
…
…
In addition to the royal family and nobles, the people of Aaron Landis were divided into three classes.
Commoners, pariahs, slaves.
The commoners have a certain amount of permanent property and usually have small savings. They can do business, learn common characters, and even become basic officials and are protected by law.
On the other hand, the untouchables usually have poor families, and it is difficult to maintain food and clothing every day. They do the hardest, most tiring and dirty jobs in the city, but they hold the lowest wages, and they are despised everywhere.
Often the untouchables congregate in the dirtiest and most shady corners of the city, in what are called slums. They lived a very hard life, extremely humble, hard and numb to live.
But this time, King Camos gave hope to the pariahs of the royal city.
King Camos issued an imperial order to transform the slums in the king's city, renovate this messy place into a clean and tidy place, and build houses, roads and shops according to the same scale.
With this order, the pot exploded in the royal city in an instant.
You must know that the housing prices in Wangcheng are extremely expensive, which can be said to be an inch of land. However, the slums are too dirty, so no one has ever made an idea of the place.
But now that Wang Ling looks at it, everyone knows that after the renovation of that place, the land price and house price will definitely increase exponentially, and it is possible to double it dozens of times. As a result, countless greedy aristocratic officials were just around the corner, wanting to strike first and take the land there into their own hands.
However, King Camos is very aware of the greed of some officials and nobles. Therefore, in order to prevent them from secretly using leases and other means to take those lands for themselves, he issued an order that the renovated houses and shops can only be sold, and money must be used. purchase, otherwise it may not be used.
At the same time, in order to protect the interests of the original untouchables, he also issued an order that untouchables living in slums can buy a small house for a very small price, provided that they must be untouchables who originally lived here.
This price is really very low. Even if they are pariahs, most people can take it out. If they can't take it out, they can borrow a sum of money from the state, buy a house, and then pay it back slowly.
only…
There are policies and measures to counter.
Aristocratic officials as greedy as silverfish were always good at finding loopholes in the law.
Don't let us buy it at a low price, shall we
All right, let those pariahs pay for the house first.
By the way, doesn't it cost a lot of money to buy a house
Come and come, I will introduce you to a bank of money, you can borrow it.
Mortgage, don't worry, just use your future house as a mortgage.
What? Are you going to take out a loan from the state
No, you can only borrow from those banks.
What? Do you have enough money? Do not borrow
Don't borrow it!
If you don't lend me money, I won't let you buy this house, and I will drag you out of business.
What, you still don't want to borrow it
So, every day people come to make trouble, smash and hurt people, until you are willing to borrow money.
In short, right and wrong force you to lend me this money.
Of course, the interest on this loan is terribly high, and the interest is rolling in. Even the commoners may not be able to pay off this kind of money, let alone the poor and untouchables.
…
With the support of certain forces behind the operations, the officials who operate these things are in unison and deceive the top and the bottom.
As a result, these secret operations made the noble officials who were behind the scenes full of oil, and the reconstruction of the slums had not even begun, and a large number of lands and houses had almost fallen into their hands. They hold countless loan notes in their hands, and when the untouchables get the house, they will take these notes to collect the debt.
Naturally, the pariahs with such a high interest rate can't pay it, and of course they can only repay the mortgaged house to them.
After all, it is only right and proper to pay back debts.
The house is still not enough, what should I do? I can only sell myself to pay off my debts.
It is conceivable that by that time, the vast majority of the pariahs in this slum will not only lose their houses and most of their life savings, but also become slaves of those noble officials.
It was originally a project to benefit the country and the people, but it became the fat in the mouths of those greedy aristocratic officials, who eat human flesh and drink human blood.