BXBX NOVEL Chapter 8 - Too Tame for Their Own Good
These were his people.
Ignorant, submissive, without even a hint of resistance, like a herd of fully domesticated livestock.
His thoughts drifted away, recalling the nation from his previous life.
They were diligent, brave, peace-loving, resilient, and self-reliant. Influenced by Confucian compassion, Mohist universal love, Legalist equality, and Daoist respect for human nature and freedom, these principles shaped and transformed that nation.
Compared to that, the difference is like heaven and earth!
Thinking of this, and looking again at the crowd before him, Richard saw no bravery, no resilience, no diligence, and no self-reliance.
It seemed to be just the opposite, like an extreme version of it.
What he saw was only fear, despair, and utter anxiety.
When the ruling class slightly squeezed the people, they endured it silently.
When the pressure increased, they grumbled but continued to endure.
When they barely had enough to survive, they complained bitterly.
When they could no longer sustain themselves, they should have revolted. But their rebellion lasted only a fleeting moment before they gave up, and even then, only one in twenty people responded.
This reaction left Richard feeling truly disappointed.
Finally, what Richard said next made everyone’s eyes light up.
“I can give you two choices!”
As the crowd looked at him with hope, Richard gave a cruel smile, “First, as I said before, you must pay the fine in full. If you cannot, you will be executed by hanging!”
He looked at the crowd after speaking.
Immediately, the crowd began to kowtow.
An elderly man said in a hoarse voice, “Lord, even if we don’t eat or drink for three years, we couldn’t earn a single gold coin. Please give us a chance to repay you in some other way!”
Hearing this, Richard felt no sympathy just because the speaker was an old man. He had clearly seen that this old man had been stealing when he arrived.
And the person he was stealing from was only a ten-year-old child.
Stealing from a child—where was the humanity in that?
As soon as the old man finished speaking, others joined in.
“Lord, I am willing to work for you. Please show mercy and give me a way to survive!”
“My lord, I truly can’t afford it. It’s not just one gold coin per person; even if we pooled our family’s wealth, we couldn’t come up with one gold coin! We have seven people in our family, and even our lives aren’t worth that much. You’d be at a loss if you killed us, my lord!”
“I am willing to offer everything my family has to you: eleven chickens, two sheep, three quails, and twelve eggs! Please spare my family’s lives, my lord!”
“I can help clean the city’s waste and carry it to the wilderness—no, beyond the territory! My whole family can do it. We are still useful. Please, my lord, spare us!”
“We are willing to do all of the above, and we don’t even ask you to cancel the fine; just reduce it a bit so we can afford it. We will obey all your commands in the future, my lord!”
In desperation, everyone was racking their brains, trying to find ways to beg for mercy.
Through all this, Richard’s heart remained as cold as iron.
He continued, “Now, listen to my second choice: obey my every command! All the houses you live in and the land you farm will be taken back!”
“Whatever I tell you to do, you must do! Otherwise, you will be executed by hanging!”
When they heard these words, the crowd was bewildered.
Taking back the land, taking back the houses—where would they live afterward?
How would they survive?
“My lord, I am willing to give up my house and land. Thank you for sparing my life! I’ll move out immediately, my whole family will!”
A middle-aged man shouted.
In that moment, he had prepared himself for the worst.
“If the lord allows, I am willing to live in the forest, returning every morning to await your orders outside the castle.”
Hearing this, those who were previously confused quickly followed suit.
“My lord, we are also willing to move out immediately, returning the houses and land to you!”
“Lord, I am willing to live by the river; I can build a simple shelter out of straw. I don’t need the house in the city!”
All at once, everyone was scrambling to express their willingness, fearing their slow reactions.
After all, compared to execution, living in the forest or by the river seemed like nothing.
Living by the river meant they could catch fish, and living in the forest allowed them to find wild fruits and, if lucky, even catch small animals like rabbits or mountain rats for meat.
Of course, this all depended on whether their lord would allow them to eat these things.
By now, Richard had pressed the people to the point where they could retreat no further, like meat on the chopping block, completely at his mercy.
But Richard shook his head and said, “You don’t have to live in the forest, nor by the river. As for the houses, although they now belong to me, I might still let you live in them, provided that you follow my orders.”
“My lord, we will obey!”
The crowd lowered their heads, utterly subdued.
Especially upon hearing that they might still be able to live in the city, there was nothing more to say.
Although they had to obey the lord’s commands, wasn’t that how things were before?
The question was, what exactly did the lord want?
No one dared to ask; they believed the lord would explain in due time.
The clever ones had already guessed that the exorbitant fines and the threat of execution were merely tactics to force them into submission.
Of course, they also understood that if they disobeyed, these threats might very well become reality
After all, they had experienced the cruelty of humanity at the bottom rung of society.
Richard’s tone made them realize that he was indeed capable of killing.
It even seemed like he was hoping for a rebellion, yearning for a bloodbath.
“Good! Form five lines. I will have someone register you all, and after the registration is complete, I will tell you what to do.”
“Believe me, your submission today is the best choice you’ve ever made in your lives!”
With these words, Richard smiled faintly, then turned and walked over to a nearby pavilion to start organizing the tasks.
Just as he finished assigning the registration tasks, a notification sound from the system rang in his ears.