On the fifth day of the seventh month, Wang Chen went to Yunyang City to pay his grain.
By the time he arrived at the Spirit Planting Hall, quite a few people were already lined up.
Atop the grain platform in Sprinkled Gold Field still stood the Immeasurable Golden Measure, towering high and secretly hated by countless farming households.
But this year, a large scale had been added before the grain platform.
Everyone's field rent was now calculated entirely by weight!
"Gao Laosan of C-six Garrison, twenty mu of inferior fields, submitting three thousand three hundred and seventy-five jin of grain!"
"Chen Shahe of D-four Garrison, fifteen mu of inferior fields, submitting two thousand five hundred and thirty-one jin of grain!"
"Zhang Yuan of A-two Garrison, thirty mu of inferior fields..."
The Spirit Planting Hall steward held a register in his left hand and a brush in his right, calling out names in a loud voice.
With thick brows, large eyes, and a face full of righteousness, he was no longer the shifty, rat-faced fellow from last year.
Bag after bag of golden rice was swiftly weighed, then poured into the Immeasurable Golden Measure before being transferred into grain-storage bags.
The cycle repeated itself, everything in perfect order!
"Wait!"
The Spirit Planting Hall steward, who was recording and tallying the figures, suddenly made a gesture and pointed at a burly cultivator standing nearby. "You, go take down the Immeasurable Golden Measure."
"Yes!"
The cultivator immediately climbed onto the grain platform and spread his arms to lift the nine-foot-square Immeasurable Golden Measure.
Then he carried it down from the platform.
The entire Sprinkled Gold Field fell silent. Every eye was fixed upon the burly cultivator.
The atmosphere abruptly turned tense and heavy.
Meanwhile, the middle-aged farmer who had just paid his