Chapter 244
Sur, meaning sun, belongs to one of the highest castes among the Brahmin.
This was also the identity that Hebe assigned to them.
In fact, during the Kuru Dynasty at that time, only nobles of high castes were qualified to undertake such study tours.
This fabricated Brahmin identity saved Hebe and others a lot of unnecessary trouble.
But then again...
If Karna, the Son of Surya, is not worthy of using this surname, then what Brahmin in the world can call himself "Sur"?
Upon hearing this, Karna opened his mouth, but then hesitated and stopped himself from speaking.
The local official misunderstood Karna's expression. "Haha, young and noble sir! I see the look of shock on your face—that's perfectly normal. After all, our lord's benevolence and kindness are renowned throughout the entire Kuru Dynasty!"
"Even the regent of the Kuru Dynasty has personally praised our master's virtue."
The "master" mentioned by the local officials was a feudal lord who ruled the entire northern province, and by blood he was a distant relative of the Kuru Dynasty.
This lord was willing to offer his miners a high salary of twenty silver coins, and in order to keep their jobs, these miners worked at least seventeen hours a day, voluntarily working overtime.
They all have serious eye problems and extremely poor eyesight.
These miners, without clothes, toiled in temperatures approaching 60 degrees Celsius, their bodies covered in scars from the iron filings from ore smelting.
They typically only live to be twenty years old.
Under these circumstances, the magistrate was even willing to supply the miners with Suma at a low price of five silver coins.
That's right.
Each mine is like an independent village, and the lives of miners' families, from birth to old age, illness, and death, all fall within this great cycle.
What remained unchanged was his gratitude towards the master—because he was truly kind.
He gave the miners a chance to risk their lives, and even provided cheap soma cigarettes to help sick miners relieve pain.
Karna remained silent, feeling a chill rising deep in her throat.
As she left the northern province, she heard her teeth chattering.
Hebe took her hand, and the warmth of her palm brought Karna back to her senses.
—What a warm palm.
But when she looked up, she still saw Hebe's calm profile.
"Let's keep going, this journey has only just begun."
In the past, the Kuru Dynasty established many positions similar to "governors" in order to strengthen its control over its fiefdoms.
But just as the governors of Cathay Eastern Han Dynasty became local administrative officials, the inspectors sent by the Kuru Dynasty have now become local powerful clans.
Compared to most princes and nobles, the families of the censors were more civilized in their practices.
This is because their power did not come from land and military power, but from the Kuru King.
One of the most striking features was that the censors would provide accommodation for their servants—shacks large enough to house a dozen or so families.
These servants also had their own servants, and they would hire poor people of lower status to guard the gate.
The latter's reward was often only a few dozen copper coins.
As soon as he received the money, the guard at the shack would go and buy cheap sugar water to drink.
This happened two months ago. When Hebe and the others arrived, the people living in the shacks had already changed three times.
The reason is simple.
Two months ago, one day, the inspector said a few words to the poor gatekeeper—not pleasant words at all.
Even so, for a noble of the Kshatriya caste to speak to a lowly gatekeeper was an unparalleled honor.
So the servants living in the shacks, driven by jealousy, raped and ate the lowly gatekeeper.
But these servants did not fare well either.
Because this matter spread, the other servants who served the inspector concluded that they had obtained some kind of power to tempt their master through cannibalism.
So you eat me, and I eat you.
This is the fifth group of servants to live in this shack.
Hebe's solution was simple: she took Kama and Karna inside and asked the inspector what he had actually said.
The inspector replied, "That commoner's daughter is quite pretty."
Hebe then asked: So where is she now?
The inspector said: I played with it for two days and got bored, so I threw it into the forest.
Hebe looked at Karna: "What will you do now?"
"If you kill him, the Kuru Dynasty will decline further, and the censor's wife and daughters may be insulted by others—"
The inspector felt uneasy and was about to call for his guards and servants when Karna rushed forward.
Before Hebe could finish speaking, Karna had already swung his sword and beheaded the inspector.
The headless cavity spurted blood for a while, then crashed to the ground with a thud.
"Those things have nothing to do with me, Father."
Karna said, "I only want to kill this villain."
Karna never considered himself a nobleman.
For more than a decade of her life, she had always lived as an ordinary citizen.
The anger in her heart was burning along the way, and she began to want to get involved in everything, instead of just being an observer.
The censor's arbitrary and malicious actions had already made Karna feel... particularly angry.
Perhaps the inspector's wife and children are innocent (is that really true?), but this "innocence" cannot be a reason for him to be exonerated.
Karna gazed at the dismembered corpses on the ground.
"How can someone like him be changed? Only death."
Karna was silent for a moment, then her voice returned to calm. She looked at Hebe and Kama and said softly, "This inspector owns twenty manors, more than forty palace-like villas, and over three thousand plots of fine farmland. It would be impossible to say that the inspector's wife and daughters haven't enjoyed all of this."
And when they enjoy this privileged life, they must naturally accept the risks that come with the collapse of this privileged life.
Hebe and his party left the province.
Before the news of the inspector's death was revealed, the smiling fat immortal had already found his wife and daughter.
With a slight pluck of the enchanting strings, the group followed the fat immortal and disappeared into the wilderness.
The inspector's body was not discovered until evening; and it wasn't until noon the next day that someone came to collect the body and cremate it.
Everyone tacitly ignored the prosecutor's mutilated body and the jagged bite marks on it.
Meanwhile, Hebe had already led the two to their next destination.
Here, even the identity of Brahmin is irrelevant, because a single glance could mean the outbreak of a sexually explicit exchange. In this situation, the identity of Brahmin woman is actually extremely dangerous.
The veil of illusion gently fell.
The three of them looked at the bustling market area in front of them.
This is the most notorious underground market in the surrounding cities—a place for black money, gangs, robbers, slave trading, and the trade of human artifacts.
Chapter 305 Once upon a time, there was a Fangcun Mountain.
Under normal circumstances, underground trading markets are destined to be small in scale.
But this place is an exception. It is located at the intersection of three parties and is protected by the village's joint defense team and gangs. Therefore, in this environment, "specialty projects" have flourished.
For example, currency exchange services.
The Kuru Dynasty used three types of currency: gold, silver, and copper.
However, in various provinces and fiefdoms, princes and nobles would still mint coins privately, and use military power and land to ensure the circulation of these private coins.
The government does have money exchange offices, but their commission rates are too high, their service is too slow, and they don't accept small transactions... More importantly, the officials in these money exchange offices are basically useless.
They were able to sit in this position because of their noble birth, not because of their outstanding abilities.
In fact, gangs have more credibility than government officials in this area, and underground money transactions are more trustworthy than official money exchange offices.
But what about other businesses besides these?
Hebe and her two companions were shrouded in an illusion, like pebbles dropped into water, attracting no one's attention.
Thus, in Karna's eyes, those ugly but already commonplace things began to unfold one after another.
—Old women, some quite old, sit by the roadside, displaying their withered chests to passersby; these are the poorest people at the very bottom of the Bharata prostitution system.
They charged five copper coins each time, but even then, the gang would take three copper coins from them, and if they were found to have taken more than their share, they risked being beaten to death on the spot.
—A child, barely ten years old, was hanged in the middle of the road. His clothes had been stripped off, and his two ruptured eyeballs were strangled to the side of his cheeks.
The reason he was treated this way was that his grandmother worked as a prostitute to earn money to support the family.
He was bullied by a mob of villagers of his age, the grandson of a local notable.
This is nothing to Bharata.
—In those shops adorned with colorful prayer flags, all sorts of human bones, entrails, and processed organs are on display.
These items come from untouchables who suffered terrible experiences in life, some of whom had their organs harvested before they had even completely died, as if doing so would make their "magical power" stronger.
Even so, relying on this evil, deformed yet still prosperous Wenchao, there are still a huge number of poor people who are fearless of death to come and cling to it.
These are things that Tianshi and Drona will never know.
It's not because they're stupid, nor because they've been deceived.
It is because of their caste; their birth determines the environment in which they live.
Fish that live in water cannot know the vastness of the sky, and rhinoceroses that walk in the forest cannot live underground.
The cruelest thing that Tianshi could imagine was the bloodshed on the battlefield caused by the Kshatriya warriors who had abandoned the Dharma.
Therefore, he would never think about what terrible future Princess Anba, whom he had kidnapped and then abandoned, would face.
On the other hand, if Princess Anba had not been of Kshatriya birth, the hardships she faced would have been a thousand times more severe.
The most terrible situation Drona could comprehend was the poverty that came from his self-righteousness and high status.
If Hebe hadn't let him experience being tortured by a vigilante, Drona would never have known this in his life.
However, Drona only enjoyed the treatment of Vaishya; he was far from knowing the situation of the Shudra and Dalit.
Not long after they left the underground market, the fat immortal carrying the earthen pipa reappeared.
This time, there was no smile on his face either.
This is the third generation, why hasn't the situation improved, but instead gotten worse?
"Dasha, you are completely wrong."
The fat immortal stared at the hellish scene before him and sat down cross-legged.
He began to play the earthen pipa in his arms, and massive computing power began to intervene.
Like opening a control panel, it meticulously traces the family background, circumstances, and bloodlines of each individual and household, then redistributes wealth and land... bringing everything back on track from its current imbalance.
Narada Immortal frowned; for him, this was a very painful and cruel thing.
There were indeed more brutal and efficient ways to do things, but Narada Immortal insisted that he had to do it this way.
It seemed that only by doing this could he calm his tormented heartbeat.
The final stop on this arduous journey was an unnamed village.
Karna thought that Hebe had brought her here specifically to let her witness a different kind of ugliness, but she was wrong again.
The village is situated on the edge of a large lake, surrounded by lush woodlands.
It was once an unnamed village outside Fangcun Mountain, and on the other side of the lake lies the site of Mohenjo-daro.