A Fury to Uphold the World

Zi Bofeng stood at the doorway, watching Si Gou walk away. He looked up at the sun; it was scorching, casting down ten thousand rays of light, yet it could not illuminate the darkness in his heart. He stared at the sun, letting it burn until tears streamed from the corners of his eyes.

A long while later, Zi Bofeng lowered his head to see Yan Lao Wu standing before him, draped in a tattered fur coat.

"Why didn't you collect it?"

"I cannot simply stand by and watch them lose their means of survival." Zi Bofeng seemed to be answering Yan Lao Wu, yet he was also answering himself.

"Whether they survive or not, what does that have to do with you? If you don't collect it, someone else eventually will," Yan Lao Wu said.

Though the logic was simple, not everyone could grasp it so clearly.

Zi Bofeng looked at the old man before him. Before he had arrived, it was this very man who had been responsible for collecting taxes.

"Besides, the lives of farmers are cheap. Although the mountains are barren, they can always sustain a person; one way or another, they will manage to survive." Yan Lao Wu seemed to be trying to comfort Zi Bofeng, yet it sounded more like he was trying to absolve himself.

For a long time, Zi Bofeng had treated becoming the village head as a very real and challenging game. He had always believed that with the Monster Raising Art and the memories of his past life, the two working in tandem would ensure he was never easily stumped.

Moreover, being some kind of corrupt official sounded rather interesting—leading a few wicked servants, throwing his weight around with the ancestral stone carvings, and bullying the weak—it all sounded quite thrilling.

But now, he realized that many things were not as simple as he had imagined. He was playing at life, but life was not a game.

These people—his father, Little Stone, his aunt, Yan Lao Wu, Uncle Zhuzi, Lao Tuozi, Xiao Tuozi, Blind Granny, and Si Gou—were all living, breathing individuals with joys, angers, sorrows, and delights; they were made of flesh, blood, skin, and bone.

He had always thought that collecting taxes was no big deal. In his past life, the tax burden was the highest in the world, and various levies and duties were collected without anyone noticing, yet he had never seen many people unable to survive. As a child, he had seen farmers paying the public grain tax, moving bag after bag onto tractors, while plenty remained for themselves. Everyone would chat happily about how the harvest was good that year and how much grain they had contributed. He figured that even if the tax were two or three times higher, it would only be a minor inconvenience.

He had never imagined that this world was so incredibly poor.

Or perhaps, there were poor people in every world; he simply hadn't known it.

"If you don't collect from them, don't think you'll be able to collect from the others either." Yan Lao Wu's words sounded like a warning, or perhaps a prophecy.

Zi Bofeng tightened his fists and looked up at Yan Lao Wu. "Old man, please help me."

Yan Lao Wu closed his eyes, shook his head, and sighed. "Forget it, forget it... Let me, Yan Lao Wu, be the villain. You are a scholar with a boundless future; if you become a high official one day, just don't forget our Lower Yan Village..."

"No." Zi Bofeng loosened his fists, straightened his back, and looked at Yan Lao Wu, saying word by word, "This tax, I, Zi Bofeng, will not collect. My Lower Yan Village will not pay!"

"Don't be a fool. You may not want to be an official, but I don't want to be thrown into prison." Yan Lao Wu raised his hand and punched Zi Bofeng.

"No, old man," Zi Bofeng said. "Don't you think this tax levy is suspicious? We've paid the taxes every year before, haven't we?" Although Zi Bofeng had previously turned a deaf ear to the world outside, he knew a thing or two about the major event of tax collection; it was always a chaotic affair every year, with all sorts of issues arising.

"Besides, a threefold tax increase is simply outrageous!" Zi Bofeng added.

"Actually... that part isn't entirely outrageous..." Yan Lao Wu stammered. Although the old man only knew seventeen characters, he was sharp in his heart. Over the past years, he knew clearly which years were short and which were long—though the latter was rare. When he totted it all up, it really was about time to make up for three years of back taxes.

"There is a capable person behind this. I heard from Lao Si that the most formidable person in the tax office isn't the tax official, but the accountant. A brilliant accountant can organize tax records with perfect clarity, without a single error. Tax officials change every year, but the accountant holds the power. However, the old accountant from before was getting dim-sighted and less capable, and his apprentices didn't understand much, so the accounts were a mess."

If it weren't for that, the old man wouldn't have dared to evade taxes so easily.

"You mean, there is a capable person?" Zi Bofeng's eyes suddenly lit up.

He suddenly had an idea.

"Old man, I have an idea, though I don't know if it will work yet... I need to sort out the village's accounts first and see what can be done."

Hearing this, the old man was immediately skeptical. "You say... that will work?"

Someone who could organize accounts could naturally make them impossible to decipher; the old man could grasp that much. But as for how to actually do it, he was completely clueless.

"It should work." Zi Bofeng silently recalled what he had learned. Although he had mostly slept in class, he had gotten into university on his own merit. As for calculation skills, Zi Bofeng wouldn't claim to be the best, but he wondered, could there really be any experts in a small town? Of course, accounting wasn't just about calculation, but he had learned some basic bookkeeping in his elective personal finance course.

Even so, when Zi Bofeng returned to his room, he couldn't help but feel a headache coming on. This room full of accounts—how long would it take to calculate?

But thinking of his plan, Zi Bofeng forced himself to calm down.

If one cannot sweep a room, how can one sweep the world?

If he retreated at this small difficulty, what would he do in the future?

He tore open the documents one by one, spread them out on the table, and began to transcribe them. At first, Yan Lao Wu helped, but before long, he began yawning incessantly and made several mistakes, causing more trouble than help, so Zi Bofeng sent him off to rest, leaving Zi Bofeng alone.

Zi Bofeng held a brush in one hand and used the other to manipulate the abacus. Having traveled north and south with his father since childhood, he had learned to be frugal and had become quite skilled with the abacus. However, after burying himself in books, his skills had grown rusty, and he made a few mistakes before slowly regaining his rhythm.

Yan Lao Wu listened from outside for a while, hearing the clatter of the abacus from within, sounding like a babbling brook, a continuous, unending stream of water.

After a while, Zi Bofeng felt his left hand aching terribly. He flexed his wrist and looked at the mountain of unprocessed documents and accounts, feeling a sudden sense of defeat.

Suddenly, he slapped his forehead. "I'm an idiot!"

He flexed his wrist, picked up his brush, dipped it in water, and began writing on the abacus frame.

"One returns as one, seeing one becomes ten..." He wrote the mnemonic for multiplication and division onto the abacus. The beads began to vibrate, clattering on their own as if they had come to life, and he almost couldn't hold onto it.

Once Zi Bofeng finished writing all the mnemonics, the abacus leaped from his hands, jumping incessantly on the table. It took all his strength to pin it down.

"One hundred seventy-two, multiplied by twenty-one." As Zi Bofeng recited the numbers, the abacus beads clattered on their own, and the result appeared instantly.

Zi Bofeng verified it with mental math, and it was indeed correct. He then tested several more calculations, and there wasn't a single error.

"Not bad!" Zi Bofeng was incredibly impressed with himself. "From now on, I'll conquer the world with this abacus."

After a moment of triumph, he didn't even have time to drink a sip of water before he continued his calculations.

A long time later, the study door creaked open. Little Stone walked in carrying a food box and said, "Brother, Mother told me to bring you some food."

"Mm." Zi Bofeng didn't even look up, continuing to calculate and organize.

"Brother, what are you busy with..." Little Stone leaned over the table, his gaze immediately drawn to the abacus that was clicking and clacking away on its own. He stared at it blankly for a long time before letting out a yelp and tumbling backward onto the floor.

Zi Bofeng turned his head to look, only to see Little Stone's eyes rolling around so wildly they were practically crossed.

Oh no!

Zi Bofeng had completely forgotten about the abacus.

"Brother, this is so much fun." Completely unaware of what he was looking at, Little Stone leaned against Zi Bofeng's leg and asked, "Brother, can you let me play with it?"

"Not right now. I'm calculating accounts. I'll let you play with it once I'm finished," Zi Bofeng said, feeling a pang of guilt.

"Brother, you eat first, let me play with this." Little Stone shoved the food box into Zi Bofeng's hands and snatched the abacus. As he shook it in his hands, the abacus grew dissatisfied; the beads on both sides clamped toward the center, instantly pinching Little Stone's fingers.

Little Stone cried out in pain and loosened his grip, causing the abacus to land on the floor and hop away toward the door.

Little Stone pounced like a tiger, pinning the abacus to the ground as they wrestled and tumbled together.

Only then did Zi Bofeng realize how hungry he was. He hurriedly opened the food box and, seeing the two dishes and one soup inside, felt his appetite instantly whetted.

Although the meal was so plain it lacked even a drop of oil, Zi Bofeng, hungry to the point of desperation, ate with great relish.

Over there, Little Stone and the abacus had already decided the victor. The abacus was now obediently held in Little Stone's arms, and he was playing a game of bead-chess with it, back and forth, having a wonderful time.

This must be... the world's first handheld gaming console, right? Zi Bofeng thought idly.

Unexpectedly, after Little Stone played for a while, the abacus grew increasingly listless, and before long, it stopped moving entirely.

"Brother!" Little Stone's face turned deathly pale with fright. "The abacus is dead!"

Zi Bofeng looked closely. Dead? Not at all. The abacus's spiritual energy had simply been exhausted. However, Zi Bofeng could see clearly that a portion of its sentience remained, having seeped into the beads and causing them to shimmer with a faint, eerie light.

"Huh, could this abacus actually have the potential to become a monster?" Zi Bofeng was startled.

"Don't be afraid, it's not dead, it's just tired." Zi Bofeng picked up his brush and rewrote the incantation, and just like that, it was a lively abacus once more.

He was no longer particularly worried about explaining things to Little Stone... the kid seemed to have nerves of steel.

The real problem was his father... what a headache!

He threatened Little Stone not to tell their father about the abacus, or else he wouldn't be allowed to play with it anymore, and Little Stone hurriedly agreed.

That afternoon, Little Stone stayed to help Zi Bofeng. With that magical abacus, Little Stone, who usually couldn't sit still as if he had an awl stuck in his backside, actually managed to sit perfectly still for once.

Record of Raising Monsters