Zi Bofeng watched Si Gou disappear down the road, then looked up at the sun. It was scorching, its countless rays pouring down, yet they could not illuminate Zi Bofeng's heart. He stared at the sun and let its brightness bring tears to the corners of his eyes.
After a long while, Zi Bofeng finally lowered his head. Yan Lao Wu stood before him, wearing a tattered leather coat.
"Why didn't you collect it?"
"I couldn't just stand by and watch them starve." Zi Bofeng seemed to be answering Yan Lao Wu, yet also himself.
"What does it matter to you whether they starve or not? If you don't collect it, someone else will." Yan Lao Wu said.
The reasoning was simple enough, but that didn't mean everyone could understand it.
Zi Bofeng looked at the old man before him. Before Zi Bofeng had arrived, this old man had been the one collecting taxes.
"Besides, a farmer's life is cheap. The mountains may be barren, but they can still feed a person. Somehow, people always manage to survive." Yan Lao Wu seemed to be trying to comfort Zi Bofeng, yet also to absolve himself.
All along, Zi Bofeng had treated becoming the village chief as a very real and challenging game. He had always thought that with the Monster Raising Art and the memories of his previous life working together, nothing could easily stump him.
And being some corrupt official or other seemed like it could be fun, too. The idea of swaggering around with a few vicious lackeys, using the family's ancestral stone statue to throw his weight around and bully men and women alike, sounded pretty exciting.
But now he realized that many things weren't as simple as he had imagined. He was playing at life, but life wasn't 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 real, living people. They felt joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness; they had flesh and blood, skin and bones.
He had always thought collecting taxes was no big deal. In his previous life, taxes had been the heaviest in the world. All sorts of levies and surcharges had been collected without anyone noticing, yet he hadn't seen many people unable to survive. As a child, he had also seen farmers deliver their grain tax, carrying sack after sack onto tractors. There had always been even more left over, and everyone had cheerfully discussed how good the harvest had been that year and how much grain they had paid. He had figured that even if the amount tripled, it would only cause a little hardship.
He had never imagined that this world was so poor.
Or perhaps every world had its poor, and he simply hadn't known.
"If you don't collect from them, don't expect to collect from anyone else in the village either." Yan Lao Wu sounded as if he were warning Zi Bofeng, yet also making a prediction.
Zi Bofeng clenched his fists and looked up at Yan Lao Wu. "Old sir, please help me."
Yan Lao Wu closed his eyes, shook his head, and sighed. "Enough, enough... Let me, Yan Lao Wu, be the villain. Young Xiucai, you have a bright future. If you become a high official someday, don't forget Lower Yan Village..."
"No." Zi Bofeng unclenched his fists, stood up straight, and looked at Yan Lao Wu. Each word came out firm and clear. "I, Zi Bofeng, will not pay this tax. Lower Yan Village will not pay!"
"Don't be foolish. You don't want to be an official, and I don't want to be thrown in jail." Yan Lao Wu raised a hand and punched Zi Bofeng.
"No, old sir," Zi Bofeng said. "Don't you think this tax is suspicious? We paid every tax before this, didn't we?" Though Zi Bofeng had previously kept his nose in his books and ignored the world outside, he knew something about an important matter like paying taxes. Every year, it caused an uproar, with one problem after another.
"And tripling the tax is simply too outrageous!" Zi Bofeng said.
"Actually... that part isn't all that outrageous..." Yan Lao Wu stammered. The old man could barely recognize seventeen characters, but he understood plenty in his heart. He knew which years they had paid less and which years they had paid more—and there had basically been none of the latter. Add it all up, and they really did owe about three years' worth of taxes.
"There's a capable fellow involved. I heard Lao Si say that the most important person in the tax office isn't the tax official, but the bookkeeper. A skilled bookkeeper can organize the taxes and fees perfectly, without a single tangle. The tax officials change every year, but the bookkeeper decides the fate of the whole place. The old bookkeeper used to be sharp, but his eyesight's failing and he's become less and less useful. His apprentices don't understand much either, so the accounts are a mess."
If not for that, the old man wouldn't have dared to evade taxes so casually.
"You mean there's someone capable?" Zi Bofeng's eyes suddenly lit up.
A thought had suddenly occurred to him.
"Old sir, I have an idea, but I don't know yet if it'll work... Well, I need to sort out the village accounts first and see what can be done."
Hearing Zi Bofeng say that, the old man immediately grew doubtful. "You think... that'll work?"
If someone could straighten out the accounts, then naturally someone could also make sure they stayed muddled. The old man could follow that line of reasoning, but as for how to do it, he was completely clueless.
"It should work." Zi Bofeng silently recalled what he had learned. Though he had spent most of his classes asleep, he had genuinely earned his way into university. He wouldn't claim that his math skills were the best around, but surely a small town couldn't have any real experts. Of course, bookkeeping wasn't just about arithmetic. He had learned a little accounting in an elective on personal finance.
Even so, when Zi Bofeng returned to the room, he couldn't help feeling overwhelmed. With accounts piled up all over the place, when would he ever finish calculating them?
But when he thought of his plan, he forced himself to calm down.
If you can't sweep a single room, how can you sweep the world?
If he backed down over this little difficulty, what would he do later?
He opened the documents one by one, spread them across the table, and began copying them out. At first, Yan Lao Wu helped, but before long he was yawning nonstop and made several mistakes, doing more harm than good. Zi Bofeng sent him home to rest, leaving himself alone.
Zi Bofeng held a brush in one hand and worked the abacus with the other as he went through the documents. He had traveled around with his father since childhood and learned to make every coin count, so he had once been quite good with an abacus. Later, his devotion to books had let the skill grow rusty. He made a few mistakes, but gradually got back into the swing of it.
Yan Lao Wu listened from outside for a while. From inside came the clattering of the abacus, like a bubbling stream, water tinkling over stones, an unbroken flow that never ceased.
After a while, Zi Bofeng's left hand began to ache terribly. He rolled his wrist and looked at the mountain of documents and accounts still waiting to be processed. His spirits sank.
Suddenly, he slapped his forehead. "I'm an idiot!"
He loosened his wrist, picked up the brush, dipped it in water, and began writing on the abacus.
"One added to one makes two; one advanced makes ten..." He wrote the abacus multiplication and division formulas across the frame. The beads began to tremble and clatter on their own, as if they had come alive. They nearly escaped his grasp.
Once Zi Bofeng had written down all the formulas, the abacus sprang from his hands and bounced across the table. He had to use every ounce of strength to pin it down.
"One hundred seventy-two times twenty-one." Zi Bofeng recited a few numbers. The abacus beads clattered into motion by themselves, and the answer appeared in an instant.
Zi Bofeng checked it mentally. It was right. He tried a few more addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems, and every answer was flawless.
"Excellent!" Zi Bofeng was thoroughly impressed with himself. "From now on, I'll conquer the world with nothing but an abacus."
After enjoying his moment of triumph, he got right back to calculating without even having a sip of water.
After a long while, the study door creaked open. Little Stone came in carrying a food box. "Brother, Mother sent me to bring you dinner."
"Mm." Zi Bofeng didn't even raise his head. He continued calculating and sorting the accounts.
"Brother, what are you doing..." Little Stone leaned over the table. His attention was immediately caught by the abacus clattering away on its own. He stared at it blankly for a long time, then cried out and fell flat on his backside.
Zi Bofeng turned around and saw Little Stone's eyes spinning wildly, nearly crossing.
Oh no!
Zi Bofeng had completely forgotten about the abacus.
"Brother, this is so fun." Little Stone had no idea what he was looking at. He leaned against Zi Bofeng's leg and asked, "Brother, can I play with it?"
"Not right now. I'm doing the accounts. You can play once I'm done." Zi Bofeng answered guiltily.
"Brother, eat first. Let me play with this." Little Stone shoved the food box into Zi Bofeng's hands, then snatched the abacus and shook it. The abacus immediately took offense. Its beads on both sides snapped toward the middle and pinched Little Stone's fingers.
Little Stone yelped in pain and let go. The abacus fell to the floor and bounced toward the door.
Little Stone pounced on it, pinning it to the floor. The two of them grappled, one pouncing while the other fought back.
Only then did Zi Bofeng realize how hungry he was. He hurriedly opened the food box. Inside were two dishes and a bowl of soup, and his mouth began to water.
The food was so plain it didn't have a drop of oil in it, but Zi Bofeng was hungry enough to find it delicious.
Little Stone and the abacus had already decided the victor. The abacus sat obediently in Little Stone's arms as the two played bead chess, taking turns and having a wonderful time.
So this is the world's earliest handheld game console, Zi Bofeng thought idly.
Unexpectedly, after Little Stone played for a while, the abacus grew weaker and weaker. Before long, it stopped moving entirely.
"Brother!" Little Stone cried, his face deathly pale. "The abacus is dead!"
Zi Bofeng took a closer look. It wasn't dead. The abacus had simply exhausted its spiritual energy. But he could clearly see that some of its sentience remained, seeping into the beads and glimmering with a faint light.
"Hmm, could this abacus really be qualified 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 formulas. The abacus was as good as new.
He wasn't too worried about explaining things to Little Stone anymore... The kid seemed to have pretty thick nerves...
The real headache was going to be his father...
He warned Little Stone not to tell their father about the abacus or he wouldn't let him play with it anymore. Little Stone hurriedly agreed.
That afternoon, Little Stone stayed behind to help Zi Bofeng. With the miraculous abacus to keep him occupied, Little Stone, who seemed to have a spike up his backside, actually managed to sit still for once.
Record of Raising Monsters
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