"Wait!"
Steward Xue stopped at the sound, his hand suspended in midair. Young Master Jing was extraordinarily gifted and Grandfather Zhou's favorite. Even a bump or scrape would leave the old master fretting for half a day. How could Steward Xue dare neglect him?
You stood with your hands behind your back and deliberately adopted the drawn-out tone your father used when lecturing others. "Steward Xue, prepare some food for these people. Put it on the fifth branch's account."
When the steward hesitated, you added, "Father often teaches me that meat and wine rot behind vermilion gates while people freeze to death on the roads. We're celebrating Grandfather's two hundred and twentieth birthday. Wouldn't a death outside our gates be an ill omen?"
Steward Xue stiffened and hastily replied, "Young Master, you've thought of everything. This old servant will see to it at once."
You nodded and led your younger cousin through the vermilion-painted gates. As you rounded the screen wall, you caught sight of the steward calling for servants to bring out a barrel of porridge. At last, a glimmer of light appeared in the refugees' clouded eyes.
For five or six days straight,
the number of refugees gathering outside the gates grew. Their faces were gaunt, their bodies skin and bone.
Only yesterday, a woman holding an infant had nearly breathed her last beside the stone lion. The baby's bluish-purple face was scarcely bigger than that of your newborn younger cousin.
Fortunately, you had servants bring them food and barely managed to save them.
At last, you could hold back no longer. During your morning visit, you stopped your grandfather, Zhou Tai. "Grandfather, Clear River suffers disasters every year. Why is this year so much worse?"
Your grandfather told you that Central Yu Continent suffered disasters every year,