Motherfucker, how did we become the goat? How did we become the chicken that made an example of us?
Tai shopkeeper and Lu shopkeeper two scared paralyzed on the ground, cowering in fear, the face can not see a bit of blood, the cold sweat on the forehead can not stop flowing down, a fat also can not stop trembling, shivering like chaff, like the same time electrocuted.
In the eyes of both Boss Tai and Boss Lu, the smile on the face of the officer next to him was like the smile on the face of the prisoner in the prison when he gave the last meal to kill his head, eerie and terrifying.
A fresh breeze blew by, just like the hissing of a severe ghost. The clear sky was as if it had blacked out all of a sudden, and the air around it seemed to have turned into a bloody mouth, swallowing the two alive.
Clear sky without rain, only two people crotch rain drenched!
God knows how Boss Tai and Boss Lu walked to the county office, even the two themselves can not recall.
Waiting for the county government office in front of the door, two people’s brain is blank, walking corpse like stepping through the threshold of the county government office, a stagger, almost did not fall head first on the ground.
“Boss Lu, Boss Tai, this way please. Wait inside for a few moments, the county dignitary will come after handling his official business.”
The errand boy made a please gesture and led the two of them to a squad room on the left side of the outer court of the county office.
“Ai ai, thank you, thank you ……”
Boss Tai and Boss Lu both shuddered and clasped their fists to thank them, their voices also shivering.
Boss Tai and Boss Lu looked up at the class room in front of them, and in their eyes, the class room seemed to have come to life all of a sudden, turning into a blackened, squatting, grimacing, ten-thousand-foot evil ghost, and the two doors were its open, bloody mouths, the kind that had an entrance but no exit!
“Please.”
The errand boy stood at the door and made a gesture of please, to watch the two men walk into the class room.
“Hey hey ……”
Boss Tai and Boss Lu pushed open the door of the class room with shivering hands under the eyes of the errand boy.
Dying, dying ……
Tai shopkeeper and Lu shopkeeper trembling, with the mindset of stepping into the torture chamber, raised his feet and walked in.
Outside the sun is bright, the house is slightly darker, the difference between the internal and external light is big, the moment the two people went in it was like they were blinded.
“Yo, isn’t this Boss Tai and Boss Lu, this time people are all together, come, come, sit over here.”
As soon as the two entered the door and hadn’t even adjusted to the light difference, they heard a familiar voice.
“Old Xing?!”
Boss Tai and Boss Lu instantly heard the owner of the voice and were surprised.
Old Xing was another grain merchant in the county, but it wasn’t in the same neighbourhood as them, and due to the distance, the three families didn’t have too much direct competition and had relatively good relations.
Old Xing was also there?
And what does the phrase Old Xing mean when people are all together? Meaning there are other people in this house?
In an instant, all sorts of thoughts and emotions flooded into the minds of both Boss Tai and Boss Lu, both of them hastily reached out and rubbed their eyes, adapting to the difference in light in the room, and then looked up to see a group of people sitting in the room, and the one in the forefront was none other than Old Xing, who had opened his mouth just now.
Behind the old Xing, there are more than thirty people sitting, two people are familiar, these more than thirty people are grain merchants in the county, some of them are from the county, there are also a few families are from the towns below.
The two hurriedly swept a glance, basically the entire Jingnan County grain merchants are gathered in this room, including the county’s largest three grain merchants in charge, are also present.
It turned out that all the grain merchants in the entire county had been invited! It’s impossible for the county’s honourable father to kill them all, right?
In that case, in that case, we are not the outgoing sheep and the chickens that have been killed to make an example of us?
The two of them, Boss Tai and Boss Lu, looked at each other, overjoyed with surprise, both having the feeling of having escaped from death.
“Heh heh heh, everyone is here ah, my old Tai/Old Lu came late, excuse me, excuse me.”
The two of them, Boss Tai and Boss Lu, clasped their fists to the crowd of grain merchants and finally laughed again.
“Hahahahaha, Shopkeeper Tai and Shopkeeper Lu, look at the bear-like appearance of the two of you just now, those who don’t know would think that you’re entering the torture chamber.”
Grain merchants have a shopkeeper surnamed Han, and they are also considered old acquaintances, laughing.
“Come on, old Han, you came in better than the two of them. Crow falls on pig, no one say who is black.”
As soon as Boss Han’s words fell, there were other grain merchants laughing playfully at him in the same tone.
Hahahahaha ……
A burst of laughter rang out in the room, and the atmosphere was instantly cheerful.
Apart from the seven or eight grain merchants in the west square of the county town that were right next to each other, these grain merchants of theirs, when they initially received the notification from the messenger that the county honourable gentleman had an invitation, all of them thought that they had been chosen to be the first goat and the warning chicken, and they were on tenterhooks. Waiting to see other grain merchants in the boarding house, they only breathed a sigh of relief and cleared away the gloom, the county governor can’t possibly drive all the grain merchants to extinction, right?
“You guys say, the county honourable father invited us here, what’s the reason?”
The affluent grain shop’s shopkeeper Liu is a cautious, he first stepped on the chair to observe the window, and then lie on the door to listen for a moment, to determine that no one is outside, said to the crowd.
“You’re not squatting in a thatched pit and asking about fragrance and odour – knowingly, this stall you say why else, it’s still not for the price of grain!”Boss Han countered with a blank stare and said without a good mood.
“The county governor invited us here, it must be for the purpose of lowering grain prices!”Several grain merchants present thoughtlessly replied.
“What do you guys think we’ll do if the County Honour comes later and asks us to lower the price of grain?”Shopkeeper Liu asked.
“How much? Now that grain prices are rising three times a day, it’s okay to lower the price of grain by three or five cents per stone on top of the outside price, but it won’t work if it’s lowered more than that! These days we are purchasing food more and more difficult, in the south of the Yangtze River is difficult to buy food, can only go to the west of Ba Shu or north of Shandong side to buy food, not to mention the long distance, the local food also see the wind up, this way people eat horse chewing plus freight is a large amount, there is also the road is not quiet, yesterday our steward came back robbed, a group of refugees look like bandits whistling, if not accompanied by the guardsIf it is not for the accompanying guards, the grain that has been transported by hard work can not be kept …… at such a high cost, and the price can not be increased! If the price is lowered, there is no profit, we still work hard to do what?”A shopkeeper present said.
“Not drop? Do you still want to die? The beheaded shopkeeper Mi and shopkeeper Wang in Taizhou Prefecture is a lesson from the past! There is also Taiping County, I heard that Zhang Ji Grain Store’s Zhang Boss has been arrested, saying that he will be beheaded tomorrow at noon! Linhai County is also, arrested three grain merchants under the prison …… our county magistrate this is the first courtesy before the military, if we agree to lower prices okay, if not, I’m afraid that will also learn the governor of the Lord’s thunderbolt means!”Next to a shopkeeper heard, shook his head and smiled bitterly.
“Hmph! If we go in and out together and bite the bullet, I don’t believe he’ll still be able to drive out all the people! Now that the court is obviously unable to rescue us, without us grain merchants transporting grain, the entire county’s common people will starve to death!”Boss Wang said with a cold smile, he is a silver-loving like life, unwilling to lower the price, even if the price of a stone of grain is lowered by three or five wen.
“Our flesh and blood, can we still fight against the government?”The shopkeeper who had spoken earlier laughed bitterly.
“Confrontation, why confrontation? If we don’t stay here, we’ll stay here! If I am forced to lower the price, then I won’t sell grain in Jingnan, there are many places in Jiangnan that are plagued by disasters, I’ll just sell elsewhere.”A long and thin shopkeeper with a handful of whiskers on his chin sneered.
He was one of the three largest grain merchants in the county, named Yang Zhen, the shopkeeper of Yang Ji Grain House, and the most influential grain merchant in Jingnan.
“Right, what Shopkeeper Yang said makes sense. The world is all about profit, and the world is all about profit! What do we work so hard to transport grain for, but not to make money. If he forces the price down, we won’t go against him, lest we get caught and have our heads chopped off. If we don’t stay here, we’ll stay here!”Upon hearing this, many grain merchants’ eyes lit up and followed suit.
