Gu Fang still found it hard to believe. "But... before we came, we overheard the waiter at the tavern talking about this, and he made it sound like Chenliu was completely under the prefect's thumb. If the prefect is really that good, why would the waiter describe it that way?"
Auntie Huang pursed her lips dismissively. "That waiter only pays a poll tax in the city; he doesn't have to deal with any other levies. Naturally, he can't appreciate the prefect's benefits."
"Even so," Gu Fang furrowed his brow, "how can you be so sure that this prefect is worth protecting? What if the next one is even more upright?"
"Oh, you can't say that for sure," Auntie Huang waved her hand. "What if the next one is worse? We common folk can't afford to gamble our future on a 'what if'?"
Lin Yi listened quietly, a vague sadness creeping into her heart. She recalled a story she had read: medieval peasants in the West were also burdened with heavy taxes. Back then, taxes were collected only in coin, but farmers only had grain and no money. What did they do? They had to go to the local steward to exchange grain for coin to pay the tax. The exchange rate was entirely at the steward's discretion. Greedy ones would deliberately undervalue the grain, forcing farmers to hand over more grain to meet the tax. One year, a steward came to a certain place who kept the grain-to-coin rate stable for years, relatively fair. The peasants regarded him as a rare good master and feared he might be transferred away. Later, the steward merely glanced at a peasant woman, and the whole village forced that woman to become his mistress, even though the steward himself had no such intention. They were afraid of losing their good master, so they turned their knives on their own kin, pushing another poor soul into the abyss.
Just like Auntie Huang said: as long as Prefect Cao Liu didn't leave, even if his son was more outrageous, they were willing to endure it. Because the ruin of their homes hadn't yet fallen on them; the knife hadn't pierced their own flesh, so they didn't feel the pain.
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