Catching the tail end of the fifth month, the Shimen caravan crossed into the territory of the Beijia Kingdom.
The sky was clear and crisp, and boundless fields stretched out beside them. Lush green crops grew in abundance as farmers bent low, busily weeding.
He Lingchuan was studying the crops.
It wasn't rice, nor wheat, nor even tea. "What's planted in these fields?"
One couldn't accuse him of not knowing his crops. When he had scouted the counties around Dunyu for his father, he had tramped all across the fields and furrows, learning plenty just by looking.
Yet he truly had never seen this plant before. It spanned at least several tens of qing, an extraordinarily magnificent sight. They had traveled for more than two hours without spotting a single other variety of crop.
Second Master Shi was right beside him. "Tobacco."
"Hm? This is tobacco?" The answer surprised He Lingchuan. "The land is so level, I figured they would be growing grain."
"This red soil isn't great for grain. But truth be told, good soil or bad, this whole stretch along the border is planted with tobacco," Shi Congshan said with a laugh. "Tobacco is grown in nearly every demon king's fief. This stuff fetches far more than grain."
"Do they still grow grain, then?"
"Of course they do. The demon kingdom's territory is vast, with countless fertile fields. Are you worried they won't grow enough food to eat?" Shi Congshan laughed. "No need to fret on their behalf."
Looking at the tobacco fields around them, He Lingchuan was suddenly reminded of the chewing tobacco He Chunhua had distributed to his men before entering Xiazhou.
Exquisite, flavorful, mandatory import.
"The Fu Kingdom has to buy this stuff too, right?" He remembered the faint sense of helplessness on He Chunhua's face. The Yuan Kingdom had signed a treaty with the Beijia Kingdom; refusing to buy simply wasn't an option.
"Naturally," Shi Congshan said. "Though people in the Fu Kingdom love chewing tobacco anyway. There's no need for government quotas—the merchant guilds fight tooth and nail for this trade." He gestured toward the caravan behind them. "We deal in it too."
One of the Shimen Merchant Guild's key ventures was supplying "cage beads"—the round spheres used to stopper the bamboo canisters—for the green jade bamboo of the southern Jeweled Tree territory.
Under his explanation, He Lingchuan learned that while all of it was chewing tobacco, the quality and packaging varied across each demon king's fiefdom. Chewing tobacco from the southern reaches of the Jeweled Tree Kingdom used cloud incense wood for its seals. Not only did it prevent the aroma from escaping, but cloud incense wood also kept out moisture and carried a unique fragrance of its own. Cured inside the bamboo canister over time, it imparted a fresh layer of flavor to the tobacco.
Over time, this had become a signature feature.
Yet cloud incense wood was scarce in the Beijia Kingdom and common in the Fu Kingdom. As a result, the Fu Kingdom had developed specialized timber plantations to supply the southern Jeweled Tree territory with processed cloud incense wood beads—the "cage beads"—as accessories.
They would have loved to name them "dragon beads," but had to observe the imperial naming taboo.
The Shi brothers had labored for years before spending a fortune to secure two timber farms, carefully tending, felling, and processing the wood to deliver three shipments a year to southern Jeweled Tree.
One must not look down on these inconspicuous wooden beads; they had supported countless merchant guilds across the Fu Kingdom.
And this was merely one small industry under a single demon king of the Beijia Kingdom—not even a cornerstone one.
Along the way, the Shimen Merchant Guild skirted the periphery of the Demon Nest Swamp to cross the border, entering the domain of one of the thirteen demon kings, the Jeweled Tree King—the Jeweled Tree Kingdom. Under the guild's wing, He Lingchuan cleared the checkpoint smoothly, without encountering the slightest obstacle.
In fact, the checkpoint was remarkably lax. The customs inspectors sitting there were a few ape demons shorter than a man, the fur around their muzzles greying and white. They yawned constantly when idle, clearly advanced in years. Once they collected the transit tax, they barely glanced at the people or the goods before stamping the documents and waving them through.
After crossing, He Lingchuan asked Shi Congshan, "Are they this perfunctory even at the border?"
The Yuan Kingdom's border inspections were exceptionally strict. In particular, unless one brought out "Brother Kongfang" to grease their palms, there was no telling how much grief one would suffer.
"Clearing customs is all about efficiency." Shi Congshan gestured behind them. "Look how many convoys there are. Who can afford to drag their feet? Besides, the Beijia Kingdom charges very little transit tax. What reason would they have to hold people up?"
Back on Red Cliff Road, He Chunhua had been the one collecting road tolls, albeit in an official government capacity. Thus, He Lingchuan knew all too well that tolls on Red Cliff Road and in Blackwater City were steep enough to make incoming and outgoing merchants scream in agony—Liu Baobao's family, for instance, had always looked for ways to evade them. Yet upon asking now, he learned that the Jeweled Tree Kingdom charged only a fifth of that!
Second Master Shi laughed again. "Even though the toll is low, some checkpoints used to invent all kinds of pretexts to levy fees, gouging even harder than the actual tax. After the current Grand Tutor took office, he cracked down fiercely, throwing tens of thousands into prison. Things are far cleaner now."
No wonder this trade route was bustling with life, even livelier than the main thoroughfare outside Shihuan City.
Moreover, He Lingchuan noticed that the official road beyond the pass was the smoothest and widest he had ever seen, wide enough to accommodate seven carriages abreast.
Granted, this plain was flat and unobstructed, allowing roads to be built however one pleased, but ordinary kingdoms still wouldn't go to such great lengths.
After another four hours, the outline of a town appeared ahead. The roadside was no longer filled with tobacco fields, replaced at last by ordinary crops.
"Huh, demons?"
He Lingchuan noticed at a glance that the plow oxen in the fields were unusual. Not only did they have two tails, but their builds were also exceedingly massive—two sizes larger than ordinary water buffalo, easily weighing five or six thousand jin. They looked like moving cottages.
Standing beside them, humans looked tiny.
He Lingchuan had hunted these creatures on the Chipa Plateau; when they went berserk, they could tear down an entire village. In the two months following Emperor's Flowing Dew, the patrol guards had frequently run into these savage bull demons.
Yet here, these bull demons were actually harnessed to plows, obediently tilling the soil.
Naturally, their specially fitted plows were massive, each sporting four plowshares. The bull moved in front while two or three men guided from behind, and upon reaching the end, it would turn around automatically. The efficiency of turning the soil was remarkably high.
Judging by their deft movements and smooth teamwork, these bull demons had likely been doing farm work for quite a while.
Seeing him stare transfixed, Shi Congshan chuckled. "Everyone who comes to the demon kingdom for the first time wears that exact expression."
He Lingchuan withdrew his gaze. "I suppose I'm just poorly informed."
His medicine ape could refine pills, the octopus in Panlong City's Tizhen Office could inspect human meridians, and the ape demons at the checkpoint earlier could clear customs. So there was nothing strange at all about demons doing human work.
With no more than two hours until sunset, the caravan decided to enter the town to rest for the night and resume their journey the next morning.
Everything felt novel to He Lingchuan, and he looked around with keen interest. In terms of size, however, the town differed little from those in the Yuan Kingdom. It was still predominantly populated by humans, with over thirteen hundred registered local residents, including more than seventy demon residents.
In addition, there were over four hundred traveling merchants from elsewhere.
Situated not far from the border pass, the town had clearly grown accustomed to travelers coming and going; eateries, blacksmith shops, post stations, and inns were all in ample supply.
There even seemed to be a market today.
They knew this route inside and out. Once Second Master Shi finished arranging the miscellaneous chores, he went to invite He Lingchuan out for a drink.
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the clanging of a gong echoed from the center of town, accompanied by someone shouting, "The street intersection execution is about to begin!"
Second Master Shi gave a surprised murmur. "What a coincidence—to happen upon the execution of condemned criminals today? I've traveled this road over thirty times, and counting today, I've only seen it twice."
He Lingchuan shook his head. "How is that something to look forward to?"
Just as he spoke, a little girl of six or seven ran past him, her face flushed red, pretty and adorable.
Giggling, she dragged her mother forward. "Hurry, hurry! We have to grab front-row spots this time!"
"Slow down..." The mother stumbled.
Her daughter complained, "Last time, A-Dong got all the way to the front, and afterward he bragged that blood splashed right onto his face!"
He Lingchuan looked at the gathering townsfolk. Every single one was laughing and chatting cheerfully, some catching up on neighborhood gossip on the spot.
It was as lively as a festival.
Looking ahead at the execution platform, he saw it differed from those elsewhere.
In other places, criminals were executed on elevated wooden platforms, brought up to be hanged or beheaded.
At the town intersection, however, lay a massive earthen pit sunk roughly five feet below ground level. It was hard to tell whether it had originally been a fishpond, but its floor was coated in dark stains.
One glance told him they were dried bloodstains.
A crowd had already gathered around the pit's edge. No wonder the little girl had said they wouldn't see clearly without securing the front row—this execution was viewed looking downward.
Just then, bailiffs escorted out two prisoners bound hand and foot in shackles. The presiding supervisor proclaimed their grave crimes, announcing that by divine grace, they were sentenced to "shixing"—execution by devouring.
He Lingchuan misheard the word as shixing for stoning, assuming they were to be battered to death with rocks. After all, the execution pit was sunken, which made hurling heavy objects convenient, and stoning was an ancient form of punishment.
Upon hearing the verdict, the two prisoners trembled like chaff in a sieve, their faces deathly pale.
The crotch of one prisoner immediately went wet, and the onlookers pointed and jeered, "He pissed himself! He pissed himself!"
Just then, someone shouted from outside, "The executioners are here! Clear the way, everyone!"
The crowd parted in unison to form a path, not daring to delay for even an instant.
Two soul-shaking roars rang out, and two colossal shadows strode through the crowd, walking in as if no one else existed.
They were two colossal tiger-like creatures. While their general form resembled that of tigers, their forearms were longer and thicker, while their hind legs were somewhat shorter. Standing over four feet at the shoulder, their frames were far bulkier than ordinary tigers, with stripes running only along their backs.
Just the paws resting on the ground were three times the size of an adult man's palm.
He Lingchuan had never seen such demon beasts in the Yuan Kingdom, but he seemed to recall an illustration from some travelogue: this beast was called a "pseudotiger," known for hunting massive prey like rhinos and elephants.
Yet they did not seem averse to human flesh either; one look at the way their eyes locked onto the prisoners showed what it truly meant to glare with predatory intent.
He Lingchuan finally understood that this "shixing" was the shi of devouring, not stoning.
One pseudotiger licked its lips, and one of the prisoners immediately collapsed limp to the ground.
A bailiff tugged him, only to find he had fainted dead away.
Though the other prisoner was also shaking all over, he seized the moment when the bailiff looked down, gritted his teeth, hardened his heart, and with a resounding thud, smashed his head against a pillar.
The sound was loud and sharp.
He Lingchuan heard a distinct crack and could tell from experience that the man's skull had shattered. Sure enough, the man collapsed the instant he struck, and fresh blood swiftly stained the ground red.
The bailiff hurriedly bent down to feel his pulse, and only after quite some time did he report to the presiding supervisor, "He's dead."
The surrounding townsfolk erupted in boos and jeers.
With one living victim down, the spectacle of the show was bound to be greatly diminished.
Chapter 364