Chapter 443: Chapter 207: Reforming Corvée Labor, Changes in the First Year [Happy New Year!!!]

On the southern side of the Great Xia Valley, there is a giant three-story wooden building.

The wooden building has sides of more than a hundred meters, built against the stone cliff on the southern side of the valley.

“Your father and everyone who came from Wuyuan have been housed in this wooden building. The entrance to the mine is just south of the wooden building. You should be staying here for a long time now.”

A young man in a black Beast Skin cloak, with plain looks, led Xiang Liang to the door of the wooden building and smiled as he explained to him.

“Thank you for showing me the way, sir. I am deeply grateful!”

“No need to be polite. I happened to have business to attend to here, so it was on the way.”

Upon hearing his thanks, the young man slightly waved his hand with a smile to indicate no need for courtesy, then led the way inside the wooden building.

Xiang Liang looked at the young man, feeling grateful in his heart.

As soon as he left the wooden building, he found that his father and others were all missing. He started searching all over the valley, but the houses in the Great Xia Valley were simply too many, there were at least thousands inside and out, and he couldn’t find them.

He mustered the courage to ask others, but everyone in the valley was celebrating the Cold Element Festival, eating, drinking, and making merry. Few were willing to pay attention to him; at best, they would just point out the way, and he searched for half a day without finding the right place.

At that moment, this young man appeared. Upon learning that he was searching for people from Wuyuan, he not only pointed out the way but also kindly brought him over.

The young man in front of him appeared to be in his early twenties at most. He was wearing only a Beast Skin cloak and carried no weapons, indicating that his status in Great Xia might not be very high.

From the moment he entered the Great Xia Valley, Xiang Liang had been experiencing wave after wave of shock. Just now, he went to the grand hall on the third floor and saw so many prominent figures. Suddenly encountering someone with a relatively lower status, who was also so kind and less imposing toward him, naturally made him feel much closer.

“Brother, how long have you been in Great Xia? Were you captured and brought here like us?”

Xiang Liang observed that most Great Xia people wore clothes made of Beast Fur and cotton, not only warm and lightweight but also aesthetically pleasing, clearly superior to the Beast Skin cloak, leading him to surmise that this person might have joined Great Xia later.

The young man smiled and said: “Indeed, I joined later. I also served a year of labor servitude before becoming a formal member of Great Xia. Most of the people you came with from Wuyuan should be similar to me, right?”

Upon hearing the young man say he also did a year of servitude, Xiang Liang immediately felt a sense of shared plight and said with a slightly somber tone: “Our Hefeng Camp, except for my father Xiang Ping, the other 28 Earth-digging Realm have all been sentenced to a year and a half of servitude. Their 122 family members have also been sentenced to six months of servitude. Since the family members mostly do not have Earth-digging Realm cultivation, the servitude must be added to the 28 Earth-digging Realm. This means they essentially must serve about four years of servitude.”

122 family members averaged over 28 people, each has to bear four to five extra terms of six-month servitude, plus their own year and a half, it indeed amounts to roughly four years.

The young man nodded, looking at Xiang Liang with keen interest, and asked: “Your father wasn’t sentenced to servitude, why is that?”

Xiang Liang revealed a hint of relief in his expression and replied: “It’s thanks to a treasure we have at Hefeng Camp. I offered it to the leader, the Minister, which spared my parents and younger sister and brother from servitude.”

“A treasure?”

The young man slightly turned his head to glance in the direction of the main building, then immediately looked back with a smile and watched Xiang Liang for a while before saying: “You’re worried about the other twenty-eight Earth-digging Realm at Hefeng Camp, right?”

This brother’s insight is exceptionally sharp.

Xiang Liang marveled inwardly, then bitterly said: “The people from our camp in the Earth-digging Realm are mostly quite old now, the oldest is nearly forty, and the youngest is about thirty. Four years of servitude are indeed too long for them.”

The average lifespan in the Ice Abyss World is only about forty years, and Earth-digging Realm hasn’t surpassed this range. For the people at Hefeng Camp at their age, four years of servitude is indeed too long.

“I have already inquired; the coal and iron collected during the servitude have no fixed standard quantity, meaning four years is the standard four years. The key is, that these four years of servitude can only be served by the direct relatives of the convicts, not others, so…”

Seeing the young man pondering with lowered brows, Xiang Liang feared he had displeased him, and dared not speak further.

The young man looked up with a smile and said: “It’s fine, I had many opinions during my servitude too, go ahead and speak your mind.”

Only then did Xiang Liang relax and continued: “It is too inhumane!”

Four years of time amount to about a tenth of a human Ice Abyss lifetime.

It is indeed somewhat inhumane!

“If the servitude could be standardized, like setting targets for how much coal and iron must be mined each year to meet standards, and lifting the restrictions on others serving the labor, it would greatly reduce the burden on these people. The final output of the servitude would remain unchanged, and things would be much better.”

Xiang Liang sighed lightly after finishing, knowing that while this suggestion is undoubtedly good, he is uncertain whether Great Xia imposes servitude on these people for resources or as punishment.

Most crucially, he has little influence, and even if he voiced out, no one would listen.

Or to put it more plainly, he doesn’t even have the opportunity to say it.

Xiang Liang failed to notice that after hearing his last remarks, the young man’s eyes lit up while looking at him.