The Transmigrated Farm Girl Has a Cheat Code

Chapter 149 To Help or Not to Help

“Your Highness, this man is embezzling tax silver, and I must also be present to hear the case,” said Wen Jingye, the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.

The crown prince gave him a cold glance and remained silent.

Wen Jingye's reasoning was correct; he was from the Ministry of Revenue, so there was no problem with him participating in the interrogation. What disgusted him was simply that he was one of the Fifth Prince's men.

Zheng Yuan looked left and right, sensing the tense atmosphere, and said, "If this is true, Yue Heqiu truly deserves to die, for he so disregards the lives of the people. If it is true, Your Highness must severely punish this man and uphold justice for the people!"

The Crown Prince smiled and said, "If it's true, I certainly won't let him off easily."

…………

Lin Yan followed the five people all the way, but no one came looking for them. Perhaps the person behind the scenes thought these people were already dead and didn't bother to look for them.

She returned to the inn where everyone was staying, feeling heavy-hearted and not in a good mood.

The appearance of these people in the open means that the gold mine will be exposed, but it is hard to say whether this will be a reasonable development or a new round of control. After all, she is not sure if the Crown Prince is the mastermind behind it all.

But she has done enough for herself.

Yu Wenxuan and Fu Bo and the others discussed not opening soup kitchens, but instead distributing the remaining food directly. After all, the imperial court had arrived, the epidemic was resolved, and they didn't need to worry about the rest.

If you're still standing at the front and showing off, how are others supposed to do the same? Aren't you just incurring His Highness's wrath?

Lin Yan agreed. She had wanted to go home for a long time. It had been more than half a month, and Lin Yu had already finished his county exam.

The group acted immediately, setting up a shed the next day and starting to distribute grain to the people.

The people would either bring bowls or basins, or simply a cloth bag, and the person distributing the grain would scoop out two ladles, giving each person five catties of grain, enough to eat for a week if they were careful.

When the people in the county government heard this, some of them were dissatisfied. They said, "If you stop distributing porridge, what will they eat?"

Even though His Highness the Crown Prince brought his own food and didn't eat with them, he still didn't have any food!

The group gathered together to discuss the matter and decided to either cause trouble, disrupt the distribution of grain, or take more grain back.

The yamen runners below were also anxious. The county government was no longer providing meals, so they all had to go home, but they had no food at home either. They heard that food was being distributed at the inn, so the yamen runners all went to line up.

……

Looking at the line in front of him, Fu Bo frowned. "There are more people than we expected! Will it be enough?"

Lin Yan smiled and said, "It's alright, it's enough!" She had plenty of food in her storage space. The grain in these county government warehouses originally belonged to the people, and it was only right to distribute it to them.

Unfortunately, the gold is too distinctive, and to avoid attracting attention, it cannot be distributed to everyone now.

Should she go back and refinish it, then find an excuse to send benefits to Wutai County?

Midway through the grain delivery, a dark-faced man arrived. The person distributing the grain scooped out five jin of grain for him as usual, but he lifted it and said, "This is not enough! I have a big appetite."

The person distributing the grain was taken aback. The people were already grateful to receive the grain, and you're still making demands?

He complained, "Hey! If you don't have enough, eat less. Everyone has to share, and it's all the same amount. Why should you get more just because you have a bigger appetite?"

The dark-faced man glared at him fiercely, but the servant distributing the grain wasn't afraid of him. "Don't get in the way! There are other people in line behind you! Get lost!"

The man took the grain and left. Fu Bo heard a commotion below, so he came out of his inn room, opened the window, looked down, and saw the man leave the shed. He frowned.

The man waited at the intersection for a while, and then several other men gathered around.

"We can't take it. There are almost a hundred of them in total. We can't possibly win against them."

"I asked them for more, but they wouldn't give it to me."

"What should we do? The master told us to take more grain back, but five catties each is definitely not enough!"

"Make them all come out and line up! Why are we the only ones coming out!"

"Are you kidding me? You want the adults to come out and line up, to fight with the common people for food?!"

"What should I do? I don't want to give him mine. I need to eat too, and I have a wife and kids! Yes, I have to make them line up too!"

The dark-faced man looked serious, glanced at the people leaving with their cloth bags, and his eyes flashed with a sinister light.

They told someone to follow.

…………

Seeing the dark-faced man leave with the family, Fu Bo felt uneasy and quickly went to call for help, leading a group of people to follow them.

As it turned out, his guess was correct; the dark-faced man was indeed stealing their food.

Fu Bo had a lot of people with him, so they drove him away.

However, he couldn't watch everyone leave, and this still happened. Moreover, it wasn't just the people in the county government who did this, but also some people from Wutai County.

Those who came to collect the grain were worried when they heard that someone was robbing it, and the next day the procession became uneasy.

"Let's go together after we collect our food!"

“That’s right, my neighbor Old Wang’s family had their grain stolen yesterday.”

"The house next door got robbed!"

"What? Someone stole it! What should we do? We'd better hide it well when we get home."

"........."

Fu Bo frowned. "I stopped one yesterday, but more happened. There's no way to stop this kind of thing. Should we not be distributing food like this?"

Yu Wenxuan remained calm, unfazed, and said, "This is normal; human greed is ingrained in our bones."

Besides the fact that the people were cautious and traveled in groups to avoid being robbed, those whose grain had been stolen came back to ask for more grain.

"Ours has been stolen, please give us some more!"

"These are all pre-arranged; once they're given to you, no one else will get them!"

"What are we going to do? Are you just going to watch me starve to death?!"

"It's all your fault for distributing the food like this. If it were porridge, we would have drunk it all!"

"Hey, you! You're blaming us for this!"

An old woman and the person distributing the grain started arguing.

Yu Wenxuan said, "If we give it to her, other people will come back for it too, and we won't have enough to go around."

Wu Xing nodded: "That's right. If we give it to her, then we'll have to give it to the other people who were robbed or stolen from, and then it won't be enough."

Ding Wei, who had a bad temper, retorted angrily, "What does that have to do with us! We'll leave after we've given out the money, why do they keep coming to us with everything? Helping them has backfired!"

"No need to give them any more. The imperial court will continue to distribute porridge, so we don't need to worry about it. They won't die that easily," Lin Yan said calmly.

"Aren't you angry at all?" Fu Bo asked.

"It's not that pitiful people are good people. In the face of a major disaster like a natural disaster, their tragic fate has nothing to do with their character. We help them to be true to ourselves, not to them. There's nothing to be angry about."

Yu Wenxuan stared at her intently for a moment, then smiled. "I thought you would help them."

Looking at the scene below, Lin Yan said, "There are many pitiful people in this world, and we can't help everyone. We should just do what we can."

Yu Wenxuan nodded in agreement. Although he had done many good deeds with his father, it was precisely because of this that he realized the common people were not so kind.

"Now that the grain has been distributed, it's time for us to go home."