The carriage went on and on for several days.

Xia Yuqian sat between her parents with the red fox in her arms, and the car was filled with ordinary people like them who left Tianhuang City to go home. Yamasuke had already gone to the Jingcheng Martial Arts Academy to report, and when Xia Yuqian left, she only had time to say goodbye to Han Shaokun, and Thorn Flower didn't know where she went, so she had to leave a farewell letter. She didn't see Shenyu Xuan again, she hadn't seen him since she woke up, Xia Yuqian remembered the brand behind her again, guessing that Shenyu Xuan might have been angry with her because of this incident, and she regretted it a little, blaming herself for not hiding it from him......

She closed her eyes in a daze, the carriage suddenly stopped, her parents woke her up, and Xia Yuqian realized that she had unconsciously arrived at the entrance of Hongshan Village. Looking at the red maple leaves all over the mountain, she suddenly felt a strong sense of intimacy, this is her real home, although after a thousand years, although her biological parents have actually turned into dust, and the outside world has been vicissitudes, but Hongshan Village is still here, as if she has been waiting for her to come home.

Xia Yuqian's gray mood was swept away in an instant, and she looked at her current parents, maybe everything was due to fate, and the daughter they had lost returned to them in another way. With a satisfied smile on her face again, she followed her parents to the village......

As he was walking, he saw that the villagers not far away were gathered in an open space next to a rice field, and there was a luxurious carriage and several officers on white horses parked in the open space, waving the red "Yu" flag, and at a glance they knew that they were officers and soldiers sent by the royal family.

Xia's father and Xia's mother glanced at each other, as if they had a premonition, and hurriedly stepped forward with Xia Yuqian's hand, and the red fox also woke up at this time, it jumped out of Xia Yuqian's arms and went down to the ground by itself.

In the center of the gathering of the villagers stood an officer with a shiny face and a slightly fat figure, with four golden slashes under the collar, and the gold bars under the shoulders of the officers of the royal family represented rank, so Xia Yuqian knew that he was a fourth-class officer. Behind him, the few officers behind him who were busy memorizing something with a ledger in their hands only had a golden bar under their shoulders, which should only be the lowest first-class officer.

"My lord, this year's tax in our village has already been paid at the beginning of next year, why do we have to increase it now?" The village chief stood up tremblingly on crutches and asked, he was a kind old grandfather, Xia Yuqian and Han Lingxiao often ran to the eaves of his house to feed grass to his little goats when they were young, and he would also generously take out snacks to entertain them.

"What so much nonsense!" the fourth-class officer threw him the account book that had been written, and said, "According to what is written, there are three hundred and twenty people in your village, and the tax is paid according to the capitation, and everyone over the age of ten and under seventy pays an additional five hundred silver coins per year, and in addition to paying three stones of millet, two stones of millet and four stones of straw, and two stones of grass and two stones per hectare of cultivated land...... Before the officer finished reading, the crowd began to stir up uneasily, and the villagers complained that the taxes were too harsh and that they could not afford it.

"This is simply a lion's big mouth! Forcing people to death!" Xia Yuqian's father also clenched his fists and complained.

"Okay, okay! Don't listen to the pull! Go back and study it carefully with what is written in the account book! In a few days, when you finish harvesting, I will bring someone to collect it! When the time comes, you dare to give me a tael!" he said, raising the long whip in his hand and smacking it fiercely on the ground, and after a sharp loud noise, the surroundings instantly fell silent, and the whole village did not dare to make a sound anymore, only faintly heard the sound of women sobbing in the depths of the crowd.

The officer threw himself from the dust and rode away in the carriage, leaving a village of people stunned.

"It seems that this Hongshan Village can't keep us...... If we can't, the officers and soldiers will confiscate our land......" one villager lamented.

"Alas, but where can we go? Wherever we go, we can be caught by officers and soldiers, and there is nowhere to escape!"

"Why don't we write a joint letter to the king to explain the situation? The first two years have been in short supply, and this year we finally have a little harvest, what will we eat with this increase in taxes!"

After hearing this, the village chief waved his hand and said, "The king will not care about the life or death of the people, if they can't pay the taxes, everyone will be whipped!"

Xia Yuqian listened to the villagers sighing and discussing, and her heart was also very uncomfortable, their family of four in Hongshan Village is also a solid household, and the annual income is only three thousand silver coins at most, although when she left from the Red Fang, Mo Xian gave her far more than the two thousand silver coins paid for her labor, but now she has to pay the tuition fees for the mountain assistant, and deal with the taxes increased by the royal family, she really can't think of a way.

In the past, every time she was hungry, she would be cheeky to beg Young Master Shaokun, or write to Han Lingxiao to borrow money, and every time she borrowed the money, she couldn't pay it back, so she saved more and more, and until now she can't remember how much debt she has owed to Han Fu.

She experienced the ups and downs of her mood, and returned home listlessly, sitting on a big rock in the yard and watching the sunset in a daze. Parents were in the house discussing how to save food to survive the year.

Chen Kefan looked at her helplessness as if he had lost his soul, and leaned next to the stone in front of her. Xia Yuqian's big watery eyes lost their look at this time, and Chen Kefan thought helplessly in his heart: If you return to your human form now, this little money will definitely help you solve it, but I can't help you now......

Xia Yuqian was blowing the cool evening breeze, but her mind was in chaos, she couldn't understand, they were all people, why some people could be born with fine clothes and food, while some people couldn't even live well. She thought of the Red Fang again, it was half heaven and half hell, for the rich and powerful, the Red Fang was a treasure place for them to squander and have fun, and for people like Xia Yuqian, it was simply a graveyard that could kill at any time!

She didn't consciously miss Ah Fang, Da Zhuang, Er Ding and Shishi, although they didn't get along for a long time, but every time she remembered the scene of chatting with them after dinner, Xia Yuqian felt a warm current in her heart, she sometimes wondered why she felt that the vulgar gossip that Ah Fang said was boring when everyone was alive and well, but now she thinks back on it very nostalgic.

She sat still, as if she had been cut off from the world, as if she had returned to the dining room of the Red Square to sit between them, and looked at Ah Fang's side face and began to regret again, if only she hadn't left then, in that case, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself.

Suddenly, her eyes flashed back to the last night, and Ah Fang mentioned the prize money of the Fengyun Pavilion Ring Competition......