Bruce entertained his first guests in the mansion, and the blacksmith and his son were very restrained when they entered the mansion, after all, the lord's house was usually for nobles, and no serf had ever been invited.

"Annie, make some broth." As soon as Bruce entered the house, he instructed Anne.

Sitting at the wooden table, Bruce warmly entertained the blacksmith and his son, and when the blacksmith sat down at the lord's wooden table for the first time, they looked around anxiously, and the stone house was very enviable to them.

But not long after, when Anne brought the broth in the wooden bowl, the blacksmith father and son did not care about anything else, smelling the broth in the wooden bowl and swallowing the saliva in their throats.

"Eat." Bruce greeted them, and as soon as the words were finished, the father and son began to eat in their respective wooden bowls, and the blacksmith did not even bother with the hot soup, and fished out the meat with his fingers to eat.

"Huh~." After a long hiccups, the blacksmith and father licked the bowl clean.

"Have you eaten enough?" Bruce pulled out a piece of hay and put it in his mouth, and he said to the blacksmith father and son.

"Thank you, my lord, this is the fullest meal I've ever had in my life." The blacksmith said gratefully to Bruce.

"Okay, let's talk about the village!" Bruce chewed on the roots of the hay and said to the blacksmith father and son.

"Whew!" The blacksmith was a little surprised, he didn't expect Bruce to ask him about the village.

As the saying goes, eating people is short-mouthed, and taking people is short-handed, and when Bruce was working at the grassroots level, he had a lot of experience.

"Lord Bruce, I don't understand why you invite the villagers to the house?" Little Lori Anne looked at the blacksmith father and son who had left the house, and asked with some curiosity.

"For these villagers, we are always outsiders, and in my experience we have to mingle with them." Bruce smiled, plucked the hay from his mouth, and explained to Anne.

"How is this possible, we are aristocrats, and nobles and serfs are different classes." Little Lori Anne blinked, she didn't understand Bruce's mind at all.

"Hehe, that's my strategy." Bruce didn't explain anything to Annie, and this deep-seated class notion can't be changed in a sentence or two.

The next day, the villagers noticed that Bruce had arrived in the village early, and they were still silent and wary of the lord.

"Hey, lame Mark heard that the cabbage you planted was arched by a wild boar, it's really hateful, come with me next time to slaughter that hateful wild boar!"

"Green-eyed Britney, is your child a little better?"

Bruce greeted the villagers as if he were an acquaintance.

"Oh, yes lord." The villagers who were greeted did not expect that Bruce, as the new lord, would call out his name, and although he was a little hesitant, the villagers who were called by his name still responded to Bruce.

Todd's men, who were sent to spy on Bruce, saw Bruce walking in the middle of the village, and didn't do anything, just chatting with the villagers.

"Ahaha, it's so boring to be sent to do such a boring job." Todd's men yawned, and Todd was worried that Bruce would see that he was overriding the lord and looking for other noble foreign helpers, but now Bruce was just chatting with the cowardly serfs.

As night fell, Bruce returned to his house, and the man who was spying on Bruce returned to Todd.

Todd's house on the other side of the village was a wooden house, but it was bigger than the lord's, the T-shaped house and the stables outbuildings, the interior walls of the house were painted with pictures of hunters, and the fireplace was covered with bearskins, and Todd sat on a chair on a bearskin, holding a silver wine glass in his hand.

"You're saying that the lord didn't return to Locke Manor, and didn't invite the other nobles?" Todd shook the wine in the silver glass, which was expensive.

"Yes, the lord doesn't have any dealings with other nobles, but just mingles with the serfs every day." Todd's men reported to him.

"Haha, I thought the second son of the Locke family had a lot of ability, it turned out to be a guy who didn't do his job, Lord James was really worried." Todd laughed, his family was not a title and fief like the Locke family, but it was also a member of the squire class, Glynton Village had been a tax collector since his grandfather's generation, and Bruce's father was too weak to manage the territory, so Todd's family was the real owner of Glinton Village.

"Lord Todd, are you still going to send the overcollected things this year to Locke Manor?" Todd's men asked their master.

"Of course, only by serving the patriarch of the Locke family, Lord James, can my family and I get a chance to rise." Todd clenched the silver wine glass in his hand, he wanted to be like other nobles, through military exploits to obtain titles and fiefs, but he knew that his fat body was not suitable for fighting, so he came up with another shortcut, which was to flatter Lord Baron James.

"May the Lord God grant your wishes." Todd's men bowed to him and said.

"Well, since Bruce is a guy who can't do anything, you don't have to keep an eye on him, I will send you as a guard to escort the carriage to Locke Manor, and make sure to deliver the things to Lord James." Todd admonished his men.

"Yes, sir." The man bowed to Todd and turned to leave on his errand.

Bruce sat by the fireplace, and in front of him stood a man, a villager from Grinton Village, who took off his felt hat and looked at Bruce with a puzzled look.

"Too young, will it be reliable?" The man who visited the lord's house late at night was none other than an elder of the villagers, who looked at Bruce, who was only sixteen years old, and muttered in his heart.

"You may be seated." With a smile on his face, it seems that his grassroots visit has had some effect.

"Uh, thank you, Lord, I'm still standing." The villagers were astonished that no nobleman would have let a serf sit across from him.

"What's the matter with you looking for me so late?" Bruce was not reluctant, this class gap could not be eliminated in a day or two.

"My lord, there is indeed one thing that requires your decision." The villager said with a look of embarrassment, in fact, he is not riding a tiger at all now, but he has to make a desperate bet for his family.

"Say." Bruce nodded and said to the villager.

"You know that the village of Grington was originally very poor, but when your father was alive, although life was a little harder, we could still live well, but after your father was sick and bedridden, the tax collector Todd increased the tax, and the whole village had no food left, and we asked you to lower the tax is also a last resort."

"In whose name is the Tod Plus tax?" Bruce's brow furrowed slightly.

"Before you came, Todd was levied in the name of your brother James." The villagers said to Bruce.

"That's the trouble, Glynton is my father's direct domain, and the eldest son has the right to govern when the lord has no way to carry out the administration." Bruce smacked his mouth, although Bruce was not a qualified warrior before he was possessed, but he liked to delve into knowledge, so he left knowledge about feudal law and other aspects in his mind.

"We understand, but the village can't hold it anymore, several young people have fled the village a few days ago, and if this continues, the people in the village will be forced to flee, uh~." The villager said worriedly, but as soon as he finished speaking, he realized that he had said the wrong thing, it was taboo for the serfs to escape from the fiefdom, and if Bruce pursued it, then he would not escape punishment.

"I see, if you trust me, I hope that tomorrow after dark, you will call the influential people in the village to the house." However, Bruce did not pursue the matter, but said to the villagers.

"Yes, I will." The villager representative hurriedly agreed, he felt that the lord in front of him was very strange, not at all like other nobles.