Ayi patrolled back and forth in lion territory for more than a month, and returned to Roaring City according to the schedule of operations.

She received an even warmer welcome than the last time. What's more, this welcome was not organized by the witches, but by the spontaneous actions of the civilians of Roaring City.

Some women have started to wear high heels. Although their shoes look strange, there is no balance point of focus, and there is no water platform to fit the soles of the feet, it feels like a triangular wooden support has been added to the heel of ordinary shoes.

Everything is changing, and the hearts of the people are subtly tilting in favor of the young regent in various decrees.

The most obvious change is the law.

A cobbler came home with a piece of cotton cloth and a bag of salt. On the way, because of the internal urgency, I solved it in the woods next to it. In order to make it easier to untie his trousers and drain the water, he hung the cloth and salt on a branch beside him, and the careless cobbler forgot to pick up his belongings and hurried away. After walking for a long time, the cobbler remembered this and hurried back to get it. It turned out that a strange farmer was opening his bag of salt.

Can this be considered a theft?

From the point of view of the age of civilization, of course not.

But according to the old law of the Leon Clan, this is theft.

The cobbler was excited, he had his own reasons: I had only been away for a short time, and the farmer should have known very well that it was not his own, not to mention that he could not even move the bag that was hanging there, so it was a typical theft.

The farmer defended himself by saying that he was just curious, and that he had shouted loudly when he took the bag from the branch, but no one around him answered. I just opened the bag and didn't even put my hand inside, so it wasn't theft at all.

The peasants were excited and scared. If you know the laws of the Leon Family, you'll understand why. "Steal to die" is a principle of lion law, and is usually punishable by beheading, or, depending on the severity of the case, amputation. Because theft is regarded as a crooked way and a criminal manifestation of laziness, the entire lion society expresses its disdain for theft with heavy punishments.

Therefore, the problem between the cobbler and the peasant is not a simple dispute, especially since the peasant is obviously suspected of theft———— after all, he has touched something that does not belong to him, which is a hard wound that cannot be explained in any way.

If such cases were to be handled in a big city like Roaring City, the peasants would surely die. If it had been a remote village, the punishment would have become lighter, and he would have to be given a few sturdy lashes and a sum of money to pay to the cobbler.

The lawmaker of the dragon clan is Tianhao, and he defines this very carefully. Unless the crime is heinous or has a serious adverse social impact, crimes within the community are referred to local courts, and most are punished by exile and rarely the death penalty.

Note that this is for dragons, not aliens.

This is one of the most important reasons why Tianhao did not declare himself emperor immediately after the end of the war. There is no benefit to forcibly claiming the title of emperor, and he needs at least a year to ease relations with the Tiger and Lion clans. It is not enough to kill the aristocracy, if you do not get the widest recognition and support from the commoners, even if you wear the crown, you can only become the emperor in name.

……

Peter looked at the weedy ground beneath his feet, wielded the hoe in his hand, and repeated the monotonous digging action of the machine.

It has been more than two months since he was captured. As far as the eye can see, the north and south ends are full of black and oppressive people, almost all of whom are doing the same thing———— building roads.

How many Rhines were captured in the war, exactly?

The answer to this question may never have been found, at least not for Peter.

All he knew was that all the people who worked here were white-skinned.

I can't understand the language of giants, and many things can only be done through gestures at first. Then this situation changed, and a group of overseers came, all white, Saxon, Vikings, and of course Plantagenet and Rhine. Instead of wearing prison uniforms like the captives, they wore simple yellow-and-white coarse striped uniforms. It was said that all white managers were like that, but to Peter, the uniform felt comical, like a circus clown.

There's nothing more exciting than being in prison and hearing the same language, especially when the person is speaking the familiar Rhine dialect. When he first came into contact with the officers, Peter thought that his pious prayers must have caused God's mercy to send an angel to save him...... But then he found that it was not what he thought it was at all.

They are the true stewards, intermediaries who can communicate with the giants, conveying intentions and demands to the captives.

They know the language of giants, but sometimes they don't seem to be so proficient, and they have to add some gestures to their conversations. But the Giant's language was enough for the white officers to cope with the situation, after all, they were not flirting with a burly giantess, nor were they talking privately with a giant male about a relationship between the same (harmonious) genders that transcended friendship. The scope of their management was limited to the prisoners themselves, as well as the associated road construction works.

Peter couldn't understand the names of the Giants, he only knew that the job was hard and monotonous. This form of road construction has never been seen before: digging up the earth, compacting the soil layer below, laying it with large rocks, then laying it with mud tamping, then crushed stone, rolling back and forth on it with heavy solid steel, and finally laying a layer of scorching mass made of black hot oil mixed with fine crushed stone particles.

It was pungent and smelled terrible. When they arrived, they were cool, large black hard objects. It must be burned in a large pot with a strong fire to form a semi-solidified state. It was painful when mixing the sand and gravel, and many people fainted from the strong smell, but then they felt much better with a wet towel around their face.

Peter paid special attention to the giants' name for this black substance, which seems to be pronounced as "liqin" or "liqun".

Before joining the army, Peter was a farmer. He worked for the lord for free for a period of time every year, including building roads.

The roads of the Rhine Kingdom were much easier than that. Basically, it is to add soil and tamp it, and some stones or slabs will be padded with more particularity.

Peter had never heard of or seen such a complex way of building roads. But it is undeniable that such a black pavement is very hard and extremely flat, and it is very comfortable to walk on it.

In the first week of road construction, many people, including Peter, were asking each other: how many white captives had the giants captured?

They never found an answer, and they quickly shifted their interest to other areas.

After all, there's a lot more to care about than that.

For example, food.

The food can't be said to be very bad, but almost everyone, including Peter, doesn't like it very much. The golden cornmeal is very different from what the Rhines imagined, that is, the whole dried corn is ground together with the inner core. If it were eaten by normal standards, at most half of the portion could be eaten, but the captives' protests in such matters were of no avail. Peter saw the giant mix the corn flour with water and form fist-sized hollow balls, which were steamed in a pot of drawers, one for each person and a pinch of salt at each time.

The so-called "fist size", of course, refers to the giant standard.

No one is used to eating this kind of dumpling, after all, the staple food of white people is bread. Especially when mixed with ground corn cobs, the rough texture is hard to swallow. In order to show strong opposition to this low-quality pig food, some captives ate a few bites and threw them away. In order to show the anger in their hearts, they even stomped on the corn balls thrown on the ground in front of the giants.

Later, Peter learned that this kind of dumpling is called "I steal", and it is the traditional food of the northern giants.

He did not participate in the abandonments. The soldiers of the Rhine army came from a complex background, among them were peasants like Peter, who worked with the land all year round and knew that food was not easy to come by. Especially in the famine years, the black bread is mixed with a certain proportion of sawdust and grass seeds, which are as hard as bricks when cooled, and must be baked over a slow fire and mixed with soup to be nibbled.

There are many unemployed people in the cities, and they are also an important source of soldiers. There are also some children of rich families with special status, such as the illegitimate children of a certain family, or the kind that has no inheritance rights...... The living conditions of these people are not superior, but they are well fed.

The giants showed a terrifying fury at the casual abandonment of food by prisoners of war.

They pierced the faces of the discarders with red-hot iron drills, pierced the nostrils of the men with chains, and dragged them forward like lazy cattle. The wound festered, and a sticky white liquid kept flowing from the nostrils, and the victim kept screaming, but the tongue was cut off with a knife by the enraged giant...... They died horribly and were still tormented until the very end.

Some of the abandoners did not do so openly, and they secretly threw away the unpalatable cornmeal nests on their backs, only to be spotted by the officers who also had white skin, and reported to the ...... The giant ordered the abandoners to dig up a large pile of dirt, sprinkle a soak of foul-smelling urine, let them stir it with their own hands, and then pinch the balls the size of tennis balls to eat.

No one would use this mud as food, and those who refused were miserable, and they were smashed on the spot by the giants with a hammer, or they let out a huge black wolf to pounce on them and bite them, and when the victims could not survive and beg for mercy, they grabbed the black wolf and forced them to swallow the terrible mud.

Eat until you die.

These things are chilling, and no one has dared to abandon food since.

In fact, as the next few days of intense labor followed, all the POWs were lucky that they had not followed the abandoners, and that they were not enough to get two cornmeal nests a day.

The number of nests became smaller and smaller, and although the number increased to two per meal and four per day, the size of the litter was more than twice as small, and it was less than the size of a Caucasian adult's fist.

The officers gloated over this, and told Peter and the other captives that this was a joint punishment by the giants to punish the abandoners. Of course, the purpose is not to starve you to death, as long as you work honestly, you can ensure the safety of your life and get better food.

In the days that followed, the food did get much better than it used to be.

Every day is cooked meat stewed in a large pot. Cube-shaped, at least more than five centimeters, with a thick layer of oil floating on the surface, it tastes very smooth with thick noodles. It's just that the smell of this stew is too strong and strong, Peter vomited directly when he smelled it for the first time, but the strong hunger overwhelmed everything, he scooped a bowl and ate it desperately, feeling like he had been beaten with chicken blood, full of energy.

When you are full, you are motivated.

The construction of the road is progressing faster than before, and the black asphalt pavement stretches into the distance. Peter believed that the northern giants had no less artistic sense than the white man, because they ordered trees to be planted on both sides of the road. Although it is only a small sapling, it grows into a towering tree with green greenery.

Terrible rumors began to spread in the camps that the stews in those cauldrons were actually their own, that is, prisoners killed by giants. Someone ate fingers while eating, and something that seemed to be a male symbol, and even eyeballs.

Peter was skeptical, and every time he ate meat, he used a spoon to go back and forth in the soup pot for a long time, but never found these horrible and horrible organs.

After a long time and more listening, Peter simply took these rumors as a pastime. Whether the giants do it or not, it doesn't matter to him. Because the Caucasian officer rulers have said that the northern giants have no ill intentions, and you should remember that it was your king who started this war. As the victors, the giants have the right to dominate your freedom, as well as your lives. The benevolent Giant King does not want the seeds of hatred to take root, but you must pay the price for the atrocities you have committed in war———— hard labor, hard work, hard work, and sweat, and in ten years, all prisoners of war will be free and return home.

There is hope, there is motivation.

Initially, many people doubted the veracity of this claim and thought it was simply false.

Later, there was growing evidence that the Caucasian officer administrators were not lying.

The giants began to introduce a "division of labor" system among prisoners of war. Working the construction site for two hours is counted as a "work", and the money converted into a giant is two auxiliary coins. At the end of the day, you can earn ten coins.

The money was not distributed directly to the captives, but was recorded by the leading officers, compiled into a book, and reported on a monthly basis. The giants verified this, and selected the best slaves of the month based on the actual work of the prisoners of war.

The number of merit spots is very small, usually 500 to 1. Good slaves received tangible benefits, an extra day off, a hearty meal including cheese, a little red wine, bread and poultry, and the exclusive service of a white slave girl.