A monk wearing a hat and holding a Zen staff walks through the countryside of Kyoto.

He was like an ascetic, measuring the distance of the land with his own feet.

In Buddhism, it is believed that all sentient beings are suffering, but there is a limit to the crying of sentient beings, and ascetics feel that they only need to suffer a little more for themselves to make other sentient beings suffer a little less.

It's a very unreasonable thought, but they are convinced of it and continue to do so.

Venerable Renka, in complete accordance with the ascetic practice, began to observe this part of Kyoto.

He didn't know how many days he had been doing penance, but it seemed that he had come full circle and came to the edge of the farmland near the Hachiman River again.

More than half a month ago, an abnormal plague broke out at the source of the Hachiman River, and all the people here have died, and almost all the people infected with the plague have also died.

In this era, infectious bacilli gangrene is an incurable disease, and it is still a subspecies mutated from the corpses of demons.

The area around the Hachiman River, which was originally a fertile land and accounted for almost 40% of Kyoto's grain production, was almost completely dilapidated, and a large number of farmers in the vicinity began to be demolished.

The original farmland has been abandoned for more than ten days, and almost all the food that can be harvested has been turned into food for pests and birds.

He returned here again, and it was the last stop of his penance.

At this time, this side has been completely controlled by the Fujiwara family, and two ashigaru are guarding, and some farmers are clearing the abandoned rice ears and weeds in the fields.

From time to time, the farmers who clean the rice fields will sneak some grain that is still left on the ears of rice into their pockets, and after doing farm work in one field, their pockets will become bulging.

The two guards seemed to notice these small movements, but they didn't react.

Even if the ears of rice in this field are deliberately recycled, less than 10% of them will be recovered, and it is estimated that they will not even be able to recover the cost, so they simply let these farmers collect it themselves.

These farmers worked for a day, and Venerable Lianhua also watched from the side.

When the eyes of the day were about to set, a group of women with bamboo baskets and headscarves began to appear near the farmland here.

It wasn't until it got dark and the place was almost cleaned up that the two ashigaru began to gather the farmers together, and scolded and said: "Our master is kind-hearted and secretly hides the rice ears in his pocket, but when he plants that kind of divine object 'potato' tomorrow, whoever dares to steal it will not be a matter of kicking two feet." ”

"Don't feel easy, someone secretly took away more than ten potatoes before, and after being caught, they were tied up in the city without eating or drinking for three days, you can see how many people in it can withstand it." Another chimed in.

The farmers all nodded and thanked them, their pockets were almost full, and even if they wanted to, they couldn't do it, so they could only keep bowing.

The two ashigaru took the farmers out to give them their rations for the day.

As for coming to those peasant women, they didn't say much.

At this time, the peasant women all took action, they seemed to drag their families with their mouths, and Venerable Lianhua also saw some people carrying a baby on their backs and holding a gray-faced child in their hands, like locusts in dense crowds into the farmland.

"What is this going to do?" Venerable Lianhua decided to take a closer look, he had thought that these people were the family scrolls of the farmers in the fields, but he found that they were not, they seemed to have come to the fields and bent down to pick something.

When Master Lianhua walked in, he found that they were bent over, picking up one rice after another on the ground.

The rice on the ground, either buried in the dirt or still on the stalks, seemed to them as if it were gold, and they kept picking it up with their heads down, lest they would miss any of the rice they passed.

At this moment, even Venerable Lianhua, who had been practicing asceticism for most of the month, sighed.

If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would never have imagined such a situation in Kyoto Castle, which was once the capital of the Heian period.

This kind of rice, even if you eat hundreds or even thousands of grains in one bite, but each one of them is picked up by bending down on the ground at one time.

He saw a peasant woman with a turban on her head that had turned completely yellow, because she was accompanied by two thin children who were not yet ten years old, and they were also picking ears of rice with the peasant women.

Venerable Lianhua stepped forward and began to ask, "People, can you eat enough to eat like this?" ”

The peasant woman saw Venerable Lianhua, dressed as a monk, hurriedly put a handful of rice with soil in her hand into the package, and returned: "Master, we don't want to be full, we just want to be able to cook a pot of gruel at home." ”

"Won't the Fujiwara family stop such actions?" Venerable Lianhua asked the doubts in his heart.

"No, no, these paddies falling in the soil will affect the planting of the next year, and the Fujiwara family also allows us to pick them up, as long as it is not the kind of field that is planted like a soil ball, we will be allowed to pick it up several times."

"How many can you pick up that day?"

"There are more than three or four, and when there are few, there are about one or two, which can make Taro Jiro eat a little more." The old woman looked at the two children beside her.

"That's guy, how old are you now?"

"Six out of twenty."

Venerable Lianhua was silent, he had always thought that the old woman in front of him with a wrinkled face and dark brown skin would be nearly forty years old.

However, he learned that such a man was only twenty-six years old......

"Then I'll help you......" Venerable Lianhua also began to come to the field to glean the ears, and the appearance of this monk was out of place with the grizzled people present.

Knowing that the sun was setting in the west, and that nothing could be seen as far as the eye could see, people left one after another.

Under their advice, they will be able to pick up an hour early tomorrow morning, before dawn.

"Brother Lianhua, the army of the Shendu Genji Shogunate has pressed in, and we have to go back to the temple to discuss how to deal with it." At this time, another monk seemed to have made a special trip to find Venerable Lianhua, and said.

And looking at the backs of those who were leaving, Master Lianhua slowly came back to his senses and said, "Brother Lianzhong, how do you think we should stand in line this time?" Is it to continue to help the Fujiwara family? Or do you ignore the battles between the nobles, as you did in the past? ”

"Little monk thinks it's okay to ignore it?"

"How many people will die in that? As for the peasant women who left, how many of them would survive this war? Master Lianhua looked at the back of the sentence and asked.

"The Reborn Financial Giant"

"Half of it......"

"Then help the Fujiwara family, I want to see the world that the Lord has depicted, a world where everyone can live......" He muttered as he watched the sunset near the mountains.