CHAPTER 47: CHAPTER 47 THE SIN OF GENDER 47

Needless to say, Qin Shuangshuang knew why the village chief had a worried look on his face. Last year’s drought left the fields with a yield only about thirty to forty percent of the usual harvest, though not an entire crop failure.

Fortunately, the court issued an edict to reduce and exempt taxes, allowing villagers to keep their grain for themselves. Although there was no income, they wouldn’t starve to death.

Everyone hoped for a better harvest this year, but the snowless winter had already given rise to a foreboding feeling. Indeed, from the start of spring until now, there has been no rain, leaving the fields so dry they’re cracking, making planting impossible!

Not to mention farming, even Qin Shuangshuang had to go deep into the mountains to find medicinal herbs. The usual game had become scarce, and she hadn’t seen large game for over a month!

Given the excellent hunting skills she’d learned from Fang Zhongyi, surpassing even her teacher, this was very unusual! Today’s encounter with the wild boar happened when Qin Shuangshuang ventured near a drying pool in a deep mountain.

Despite this wild boar weighing over 500 pounds, it was actually very thin. This type of wild boar, unique to their area, is known for its extreme attack power, at least twice the size of ordinary wild boars. Even tigers and black bears dare not challenge it, and hunters fear to easily provoke it, making it virtually invincible.

However, these wild boars are rare. Normally, an adult boar weighs over a thousand pounds, twice that of an ordinary boar! Yet this adult boar weighed only a little over 500 pounds, indicating that life for the creatures in the mountains was tough, very tough, indeed!

Qin Shuangshuang looked at the village chief, who had aged and grown much thinner, feeling deeply unsettled. This elder who had always cared for her had rapidly become haggard and aged in just a few short months!

The village chief saw Qin Shuangshuang and pulled a smile on his dry, thin face, "It’s Shuangshuang!" He glanced at the large boar head weighing more than twenty pounds in her hand and sighed.

"Lately, game has been hard to come by. You haven’t caught much for several days, so you don’t have to keep bringing stuff to me. Make this boar into smoked meat or jerky, don’t sell it. Looking at this year’s harvest, it’s quite unlikely anything will suffice; if something happens, silver won’t help, so it’s better to save more food!"

Qin Shuangshuang smiled as she put down the boar head in her hand, "I’ve got plenty, this is nothing. You’ve been looking quite haggard lately and need to eat something nourishing. I’ll bring some bones over later and have Grandma Wang make you some soup. That’s the most nourishing."

After saying goodbye to the village chief, on the way back, Qin Shuangshuang felt a heaviness in her heart because, unlike the villagers who still held hope for rain, she already knew that this year would be harsher than the last, with no harvest at all!

Adding insult to injury, when the villagers wanted to head toward the Capital City to make a living, they were met with the government’s travel prohibition order and a decree for forced resettlement!

The court planned to relocate tens of thousands of disaster-stricken people to the Northwest Border City because it intended to establish a border trade center, requiring a population to fill the desolate border city!

What kind of place is the border city! It’s next to the barbarians, and for the people of the Da Ran Dynasty, the terror of the barbarians is unimaginable; living in the border city is almost akin to death, for every barbarian raid results in burning, pillaging, and looting on the border. The people fear the barbarians deeply!

Although the court offered many generous policies, even promising that non-trader residents in the border city would be exempt from taxes for fifty years, no one was willing to go because, for ordinary people, going to the border city was tantamount to going to Yama Hall!

No matter how much the people resisted, the court was determined to force them to the border city. As long as they agreed to go, food, clothes, travel expenses were provided, and porridge stations were set up along the way to maximize the survival of the people reaching the border city.

But if they refused to go, the court neither allowed the people to leave their hometowns nor provided relief grain. Even if they starved, it didn’t matter.

Despite the inability to escape and lack of assistance, the people’s fear of the border city kept them rooted in place, hoping the court would eventually show mercy and provide aid!

Facts proved that the arm can’t twist the thigh. The court, having made up its mind, saw the people starving to the point of cannibalism, yet many still refused to leave their hometown.

Finally, when the impatient court exhausted its patience and began sending troops for violent eviction, the people reluctantly left with their families, tearfully bidding farewell to their homeland, unwillingly headed toward the border city.

In her past life, Qin Shuangshuang, together with the Qin Family, was driven to the border city by soldiers as if they were criminals.

After arriving at the border city, all the preferential policies were revoked. The people had to first endure a year of hard labor building the city before they could earn land to farm, and those preferential policies were only available to those who voluntarily came to the border city beforehand.

At the time of her rebirth, Qin Shuangshuang hadn’t wanted to go to the border city. She planned to run away with her mother ahead of the forced migration, hiding temporarily in a remote mountain forest.

She thought that, with her extraordinary strength, hardly anything in the wild could pose a threat to her and her mother.

Moreover, Qin Shuangshuang knew that after the forced resettlement, a nearby State Mansion would face a locust plague, creating many refugees. The court wouldn’t continue migrating people to the border, allowing her to rejoin the refugees and avoid checkpoints requiring official permits, starting anew elsewhere with her mother.

Qin Shuangshuang’s plan was good, but realities changed swiftly. By now, she couldn’t just leave with her mother, Mrs. Bai.

Her family had grown to include the Eldest Lady, Fang Zhongyi, Fang Yaoyao, and others like the village chief grandpa, Grandma Wang, Aunt Hao, Qin Yuan, Qin Qiao’er, Qin Sheng, Uncle He, and many villagers who, though gossip-loving, had fed and clothed her!

Qin Shuangshuang couldn’t abandon these people; she wanted to take them all with her. She clearly remembered that in her past life, many villagers died on the road due to poor health!

Among them were the kind village chief grandpa and Uncle He. Now, she couldn’t bear watching those who had helped her die!

"Shuangshuang, Shuangshuang!" Qin Shuangshuang snapped back to reality, seeing Qin Miao waving in front of her. She had been so lost in thought, standing dazedly in front of her house, with the large boar, weighing no less than 500 pounds, she had been giving away to others lying at her feet.

Rubbing her temples in slight frustration, Qin Shuangshuang asked Qin Miao, "It’s my sister. Why are you calling me?"

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