Munitions Empire-Chapter 754 : 713 Chu Yangren
Sometimes, having low expectations isn't entirely without benefits. The disaster in Chu Country was in fact much more severe than in Tang Country, but because the people of Chu had such low expectations, it seemed as though there was no problem at all.
The people of Chu had grown accustomed to their bureaucratic system, which lacked any governance capability, so they held no expectations for their own country.
Because they had no expectations, they also had no complaints against the nation. Thus, even when they lost their lands, their homes were flooded, and they drowned in the rivers, they could only blame their misfortune on being born into their current plight.
And because there weren't many roads, factories, or other forms of infrastructure, Chu Country's losses in the floods were not significant.
At one point, the King of Chu took pride in this situation, even fostering a bold theory that it was better to let things take their own course than to strive for development.
This chapter is updated by freēwēbnovel.com.
In addition to embracing an extreme version of passive governance, Chu also feared its northern neighbor, the Tang Country, and thus clung tightly to the embrace of its suzerain, the Dahua Empire, and declared war on Tang.
However, even as they declared war, Chu knew that they didn't have much to offer except for four small battleships and the dead soldiers.
These dead soldiers were cultivated from childhood. Because the country was so poor, every year countless children were taken in by nobility, including the Chu royal family, and ultimately trained to become dead soldiers.
Their lives didn't belong to them, but to their masters. From a very young age, they knew that one day they would have to repay the debt they owed to those who granted them the right to live.
Chu Yangren was one such person. His family was poor and couldn't afford to raise a child like him, so from a young age, he was sent to serve in a Chu royal household. Everyone in Chu knew what sort of place that was, and even families driven mad by poverty seldom sold their children there.
Therefore, the children who grew up there knew that their parents had sold them off, and they fetched a good price.
It was only after he fought and grew up in such an environment, eventually becoming a ruthless killer devoid of humanity, that he realized what kind of people his parents had cast him to for the sake of money.
He had no name of his own. Or rather, the most powerful dead soldiers raised by the Chu royal family all shared the common name, Chu Yangren.
When carrying out tasks, they would be given one name after another, one following the other. For instance, at the moment, his name was Guo Ergou. It was a very common name, one that was widespread in Tang Country, Chu Country, and Dahua.
Walking in the rain, Guo Ergou looked at the mud-soaked streets and seemed to finally regain some genuine feeling.
When he had first gone undercover here, he was somewhat uncomfortable with the neat asphalt roads and had a keen interest in the strange round manhole covers.
The huge billboard signs on the streets and the flashing lights left him bewildered. The three-story and four-story buildings that were gradually being built behind the billboards instinctively filled him with fear.
Everything felt unreal and illusory to Guo Ergou, and he never dared to dream that such a place could exist in the world.
He saw beyond the town there were endless fields, and roads that stretched smoothly into the distance.
He witnessed large chimneys erected in the factories of the suburbs, spewing dark smoke that clouded the sky, contrasting with the bustling traffic on the streets.
He saw precious steel laid across sleepers, extending continuously as if money was no object, reaching all the way to Tongcheng, to Chang'an, to places whose names he couldn't even pronounce.
He watched people build dykes, plant trees and forests, and saw how they transformed overnight from rags to happiness, all donning work uniforms.
At first, everyone in his small town wore the same clothing. They wore something called work uniforms; everyone in the city wore navy-blue clothes, both men and women looked the same.
On the front of the clothes was the emblem of the Bailu Group, and on the back were the big characters for Great Tang Bank—apparently the names of sponsors.
The uniforms were not particularly attractive but were extremely cheap. The first batch was almost issued as relief supplies and cost nothing at all.
He clearly remembered receiving such clothing himself, made from a thick material he had never seen or touched before, without a single patch on it!
That was a luxury he had never seen in all his time in Chu, where patching clothes was a common practice.
Latter, by the third year, he had grown accustomed to the changes in the world before his eyes. Even though he was in a small town, the clothes on the streets were beginning to burst with color.
Initially, the women who wore pink or white dresses were the relatives brought by the ruling officials and military officers, and were very easy to recognize. Later on, the merchants' families too began to wear such dresses, revealing pretty shoes and delicate ankles.
At that time, he thought the country had fallen into decadence, with shameless women and dissolute men... but those pale ankles sure were beautiful.
In any case, the small town he was ordered to infiltrate and live in was situated by a large river. It wasn't as prosperous as Tongcheng or Chang'an by the water, but it was just as enchanting as a heavenly paradise.
As an old immigrant who also donned a work uniform, Guo Ergou actually had a life of his own. Since he was all alone, he toiled in the factory every day, his workplace's benefits and his own income even allowed him to eat three meals a day.
If it weren't for the fact that he had a woman back in Chu Country, a very gentle woman, who was pregnant with his child when he left, he might have completely forgotten his past by now.
Alas, he was no longer alone; he had to sacrifice his life at a crucial moment to continue the lives of his son and his woman.
This was the duty of a man, and it was the meaning Guo Ergou had found for his own existence! If he didn't want his son to fall into the cycle and become another Chu Yangren, he had to give up his own life.
Everything was cause and effect; it was a destiny he could not escape in this lifetime.
The fact that he had been able to live for such a long time in Tang Country and see how beautiful the world could be, he was already content.
For a moment, he even felt grateful to the old eunuch of Chu Country who had raised him and sent him to such a place to carry out his mission.
For such a long time he hadn't been given any assignments, allowing him to live here continuously, enjoying a calm and fulfilling life.
But all of it was an illusion, merely a wishful thinking, a fantasy. Because a flood came, followed by a war.
Chu Country declared war on Tang Country, which made Guo Ergou incredibly tense. The identity he had nearly forgotten was now sending his heart racing, making him terribly anxious.
Because of necessity, he, who usually stoked the factory's boilers, found himself on the embankment, repairing it side by side with the military soldiers, repeatedly fending off the deadly floodwaters.
During the process he was scared out of his wits, fearful that those devils who had raised him would come knocking. But everything still happened; one day, someone approached him with a badge, handing him some items.
If he didn't cooperate, that badge could possibly end up in the hands of the Tang Country police, which bore his bloody handprint and his true identity.
His son would be castrated and turned into a new Chu Yangren, his woman would be sold into a brothel... All of it tormented Guo Ergou as if it were a nightmare.
Rainwater beat against the hood of his raincoat, making a pattering sound. To him, at that moment, the beauty before his eyes was like a distorted and tearing hallucination from hell, making him wish for death.
Right in front of him was the dike, where soldiers were still busily working. Guo Ergou even spotted the sandbags he had stacked on the embankment and saw the soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder with him against the disaster.
The other nodded at him and smiled revealing a set of white teeth.
He also smiled back at the other person, walked along the embankment, and chose a place where there were fewer people...
In fact, he was clutching a bomb in his hand and could light the fuse with an expensive metal lighter whenever he wanted.
At this time, he was in extreme pain because everything he cared about, everything he had built with his own hands, had to be destroyed by his own hands—this was a tragedy, a complete devastation.
In the end, he could only blame himself for not being born into a better life. He silently thought to himself, his chest filled with hatred towards his parents for making him a Chu Yangren.
He lit the fuse and walked to an inconspicuous spot, sat down on the dike with tears streaming down his face, letting the thick smoke from inside his raincoat drift out from his collar.
Guo Ergou closed his eyes as rainwater struck his raincoat's hood, producing a crackling sound. Before him churned the fierce torrential river, and behind him was everything beautiful he had longed for.
Just you wait! Tang Country will seek vengeance! If possible, Chu Country will be destroyed, and everything that tormented him will be ruined! There would be no more Chu Yangren in the world, and if his child was lucky, he would become a Tang Person, a true Tang Person.
By then he would have a school to attend, he would grow up healthy, become a worker, and meet a woman as gentle as his mother...
Hmm, his luck must be better than mine. That's what Guo Ergou thought.
"Boom!" A loud noise cut off Guo Ergou's thoughts, and at the same time, a pile of sandbags collapsed due to the explosion, allowing the rampant floodwaters to complete the rest of the job, breaking through the embankment and charging towards the distant fields.
"The dike has burst! The dike has burst!" The people patrolling the bank and the surrounding soldiers were startled by the explosion and ran towards this location, shouting loudly as they approached.
-----------
I'm sorry, I got carried away writing and forgot to post... Today will make up for it with a total of four chapters.
