Chapter 120

Qin Su repeated, "Fifteen years, is that really a very long time?"

Emperor Jingxi was inwardly shaken, and his expression tightened as he asked, "You said earlier, who said those words?"

Qin Su said blankly, "The cat said..."

"Cat?" Emperor Jingxi pressed, "Is that a person's name? Or a cat's?"

Qin Su said, "It's a cat with a long, bushy tail, like a fox's tail."

Emperor Jingxi asked, "Where did this cat come from? From the Imperial Beast Garden?"

"It's from the Beast Taming Garden..." Qin Su hesitated for a moment after saying that, and after thinking for a while, she realized that the cat she was touching and the cat talking in her head didn't look the same, so she changed her words and said, "It's not from the Beast Taming Garden, it's from my head."

Emperor Jingxi was confused by what she said. What did she mean by "the cat in the head"?

After asking around for a long time, he finally figured it out. It turned out that when Qin Su was looking at the cats in the Beast Taming Garden, a scene flashed through her mind where a cat was talking to her.

The cat told Qin Su that when the Third Prince Qin Yu turned sixteen, Emperor Jingxi would pass away, and Qin Yu would have a daughter named Xia.

Qin Su was so stunned when she heard the words "Emperor Jingxi has passed away" that she only caught the part about Qin Yu being sixteen years old. She didn't even hear Chu Congxia's name clearly, and she didn't notice that there was a sentence with her own name at the end.

Emperor Jingxi asked her, "Did anyone else hear that?"

"No," Qin Su said definitively. "Everyone else was standing next to me without reacting."

Emperor Jingxi then asked, "Since the cat only spoke to you and didn't mention you at all?"

Qin Su shook her head, saying with a hint of uncertainty, "It seems not."

This caused a huge misunderstanding.

Emperor Jingxi felt a chill run down his spine, finding the matter rather strange.

If that cat was some kind of divine beast, wanting to warn the emperor to avoid death, why didn't it seek out the emperor himself, but instead went to Qin Su, a mere child? And since it had already approached Qin Su, why did it only mention itself and the Third Prince, and not Qin Su?

But what Qin Su saw and heard was fleeting, and Emperor Jingxi could not get any more information from her.

Seeing Qin Su still pitifully tugging at his sleeve, he swallowed his doubts and coaxed, "It's alright, why are you so upset about such baseless rumors?"

With red eyes, Qin Su stubbornly wanted to ask for a definite answer: "Father, what it said is false, isn't it?"

Emperor Jingxi calmly replied, "Of course. Do you believe your father or a cat?"

Qin Su didn't hesitate for a moment: "Of course I believe in my father."

Emperor Jingxi laughed and said, "Isn't that it?"

He ordered the palace servants to bring him refreshments and tea, and personally helped Qin Su wipe her face clean, calming his bewildered daughter down.

Qin Su had been crying and anxious, which had greatly exhausted her. Now that she had calmed down, a look of weariness appeared on her face.

She didn't mention returning to the palace to rest, but instead sat on the dragon throne, clinging to Emperor Jingxi's arm, watching him process the memorials.

Perhaps still somewhat uneasy, Qin Su, who usually didn't care much about politics, unusually spoke to Emperor Jingxi while he was reviewing documents: "Does this memorial mention subordinates of the Sixth Imperial Uncle?"

Emperor Jingxi grunted in acknowledgment, paused, and then said, "He is not worthy of you calling him Imperial Uncle."

Qin Su obediently replied, "King Mu."

Emperor Jingxi seemed to think that Qin Su was being too polite in addressing him, but he also knew that Qin Su was a junior and he couldn't go too far in addressing him, otherwise it would cause criticism, so he acquiesced.

Qin Su dragged the memorial over and read it carefully, word by word. When she didn't recognize some words, she asked Emperor Jingxi for help.

She didn't ask all sorts of strange questions when reading memorials, like when listening to an introductory book. On the contrary, she learned quickly and understood everything after being taught. Emperor Jingxi was overjoyed by her teaching and his fatherly love overflowed. Even after he finished explaining the contents of the entire memorial, he still felt like he hadn't had enough.

He even thought that instead of using poems to enlighten the princess, he should use memorials to the emperor, so that both he and his daughter would be happy.

Qin Su was unaware that Emperor Jingxi had such an outrageous idea. After reading the memorial, she asked in surprise, "It says that Mu Wang's men said that Mu Wang descended to earth to save the world. Now that Mu Wang has returned to heaven ahead of schedule, they stayed behind to save all living beings. But their doctrines are clearly a mess. Why would the people believe them?"

Emperor Jingxi was surprised that after she read it once, she asked the most accurate question. He paused for a moment before saying, "Because they distributed grain to the people."

Qin Su asked in surprise, "Grain? What grain? Is it very expensive?"

Emperor Jingxi slowly said, "It's not expensive. It's all old grain, with the husks still intact and mixed with stones and sand."

Qin Su paused for a moment, then said, "If the rice is bad, then surely too much was given?"

Emperor Jingxi replied, "Not much."

Qin Su sensed something was wrong and looked at Emperor Jingxi without saying a word.

Emperor Jingxi looked into his daughter's clear, innocent eyes and youthful face, and after a long while, he sighed deeply.

He took out paper and pen and explained the tax system of Dayu to Qin Su.

Qin Su ate the pastries while listening, and as she listened, her mouth opened slightly, and she forgot about eating.

"Grain tax, foot tax, population tax, salt tax, wine tax, commercial tax..."

This was the first time she had realized that ordinary people had to pay so much tax.

Emperor Jingxi said, "Taxes are secondary. The late emperor loved jade, and local officials, in order to cater to his tastes, plundered jade from the local areas every year. Where did the money come from for the purchase, maintenance, transportation, and manpower required for the jade? Who will bear the burden? Does Su Su know?"

Qin Su tentatively asked, "The local people?"

Emperor Jingxi scoffed, "How long can the people of that place hold out? Wouldn't they be unable to survive after just two such incidents?"

Those who passed the imperial examinations and became officials were not fools; how could they so easily and crudely exploit the people?

Qin Su thought for a moment, then suddenly realized and said, "I know, it's the people of all the places along the way."

By spreading the costs evenly, the number of people affected increases, but the severity of the harm decreases. This approach avoids damaging the root causes of the problem and makes it easier to continue oppressing people in the future. Meanwhile, ordinary people are not driven to the brink of despair and still have hope and a sense of optimism.

Emperor Jingxi secretly praised his daughter's exceptional intelligence, but he didn't show it on his face, only saying, "Not bad."

"When King Mu was alive, he harbored treacherous intentions and secretly befriended court officials, all of whom amassed wealth through local tax revenue."

Emperor Jingxi spoke slowly and deliberately, giving Qin Su time to think.

"In just three years, he added nine kinds of miscellaneous taxes to his territory. These exorbitant taxes were numerous and varied. I once received a memorial from an official saying that the heavy taxes on reeds in the coastal areas were forcing people to exchange their children for food."

Qin Su's eyes widened: "Reed tax? Do we have to pay tax on reeds?"

Emperor Jingxi replied, "Of course."

Qin Su was shocked.

In her mind, reeds were a useless grass. She had only seen them a few times, and when she did see them, she never looked at them carefully. She didn't understand why they were taxed.

However, she didn't have time to ask in detail at the moment. What she cared about more was: "Since the suffering of the local people was caused by King Mu, why don't they resent King Mu's people now? Instead, they are accepting the rice that the people sent them to gain their trust?"