Chapter 142 Territory Governance, Fake Magic Book and Bones
Andre also thought it was a good idea.
Imprisoning prisoners required money to support them. Even if the food they were given was terrible, they couldn't be starved to death. This money was a fixed expense for the estate. In other words, it was the lord's own money.
When he was working for Baron Neumann, Andrei didn't care about this kind of expenses. He arrested as many criminals as possible, but now he has to pay to support this group of people, which makes him feel a little uncomfortable.
The lords of various places were full of outrageous tactics in this regard: some, like Baron Neumann, simply turned a blind eye to petty thefts that were not acceptable and did not cause serious damage to the lord himself. Only when a serious case requiring the hanging occurred did they calmly dispatch the kingdom's knights to capture the perpetrators and hang them on the gallows...
Some lords even turned the maintenance of law and order into a business. Guilt or innocence was no longer the issue; anyone offered money to be arrested. As long as the price was high enough and the grounds were plausible, the kingdom's knights would march in, capture the person, and then extort a sum from him. Those who could afford the ransom would be beaten and given a little pain before being released. Those who couldn't pay, or couldn't match the price offered, were then, sorry, those with less money were hanged the next day, while those with more money endured the pain of being locked up and slowly squeezed out of jail. Food, water, clothing, bedding, even dignity—what didn't cost money?
Some lords chose to engage in fishing enforcement, being vague in some gray areas not regulated by the law. At first, they pretended to let it go, but when the common people in the city joined in and made money happily, they sent people to catch them all in one fell swoop and reap all the benefits.
Someone sold a basket of vegetables for a neighbor who was growing vegetables, only to be thrown into jail for lacking the necessary documents. Another went to the neighboring territory to do business in an honest way, only to be arrested upon returning. No one could explain why something that was considered perfectly legal outside a ten-foot plot of land could become a violation of the laws of nature simply by moving a few steps. Nor could they explain why it was permitted today but not tomorrow, or why men could do it but women couldn't.
——Truly lived out the beauty of a strange set of rules.
All laws were without a single standard, relying solely on the dictates of the lords. What might have been possible one moment might have been a calamity the next. The rules were unclear and incomprehensible, leaving people living in fear, never knowing when the guillotine would descend upon them.
Most of these medieval feudal nobles failed to realize that, with such reckless actions, order and law would gradually disappear. With people preoccupied with fear, no one worked to create more good things. After all, good people are timid. When uncertain about what can be done, the only way to ensure safety is to do nothing and follow the crowd.
So all that could be seen everywhere were those desperadoes with their heads tied to their belts. They were already engaged in a dangerous business, so they naturally didn't care about the lords' arbitrary changes in their orders... Or rather, it was their close ties with the local lords that gave them the confidence to do whatever they wanted.
Andre naturally didn't want to turn his new territory into such a shabby and chaotic place, but he had many ambitions and moral principles, but he lacked the greatest support to put fairness and justice into practice - money.
One only regrets not having enough money when they need it. Even if they had obtained half of Baron Neumann's wealth, they would still be stretched to the limit in order to build up this territory... Baron Neumann was so rich, but he was unwilling to spend all his stolen and fraudulent wealth on the territory. Andrei only had half of the starting capital...
No, if you think about it, perhaps what he'd confiscated was only a portion of Baron Neumann's assets. Baron Neumann's deep entanglement with Evil Eye Moon, and his eventual demise at the hands of Evil Eye Moon, was due to Baron Neumann's covert embezzlement and theft of a significant amount of Evil Eye Moon's wealth. However, while Andrei had recovered a considerable amount of money and jewelry, it didn't fully reconcile with Baron Neumann's illicit accounts.
A large part of the money is still missing, and no one knows whether it was hidden by Baron Neumann or taken back by the Wire Killer of the Evil Eye Moon.
However, even though he was still worried about the trivial matters of the territory and the missing money, Andre still enjoyed the meal very much.
After eating and drinking, and seeing off the neighbors and employees, Jiangyou asked Leila to wash the dishes, while she took Andre to the basement and moved out the box of evidence.
Andre read through them one by one, his brow furrowed ever deeper, his eyes becoming increasingly confused. "It's strange. The other chapters in this book seem fine, but the chapter on the lich seems to have been tampered with. Concepts have been swapped, magic circles have been modified, and there have been a few subtle concealments... It's as if someone meticulously crafted this book just to trick readers into becoming liches."
"Huh?" Most of Jiangyou's knowledge about liches came from this book, and she instantly became nervous. "Is there anything else wrong? For example, the descriptions of finished and failed works?"
"Oh, if you take that part out on its own, there's nothing wrong with it," Andre turned to another page. "The real problem is the premise of this book. It gives people the feeling that 'liches are the answer to immortality,' but in fact it hides all the disadvantages. If liches are really as good as they say, then why don't everyone become liches and live forever?"
Takumi Yuu: “!! Yes!”
"In fact, what the book doesn't mention is that even a completed lich still has to deal with the problem of energy supply. A lich lacking energy will fall into a deep slumber and slowly die, even if it has a phylactery as a container for its soul. If a lich wants to live forever, it needs a large and continuous supply of energy. This energy can come from ordinary food, human flesh, emotions, and souls.
"The energy provided by ordinary food is extremely limited. I believe you have also felt this in your daily life. However, human memories, emotions, and souls can greatly supplement the energy needed by the lich, maintaining the health and integrity of the finished body..."
"Hmm? Wait a minute, can the finished product's shell be damaged?" Jiangyou tilted his skull.
"Of course it will break down," Andrei said. "The finished product is just a living corpse. It needs to be constantly infused with abundant energy to maintain the freshness of the body and prevent it from rotting and stinking... Then again..."
He looked up and down at the skeleton of Jiang You, and said, "After the body has rotted away to the point where only the skeleton is left, there is almost no need to worry about such things."
Unlike flesh and blood, human bones are mainly composed of calcium, which is difficult to decompose and decay. Under suitable specific natural environments, there will be no significant changes even after thousands of years. In a sense, it is a direct step to achieve immortality.
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