Chapter 049 Chapter 49

Yuan Ming was stunned for a moment, somewhat confused.

But seeing that King Yong seemed very stubborn in wanting his answer, he finally nodded.

King Yong was puzzled and said, "Everyone has a special feeling for their hometown, and pursues returning to their roots. Why don't you seem to care about it?"

Yuan Ming smiled and said, "For me, there is just a house there that can shelter me from the wind and rain. It is no different from other places. The important thing is not where you live, but who you live with. Besides, this place is beautiful with mountains and rivers, and it is also the location of the prince's manor. It must be better than an ordinary village."

King Yong was stunned by his extremely utilitarian words, but soon laughed again.

He never thought that there was anything wrong with utilitarianism. This only shows that the person is very purposeful and persistent in his goals. He is willing to work hard for them. People with utilitarianism are much better than headless flies.

"Yuan Ming, Yuan Ming, you can always surprise me."

Yuan Ming smiled and said nothing.

What he said just now was indeed from the bottom of his heart. In Shangguan Village, there was no one worth his nostalgia except his mother. He could have taken his mother with him, which was better than both of them staying in the cold.

I don't know if his words pleased King Yong. After that, King Yong was quite gentle to him and answered almost all his questions.

Yuan Ming finally figured out why he came here today. It was still to write a story book, but it was not the one about Nangang Fishing Village.

King Yong did want to build a manor on this mountain, but not for his own living needs, but for the people of Xiashi Village.

King Yong waved his hand and showed Yuan Ming his grand blueprint.

"I will send people to reclaim this entire mountain and build houses in suitable places for the villagers of Xiashi Village to live in. These reclaimed lands will be directly transferred to their names. They only need to hand over less than 10% of the grain to me every year to get the protection of the palace. In years of famine, the grain stored in the manor will also be opened for them."

As smart as Yuan Ming was, he was a little confused about King Yong's intention at this time.

"In order to mine the jade, I have no choice but to destroy their homes, so naturally I have to compensate them with something better."

As if he saw Yuan Ming's doubts, Prince Yong said this.

Yuan Ming lowered his head and looked at his toes.

He asked himself if it were him, he would never do this. In various parts of this country, there are countless unfair incidents every day, and what Xia Shi Village encountered is just the most insignificant one among them.

Prince Yong did not need to go this far. To be more precise, the mining of jade was the will of the court, and letting Xia Shi Village relocate was also the will of the court. Prince Yong

was just an idle prince who did not take care of state affairs. As an imperial envoy, he could just do things according to the will. What he was doing now used his private property and would also owe him personal favors, which was not his responsibility at all.

Yuan Ming didn't believe that it was just because of the kindness of the prince. If he was really that kind, there wouldn't have been a river of blood in Nangang Fishing Village that day.

"Do you have any other questions?" Seeing that he was concentrating on thinking about something but didn't say a word, the prince asked.

Yuan Ming shook his head: "I am just a scholar. I am temporarily working for the prince, and my job is limited to writing briefings. I have no right to ask about other things and I have no interest in knowing."

The prince looked at him and snorted coldly: "You are doing your duty."

Yuan Ming pretended not to hear the sarcasm in his words, and bowed his head to thank the prince for the compliment.

The prince twitched his mouth, not knowing whether to be angry or laugh, so he simply turned his face away and ignored him.

After a while, Xiao Wu came to report that the craftsmen had found a suitable place to dig a well.

Yong Wang nodded slightly, and said with his eyes: "In the future, you can find Yuan Ming for such small matters, or you can take him there directly and let him ask the craftsmen directly if he has any questions."

Yuan Ming knew that this was to help him write a better story, so he agreed and left with Xiao Wu.

Xiao Wu took him to a relatively high place on the back of the mountain.

Several craftsmen in shorts gathered together, and one of them sprinkled lime powder on the ground to form a circle, pointed at the ground and said: "Start digging here."

The others responded, took shovels and began to work.

Yuan Ming and Xiao Wu had no idea about digging a well, so they retreated to a position a little behind and did not make any noise to disturb them.

The craftsmen dug straight down with thin iron tools. After an unknown amount of time, the people standing in the pit shouted, "Water is coming out!"

For a moment, everyone cheered, and Yuan Ming and Xiao Wu smiled unconsciously.

The water showed that they had found the right place. The old craftsman who had been marking the land with lime straightened up, told them to work hard, and came to Yuan Ming and his friends.

Xiao Wu clasped his fists to the old craftsman and said, "Master Liu, this is Yuan Ming, the scholar who came to help the prince write a briefing. Please talk to him for a few more words."

The old craftsman was very flattered and returned the greeting, smiling and saying, "Your Majesty is too polite. This is all my job. If it weren't for you, my apprentices and I would have gone out to starve."

Hearing this, Xiao Wu glanced at Yuan Ming.

Yuan Ming understood and followed Master Liu's words and asked: "Just now you said that if it weren't for the prince, you would have gone to starve. What does that mean?"

Master Liu didn't want to hide their meaning. He just sighed. Then he found a place to sit down nearby, picked up the tobacco bag hanging on his waist, and knocked it on the stone behind him.

He took a puff of smoke and said slowly: "Shifang Town is not a big place. Since many villages are next to rivers, digging wells is not necessary. Therefore, there has been only one well-drilling craftsman in the town for hundreds of years. That is my master."

Just like the stories in many melodramatic novels, the old craftsman passed on his skills and shop to his apprentices after a hundred years, but his apprentices were not of the same mind.

The old craftsman had no wife or children. Master Liu was his first apprentice. His feelings towards Master Liu were naturally different from those towards others. He treated him like his own son.

Of course, he did not completely ignore the other apprentices. Although the deed of the shop was in the hands of Master Liu, he asked Master Liu to swear that he would treat the other apprentices as his own brothers and support and take care of each other.

Master Liu was an honest man and had no objection to these arrangements, but he had a younger apprentice who was too ambitious.

"My junior fellow apprentice made friends with people in the county from nowhere, and believed what they said, insisting on transferring our well-drilling skills and shop to that person. In exchange, that person will take all of us to Chengxian for development."

Compared with his junior fellow apprentice's unrealistic fantasies, Master Liu prefers to be down-to-earth and support himself with his own hands, and he doesn't think that a person with a lot of connections in Chengxian would fall to the point of asking them for inheritance.

Master Liu expressed great disapproval of this matter, but his junior fellow apprentice had been blinded by the man's promise, and took advantage of his unpreparedness to steal the house deed, the indentures of several fellow apprentices, and the secret book of well-drilling skills and gave them to that person.

"If King Yong hadn't found us, I'm afraid I would be enslaved somewhere now." Master Liu looked in the direction of King Yong, his slightly cloudy eyes full of gratitude.

After writing the last stroke, Yuan Ming closed the page and asked, "What about your junior brother? How did you deal with him?"

Master Liu smiled bitterly and said, "He was expelled from the sect and let go. I promised you to take good care of the junior brothers, but this happened in less than two years."

"You have done very well. It's not your fault." Yuan Ming said comfortingly.

Master Liu wiped his eyes and smiled, "You are right. The most important thing now is to do a good job for the prince and lead the other junior brothers to live a good life."

After that, he patted his butt, stood up, walked to the place where the well was dug, and began to check the situation.

Xiao Wu saw that Yuan Ming had written a lot of things in the notebook and wondered, "Master Wang just asked you to write about his deeds. Master Liu was just a well digger, why did you write down everything he said?"

He just gave Yuan Ming a look just to let him write down the deeds of Master Wang saving people.

"A good story is made up of complete and thoughtful people. If you want a person to stand up, there must be cause and effect." Yuan Ming said.