After washing his hands and feet, the old man showed Li Chang'an the highest form of courtesy a Han Chinese could offer.
"Sir, you haven't eaten yet, have you? If you don't mind, why don't you come to my house for a meal?"
Li Chang'an initially wanted to refuse, but after thinking about it again, he agreed.
He also wanted to see what kind of life the ordinary people at the bottom of society were living in this false utopia he had created.
If things are still the same as before, then he's wasted his time traveling.
The old man's house wasn't far away, just on the outermost edge of the village.
The construction of the city wall these days has almost hollowed out the surrounding mountains.
Because there were too many people, the King of Lingnan was afraid of delaying the busy farming season, so he specially used an elimination system.
Some elderly people, and those who work slowly, were told to go back to farming and not to build the city wall.
This decision motivated the villagers of Chengxi Village to work even harder.
Originally, work was supposed to start at seven o'clock, but thanks to their efforts, people started working as early as four or five o'clock by moonlight.
Some even said they didn't need meals, just wages.
The most outrageous thing is that everyone thought it made sense, because they were getting paid and given food, which made them feel a bit uncomfortable.
Normally, when the imperial court conscripts laborers, it doesn't pay them a single penny.
They even brought their own food to work.
Now, you can earn almost a string of cash just by working for a month.
If you do this for a year and a half, you can buy a cow.
Oxen are the dream of all ordinary people.
No farmer can resist the temptation of a cow.
They were given a choice: a beautiful wife or a cow.
Almost everyone would choose a cow.
As long as you have a cow at home, why worry about not being able to find a wife?
Nowadays, to see if someone is well-off, you don't look at whether they have enough food at home.
It depends on whether the family can afford meat and whether they have beef.
In the courtyard, a woman was clearing away the dishes, looking at the rice in the pot with a heart full of satisfaction.
They have clothes to wear, food to cook in the pot, a house to shelter from the rain, and fertile land to cultivate.
This made her very satisfied, especially since her eldest son was also doing well, successfully becoming a security guard and a member of the security team.
Then, her whole family became villagers of Chengxi Village, and her husband was even selected to become a glorious city-building worker because of this.
The whole family can enjoy some of the welfare policies of Chengxi Village.
The village has good policies; every elderly person over sixty receives thirty catties of rice and thirty eggs every month.
The village committee is responsible for distributing them.
Currently, the most powerful force in the entire village is not the Xuanwu Army outside the village, but the village committee organized by the older villagers.
The women believe that, under the leadership of the village committee, their lives will get better and better.
She had just finished washing the dishes when she heard her father-in-law's laughter coming over.
"Sir, my home is a bit simple, please don't mind."
The more the old man looked at the gentleman in flowing white robes, the more familiar he seemed, as if he had seen him somewhere before.
Li Chang'an looked at the courtyard and went inside.
Inside the yard, several chicks were scrambling for food inside the enclosure, while a pile of firewood stood nearby like a small mountain.
A woman was coming out carrying a bowl and chopsticks; she was also wearing patched clothes.
The courtyards are all made of uniform blue brick and green tile houses, which is a perk of the security team.
Once you become a security guard, you'll be assigned a small courtyard.
When Li Chang'an saw the woman, he smiled and cupped his hands in greeting.
This gesture flustered her, and she hurriedly placed the bowl and chopsticks on the table, looking at the gentleman with some bewilderment.
She wiped her hands back and forth on the hem of her pants: "Let's...eat."
A bowl of white rice, a few eggs, and a plate of stir-fried wild vegetables with lard—that's their daily meal.
The toddler carried a bowl of rice, picked up a piece of wild vegetables stir-fried with lard, ran outside, and squatted on the doorstep to eat.
This was Li Chang'an's favorite way of eating, and the villagers adopted it.
Every mealtime, you can see a group of men carrying bowls, walking around, looking at this house and that house.
Everyone would compare whose meals were better, and if someone cooked meat, it would definitely be the center of attention.
Looking at the white rice in the bowl, Li Chang'an couldn't help but ask, "Judging from your meals, your family must be quite well-off. Why are your clothes still old?"
Hearing this, the old man laughed and pointed to his clothes, saying, "We dare not imitate you, sir. You are a scholar, blessed with good fortune, and naturally a seed of happiness."
“We poor folks wouldn’t dare do that. We’re already very grateful to have clothes to wear and food to eat. How could we dare to ask for new clothes?”
"And although my clothes are worn out, they are much better than before."
“In the past, a family only had two pairs of pants. Whoever went out to work would wear them.”
"Some people even go to work in the fields naked in the middle of the night so as not to wear out their clothes."
The old man's eyes reddened slightly as he spoke: "How could things be like now, where I can wear clothes I couldn't bear to wear before and go to work in the fields?"
“If this were in the past, everyone would have called him a spendthrift.”
Li Chang'an sighed upon hearing this.
Only by truly understanding this world can one comprehend how happy one's life in a past life truly was.
Just as the old man was rambling on and on about how wonderful Chengxi Village was...
A motorcycle came along, clanging and clattering.
A man in a security guard uniform rushed in: "Xiao Bao, Xiao Bao."
He searched around but couldn't find anyone, so he couldn't help but ask the old man, "Grandpa, have you seen Xiaobao?"
The woman came out of the kitchen, looked at her eldest son, and said with some heartache, "Dabao, why are you back? Do you want to eat? Mom will cook you some noodles."
Da Bao was getting impatient and waved his hand at the woman: "No need, no need, my security team eats big meals every day. I'm looking for Xiao Bao."
Seeing his eldest grandson rushing around, the old man couldn't help but ask, "What do you want with Xiaobao? Why are you in such a hurry?"
"The old master went out to pick wild fruit and ran into a Confucian sage. Now he's invited him to dinner at the village committee. I sneaked out and planned to send Xiaobao over to see if he could absorb some of the scholar's wisdom."
After Da Bao finished explaining, he noticed that there was now a scholar in the house.
Who is this?
"This is someone I met on the road..."
Before the old man could finish speaking, he saw his eldest grandson's legs begin to tremble, and his teeth started chattering, making a clattering sound.
Tian Dabao looked at the man in front of him, who looked exactly like the one in the temple, and knelt down with a thud.
"Tian Dabao, from the Seventh Squad of the Security Regiment, greets the Village Chief."
Upon hearing his eldest grandson's words, the old man felt as if a thunderbolt had struck his mind.
He finally understood why this man looked so familiar and so dear to him.
He knelt on the ground and felt that his ancestral graves were beginning to emit green smoke.
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