Chapter 14: County Magistrate Zhou Zheng

When Lu Chuan heard this,
he nodded.

“No problem. Once I finish draining the blood, I’ll cut you off a piece of meat.”

The village chief had looked after him often enough. Two pounds of meat wasn’t a big deal, and Lu Chuan wasn’t that stingy.

The village chief chuckled awkwardly, then carefully pulled out a string of coins from his pocket—
a full string, worth 200 copper coins.

“Just weigh me about two jin (2 lbs), that’s enough.”

While the general market price of meat in town was around 100 coins per jin, actually buying it wasn’t easy—you had to make the trip, and meat was still considered a luxury in this era. Often, when you got to the market, you’d find there was none for sale at all.

The root of the problem was the underdeveloped livestock industry.
Most butchers had no stable source of meat.
What little stable supply existed was monopolized by restaurants and taverns to ensure they could keep running.

As Lu Chuan continued working, he chatted with the village chief.

The chief’s name was Sun Zhi.
He’d received some education but had failed the imperial exams.
Still, he knew quite a bit about county and township affairs.

“Oh right!”
Suddenly Lu Chuan remembered something and asked, “Do you know Zhou Tong?”

“Zhou Tong?”
Sun Zhi paused, then muttered to himself, “That name sounds familiar…”

“He’s that officer who escorted the women into the village the other day.”

Sun Zhi’s eyes lit up with recognition.

“Oh, him! Yeah, I know who you mean. He’s a relative of the county magistrate in Hongtu County, Zhou Zheng. Got himself a job as a yamen runner. Arrogant and reckless—never considers the consequences of his actions.”

“I’ve met the magistrate before. We studied together briefly at a private school, but we were never really close,”
Sun Zhi added awkwardly.

Then he looked at Lu Chuan a bit suspiciously. “Why are you asking about him all of a sudden?”

“No particular reason,”
Lu Chuan replied with a light smile, though inwardly he became more cautious.

So Zhou Tong really was someone troublesome.

“Mind if I ask—what’s the name of the magistrate of Hongtu County?”

Lu Chuan asked again.

Inside the house, Bai Siyu was quietly listening in.

“His name is Zhou Zheng,”
Sun Zhi replied with a nod.

At that moment, Lu Chuan had finished draining the blood.

He sliced off a piece of meat from the wild boar’s hind leg—around five jin (5 lbs) by his estimate—and handed it to Sun Zhi.

“Village Chief, here’s your meat.”

“…”

The corner of Sun Zhi’s mouth twitched hard.

“Pork… it’s pork…”

“Yep, your pork,”
Lu Chuan said cheerfully.

Sun Zhi took a deep breath,
quietly reminding himself that Lu Chuan was just a rough country farmer—no need to stoop to his level.

Then, a little awkwardly, he said, “This… seems like too much.”

“We’re neighbors, and you’ve always looked out for me,”
Lu Chuan said with a grin.
“You’ve got a family of four or five to feed—take the rest home and enjoy.”

Sun Zhi opened his mouth,
as if to refuse,

but in the end, he simply sighed and shook his head, then turned and walked down the mountain with the meat in hand, looking a bit defeated.

Lu Chuan watched him go,
his thoughts turning over and over.

Truth be told, the old man still held some hope—perhaps a bit of unwillingness to accept his fate.
But the world offered no kindness to someone like him—a man who had studied but never succeeded in the imperial exams. Most likely, this was the ceiling of his life.

“Master of the house.”

“I know about this Zhou Zheng,”
came Bai Siyu’s voice as she stepped out, her expression solemn.

“There’s something strange about him,”
she added.

“Strange?”

Lu Chuan asked in surprise.

“What do you mean by strange?”

“The entire officialdom of Bingzhou has gone through a lot of turnover in the past ten years—officials of all ranks being replaced again and again,” Bai Siyu explained. “But Zhou Zheng is an anomaly. He’s just a county magistrate, yet he’s had several chances to be promoted and always refused.”

“In the past ten years, he’s served as magistrate in various counties across Bingzhou, yet he never shows any desire to move upward. Each time he’s reassigned, it’s just to another county, not a higher position.”

“Plus, he does his job dutifully—he’s not corrupt, doesn’t embezzle, doesn’t abuse his power.”

“He’s truly an oddity in Bingzhou’s bureaucratic world.”

Bai Siyu shook her head lightly. “But my father once said Zhou Zheng is a deep and calculating man, someone who keeps secrets. So we must never underestimate him.”

“Hmm…”

Lu Chuan furrowed his brows slightly.

He had a vague sense that something wasn’t quite right.

“Got it,” he said eventually, then turned to Bai Siyu. “Could you bring me a basin of cold water?”

“Sure!” Bai Siyu nodded quickly and brought out a basin of cool water.

Lu Chuan fetched two clean twigs and slowly poured the cool water into the bowl that held the pig’s blood.

Then he said to Bai Siyu, “Add a bit of salt.”

As she added salt, he stirred the mixture continuously.

As the pig’s blood gradually cooled and thickened, Lu Chuan finally let out a long breath. Now, all that was left was to wait for it to solidify. Once it set, the blood could be eaten at home or sold in town.

It was a craft in itself.

By then, the sun had just gone down.

Lu Chuan prepared a simple meal and then returned to the courtyard to get back to work.

First, he grabbed two baskets and brought up some yellow earth from the foot of the mountain. Then, taking advantage of the remaining daylight, he went into the forest to gather pine needles and other coarse-fiber plant fluff.

“Husband?”

Su Ruan saw all this with a look of surprise in her eyes and asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m planning to build a brick kiln, fire some bricks, and fix up our house a little.”

In this era, there was no cement or reinforced concrete. The only available building materials were yellow clay and bricks.

Of course, wealthier families used stone slabs, timber, and lime.

“A brick kiln?” Su Ruan asked, astonished. “You know how to do that?”

“I know lots of things,” Lu Chuan said with a smile. “You’ll see in time.”

Su Ruan’s cheeks turned slightly red, and then she asked with a hopeful tone, “Husband, can you make me a bow? Like the one you use?”

“I… I don’t know how to do much else. I’ve been thinking about it, and I think the best way I can help is to go hunting with you.”

She said it with great sincerity.

“Alright.”

Lu Chuan agreed readily.

He didn’t reject her but casually pointed to the bow behind the door. “From now on, it’s yours.”

Su Ruan froze on the spot.

She looked like she couldn’t quite believe her ears.

A moment later—

She screamed with excitement.

“Ah!”

“Husband!”

“Are you serious?”

In the past, even a finely crafted bow wouldn’t have meant much to her. But times had changed.

And she’d seen Lu Chuan’s craftsmanship—his bows were no worse than those used by the military.