Chapter 9: Head Tax

“Should we go ice fishing?” Lu Qiniang stared at the fish in the bowl, visibly tempted. “It’s the end of the year—fish is expensive now.”

“Forget it. It’s not worth freezing out there. If you catch a chill again, we won’t even have money for medicine,” Erya muttered, curling her lip.

Lu Qiniang fell silent.

She had to admit—Erya had a point.

Doctor Hu had warned her not to expose herself to the cold.

“If you ask me, we should just go to the Xiao family and demand money,” Erya added.

Lu Qiniang glanced at Daya’s expression and immediately shot Erya a glare.

Erya lowered her head and mumbled under her breath.

“Mother, what about that jade pendant of mine…” Daya spoke softly.

“No!” Lu Qiniang cut her off. “That’s the only thing your mother left you. You must keep it.”

She had raised Daya until she was eight. Then, one day, a man came claiming to be Daya’s maternal uncle.

He didn’t try to take Daya away, only left her a jade pendant, saying it was a keepsake from her mother.

Lu Qiniang wasn’t very knowledgeable, so all she could say about the pendant was, “It looks quite nice.”

Erya, green with envy, muttered, “Why hasn’t my mother come looking for me? Maybe I was born into wealth and stolen away…”

She had imagined countless times that she was a princess, a noble lady who had been forced to live among commoners.

Lu Qiniang knocked her with her chopsticks. “Hey! It’s not even dark yet—wake up and stop dreaming, you little brat!”

Erya pouted and gave a huff.

Sanya, meanwhile, was gobbling down her food, buried in her bowl.

The fish was delicious.

Afraid she’d choke on a bone, Lu Qiniang carefully picked the fish bones out for her.

“Mother, where’s that silver gourd you used to wear around your neck?” Daya suddenly asked.

Lu Qiniang’s hand paused as she picked out a fish bone, then she answered casually, “I traded it… for that man.”

Another arrow to the knee.

It seemed that for his sake, this family had truly paid a steep price.

Daya’s marriage was ruined, Erya lost her clothes, Sanya had no meat to eat, Lu Qiniang lost her silver, and people were gossiping behind their backs…

“Eat, hurry and eat,” Lu Qiniang changed the subject. “After dinner, I’ll go out and see if anyone’s hiring for odd jobs.”

With no capital left, all she could offer was her labor.

“Mother, don’t go. Your body hasn’t fully recovered yet,” all three daughters objected.

But Lu Qiniang replied, “It’s fine.”

If one is alive, then one must work.

As long as the sky hasn’t fallen, she had to keep going.

Xiao Yan spoke up, “Do you have the Four Treasures of the Study?”

He wanted to see if he could still write.

Though his body was weak and limp, perhaps he could still manage to hold a brush—just barely.

If possible, copying texts could become a way to earn money.

There was no time to lament his fate or wallow in melancholy. It seemed he had quickly begun to blend into this household, where even the next meal wasn’t guaranteed, and now he too was worrying about how they would survive.

“No,” Lu Qiniang answered crossly. “We can’t even afford food. Where would we get something so precious?”

Upon hearing that, Xiao Yan said, “Then forget it.”

He would think of another way.

Lu Qiniang had no luck finding odd jobs. For three days straight, she returned empty-handed. The entire family was cloaked in gloom.

They hadn’t reached the point of starvation yet, but the porridge was getting thinner and thinner.

Xiao Yan felt like there was enough water sloshing around in his stomach to float a boat.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

When it rains, it pours.

That evening, after dinner, the family once again failed to come up with any ideas for making money. Lu Qiniang suggested they go to bed early to save on lamp oil.

Just then, the Li Zheng arrived.

“Uncle Wu, what wind blew you here tonight?” Lu Qiniang greeted him with a bright smile and quickly invited him inside.

Li Zheng cast a glance at Xiao Yan, who was lying on the heated brick bed.

“I’m telling you, your days were already hard enough, and now you’ve gone and brought home a sickly man. Are you trying to make life even harder for yourself?” Li Zheng sighed.

Lu Qiniang beamed. “It’s not so bad. Things are a little tight, but we won’t starve. If you needed me, you could’ve just sent someone to call—I hate to trouble you to come all this way in person.”

Li Zheng said, “And yet you’re still smiling. Do you even know? Someone’s filed a complaint against you.”

“Huh?” Lu Qiniang was shocked. “Is it illegal to buy a husband?”

That couldn’t be right—she had bought her husband from an Officer.

Surely the government wouldn’t turn around and fight itself.

“It’s not illegal,” Li Zheng said with annoyance, “but it makes people jealous.”

Lu Qiniang replied, “What’s there to be jealous about? If they’re jealous, they can go buy one too! It’s not like it’s expensive—just five taels of silver for a living, breathing man.”

The “cheap thing” on the bed kept up his act of playing dead, not saying a single word.

“But I got sick, spent all my money, and was sent back by the Zhou family—you know that,” Lu Qiniang said. “Besides, even if I did have money, just because others are jealous, does that mean they can take what’s mine? Tell me, who’s so lowly as to gossip behind a widow’s back? Aren’t they afraid my Heyao-ge will come and take them away?”

Heyao-ge?

Xiao Yan couldn’t help but guess—was that her late husband?

It did sound like the name of a scholar.

“Don’t ask about that,” Li Zheng replied. “The point is, someone filed a complaint. They say you’ve added another person to your household but haven’t paid the head tax.”

Lu Qiniang: “…”

How had she forgotten that?

Just being alive meant paying a head tax—five hundred wen per person per year. As long as you were breathing, you had to pay.

If you couldn’t, you’d have to sell your land or your house. If you had nothing to sell, you’d have to sell yourself into servitude.

Once sold, the master of the household would pay on your behalf.

“Uncle Wu, it’s just a few days until the New Year. Can’t we wait until next year? Please, do me a favor,” Lu Qiniang pleaded gently.

“If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be here saying this. The problem is, someone’s already reported you. They’re all watching! How am I supposed to let it slide?” Li Zheng said. “Come on now—five hundred wen isn’t that much. Just pay it.”

“I really don’t have it,” Lu Qiniang said with a bitter smile. “Even if I ransacked every mouse hole in this house, I still wouldn’t come up with five hundred wen.”

“You had no money, and you still bought someone!” Li Zheng glared at her. “You’re being watched now. If you don’t pay up, you might not even be able to keep your house.”

“Give me two days. I’ll figure something out,” Lu Qiniang said.

“Fine,” Li Zheng replied, clearly displeased. “But listen to me—sell him off while you still can.”

“No one will buy him.”

Who would want someone like Xiao Yan in his current state?

“Then why did you even buy him?!” Li Zheng snapped.

“Everyone’s got their own hardships,” Lu Qiniang replied with a helpless smile.

“You figure out how to scrape that money together,” Li Zheng sighed again. “But I do have some good news for you. I’ll let you in on it, but don’t go blabbing about it to anyone.”

“Of course, of course! My lips are sealed. You can trust me!”

After the streak of bad luck she’d had all year, Lu Qiniang was in desperate need of some good news to lift her spirits.