Nensen seemed parched, and gulped down the goat's milk in one go.
Maomao, and Ma Sen , and Rahan, too, fell silent.
(The amount of information was far more than she had expected.)
She needed to sort through it all.
Roughly fifty years ago, a massive locust plague had struck.
Nensen's tribe had annihilated the Wind-Reading tribe several years before that.
Because the rituals were no longer being performed, the massive locust plague had occurred.
Nensen had ended up having to perform the rituals for the rest of his life in place of the Wind-Reading tribe.
That was the gist of it, in simple terms.
(Digging up the soil as part of the ritual...?)
Maomao still didn't fully understand, but one person had caught her attention.
"So, you're Nensen, right?
What you've been doing— —it's fall plowing, isn't it?"
"Fall plowing?"
Maomao and Ma Sen tilted their heads. It was a term they had never heard before.
"It's written 'autumn plow' — fall plowing. After you harvest the crops, it's pretty much autumn. That's when you plow the fields."
"Is there some advantage to it?
It seems like it would be more efficient to plow right before planting."
Maomao agreed with Ma'anshi's observation.
"As far as I know, it's about turning the soil over to prepare good ground by mixing in straw, and exterminating pest eggs buried in the earth."
Maomao's ears twitched, and she silently grabbed the collar of her older brother, Rakan.
"Say that again."
"Eh? Uh, mixing in straw—"
"Not that part!"
"Pest extermination?"
"That's it!"
Maomao shook Rakan back and forth vigorously.
"Hey, stop it. I can't breathe."
Since Ma'anshi intervened, she let go.
"Tch, tch. What's so special about that? It's just one of many farming methods, isn't it?"
Rakan looked like it was obvious she should already know.
"There aren't many farmers as knowledgeable as you are!"
"...Ah, um. Wh...what?"
Rakan had a complicated look on his face. Even though he was being praised, it seemed hard for him to accept.
"It's true. Just look at this village. Even if someone has the knowledge, there are those with no will to apply it. And if you don't use knowledge, it vanishes."
Maomao felt the truth in Nianzhen's words sink in. According to Rakan, the only one in the village truly trying to cultivate proper fields was Nianzhen.
"May I ask a question? Are the people here actually trying to grow wheat properly? It feels like they're cutting corners."
She was repeating Rakan's own assessment.
"...So even an outsider can tell?"
"I understood because your field was so much cleaner than the others."
(From what a professional farmer had said.)
"...It's not like I was trying to make things neat and tidy. I just did it to boost the yield, and that's how it ended up. Never thought I'd end up having to do all that tedious, painstaking work myself."
"Figured as much."
Ma Shan's words hit hard. Maomao could understand why this dead-serious military officer would take a cold stance toward a man who, even if it had been fifty years ago, had committed acts worse than those of a beast. He even seemed to be wondering why the man hadn't received a harsher punishment.
Maomao wasn't entirely free of the same thoughts as Ma Shan. But she also knew that punishment alone didn't produce anything of value. At the very least, Nian Zhen being alive was the reason she could sit here and hear this story.
(How on earth did Lu Sun find out about this old man?)
A criminal who'd been forced onto farmland fifty years ago. His status as a serf had long since been restored. There was no way Lu Sun, who'd only recently been posted to the Western Capital, could know about him.
(He must have heard it from someone in the Western Capital, or else—) Rather than sit here thinking, she'd just ask.
"Did Master Lu Sun come to this village because he'd learned of the ritual's existence?"
"That's right. Never figured anyone still knew about the ritual. Even the local lord doesn't know about it. He said something about hearing it from an acquaintance."
Nian Zhen set down his emptied tea bowl and sat on what looked like a hard cot.
"...The lord doesn't know either? That would be Lord Yu Yuan, right?"
In his storytelling, Nian Zhen had referred to Yu Yuan as a self-made lord.
"Ah, poor choice of words. Not him. It's true that the one ruling all of Xuxi Province is this Lord Yu Yuan. But around here, it's his son who manages things."
"His son?"
"Right. The name was, let me see, Yu Ying or something like that."
The former thief and former serf didn't seem to have much reverence for his lord. Maomao didn't mind, but the attitude clearly rubbed Ma Shan the wrong way. She decided to be grateful he wasn't lunging at the man.
"Lord Yu Ying seems to be held in pretty high regard in this village. Is there something behind that? Does it have to do with the ritual?"
"The ritual's got nothing to do with it. He's just popular. Even during bad harvests, the lord never blames the farmers. If anything, he's generous enough to provide for you when you're short on food. Sometimes you can get more from him than from honest work."
"Ah, that makes me jealous."
Rahan's brother murmured involuntarily.
"Compassionate, isn't he? A lot of people have even quit herding to become farmers."
Despite the meaning of his words, Nenshin's tone was contemptuous, like he was spitting the words out.
"A lord that compassionate seems like the type who'd actually perform the ritual properly, though."
Rahan's brother tapped his empty tea bowl with a clink.
"Like I said before, the current lord doesn't know a thing about the ritual. Even the Dog clan didn't know the details of the ritual. What I'm doing now is nothing more than an imitation of the ritual, as far as I can tell."
"...So that ritual wasn't some act of praying to the gods — it was actually a measure to prevent locust plagues, is that right?"
"Exactly. It was a job given to us farm slaves in exchange for our lives. Even if we didn't want to do it, we were forced. Some tried to run away or slack off, but since we were only kept alive out of leftovers, they showed no mercy — straight to the noose. If you don't plow the fields, you die. When you think about it that way, you've got no choice but to work like your life depends on it."
Nenshin's past was unforgivable, so that was only natural.
"After about ten years, farm slaves started getting paid according to the harvest. It was a pittance, but being able to save up something made a big difference. This area is close to the Western Capital. I think the clemency was that much greater because of it. It's simple, really — once you've got something to motivate you, you start thinking about how to grow better crops, how to keep them from getting sick, how to reduce pest damage. That's also why I started raising chickens — when you dig up the soil, they eat the bugs."
"So the birds the Wind-reading clan used were different from chickens?"
"That's right. They weren't chickens. Chickens aren't suited to a life of traveling across the grasslands."
"Not chickens? Then..."
Baisen put on a serious expression.
"Ducks!"
"Like hell they are!"
Rahan's brother immediately shot back. At the instantaneous retort, Baisen furrowed his brow.
"I've heard that ducks eat insects. They're bigger than chickens, so wouldn't they eat even more bugs?"
"Ducks are water-loving birds. There's no way you'd raise them in land this dry."
"Don't write them off completely. With enough effort, even ducks might be raised here."
"I've never seen a duck that tries hard!"
For some reason, Baisen was fixated on ducks.
"Sorry, but it wasn't ducks either. It was a bird I'd never seen before."
Rahan's brother made a face that practically said "See? What'd I tell you?" That mannerism itself was very much like an ordinary young man his age.
"What the Wind-reading tribe's rites were missing was birds. I don't think birds were there to eat the insects—they were there to find them. There's no way anyone could know where insects are hiding across such vast grasslands. The Dog tribe must have protected the Wind-reading tribe precisely because they knew that method."
And the survivor of the tribe that had dismissed those people as superstitious and destroyed them.
"Oh right, mind if I get back to work soon? We're nowhere near done yet."
Nenshin stood up with a grunt.
"Of course. If it's all right, could we help out as well?"
"You visitors from the Western Capital are an odd bunch. That Lu Sun fellow said the same thing. I won't say no, though. I'm the only former farm slave here, and the new folks who joined the village only work their own fields. Tilling the land for the ones who disappeared gets harder every single year…"
He had to be nearing seventy. An age where it wouldn't be surprising if he dropped dead any day, yet he kept working.
(What he did can never be forgiven, but…)
As Nenshin walked, it looked as though invisible shackles were bound to his feet.