Lord of Rot

In Livestock Village, rows of beautiful houses stood neatly built along the road.

Gelan held a piece of paper, propped up by a wooden board. It was one of the Lord’s many, yet inconspicuous, inventions. He recalled the time he’d been planning the housing layout when the Lord came to inspect. The Lord had decided to build a public toilet somewhere, but when he took a piece of paper to mark it, he found it too flimsy to write on. So, he had summoned a carpenter’s apprentice named Pointy Nose on the spot and had him craft a board that could clip paper to it.

It was like a portable desk.

’Praise the Lord’s wisdom!’

The thought flashed through his mind. Since coming to work in Porcupine Territory, Gelan had witnessed the Lord’s wisdom and miraculous abilities on countless occasions. As he watched this impoverished village improve step by step, he was more thankful than ever for making the right choice. Perhaps working for another lord would have brought more prestige or a higher station, but only by following Baron Porcupine could he truly prove his own worth.

The sense of accomplishment from seeing a territory flourish under his management was deeply satisfying. Why, since coming to Porcupine Territory, Gelan hadn’t even felt the need to visit a brothel!

"Sir," said Wheel, who had no eyebrows, as he walked over. He was also holding a clipboard, on which many numbers were written.

Since starting work under Gelan, Wheel and Black Nose—who had a mole—had been doing intensive arithmetic daily. They had mastered more than just the multiplication tables; when taught division, they picked it up instantly. Now, they could solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems in a flash, and rarely made a mistake.

"After the allocations, we have four houses left, but there are eleven households signed up to move in today."

The entire Porcupine Territory had fewer than a hundred ordinary commoner households.

Some of the elderly were unwilling to leave Maitian Village. They wanted to be closer to their fields and couldn’t walk too far.

Another portion was moved to Livestock Village—people like the auntie who raises chickens, the duck-herder Old Spider Leg, and the swineherd Pig Mu—who were already allotted houses.

Still others were relocated to Beekeeping Village. This meant that the remaining eleven households represented the entirety of Maitian Village’s available population.

The people were packed together in a disorderly crowd. Even with orders for each household to form a line, the situation hadn’t improved much.

"Let’s draw lots."

Black Nose understood. Taking a small knife he carried, he cut a sheet of paper into strips. He drew a circle on four of the strips and a cross on the rest, then crumpled them into balls and tossed them into a box.

Drawing a circle meant you won a house in Livestock Village. However, it also depended on the state of your old house in Maitian Village. If the new house was a significant upgrade, you had to pay a fee to the castle—after all, one couldn’t just take advantage of the Lord, right? Those who couldn’t afford it could take out a loan from the castle, but it came with interest. If you ultimately failed to repay the debt, you would become a slave and your house would be repossessed.

Of course, the castle was quite lenient. As long as you worked diligently, it was nearly impossible to be unable to afford your home.

Right now, everyone was anxious because there were only so many houses and not enough to go around.

The crowd excitedly began to draw.

Black Nose carried the box through the crowd, instructing each person to draw only one slip and wait for everyone to open them at the same time.

When he reached his own family, his father gave him an imploring look, but Black Nose could only shake his head. "I don’t know which one it is."

He couldn’t resort to petty tricks for the sake of a house. He knew that many eyes were on the official’s apprentices; if he performed poorly, he would be replaced immediately. Working for the Lord demanded loyalty.

Resigned, Black Nose’s father reached out and grabbed a slip at random. The family huddled together, praying to the Four Gods for a blessing.

Soon, Black Nose had made his way through the entire crowd.

At his command, everyone opened their crumpled slips of paper.

"I got a circle! I drew a circle!"

"Damn it!"

"Hahaha! I just prayed to the Lord! Praise the Lord!"

Whether it was true or not, after the first man—an elder—claimed he’d won a house by praying to the Lord in his heart, the other three winners quickly said the same thing.

"Old Woodpecker, Little Woodpecker, Uncle Grey Sparrow, and Uncle Forked-Horn, you can stay behind to choose your houses. As for everyone else, please don’t be sad." Seeing his own father and the others looking dejected, Black Nose added, "My master said that they will keep building new houses. Everyone will get to live in a new house eventually!"

’Eventually? How long would that take?’

All they knew was that the winners got to live in new houses, while the losers had to return to their old, dilapidated ones.

Black Nose knew his words didn’t offer much comfort, but his only job was to relay the message.

Next, he and Wheel would lead the winners to choose their houses. There would be no arguments during this process; once a name was assigned, the choice was final.

This also served as a detailed census. The name of every person living in each house would be recorded, along with their thumbprint. Any troublemakers would be disqualified and could even face a whipping.

The housing for Beekeeping Village was assigned directly. Not many people were meant to live there, but the Lord placed great importance on the village, so there could be absolutely no mistakes.

Incidentally, Old Woodpecker and Little Woodpecker were not related. They just happened to have the same name, so "Old" and "Little" were added to distinguish them by age, even though they were actually only a few years apart.

Old Woodpecker was from the Mother River region, while Little Woodpecker came from Soaring Valley.

On each door was a house plate forged by a blacksmith, inscribed with a house number.

Recording the details for each house was a tedious process that required triple-checking everything, but the villagers showed no sign of impatience. How could anyone be dissatisfied when they were getting such beautiful, large houses?

Finally, by dusk, all the houses had been assigned. The villagers swarmed back to their old homes to start moving.

"I brought this pot with me when I married you. We can’t just leave it!"

"This chest is still useful. Let’s keep it."

"Oh, and these shoes! They’re little Pig Mu’s, and they still look new." "He can’t wear them anymore."

"But our next child could wear them! Think about the housing assignments today. Old Spider Leg and his son, Little Spider Leg—they’re one family, but they got two houses!"

Old Spider Leg was born with a disability, but his son was perfectly healthy. The only thing a commoner could inherit, however, was a name.

Pig Mu sighed helplessly. "Old Spider Leg is a renowned duck-herder, and his son is in charge of the dairy cows. Besides, they’ve officially registered as separate households."

"Exactly!" his wife replied, ticking off points on her fingers as if making a calculation. She didn’t actually know any arithmetic but felt the gesture made her look confident. "So, when our little Pig Mu gets married and registers his own household, we can get another house! If we have another child, we can get another house after that!"

"Er..." Pig Mu faltered. He had a feeling his wife wasn’t wrong.

But when he saw the predatory glint in her eyes, as if she planned to wring him dry, he got the feeling her logic was just a smokescreen.

Pig Mu shivered. "Tonight... a few of the sows are farrowing tonight. I have to keep an eye on them, make sure they don’t eat their own piglets."

"Then I’ll make you eat the breeding boar’s feed!" his wife threatened, her expression turning fierce. "I know how... *special* that feed is."

"I..."

The swineherd, Pig Mu, wanted to cry. He knew just how terrible that special-mix feed was. It could make a pig waste away, let alone a man. He’d be turned into a dried-up husk!