I Became a Poor County Magistrate, So I Pay Every Resident a Salary

After transmigrating into the third year of a great drought, Sang Li became a seventh-rank county magistrate with just seventeen strings of cash to his name. Eight thousand disaster victims crowded outside the county, the granary was so empty a mouse could run through it, and the first deed of sale had already been stamped with a thumbprint. Just then, the System bound itself to him: within three days, he had to get a thousand disaster victims paid in real wages. Relief grain didn't count. Forced labor didn't count. IOUs that couldn't be exchanged for food didn't count. The System settled just one question: would the people still be alive tomorrow? Other people's Systems gave them grain, soldiers, and divine generals. Sang Li's System gave him only a ledger. Repair a canal, gain points; force an upstream village to share its water, incur a debt. Open the granary, gain points; drive grain prices so low that no merchant caravan dared come, incur a debt. He saved an entire city, only for the System to tell him that four years later, the whole dynasty would fall. Later, the court asked Sang Li what he wanted. Looking at the world's ledger, he gave just one answer: "First, pay the people the wages they're owed."

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.