People at the Table

The remnants of the Tang Dynasty were exhausted, and all the countries stood side by side. The guard flag was newly hung, and the edict read "Registration with the people." However, the old man in the village said: I have seen Gengshi four times, and the rice in the bucket became shallower each time. Cheng He entered the village at the age of twelve, but he was still a young man at the age of seventeen. He married Liu Qing, guarding a lamp, and believed that his boss, Shen Boheng, was a good man: he opened a warehouse to give porridge, he was exempted from interest in bad years, and he was willing to press his fingerprints to protect "one of his own" in times of crisis. In troubled times, being written as one of your own is more valuable than half a spoonful of food and money. Until he saw things on the paper stacked up one after another. At the end of the interest-free deed, there is the small word "Zhe Ding Kou"; the soup kitchen list has the column "Able to work"; the accountant's waste paper has "Hechuan Ding Amount" written on it; he almost died trying to save someone, but the corner of the guarantor's shape has the same set of hooks. People from neighboring villages were asked to "contribute" and rice was delivered to their doorsteps. The drums are beating across the river, the nail holes in the barn eaves are being emptied, and a roll of unwritten blue cloth is waiting for just one night in the miscellaneous warehouse. The manager is like a bandit, with hawks and dogs forcing him to point people out, and his boss teaching him to "forget". He can't forget. He will not ascend, there is no system, only fights, favors, private accounts, and an increasingly hard thought: Don't write people as Ding. From lowering his eyebrows to survive, to keeping accounts with a broken heart, to holding a knife and lifting a corner of the table - history may still write "chaos and peace", but those people in Hechuan who have been written down will at least remember their names.