Since setting out on his journey home, everything Cohen Puliya had seen and heard had been beautiful.
He had spent the whole journey fantasizing about his future life.
But what he had not expected was that the first discordant note would come from his own home.
Could it be that my house is on fire?
He suppressed the anger in his heart, stopped outside, and continued to listen to the conversation inside drift out.
“…The fee for borrowing farm equipment, the tax on land, the poll tax, the amount your family has to pay has been reduced as much as possible. Don’t be ungrateful,”
“Thank you, my lord, thank you…but,” his father’s somewhat feeble voice came from inside, “the notices posted in the Manor and the officials from the provincial city, didn’t they say all of these were free? They said from now on we are all agricultural workers, receiving benefits and subsidies, that all belong to us.
They talked about collective ownership of means of production and that everyone could use them. And the grain produced isn’t ours, it’s public property, what we get are just our own benefits and subsidies… so why do we have to pay these fees with our own subsidies?”
“Oi, Puliya old man, you’ve become quite the smooth talker, haven’t you?”
“Talking about some lord from the provincial city, a couple of years back, they were all peasants, worthy of being called ‘lord’?”
“All this stuff about notices, go and see now, are there any notices posted now?”
Another burst of scolding came through.
Cohen Puliya’s expression turned extremely cold, yet his eyes were so heated they seemed about to spew fire.
He turned halfway to look at Momo as if asking what was going on.
Momo looked a bit awkward, his gaze shifting.
After hesitating for a moment, he whispered, “I don’t know either, how did it happen to be today that the lord’s people have come to your house… Look, Cohen, I have some other things to do, I’ll just leave your stuff here, we’ll talk another time…”
Clearly, this Momo didn’t want to get involved in the matter and scurried off like a shot.
Puliya didn’t have the chance to hold onto him and ask more questions; inside the house, his father’s voice rose again:
“But… my son is about to come home, Cohen went to fight for the governor, and lost an arm. We need to save what’s left of our benefits, otherwise what will we do in the future… ah…”
Before he could finish, there was a crisp slap, followed by his father’s cries of pain.
“Don’t you have any respect!”
Listening to this, Cohen was filled with rage and could no longer stand waiting outside.
With a forceful push, he entered the room.
After a quick scan, he saw his siblings stealthily peering through a cracked door from the side room; his mother sitting and crying; his father, who had just been slapped, covering his face; and three arrogant-looking men.
He knew these three men.
All were so-called ‘lords,’ former servants of the Manor owner of Microthermal Farmstead. They didn’t farm or labor but diligently served Manor owner Zecklin, formerly heads of the Manor Militia Team.
Now, Zecklin no longer had ownership of Microthermal Farmstead, but he still managed to become the farmstead’s administrative head by exploiting policies during the Green Valley Mutual Aid Society reformation by the Alliance. And his former servants, under his manipulation, had become civil servants in this village-level administrative unit.
Outside the house, Puliya had more or less understood the whole situation.
It was nothing but Zecklin and his lackeys still treating Microthermal Farmstead as their private property; those who remained on the farmstead without moving were still his slaves.
All this talk about fees for farm equipment use, land taxes, poll taxes… none of these existed in the Alliance, and yet, this guy was inventing reasons to collect them, using the government’s administrative power.
And would the collected taxes be handed over to the Alliance?
Obviously not.
Moreover, they wouldn’t dare touch the land’s produce. After the reform in Beiqing Valley, all the land was state-owned; they wouldn’t dare take anything from the hands of the Alliance Government.
But to brazenly rob the farmworkers—oops, agricultural workers—of their benefits and rations, they had the audacity to do that.
And quite a lot of it.
Now, Puliya was extremely angry.
He was not only angry about the unbearable treatment his family received and the slap his father endured but also angry that his ideals had been fundamentally challenged.
Although he had only been in the military for a few months, he had come to identify deeply with his sacrifice; he had offered his maimed body in exchange for the happiness of all Rage Owl Star People, to break the cannibalistic environment formed in the wasteland, to rebuild a beautiful home.
It was a noble mission, and he regretted not being able to continue fighting for this grand cause in the military.
But as he returned to his hometown to continue the great cause in another way, he was greeted by this scene.
This was a betrayal of the Alliance’s ideals, a subversion of the governor’s declaration, an insult to the countless people who went through fire and water for the entire planet!
In his fury, he calmly asked, “Who hit my father?”
The leader of the group sized up this markedly changed, disabled man, starting to remember: “Cohen?”
“It’s me, who took a swing just now?”
“I did it, what about it?” one of the men blurted out.
With a crisp smack, Puliya’s good left hand delivered a slap in response.