Chapter 528: Cultural differences
Thanks to his connection with Razorstella, Zhen Liu could immediately tell that whatever she was reporting to him was definitely anxiety inducing.
The fact that Razorstella, one of his most aloof kaijin was freaking out, meant that whatever was going on was really, really bad.
The question now though was, how bad of a situation were they dealing with.
‘Wait…before I continue to freak out,’ Zhen Liu said as he did his best to suppress the anxiety coming from his connection with Razorstella.
‘What kind of situation are you dealing with that is causing you to freak out like this?’
[YOUR COUSINS PICKED A FIGHT WITH SOMEONE THEY REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE!]
‘…economically, socially, politically or in regards to cultivation ability?’
[YES!]
‘FUCK! OKAY! WHAT HAPPENED?!’
[Okay director, it went like this…]
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*Bing-Bong*
As a a reminder:
Tide Tongue will be notified with <<>>
Hoof Speech will be marked with “”.
That is all.
…
You sure we’re at all qualified to have an arc about something like this?
|It’s going to be more of a running theme later on, we might as well address it now rather than later and blindside people.|
Fair enough, but still…
*Bing-Bong*
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“Damn. And here I thought Pearl Scale Harbor was impressive in terms of scale,” Zhen Hai commented as he stared out at the festivities unfolding before his eyes. By his side, his cousins were sharing similar sentiments, albeit, some of there weren’t as vocal about it.
For a bit of extra privacy though, they decided to speak in Hoof Speech.
The perks of being bilingual, baby!
“Huh…I have never seen carnival games like these before. Then again, I don’t think we have goldfish back home…”
“Yo, check out that candy maker! He’s turning the sugar into dragon-shaped lollipops like Granny Yang would do.”
“Wonder how many people think we’re actually natives?”
Soon after finding lodging for the rest of their family and the merchant company they were travelling with, the scions of the Zhen branch clan decided to collectively go and see what this Sapling Festival thing was all about without a looming issue over their head.
Well, most of them anyways.
Zhen Liu had decided not to tag along with everyone else, citing that the act of trying to find a hotel was a touch more draining than he had anticipated and that he just wanted to be lazy.
Some of his other cousins had guessed that maybe Zhen Liu wanted to go off and flirt with his girlfriend without them, as such, they respected his wishes and proceeded to go and explore the festival and the city by themselves.
Before, when they were looking for lodging, the group couldn’t really appreciate the finer details of their supposed ancestral homeland.
But now that they didn’t have any pressing issues weighing on their minds, so they now had free reign to go and have some fun!
That being said though, there was one thing that was starting to bother them.
They didn’t really think about it at first, but as they kept exploring, they couldn’t help but to notice that at least several of the people manning the booths, some of the people putting on performances in some designated areas and those maintaining the grounds had these weird metal and jade collars around their necks.
They reminded the scions of the same iron collars they had seen on prisoners when prison caravans would pass through Stone Claw, but a lot of these collared folks didn’t look like hardened criminals.
Some of them did, especially the ones putting on combat-based performances for people to watch, but many of these collared individuals did not look that part.
The collared people manning the booths looked pleasing to the eyes and were well-spoken, the people sweeping the streets looked either emaciated as all hell and barely clothed or looked healthy with clothes that while not fancy, looked at least sturdy enough to withstand the rigors associated with their job.
The Zhen clan scions had initially assumed that perhaps these guys were part of the same guild that hired out people to other companies and families, like the Digger Union did with their miners.
“What kind of union uses metal collars as a uniform though?,” Zhen Feng asked, “they don’t look comfortable in the slightest.”
“Uhh…probably one that also employs children for porter jobs?,” Zhen Xing answered hesitantly.
“Wait, what?”
“Over there.”
Looking in the direction that Zhen Xing was pointing at, the group saw what appeared to be minors no younger than ten and no older than fifteen years old unloading large sacks of who knows what to various other booths from a large wagon.
Some of the children looked to be able to handle the literal workload with ease, while some of the smaller and younger ones could barely keep up.
It was at this point that the scions finally realized something was definitely wrong.
“Alright, what the fuck is going on?,” Zhen Guo asked his cousins, “I’d probably have less to say about those kids doing that kind of work if they were cultivating, but I ain’t sensing a lick of aether coming off of them. Same with all the other collared people we met…what the fuck is going on?”
“Didn’t you read those books that Zhen Hai and the others bought? Those guys are slaves,” Zhen Yue answered.
“Slaves…?”
“People that are considered someone else’s property. They have to do whatever their owner tells them to do,” Zhen Yue explained further, “they’re kind of like…our servants, but they can’t quit their jobs and they don’t get paid.”
“Wait, what?”
The concept of slavery was incredibly foreign to the children of the Zhen branch clan, mainly because it didn’t really exist in their neck of the world.
The Alloy Republic, the greater nation their home city was a part of, had outlawed slavery a really long time ago to the point that it just became a matter of fact for the citizenry that lived there that literally owning someone’s life was a really messed up thing to do.
Supposedly the neighboring Adamantine Empire had an active slave trade, but they wouldn’t know due to living out in the sticks and being nowhere near there.
In fact, due to Stone Claw City being a frontier town in the smack dab middle of nowhere with nothing but desert, monsters and bandits for miles and miles around. Meaning that even if someone wanted to have slaves, they would quickly realize owning slaves out there was essentially a death marker.
Bandits would either immediately identify the guy as being a loaded target since owning and maintaining slaves usually meant the guy was running one of those labor intensive yet incredibly profitable business ventures, or the slaves in question would realize that they were in the middle of nowhere and that the desert was the kind of place that people disappeared into, all the time.
Regardless of these reasons though, it all boiled down to them finding the whole concept of slavery really fucking weird.
“If these slave guys don’t get paid to do their jobs, then how do they get motivated to do this stuff in the first place?,” Zhen Xing asked.
“Well…”
Zhen Yue was all set to answer what was arguably the most awkward question in her life, having to explain how slavery works, until the universe decided to help her out via a visual aid.
<
*SMACK!*
<
“That’s how.”
Several or so feet away from the Zhen clan scions, a rather tragic scene was playing out.
A young man no older than themselves was currently beating a girl that couldn’t be any older than ten years of age, possibly twelve if they were factoring in malnutrition.
The young man was dressed in silken robes, a noticeable water stain on his front.
The girl being beaten had that slave collar around her neck, the remains of what appeared to be the remains of a shattered jug a foot or so away in front of her.
Nearby was a table that had four or so other young people wearing clothes similar to the young man’s, contemptuous smiles and laughter plain on their faces with one even goading the young man to stomp better.
The Zhen clan scions didn’t see what happened, but by observing the other’s attire and what they overheard, they could guess what had happened.
The slave girl was tasked with bringing some water to her master, however, she must’ve tripped either by accident or by the machinations of one of the young man’s presumed “friends”, and subsequently spilled the water onto her master’s clothes.
It didn’t matter how it got to this point though, the end scenario was the same.
A slave being stomped on for a rather simple mistake.
“Alright, I understand the concept of punishing a subordinate for a mistake, but this is going too far,” Zhen Tai pointed out, “why isn’t anyone stopping him? How can anyone not notice this?”
“No…it’s worse than that,” Zhen Feng quietly growled, “take a look. Everyone see it’s happening. They’re just…choosing not to do anything.”
“What?!”
Finding it hard to believe Zhen Feng’s words, a few of members of the group shifted their focus away from the scenario unfolding before them and towards the other groups of people around.
As they did, a sinking feeling of disgust began to bubble in their stomachs.
“You can’t be serious…”
