My portable grandfather refreshes every week

Chapter 280 If there were 10 righteous people, I would not burn the divine man.
When the young general left, five beast kings were already following behind him.

This time, he allied with a race called mermaids who lived deep in the ocean.

In the interstellar column elixir and plan he provided, some long-limbed fish-men also completed their transformation, completely becoming "mermaids" in the same form as their race's name.

However, something seems to be wrong. They have beautiful fish tails, and unlike other shapeshifting beast kings, their bodies are entirely human-like, which is quite beautiful.

But above that beautiful body, looking further up, there are fish scales and, incomprehensibly, a huge fish head.

Young man: "..."

What kind of transformation can make a creature that is entirely human except for its head and buttocks, but has a fish-like shape in those two most important parts?
Do you have any strange or unusual views on "transformation"?

Then, after the "Mermaid" Queen embraced him and he felt the warmth on his face, the next step was for a fish head's mouth to be pressed against his face, with a tongue sticking out of the fish head to pry open his teeth.

The young man silently endured all of this, only thinking about it in his heart.

After this mission is over, I must find a nun and confess my sins thoroughly.

Then, the fish entangled him tightly.

……

Innovation Century: The Sixth Day, Eternal Night

The carriage arrived at the final stop on the itinerary: the easternmost coastal city of the Holy Kingdom.

An endless storm is brewing in the distant sea.

They also rely on fishing for a living, and fish is their main food. If they don't have children, they won't have grains to provide sugar, but if they want to have children, they can't go out to sea to fish.

Looking at the local customs and traditions, I finally thought of the people in the divine capital of the church who had become people who barely survived by having children.

At this point, she was no longer called "Lan Lin'er," and she even knew the names her mother had given them from her soul.

The one who flew to the realm of gods was named "Lan Ling," while the one who remains in the human world is named "Lan Yi."

This also made her realize that her life was preordained, and that her future, which was divided into two halves, was also arranged by her parents at birth, who even gave her two different names, "Lanling" and "Lanyi".

Really are……

She even felt like covering her eyes and laughing hysterically. She had thought that her parents' love for her had turned into sharp knives at this moment, and just thinking about it made her tears of blood flow from her pupils.

Along the way, she witnessed the tragedies of the world: the young girls in the capital who desperately sold themselves; the cruel people in the North who, unable to survive, sent their children and elderly to the ice plains and the capital; the soldiers in the West with their rough faces and missing teeth; the people in the southern forests who lived a twisted life amidst parasites and plague; and now, the coastal city...

Fishermen desperately pulling on their nets in the storm.

Holding onto their fishing nets, they might die in the storm; letting go of their nets, they might die of hunger from being unable to pay their taxes.

Linhai City is the only city where one can survive without giving birth, because it is a place where the gods and nobles allow fishing and salt production.

Because the divine nobles and other cities also needed salt and fish, the coastal city became the main production area for the divine nobles to fish and produce salt. The fish caught would be gutted as soon as they came ashore and then put into salt jars filled with sea salt to make salted fish.

These salted fish were sent to various cities, mainly the capital, becoming the most important food for important figures and nobles to improve their lives.

Even the soldiers and warriors under his command could occasionally eat these salted fish. The excess salt and salted fish were taken home and handed over to the merchants who supported the entire theocracy through commerce and the caravans of the noble families, thus revitalizing the entire theocracy.

However, while allowing fishing and salt production, an unimaginably high tax was levied, namely three parts tax and two parts profit.

For every three fish caught, two had to be handed over to the gods and nobles as taxes. Salt producers paid even higher taxes, seemingly reaching nine out of ten. That is, out of every ten catties of salt produced, nine catties had to be handed over as taxes.

Every time a fishing boat docks, the tax officer must board the boat immediately to count the catch, so as to begin tax collection and pickle the fish as quickly as possible to prevent it from rotting.

The output of the salt fields is also recorded in the tax officials' records, and taxes will be paid at designated locations.

This resulted in a city that, although able to support itself without having children, suffered from high taxes that left everyone with numb and listless expressions.

This time, when Xue Dinglu offered free medical treatment here, there weren't many people.

Because for the people living here, there are very few major injuries or illnesses; it's either death or life, and there are very few injuries or illnesses of all kinds.

The vast majority of people treated by Xue's Law suffered from various chronic and occupational diseases, but these are not considered diseases in this era. For people who live one day at a time, chronic diseases are normal, because they basically don't live long enough for them to develop chronic diseases.

However, because of Xue's treatment, word spread quickly, and many old fishermen came to help.

Xue's Law will not refuse anyone's request for help; he will teach them how to fight chronic diseases and how to live better in this environment.

As the day ended and Xue Dinglu left, many of the original fishermen put down their harpoons and straw hats, carrying the meager amount of salted fish and salt they had painstakingly saved, and joined the procession. Their destination tonight was the capital.

Tomorrow is a rest day.

……

As dawn broke, the distant capital city appeared before my eyes.

The carriage stopped where it had been, the place where Xue Dinglu and the young general had landed when they traveled through time, and also the place where they had agreed to meet for the last time.

The others also stopped in their tracks. All those who had completed this journey looked at the distant capital city, and at that moment, they even felt as if they were about to be elevated.

Everything has come to an end. They don't know what the outcome of their journey will be, especially as they look at Xue Dinglu. They don't know what kind of ending would be worthy of this mage's arduous journey.

People began to pray, and cats made strange hand gestures in front of their chests; they were all praying in their own way.

When Xue took out the book and turned to the last page, the quill pen floated in mid-air and slowly wrote.

Innovation Century: The Seventh Day, Eternal Day

After writing this line with a quill pen, the sun slowly rose at the far end of the horizon, dawn was approaching, and the sunlight shone on him, your blood-stained hood and thorns fluttering in the wind.

The sun rose, but no unusual phenomena occurred.

Everyone looked at each other, but their hearts were also incredibly firm, and there was no commotion or noise.

"Look, the capital is on fire!" someone pointed to the distant capital.

To be more precise, it wasn't that the gods were on fire, but rather that thick smoke gradually rose from the nobles' territories and mansions.

The sudden appearance of flames shocked people.

After the seventh day of the Innovation Era was completed, the nobles of the entire capital city set off in flames. The flames ignited flammable materials as if by sudden occurrence, and at the same time set hundreds of houses ablaze.

However, at this moment, a voice suddenly rang out: "I am the divine messenger who patrols the mortal realm. Who are you, daring to unleash heavenly fire upon the divine nobles who herd the mortals? Are you truly unafraid of death...?"

The moment the divine messenger uttered the word "death," his eyes widened like copper bells as he stared intently at Lan Lin'er. Then, he slumped down and looked at Xue Dinglu, who was now surrounded by a large halo, and weakly said, "God, God, please remember how hard I work. Could you please not burn this city down?"

Although Xue Luding preferred his previous arrogant demeanor, he calmly stated his conditions: "If you can find 10 righteous men among the nobles, I will let them go."

"Ten righteous people?" The divine messenger in charge of supervising the gods, humans, and nobles in the mortal realm was stunned for a moment, and then overjoyed.

How could a group of tens of thousands of divine nobles and branch nobles not be able to gather 10 righteous people? It seems that this future supreme god is giving me face and giving each other a way out.

He immediately flew back to the capital to find 10 righteous people to complete this simple contract.

……

Ten minutes later, the little genius was drenched in sweat.

No, not in this family, not here!

No, why? Among tens of thousands of nobles, let alone gathering 10 righteous men, he was sweating profusely just searching for one.

How could that be? There isn't a single righteous person!

After searching for what seemed like the umpteenth time, he suddenly discovered a man who met the standards of a righteous person in the mansion of a divine nobleman. Overjoyed, he took the man away from the capital and came to the outskirts of the city, speaking in the direction of Xue Dinglu.

“A righteous man, I have found this righteous man, he…”

Before he could finish speaking, flames erupted from the entire area of ​​the divine nobles behind the righteous man.

In an instant, it spread rapidly like wildfire.

The flames ignited the forests, courtyards, and countless supplies and treasures that the noble lords had enclosed.

Powerful legendary and mythical beings rushed to extinguish the fire, but all their efforts were in vain. The heavenly fire, which seemed like divine punishment, was like a leech that could not be easily extinguished and would not spare any flammable material.

The flames spread like wildfire, igniting almost all the noble homes in the entire capital in the blink of an eye. The flames and thick smoke created a dense haze over the entire capital, and this heavenly fire could not be extinguished no matter what.

The gods and nobles began to panic. When even the mythical mage's summoning of a giant water dragon could not extinguish the flames, they knelt on the ground in terror, constantly calling out and praying, calling upon the name of the god-king.

They prayed to the God-King to forgive their mistakes and give them another chance, promising that they would fulfill their quota of handing over the babies.

(End of this chapter)