Title: Transmigrated as the Foolish Maid: My System Feeds the Empire
Chapter 8: Gold is Dirt
We marched for three days.
Inside the palanquin, it was paradise. I used my remaining Shock Points to buy an encyclopedia of this world’s history, feeding my brain everything I needed to know about the Usurper Emperor's reign. Ye Chen sat quietly beside me, peeling grapes and feeding them to me with absolute, unwavering devotion. Every time his fingers brushed my lips, his heart rate spiked. It was almost cute.
Outside, it was hell.
[DING! Approaching 'Ironwood City'. Famine Level: Catastrophic. Population: 50,000 (30,000 starving refugees outside the walls).]
The palanquin came to a halt. I parted the silk curtains and looked out.
The sight was horrific. The massive, iron-reinforced gates of the city were tightly sealed. Outside the walls, a sea of walking skeletons stretched as far as the eye could see. Tens of thousands of refugees were huddled in the cracked mud, dying of thirst, flies buzzing around the corpses of those who had already succumbed.
Atop the towering city walls stood the City Lord's private army—well-fed, heavily armored soldiers with crossbows aimed at the starving masses below.
Under an ornate silk canopy on the wall sat City Lord Pang, a morbidly obese man wearing silk robes, gnawing on a roasted chicken leg while watching children die in the dirt below him.
"Ah-Zhu..." Ye Chen whispered, his fists clenching as he looked at the suffering people. "This is Ironwood City. It’s the gatekeeper to the Northern Wastelands. City Lord Pang is a notoriously corrupt official loyal to the Usurper."
"I can see that," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
Suddenly, a commotion broke out near the front of our convoy. Madam Ye, looking entirely unrecognizable—her hair matted with dung, her aristocratic robes reduced to filthy, blood-stained rags—had managed to gnaw through her rope bindings.
Before Captain Zhao could catch her, she sprinted toward the massive iron gates of the city, waving something shiny in her hand.
"Open the gates!" Madam Ye screamed, her voice cracking with desperate, manic energy. "I am Ye Li, sister to the Prime Minister of the Capital! Open the gates! I have gold!"
The refugees weakly turned their heads, too starved to even try and rob her.
Up on the wall, City Lord Pang paused his chewing. He peered over the edge, looking at the raving, filthy woman below. "Prime Minister's sister? She was exiled weeks ago. Why does she look like a feral dog?"
"Lord Pang! Save me!" Madam Ye shrieked, pointing a trembling, dirt-caked finger back toward my jade palanquin. "That girl... she is a demon! She killed the Imperial Guards! Let me in! I have a pouch of South Sea Pearls and a solid gold imperial plaque! Take it! Just let me in and give me water!"
Ye Chen started to rise, drawing a sword we had confiscated from the guards. "That treacherous old snake. She hid valuables from us this whole time? Princess, let me silence her."
"No," I said, a wicked smirk crossing my face. "Watch. Let her learn the ultimate lesson of the wasteland."
On the wall, Lord Pang burst into a fit of booming, greasy laughter. He tossed his half-eaten chicken bone over the wall. The starving refugees immediately dog-piled on it, clawing at each other's faces for a sliver of meat.
"Gold? Pearls?" Pang sneered, rubbing his massive belly. "You stupid old crone. Do you think I can eat gold? Do you think pearls will quench my thirst? The drought has dried up the grand canal! We haven't had a grain shipment in four months!"
Madam Ye froze, the pouch of priceless pearls trembling in her hands. "But... but it's wealth! You can buy anything!"
"I can't buy rain!" Pang roared. He looked down at her with a sick, predatory gleam in his eye. "But you know what I do need? Meat. My soldiers are getting hungry. If you want to enter my city, you don't pay in gold, Lady Ye." Pang licked his greasy lips. "You pay in human flesh. Toss me that spoiled daughter of yours to butcher for the stew pot, and I'll give you a cup of dirty well water."
Madam Ye collapsed to her knees, staring up at the obese monster on the wall. The realization finally hit her. Her status, her hidden wealth, her aristocratic arrogance—it was all completely, utterly worthless. In a world without food, she was just walking meat.
[DING! Madam Ye’s worldview has utterly collapsed! Ultimate Despair achieved! +5,000 Shock Points!]
I slowly stood up, pushing the silk curtains aside. The golden runes on my skin began to faintly pulse.
"Well," I projected my voice, enhanced by Dragon Qi, so it echoed like thunder across the entire encampment. "If gold cannot buy open gates, I wonder what the price of a miracle is?"
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