Liu Dadao watched it all with a hollow, numbed stare. The imperial soldiers had handed them over to another group of men, and he'd caught something about ten taels of silver per head.
He laughed bitterly to himself. Once upon a time he couldn't scrape together ten taels to save his life. Then he'd raised a rebellion, and the court had put a three-hundred-tael bounty on his head.
Now the price had dropped to ten.
This godforsaken dynasty clearly didn't have long left. Shouldn't a rebel ringleader like him be condemned to death by a thousand cuts? And they sold him off for ten taels?
Were they really that broke? Weren't they afraid he'd come roaring back?
But then again, this life had been worth living. He'd been an emperor, after all.
Even if only over a few thousand people.
In a daze, he felt the crowd around him begin to move. Bound in rope, he had no choice but to move with it.
The column shuffled forward, dead-eyed and slow. But the new handlers hadn't raised a single whip.
"Come on, everyone, pick it up! The food's already ready over there — you might not be hungry, but we're starving!"
"Food? This isn't a last meal before they chop our heads off, is it? I'm not going, I'm not going."
"The hell kind of fantasy are you living in? You think we'd spend ten taels a head just to execute you for fun?"
"We bought you to work! Get moving — you can skip dinner tonight if you want, but tomorrow's work won't skip itself. Eat or don't, your choice."
People had to admit that made a certain sense, and almost without realizing it, they quickened their pace. Free food was free food.
About five li north of the Longbei District, a vast enclosure had been newly constructed — walls five meters high, impossible for any ordinary person to scale.
This was Longcheng Prison.
There had always been a prison here, just not one so large. Life in Longcheng was good enough that few people were foolish enough to turn to crime, though the occasional disturbed soul was unavoidable.
The two thousand or so prisoners arrived at a broad square in the center of the walled compound, where the ropes binding their wrists were finally cut loose.
No one worried about escape. No one worried about a riot.
The Wolf Soldiers posted at the gates were not men to be trifled with. Their reputation had long since been burned into the minds of everyone there — especially men like these, who had built their lives on rebellion.
The mere mention of Wolf Soldiers was enough to make grown men wet themselves.
The Wolf Soldiers had honed their skills on drifters and vagrants for years, and the body count was nothing to sniff at.
A full company — over a hundred Wolf Soldiers — was garrisoned here, four platoons rotating in full battle gear around the clock. No one dared start trouble.
And if someone truly had a death wish, the Wolf Soldiers would be happy to oblige.
"Everyone form ten lines! Collect your mess tins and get your food!"
Most of them had never queued for anything in their lives. The security officers spent a good while just getting people to understand what a line was.
Ten teams of three worked the serving stations. Each team carried three large buckets — one filled with stainless steel trays, one with coarse-grain rice, one with vegetables.
The grain was old stock, the vegetables had seen better days, and the dishes were light on oil. But it was a proper meal — with vegetables.
For most of these people, an ordinary day's food meant plain rice and nothing else, perhaps a bit of pickled cabbage if they were lucky. A meal with actual cooked vegetables was something many of them could barely believe was meant for them.
A few voices started up again about last meals and executions, and the security officers quietly pulled those men aside.
Fine — if you think it's a last meal, don't eat it. Starve then. Your call.
Three workers to a station: one to hand out the tray, one to ladle the rice, one to spoon the vegetables. A few seconds per person.
Even so, each line of two or three hundred took nearly ten minutes to get through.
One prisoner accepted his tray, took a bite of rice, a bite of vegetables, and went still.
"This really isn't a last meal? If I could've eaten like this back then, why the hell would I have bothered making trouble — I mean, making a rebellion?"
When the last line had been served and the buckets were nearly empty, a security officer called out, "Anyone still hungry? There's a bit left — come get some."
Leftovers would only go to waste. The people working here earned more than two kuai a day at minimum — none of them were going to touch this food. Not willingly, anyway.
That said, "throwing it away" was an exaggeration. More than a few security officers, all of them raised in hard times, would probably pinch their noses and eat it themselves.
But no one would be happy about it.
Was this real? They were actually offering seconds?
One bolder soul rose to his feet and shuffled forward nervously. Sure enough, they ladled him another half scoop of rice and half scoop of vegetables.
"Me too — I'm not full either!"
"Give me some, just a little more!"
"Gone, it's gone — stop pushing, stop pushing! Wolf Soldiers! Wolf Soldiers!"
The Wolf Soldiers nearby had already spotted the commotion and came riding over at a gallop, drawing the weapons at their belts while still halfway across.
The crowd dropped to their knees and pressed their faces to the ground. Order returned.
After the meal, the prisoners were herded in groups through the bathhouse to wash, and a group of barbers brought in from the city shaved their heads clean. Each man was then issued a prison uniform that more or less fit him, and assigned to a room — four iron bunk beds, eight berths to a cell.
"— you're in this room!"
Liu Dadao learned that his randomly assigned number — and by sheer coincidence, that blockhead Fang Datou had been assigned to the same cell!
Even numbers meant upper bunks. Liu Dadao was just about to climb up when the man in the lower bunk looked up ingratiatingly. "Brother Dao, why don't you take the bottom? Much more convenient, much more convenient."
"Much obliged." Liu Dadao settled onto the lower bunk without hurry, in no rush to sleep, and turned his eyes to the bunk across the way.
The man there was lean and wiry, his head proportionally larger than most people's — which was why everyone called him Fang Datou, Big Head Fang. Even during those brief days when he'd been emperor, these illiterate, rough-edged drifters had kept calling him that, just not to his face.
A meal with actual cooked vegetables was something many of them could barely believe was meant for them.
Fang Datou's hair and beard had both been shaved off, and without them he looked almost unrecognizable — Liu Dadao had nearly failed to recognize him.
"Heh heh, Master Fang," a voice said, "my legs aren't so nimble, it's quite a struggle to climb up to the top bunk. How about we swap?"
"No. If your legs are giving you trouble, go ask the Wolf Soldiers outside. They did say to come to them if you needed anything."
"The hell — I call you Master Fang once and suddenly you think you're somebody? Get down here!"
The man grabbed Fang Datou by the collar and hurled him to the floor. "Think you're still that self-proclaimed emperor? I'll say one thing though — roughing up an emperor does feel pretty good!"
Liu Dadao, who had been watching in silence, broke into a broad laugh. "Big Head, you still think that skull of yours is harder than my fists?"
He crossed the room and landed two solid punches that nearly knocked the man out cold, then grabbed him by the collar and dragged him off the bunk, dropping him on the floor.
"Real fun roughing up emperors, is it? I crowned myself one too. Come on then — have a go at me."
"Big Head, you admit my fists are better than your head today, and from here on out I've got your back."
"Brute," said Fang Datou, ignoring Liu Dadao entirely, and climbed back onto his own bunk.
A security officer appeared on the other side of the iron bars at the door. "No fighting! No fighting! That's one warning — I catch this again and there will be consequences!"
Liu Dadao clasped his hands and bowed at once. "My apologies, sir, my deepest apologies. This fellow tried to steal my brother's lower bunk — I had to set him straight. Won't happen again, won't happen again."
"I'd better not see a next time."