Super rare beast girl, run away! The emperor's uncle is coming!

Old Lady Xu swaggered, dusted herself off, and walked towards Liu.

Baiguo reminded his master when Old Lady Xu approached.

Liu also noticed her, and her face suddenly darkened. Her two children stood beside her and comforted her: "Don't worry about it, mother. We are here for you."

As soon as she finished speaking, Old Lady Xu's skinny hands reached out to grab Liu's shoulders, but Bai Guo quickly slapped them away.

"Just say what you want to say. Who allowed you to touch my wife?"

Bai Guo shot a pair of cold eyes straight at Old Lady Xu, frightening her so much that she couldn't help but retract her hand and started to grumble:

"What a good dog!"

"Snapped!"

"How dare you hit me? You lowlife."

Old Lady Xu didn't expect Bai Guo to attack her so swiftly. She glared at her with resentment, and looked at Liu with even more hostility.

"Liu, you little whore, you don't even take good care of the dog at home."

Liu's face flushed with anger: "You... that mouth of yours is all you can say, 'Fuck?'"

Qu Jingyao's expression suddenly changed, and a cold light flashed in his deep black eyes.

"Hmph, you don't want the things Shusheng left for you?" As she spoke, Old Lady Xu raised her eyebrows proudly and observed Liu's expression.

Qu Jingyao and his sister were suddenly stunned and looked at each other, wondering what Old Lady Xu was going to do. Could it be that Dad really had something left for Mom and it was withheld by this old hag?

A trace of suspicion flashed across Liu's face. Could it be that Shusheng really had something stolen from her...

"What is it? If it is for me, why is it in your hands?" Liu frowned and asked the question in her mind directly.

Just as Old Lady Xu was about to speak, she heard the yamen runner calling Liu over.

Qu Jingyao glanced coldly at Old Lady Xu, turned around and said a few words to Liu, and then they walked into the crowd together.

"Sir, people from Shusheng's family are here." Xu Li was waving at Qu Jingyao and the others.

Liu's mother and her two sons stepped forward. Hou Li raised his eyelids and glanced at them. A gleam of light flashed across his eyes, which were originally slightly narrowed. The corners of his lips curled up as he looked at them with a smile.

The officer flipped through the booklet in his hand and raised an eyebrow. "Qu Qingchen's family of three, and, oh, there's also a servant, five and a half taels."

Qu Qingchen's face suddenly froze, and his brows knitted tightly together: "Why are there so many?"

Just as the officer was about to speak, Hou Li stopped him. He walked forward with a sneer on his face, curling the corners of his lips in contempt:

"A lot? Why don't you mention that you have more servants? And your family doesn't have any land now, so you make a living by trading outside. Even if you're a merchant, the taxes are naturally quite high. Don't you know that?"

Qu Jingyao didn't expect that he was waiting for them here. It seemed that the Wu mother and daughter had told him what happened at the temple fair before.

Qu Jingyao stopped her angry brother:

"We do have this, but we don't consider ourselves merchants. We don't own any land, but we don't own any shops to do real business, so how can we be considered merchants?"

After Qu Jingyao finished speaking, Hou Li laughed out loud with his face tilted back, his hands folded behind his back.

"Everyone says the Qu family's daughter is eloquent, and I've finally seen her today. Okay! As long as you can buy the land today, I'll collect the head tax from you as a farmer."

Hou Li narrowed his long and narrow eyes slightly, with a cunning and sinister cold light flashing in his eyes. The twisted wrinkles between his eyebrows revealed a calculation. He guessed that these peasants could not afford to buy good farmland.

Xu Lizheng looked at Liu's mother and son and opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but was hindered by the presence of Master Hou.

There is no farmland for sale in Lingshui Village. If you want to buy it now, you can only buy it together with the back mountain. If you reclaim the land yourself, it can be counted as your own land.

But if you want to buy this back mountain, the price is not something that ordinary people can afford. It is obvious that Master Hou is doing this to make things difficult for Yao's family.

Liu held her daughter's hand in embarrassment. This lawyer was obviously targeting their family. If they were to be ordered as a merchant, in the future... Thinking of her son, Liu hesitated.

Bai Guo also whispered to his master. Yuan Shaoguo was originally a country of scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans, and merchants were at the bottom of the social ladder...

"Uncle Village Head, let's do as the lawyer said and buy some land." Qu Jingyao immediately analyzed the pros and cons.

Xu Lizheng looked at her with an embarrassed look on his face: "Yao girl, there is no land for sale in our village."

When Hou Li heard this, he curled the corners of his lips and raised his eyebrows, urging them to hand it over or not.

Looking at the nervous and anxious expressions of Liu's mother and son, Xu Lizheng hesitantly said that there was no farmland, but the wasteland connected to the back mountain could be bought and sold. However, the county government had stipulated that the back mountain must be sold together, and the wasteland would be used as the farmland of the buyer.

Hou Li coughed lightly twice, raised his eyebrows, and said to Liu's mother and son with a half-smile, "Your village head is right. As long as you can buy this back mountain, I will register you as farmers."

Liu looked nervously at her daughter beside her and held her hand tightly.

"I'll buy it!" Qu Jingyao patted her mother's hand and raised the corners of her lips towards Hou Li.

Xu Lizheng was suddenly choked by her words. Just when he was about to persuade her not to act on impulse, he saw that Master Hou was shouting at him with a look of excitement on his face.

"Xu Lizheng, didn't you hear someone wants to buy the back mountain? Bring the booklet over. The yamen runners are all here, so let's measure it together and see how much silver it costs."

"This...this..." Xu Lizheng looked at both sides in a dilemma.

Liu also whispered to her daughter, "Yaoyao, can we afford it? It's not a small amount."

Qu Qingchen's face was also filled with anger at this time, and his eyes were cold when he looked at Hou Li. He knew in his heart that Hou Li was coming for their family.

Qu Jingyao looked at her brother's clenched fists and comforted him softly, explaining to her mother and brother that she had some money and asked them not to worry.

The surrounding villagers started talking about it. How could the Liu family afford to buy such a large piece of mountain behind? If they were designated as merchants, it would be difficult for Qu Qingchen or his children to take the imperial examinations in the future.

The Yuan Shao Kingdom explicitly stipulated that "businessmen and industrialists are not allowed to participate in the affairs of the scholars."

In fact, it was precisely because of this that Liu was in a dilemma!

After Bai Guo explained it to her, Qu Jingyao knew what Hou Li was thinking. He had no other options for them, so he came up with this idea. Haha...

"Uncle Lizheng, it's okay to go get the booklet. It just so happens that all the officials are here, and it will save us from having to go all the way to the town ourselves."

She curled the corners of her lips and nodded affirmatively.

Xu Lizheng wanted to try to persuade them, but Hou Li didn't give him a chance. He could only helplessly call his son behind the crowd to get the booklet from home.

Hou Li Ze left two people behind to continue collecting the tax, and he took the other two yamen runners towards the back mountain.

Qu Jingyao and her son also followed. The old woman Xu behind them yelled in a sarcastic tone that there must be at least a thousand taels of silver in the back mountain, and she didn't believe that Liu could come up with it.

"Humph, you're such a poor family! Even if you sell it, it's too late!"