novelraw Chapter 234 The people here also have a strict hierarchy.
Chapter 234 The people here also have a strict hierarchy.
"We've lived here for generations, almost eight hundred years now, and we can't get out. We're hoping an outsider can take us out! We'll definitely need Fellow Daoist Tong's help in the future!"
Tong Yuyao quickly replied, "No, no, but if there's anything I can do to help, I will certainly do my best!"
She dared not say she was going all out; this was clearly an array or barrier created by a powerful cultivator. How could she possibly break through it? It would be more like Qionghua Yuanjun would have to come!
"Why can't we get out? Isn't there a road leading out of these mountains? How do you survive? Can you get enough supplies?" Tong Yuyao asked several questions in confusion.
"Fellow Daoist, this is a long story, let's go back to the village and talk about it!" The middle-aged man quickened his pace again, and Tong Yuheng and Yuyao hurriedly followed.
There were about twenty or thirty men, women, and children who came to watch the spectacle. They had been following behind them, but soon they were left far behind.
"I am Sun Desheng, the village head of this village. The area in front of us is Wangxian Village, where there are many people with the surname Sun, as well as Wang, Yao, and a few other surnames. Across the mountain, there are a few other villages, and their situations are similar to ours..."
As Sun Desheng walked, he explained things to them, and Tong Yuheng finally understood the general situation here:
Their ancestors were all moved here by their masters eight hundred years ago. Because they were subordinate families or servants of their masters, they had no right to refuse.
Several master families joined forces and set up a huge array here, relocating their subordinate families and many servants to this place.
The area covered by the formation became an independent little world, where they have multiplied and thrived to this day.
In this small world, there is a small city located in the center of several villages. The city is called Flying Immortal City, and the surrounding villages each have the character "immortal" in their names.
Their village is called "Wangxian Village" (望仙村), while the other villages are called "Yingxian Village" (迎仙村), "Yuexian Village" (悦仙村), etc., using the eight characters "Wanglin Yingyu, Jingchong Zunyue" (望临迎遇，敬崇尊悦).
Each village has a population of 1,000 to 1,800, with the total population remaining around 20,000. Approximately 60% of the population lives in Feixian City.
Wherever there are people, there will be conflict. Different families compete with each other due to differences in strength and population, and cooperation and struggle are inevitable.
Over the years, three relatively strong forces have emerged in Feixian City: the Feng family, the Chu family, and the Hong family. These families manage all the affairs of this small world.
The city lord is elected through a triennial competition, and is almost always one of the three major families. The deputy city lord oversees certain people and affairs, as well as the villages surrounding Feixian City, and is also managed by the three major families.
In Feixian City, there are specific people responsible for registering the population and land, collecting rent and taxes, mediating disputes, and punishing those who violate the rules. Therefore, several families also occupy some positions as village chiefs in the outer areas or as managers and maintainers of stability in the city.
There is also a strict hierarchy among the people here, and members of a family also have different statuses:
The first tier consists of cultivators, who are respected, do not have to work, and receive a fixed amount of sustenance. They also have priority in obtaining managerial positions.
The second tier consists of members of cultivator families. They cannot cultivate themselves, but under the protection of cultivators, they can obtain more resources and land allocations.
The third class consisted of ordinary commoners, including those who ran small businesses in the city. Singers, storytellers, and acrobats also belonged to the commoner class and were not discriminated against here. Commoners enjoyed personal freedom and the freedom to marry, though life was more difficult for them.
People here marry each other, and after marriage, men and women can freely choose which village to settle in. Women have a relatively high status in the family and can also strive to become managers.
The fourth category is slaves and people of low social status. Slaves are people who have sold themselves to cultivators or wealthy families and have no personal freedom. Their children are also slaves and belong to their masters as private property.
There is only one category of people considered to be of low social status: prostitutes. There are both men and women in this category, but they are very few. If they give birth to children of ordinary people, and the other family is willing to adopt them, they can be taken home and treated as ordinary people. However, the children will face criticism and discrimination within the family.
The lowest class were prisoners. Here, there were unspoken rules and regulations; violating them would result in being placed under guard and forced to do the hardest and most arduous work. The punishment varied in length depending on the severity of the offense. Some who committed crimes were relegated to slavery or the lowest social class; once placed in these categories, it was extremely difficult to escape poverty!
Therefore, prisoners would rather do the hardest and most tiring work than not endure the punishment and regain their status as ordinary people, so they could start over. However, this small place has a small population, so serious murders are relatively rare.
Cultivators are the privileged few here. They have the right to choose their partners first and the right to kill with impunity! Of course, they cannot kill without cause. Indiscriminate killing of innocent cultivators will result in a collective judgment and punishment from the Cultivator Alliance. In short, even cultivators cannot act recklessly here.
[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name 1110 ...
If a child is born with cultivation potential, regardless of his background, he will have the basic support and rights of a cultivator, and will be protected by the cultivator alliance. From a young age, he may be sponsored by a family with cultivators and become the "adopted son" of that family, and his parents will also become free people.
How could a cultivator's parents be slaves or of lowly status? They were counting on their child to succeed and bring more benefits to their family!
In a family, the eldest son and grandson are still the most valued, and a woman's voice is mainly determined by her abilities and contributions to the family. Because life expectancy is generally short here, three generations living together is not very common.
Most of them get married at the age of sixteen or seventeen. Generally, once a couple's older children have all started their own families, they are allowed to separate and live independently.
The young couple can provide their elders with some rice and grain as an offering. The younger siblings are raised by their parents. Once the parents pass away, the underage siblings are taken in by their married brothers who move out of the family. They temporarily manage and use the land of their parents and underage siblings until they get married.
The ordinary people here aren't obsessed with having many children and bringing good fortune; some families only have one or two children, as too many children only make life more difficult. They also won't have more children just to try and have one with spiritual roots, since that's too unreliable!
Because of their poverty, they all adhered to the monogamous system, since the number of wives a family could marry in Feixian City was determined by the amount of their family property, and most people were too poor to even afford to marry one wife.