Summary

The Flying Opera Company has arrived in Zigan Village, the town controlled by Governor Te. Kyoshi and Lao Ge walk through the marketplace alone, supposedly to buy rice, but Lao Ge leads Kyoshi to an argument between a peddler and a farmer, with the farmer explaining that the governor confiscates the majority of his grain harvest and stores it in a silo, forcing him to raise the price on the meager remains. Thus, the peddler has to pay absurdly high prices for a small amount of grain while a massive store sits unused behind the city walls. Kyoshi suggests that the governor is trying to save food for an emergency, but Lao Ge tells her that the governor is secretly selling the excess for profit, even in years when the harvest was poor and the citizens needed the...