Following the chime for receiving a ship, a black-canopied speedboat passed through the newly opened water gate and slowly pulled up alongside the main bridge.
Seven small triangular flags hung from its bow, and an empty rent barge trailed behind it.
Two Maritime Affairs officers stepped ashore one after another.
The one walking in front was a plump, round-faced man with graying hair at his temples, clutching a thick Sea-Calming Rent ledger against his chest and tucking a roll of black-bordered notices under his arm.
The man behind him was pale and gaunt, carrying a locked document box in his hand.
The moment they stepped onto the bridge, both of them noticed the marks left outside the public warehouse.
Drying racks were draped with freshly skinned fin-membranes, and silver scales that had not been washed away remained wedged in the cracks between the wooden planks.
Deep inside the public warehouse, the door to the cold chamber had just been shut, a rim of white frost clinging to its edges.
The round-faced officer raised the sole of his boot and glanced at the fish scale he had just stepped on.
“So it really all rained down into Clown.”
The pale middle-aged man said, “The sea watchers saw the fish clouds heading this way with their own eyes. Did you think it was just wild rumors floating around the anchorage?”
The round-faced officer gave a chuckle and walked toward the large scale in front of the public warehouse with the ledger in his arms.
The pale middle-aged man carried the document box straight into the Maritime Affairs Office.
Someone in the crowd whispered, “Resident Officer Xu is back.”
That man was indeed Xu Jian, the resident officer of Clown Float-Commune.
He had been away from the commune for over a month, and now that the black flag had just been lowered, he had finally returned alongside the Maritime Affairs vessel.
...
On the other side, the round-faced officer had already spread the ledger open on the scale desk.
“Where is Chief Lu?”
The crowd parted.
Lu Guizhou walked over from the front of the public warehouse, with Luo Dadou following close behind.
The round-faced officer flipped to Clown Float-Commune's page and tapped his finger against the two red stamps in the unpaid rent column.
“Demanded twice already.”
He jerked his chin toward the empty rent barge by the bridge.
“You surely can't expect me to haul an empty boat back again tonight, can you? If you don't have salted fish, we take fresh fish too. Two jin of fresh fish offsets one jin of rent, calculated according to the anchorage's official market price.”
Luo Dadou's face instantly changed.
“Two jin only offsets one? The fish just entered the warehouse today and haven't even absorbed any salt! If you haul them away now, we lose half their value for nothing!”
“Give us three more days! Once they're salted, we'll deliver whatever amount we owe ourselves.”
The round-faced officer glanced toward the cold chamber.
“During the Wither Tide, other communes are scraping the bottom of their pots for algae dregs, yet a once-in-a-decade Fish Rain struck right inside Clown's ring wall, filling your cold chamber to the brim. Sitting on a full warehouse of fish, you still cry foul over a few crates of Sea-Calming Rent?” He turned back around. “Manager Luo, if the other twenty-seven communes outside heard you say that, you'd probably get cursed out.”
Luo Dadou's temper flared instantly.
“Don't try to shut our mouths with the Fish Rain! Do you really have no idea what kind of fishing grounds the Anchorage Association assigned to Clown?”
“When the Harvest Tide comes, other communes can fill their holds in a few net casts, while we can sail for an entire day without seeing a single shoal! Yet when it comes to collecting rent, we get hit with the highest tier year after year!”
“Right now the fish have just reached the warehouse and haven't even absorbed the salt properly, yet you open your mouth demanding half a hold's worth at a discount. Even if these fish fell from the sky for free, you shouldn't waste them like this!”
The round-faced officer wiped away a fish scale that had fallen onto the ledger with his thumb.
“Waste them?”
“Weren't you just trying to settle accounts with the other twenty-seven communes? Then let's factor the Fish Rain into the math as well. Should I open the cold chamber right now and hand out a few crates to each of the twenty-seven communes outside?”
“Don't you dare!”
“The fish fell in our Clown Float-Commune!”
A chorus of angry curses immediately erupted from the crowd.
The round-faced officer acted as if he hadn't heard.
“If you're unwilling to share, then stop bringing up the fishing grounds. When good fortune lands in your own warehouse, you stay silent, but when it's time to pay rent, suddenly all you can say is that the Anchorage Association is bullying Clown. How can accounts be settled like that?”
“The fishing grounds were assigned by the Seven Seats, and the rent was set by the Seven Seats. All twenty-eight communes can compete for a mast, and Clown has a spot as well. If you truly can't stomach this indignity, then raise your own flag onto Seven-Masts and take a seat in the Anchorage Association. Who's stopping you?”
“In the past, wherever the fish shoals swam, each commune would draw their blades and fight for them. With Clown's handful of boats and few people, let alone picking fishing grounds, even your ring wall would have been torn down by stronger communes long ago.”
“Now, relying on the Sea-Calming Stone to suppress the currents, drinking the Fresh Marrow it releases, and guarding this calm water for generations, you still drag your feet on the Sea-Calming Rent in the end. If you present this argument to the outside world, who would back you?”
Luo Dadou was pale with rage and wanted to argue further, but Lu Guizhou raised his hand to stop him.
The round-faced officer turned to the discount page stamped by the Anchorage Association, pressing his finger against the column marked 【Fresh Fish Rent Offsets】.
“How fresh fish and fish materials are discounted, and how they pass the official scale—the Anchorage Association's official seals are all stamped on this page.”
He turned back to the unpaid rent page and pushed the ledger toward Lu Guizhou.
Behind the two red stamps, exactly one blank box remained.
“Tonight, either open the warehouse and pass the scale, or add a third stamp right here. Once the lease contract is terminated early, you won't have to feel heartbroken over this half-warehouse of fish anymore.”
That was no mere threat.
Once the third rent collection stamp was pressed, the Anchorage Association could terminate the lease contract early.
Complete silence fell before the scale desk.
The surrounding commune members all turned their gazes toward Lu Guizhou.
Lu Guizhou's gaze rested on that frost-covered cold chamber door for a very long time.
If not for the Fish Rain this morning, the only things that could be pushed onto the scale right now would likely be salvage boats and fishing nets.
He gritted his teeth.
“Weigh them.”
Luo Dadou's lips twitched, but in the end he said nothing more.
He turned and pulled open the cold chamber door.
A wave of cold air surged out instantly.
The first crate of fresh fish was lifted onto the large scale.
The scale beam rose.
The round-faced officer called out the weight and made an entry in the ledger.
The boatmen who had come with the ship immediately tied a blue rope to the crate and carried it to the rent barge behind them.
The second crate.
The third crate.
One crate after another.
By the time the last crate of rent-offsetting fresh fish was tied with blue rope and loaded onto the rent barge, a vast space had opened up inside the cold chamber.
The round-faced officer crossed off the final entry in the unpaid rent column as well.
“Settled.”
He tore off a stamped rent settlement slip and handed it to Lu Guizhou.
Luo Dadou's face remained grim.
“The rent is settled, why haven't you left?”
The round-faced officer smiled, bent down, and picked up the roll of black-bordered notice that had been weighted beside the scale desk all along.
He turned and walked over to the Maritime Affairs Board.
The notice unfurled in the wind.
Thump!
He hammered a copper nail heavily into the wooden wall.
The black-bordered paper fluttered against the board a few times.
At the very top, four large characters were revealed.
【NO RENEWAL UPON EXPIRY】
...
Rate on N.U.
