Chapter 509 - 40: Prodigal Son
Zhao Shu’s imprisonment did not last long.
Before the fourth anniversary arrived, the zebra had already repaired the gallows with his team, and Zhao Shu became the second hanging corpse on the gallows.
...
On the day of the execution, it was drizzling, and all the natives, including the herdsmen, were ordered to attend and watch the execution.
Hanging leaves no blood, and Zhao Shu, who had been imprisoned for many days, looked pale, as if his soul had been drained, like a walking dead before he even died.
The gloomy weather affected everyone’s mood.
Sunday loudly announced Zhao Shu’s crimes and warned the other natives not to repeat his mistakes. More than half a month later, the initial version of the "Island Code" drafted by Chen Zhou was officially promulgated.
The old hands who had been to school returned to the classroom to receive legal education from Teacher Saturday.
...
The entire island was a one-man show for Chen Zhou, the sole "king," holding both divine and royal power. When drafting the code, Chen Zhou kept countless privileges for himself.
He holds the power to arbitrarily amend the code, giving and taking life, and has the final say on all matters and activities on the island.
In other words, as long as he is not satisfied, even if what the islanders do is right, it is not right.
It’s like the classic couplet in traditional cross talk—
"If he says you can, you can, even if you can’t.
If he says you can’t, you can’t, even if you can."
The code stipulates that the entire island and the surrounding sea area belong to the Leader.
So too do the islanders’ houses, land, wealth at home, crops they plant, and even their future descendants.
It can be said that after the code took effect, even if Chen Zhou didn’t treat the natives as harshly as slave owners treat slaves, in reality, the natives were his slaves.
Of course, this was because Chen Zhou didn’t know enough about the law, and because the island had almost no communication with the outside world and a small population, he came up with this "overlord treaty."
The law needs to be slowly perfected.
Not to mention the 17th century; even in modern times, large nations with hundreds of millions of people and countless talents revise legal codes every year.
Chen Zhou thought the urgent task was to first put together a rough framework.
If there were any issues, they could be slowly revised later within this framework.
...
In the modern world, with information exploding, even though Chen Zhou hadn’t formally studied law, he had some general understanding of it.
Imitating modern legal systems, the code he drafted was divided into three main categories.
One category for criminal law, one for civil law, and one for economic law.
The criminal law provided basic provisions on crimes like intentional harm, joint offenses, attempted crimes, and murder, and included mechanisms like recidivism, voluntary surrender, probation, and sentence reduction, with clear indications of penalties for offenders.
However, punishments on the island were much harsher and more brutal compared to modern society.
From flogging, detention, and labor service to beheading, hanging, slicing, and shooting, all were present.
To intimidate the natives, Chen Zhou specifically illustrated the implementation scenes of various punishments in the criminal code and provided explanations.
This helped the natives understand those unfamiliar terms, especially "slicing," the cruel descriptions alone making them tremble with fear.
The civil law specifically explained small disputes that might arise among natives, including petty theft.
The punishments under this law were relatively light; minor crimes only required compensation and apologies, while severe ones at most resulted in labor service or flogging.
Most provisions in the economic law were designed to serve Chen Zhou.
Stealing from the Leader was categorized differently than stealing from islanders, and embezzling even one lobster from Chen Zhou could result in losing a hand.
From the "black box lie detector" incident, it was clear that while the natives dared to secretly pick tomatoes and pull onions from the fields, they didn’t dare to touch what belonged to the Leader.
Currently, the island had yet to mint currency, so the economic law was mostly ornamental.
When currency was issued on the island, the population increased, and frequent exchanges with the outside occurred, economic law would come into play.
Of course, that seemed far off still.
The road to developing and perfecting a power is long, and Chen Zhou estimated that by the time he completed the challenge, the legal codes on the island might still not be fair and detailed enough.
Unless he could establish a complex legal system that continuously self-corrected and self-improved.
But then again, that would obviously breed new drawbacks. Magnitude often means bloatedness, and bloatedness represents inefficiency.
Human nature is inherently complicated, with corruption, nepotism, and appointments or dismissals based on personal preference being problems even modern people haven’t solved; he couldn’t establish an ideal state or Utopia.
...
In fact, from being alone to managing a large team, the development of the challenge had long surpassed Chen Zhou’s initial expectations.
At first, he only wanted to spend these twenty-eight years alone and never had designs on the natives.
After all, the natives were numerous and were often savages who killed and even ate human flesh, while he in modern times had only ever killed chickens and slaughtered sheep; he was no match for the natives.
If it weren’t for the mysterious rewards repeatedly inciting him, boosting his courage and confidence, compensating for his shortcomings.
Otherwise, even if he had that "thief’s heart," he wouldn’t have risked losing his life to take action.
Now, with the island’s population rapidly increasing, expanding to over twenty people in just two years, Chen Zhou’s ambitions grew along with it.
Power is a more addictive intoxicant than drugs, and if combined with real wealth, it’s even more alluring.