Chapter 59 Return of Gift
It was a leisurely spring afternoon, but the people in the government office were in a hurry. Zhao Xiping heard that the captain had come to the government office, so he could only come and wait outside the government office.
Not far from the government office was the post station. The sentry on the corner tower on the east side of the post station would glance over from time to time. Zhao Xiping moved to another place and stood against the wall. He stared at the people coming in and out, waiting from afternoon to dusk.
"Captain Qu." Someone came out and Zhao Xiping walked over quickly.
The captain looked him over. He didn't recognize him, so he asked directly, "Who are you? What's the matter?"
Zhao Xiping first introduced himself. He didn't hide anything and said bluntly, "I want to use my military achievements to help my wife and brother-in-law escape slavery. If there are any missions in the future, can you take me with you?"
Captain Qu smiled playfully. He suddenly became interested in this man. This tall and big man was actually a lovesick man.
"Zhao Xiping? What's the name of the captain of the Thirteenth Village?" he asked.
"Li Daquan."
Captain Qu nodded and asked, "Have you been on the battlefield? What are you good at? Are you familiar with the terrain?"
"I fought on the battlefield for four years. The farthest I've been was Wusun. I traveled to the northwest four times. I only remember the roads I've walked. I'm good at... using a knife. I'm strong and can use an arrow." Zhao Xiping answered one by one.
Captain Qu was quite satisfied and said, "Okay, go back and wait."
Zhao Xiping breathed a sigh of relief, bowed and said goodbye, then walked back in the sunset.
"Meow--"
Zhao Xiping heard the sound and looked up, and saw the cat owner on the roof of a house. The house was in a mess these days, and he didn't notice it. It actually ran so far.
"Come down." He waved.
"Is this your cat?" asked the man who came out to pour out the slop.
Zhao Xiping said nothing. He thought for a moment, stopped greeting the cat, and strode away.
The cat jumped off the roof excitedly and chased the male owner along the wall. The man who was pouring out the slop picked up a stone and threw it at the cat, and the cat ran even faster.
After turning a corner, Zhao Xiping grabbed the cat official's neck and, ignoring its increasingly loud cries, he dived into the alley and strode away.
When he got home, he asked Sui Yu to make a rope buckle to tie the cat up, "to tie it up at home so it won't go out and cause trouble."
"What's wrong?" Sui Yu asked.
"It probably ran outside to steal food." Zhao Xiping stared at the cat official, whose fur was shiny and he must have lived a hard life outside.
"Next time you take it out, keep it on a leash. Tie it up for ten days or half a month to get it in shape. Untie it when it stops running outside," he said.
"Okay." Sui Yu put the rope buckle on the cat official and tied the other end of the rope to the stone.
Zhao Xiping went into the kitchen to wash rice and vegetables. Sui Yu went in to light the fire for him. She asked, "What did the captain say?"
"Let me wait at home."
"Then you should practice your skills at home during this time."
Zhao Xiping also had this plan. Although he had no martial arts skills, he had to be flexible and skilled in chopping, slashing and dodging.
Sui Liang came in, opened the medicine jar, scooped three bowls of water and poured it in, then took a flaming stick from the stove to ignite the dry wood.
"How much did my illness cost me this time?" Sui Yu asked.
"Don't worry about it." Zhao Xiping said gruffly as he poured millet and beans into the steamer. He wiped his hands, glanced at Sui Yu, and said, "You're still a rich lady, so stingy with money that you can't tell the difference between the important and the unimportant. You're just like my mother."
Sui Yu turned a deaf ear to his ridicule.
Zhao Xiping snorted coldly, turned to Sui Liang and said, "When I'm not home, you watch her drink the medicine, watch her closely, or she'll die."
"Oh, you're so annoying." Sui Yu couldn't hold it in any longer. She smiled and said, "I'm not ungrateful. I know you're doing this for my own good. I will definitely take my medicine on time."
Zhao Xiping ignored her and went out, carrying a basket to the vegetable garden to dig vegetables. The radishes buried in the sand pit were gone, and in this lean season, he could only dig up some old shepherd's purse and bitter herbs to mix with slop and boil them to feed the pigs.
Half a pot of bean porridge, three boiled eggs, and half a bowl of pickled radish strips – this is dinner for a family of three.
"Tomorrow I'll buy half a chicken and stew half a pot of it with some dried vegetables," Zhao Xiping said during dinner. "We'll all have some tonic."
"Okay, I'll go buy it." Sui Yu said.
"You stay at home for two more days, I'll go buy it."
After dinner, Zhao Xiping washed the pots and dishes, cooked pig food, and gathered grass for the camels and sheep. By the time he was done, the alley was silent. He fetched water to wash his face and feet, and before entering the house, he scrubbed Sui Yu's clothes clean and hung them on the clothesline.
Before he got married, he didn't seem so busy, Zhao Xiping sighed, then thought that if he went out, Sui Yu would be too busy to handle it alone. For the first time, he felt that Sui Liang was too young.
Sui Yu saw that he had not entered the house and there was no movement outside, so she got dressed, got out of bed, opened the door and went out. The man who was boxing in the yard stopped when he heard the sound.
"Excuse me?" Sui Yu smiled. "Can I take a look?"
"Go back to your room and sleep." Zhao Xiping felt a little embarrassed. He had never learned boxing seriously. He just imitated other people's movements.
Sui Yu understood what he was thinking. She took two or three steps back, closed the door, and left him a quiet space.
The wooden bed creaked, and Zhao Xiping turned around to continue boxing. The cat official squatted on the stone, wagging its tail and watching with relish. Slowly, it yawned, changed from squatting to lying, and its tail drooped.
The moon shifted little by little, the wind stopped, and everything was quiet. Zhao Xiping exhaled a breath of foul air. He stopped what he was doing, fetched some water to wipe the sweat off his body, and went into the house to sleep with a hot body.
Sui Yu woke up for a moment, but fell asleep again when she realized it was him.
Three days passed like this, and Zhao Xiping let Sui Yu go out only after he was sure that she was really well.
Sui Yu went to the vegetable garden and pulled out all the weeds. She also dug up the elders' vegetables to feed the pigs and sheep. She also opened another vegetable patch and sowed some shepherd's purse seeds left over from early spring. When they sprouted, they would be good food for the pigs.
In May, the weather became hot and Zhao Xiping no longer took a bath at home. Like in previous years, he went to the river to wash when he fetched water and washed his clothes at the same time.
"I'll lock the door from the outside. You guys go to sleep first. I'll open the door myself when I come back." He instructed.
Sui Yuying is good.
After Zhao Xiping left, she went into the kitchen and pulled out a broken jar from under the cupboard. Inside was a wolfskin, about the thickness of five chopsticks, soaking. The pelt had softened and was springy when pulled. Sui Yu fished it out of the jar, wiped off the moisture, and sat at the stove, twisting it into a rope. She planned to make a bow and arrow for Zhao Xiping, but she didn't know how to make one, so she could only follow a diagram and experiment.
The five wolf skins were rolled into one, and the calluses on Sui Yu's hands were worn thin. She pounded her neck, looked up and found that it was late at night, and the man carrying water had not returned yet.
"Meow——" the cat tied under the eaves meowed.
Sui Yu stuck her head out and heard footsteps outside. She threw the wolf skin back into the jar and stuffed the jar under the cupboard. Just as she put it there, the door opened.
"Why are you back so late?" Sui Yu ran out and asked.
"You haven't slept yet? You don't have to wait for me in the future. It's quiet at night. You can exercise your legs while I fetch water." Zhao Xiping handed her the wet clothes and poured water in the bucket.
Sui Yu hung up the clothes and walked in with him.
"Will you be given bows and arrows and swords when you go on a mission?" Sui Yu asked.
"There should be."
"What kind of wood is the handle of the bow made of?"
"Bamboo sticks and rattan sticks. Why are you asking this? What idea are you thinking of?" Zhao Xiping suddenly became sharp.
"I just want to care about you more and get to know you better." Sui Yu refused to say.
Zhao Xiping enjoyed it. He couldn't sleep for a while and felt like talking. He waved Sui Yu to come over and he told her about the war he had experienced.
After Sui Yu learned something, she took some time to stroll around the street and found a narrow shop selling baskets. She stayed in the shop for a long time and the basket weaver finally agreed to bend a curved bow for her using a rattan stick as thick as her wrist.
Sui Yu took the wolfskin rope soaked in grass ash water. After the vine was bent, she borrowed the tools of the basket weaver and sawed two small holes to tie the wolfskin.
"Is this okay?" Sui Yu asked. She pulled the wolf skin and found it a little loose. She begged the uncle to help her tighten it.
A bow with wolf skin as string and rattan as bow limbs finally took shape.
Sui Yu left fifty coins and thanked him repeatedly, then went back happily with her bow slung over her shoulder.
When she got home, the camel herder had not returned yet. Sui Yu thought about it again and again and decided to give it to him before dinner.
After washing her hands and kneading the dough, Sui Yu left home in the afternoon with two scoops of flour. She planned to make some leek dumplings. She didn't stir-fry the leeks, but chopped them and put them in a bowl, sprinkled them with salt. She scrambled four eggs and scooped them into the bowl with the leeks, mixing them well. She rolled the dough into a round dough sheet, the size of a face, spread the filling on it, and folded the edges. The dumplings, resembling a cloth bag, were ready.
Just as the fire was burning in the stove, the two people who had been herding the camels and the pigs and sheep came back. Sui Yu heard the sound and looked out, "Did you take the cat official out too?"
Zhao Xiping hummed, staring blankly at the bow hanging in the camel pen. When the camel went in, he grabbed the bow and turned to look at the smiling woman outside the kitchen door. He guessed that it must have been prepared by her.
"This is a gift for you. You should practice your aim well and hit the target every time in a fight. Save your life and come back to work for me." Sui Yu raised her chin, like a landlady exploiting her farmhands.
Zhao Xiping smiled silently. He shook the bow head to test its weight, then pulled the bowstring. It was quite strong, and he enjoyed it very much.
Zhao Xiping had a bow but no arrows, so he walked into the kitchen with the bow in his pocket. He sat under the stove and lit the fire, his eyes occasionally slipping towards the bent bow.
"You hid it so well that I didn't even notice." He glared at the person and said.
"That's because your heart is not with me." Sui Yu turned the tables.
Zhao Xiping ignored this. He plucked the string and plucked it, then asked, "What kind of skin? Wolf skin?"
Sui Yu nodded. The wolfskin used to make the strings was cut from the wolfskin mattress at home.
The pot smelled fragrant. Sui Yu used a spatula to flip the chive box over. When he looked up, he said, "I still miss you."
"You should be thinking about me." Zhao Xiping felt it was natural, and no matter how much he thought about me, it was not enough.
Sui Yu rolled his eyes at him and said, "Move your eyes. There's no firewood in the stove. I'm using straw slag to cover the fire. I'm making pancakes."
After adding more firewood to the stove, Zhao Xiping called Sui Liang to take over. He went out with a machete and returned with a bundle of leafy branches. He squatted in the yard, whittling wood for arrows, carefully crafting each one.
Thirteen leek dumplings were taken out of the pot one after another. Sui Yu added two scoops of water into the pot and went to the woodshed to get half a bowl of sour radish to make sour soup.
"It's time to eat."
"Here I come." Zhao Xiping moved as soon as he was called. When washing his hands, he held Sui Liang's little hands and rubbed them clean, which showed how good his mood was.
A chive dumpling is about the size of a man's palm, golden on both sides, and filled with stuffing. When you bite open the dough, a stream of hot air slowly comes out, bringing with it a strong aroma.
These are the first batch of chives grown from scattered chive seeds. They are fresh and not spicy. The tender chive leaves are braised in a sealed dough. The chive leaves are still green and mixed with golden egg shavings, which is very appetizing. At the end of the meal, the braised chive juice is still in the dough corner. It is more delicious than white steamed buns dipped in chicken soup.
"This is what people eat." Zhao Xiping was satisfied. He could have a full meal tonight.
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