17 Chapter 17
◎If someone hides a criminal at home and lets him stay and eat, and the incident is reported to the authorities, he will be punished with the same crime as the criminal◎
To everyone's surprise, the city opened for business the next day. Merchants were the most informed and opened their shops. The people in the city let down their guard and walked out of their homes onto the streets, one to buy daily necessities such as food, vegetables, diesel, etc., and the other to gather information.
The restaurants and teahouses were full of people, and the streets were noisy, sweeping away the depression of the previous few days.
Dull sounds were heard one after another, and people stretched their necks to look. The city gate that had been closed for many days was finally opened.
People cheered.
Then a group of soldiers came from outside the city, wearing black armor and looking very majestic. The cheers stopped abruptly and the people on the street fell silent.
The soldiers are from Yanbei.
At the beginning of this dynasty, the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, which had been occupied by the Liao people for more than 400 years, were recovered. The general Xu was named the King of Yanyun with a different surname and stationed in Yunzhou, Xijing.
King Yanyun commanded a powerful army. Over the past hundred years, Liao was destroyed by Jin, and Jin also disappeared. The Mongolian tribes were like a pile of loose sand. The Mongols invaded from time to time, but they were never able to take away a single city or pond.
The Yanbei Army is extremely elite and has been stationed at the border. I don’t know why this team entered Puyang City.
After the soldiers left, the teahouses and restaurants came back to life, with storytellers vividly recounting the events of the past few days. Curious, Mu Yun went to sit there for a day and returned to describe what he had heard.
The current Prince Yanyun's Palace has two houses, because the previous Prince Yanyun married two wives. The current Prince Yanyun, Xu Shao, is the eldest, and he has a younger brother, Xu Rong. This time, Xu Rong took advantage of the fact that Prince Yanyun and the Crown Prince were not in Yanyun City and suddenly rebelled and took control of Yanyun City.
Puyang City was sealed off because the imperial court's troops and the Yanbei army were engaged in a fierce battle just outside the city. One theory is that the imperial court feared the Yanbei soldiers might seize the territory and seize the opportunity to disintegrate. Another theory is that the imperial court assisted the Prince of Yanyun in suppressing the rebellion.
Cheng Mu was fully aware of the situation. In the original novel, the hero is the Crown Prince of Yanyun, married to his elder sister, Cheng Mu, the heroine. This mutiny is the first crucial step in their court struggle. The Prime Minister, Yan, holds power at court. She sees the Yanbei Army as a major threat and, in collusion with Xu Rong, divides the Yanbei Army from within. They deploy numerous imperial troops, capitalizing on the Emperor's death and the absence of the Yanyun Prince and his son, to seize control of Yanbei with lightning speed.
The heroine is pregnant at this time. Her second uncle Xu Rong, who has always been low-key, launched a mutiny, surrounded the Yanyun Palace and took control of Yanyun City. In such a difficult situation, she cleverly discovered the crisis from clues, decisively planned from thousands of miles away, and shocked the court. The second male lead, who was conquered by her personal charm, defended the city for her with a mentality of certain death and killed Xu Rong.
Look, how beautifully done.
If they were the torrent of history, then Cheng Mu and the others were the tiny ants beneath it. What did a struggle for the crown prince bring to the common people? Those in Puyang City were fine; the hardest they faced was a few days of starvation, like the Yu family and their daughters and Qi Bo. Those suddenly cut off from Yanyun City and Puyang City—merchants, monks, servants, villagers, and others—roughly estimated to number in the thousands—gathered together, pitched tents, grumbled, and waited in agony. Suddenly, a deep, powerful rumble echoed from the earth. Dust kicked up by horses' hooves obscured the sky. Soldiers descended with devastating force. They were filled with shock and terror, the ground in chaos. There was no time to gather their belongings, and they couldn't run far. Countless souls perished under the hooves of the warriors.
The hero and heroine won the battle and the imperial court withdrew its troops.
The Yanbei Army entered Puyang City today to search for someone, and they went door to door, checking each house one by one.
Come to Baoqing Hutong when applying for a license.
The county yamen has posted the appearance and figure of the man to be sought, and is offering a reward of ten taels of silver. If anyone harbors the criminal and provides him with food and lodging, and the crime is reported to the authorities, he will be punished with the same crime as the criminal.
The wanted criminal only had his appearance posted, without his name, hometown, or age.
Cheng Mu guessed that the Yanbei Army must have come not only to Puyang City, but also to nearby counties and villages to arrest the criminals together. The incident happened after the mutiny in the Prince of Yanyun's Mansion, and it was most likely related to this matter.
The more Mu Yun listened, the more serious he became. "Could it be—"
Cheng Mu put her finger to her lips, signaling him to stop. "We've already come to search. No matter who he is, we'll stay indoors for three days and wait for this to blow over."
Today we replenished the firewood, and there are a few more people in the house. Cheng Mu also moved out a few bags of grain and wheat, some vegetables and fruits from the space. There is enough food and grass, so we are not afraid of being locked up for another ten days.
Since she had decided to go to Yu's place to farm, Cheng Xi asked her for detailed information on the geographical location, vegetation and soil, rivers and hillsides, irrigation and fertilizer, pests and diseases, etc. Yu was not that professional, so Cheng Xi needed to switch the language and change the way of asking questions to collect information from the side.
She would not just ask Yu alone. This was an experiment. Through communicating with Yu, she would constantly adjust and find appropriate questions to ask the old farmers.
When she was applying for graduate school, her advisor had a clear requirement: no one who didn't work in the fields would be accepted. Farming is hard work in modern times, at least with comprehensive irrigation facilities and mechanization, but it was even harder in ancient times.
Speaking of machinery, she had joined a club in college that focused on assembling agricultural molds for exhibitions, and she knew the basic shapes and workings of agricultural tools. Cheng decided to make a few of them herself, first drawing the tools used by the Yu family and then improving upon them.
Before she knew it, she was painting until midnight. There were bangs outside the wall, and a dim light was on the table. The temperature was getting lower and lower at night. Cheng Mu put down her brush and gathered her clothes.
The oil lamp was too dim and my eyes felt sore.
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew, nearly blowing the door open. Cheng Xi was about to bolt the door tighter, but the wind that came in through the crack carried the smell of earth. She wondered if it was going to rain, so she opened the door.
The leaves of the jujube tree are dancing wildly, the air is quite humid, and it is going to rain at night.
Everyone else in the house was fast asleep. She yawned and turned around, and was suddenly grabbed by the neck by a hand.
"Be quiet and go in."
Cheng Mu felt a sudden shock in her head and almost fainted.
The wind rushed into the house, the oil lamp flickered and was about to go out, and the person behind her carried her into the house and pushed the door shut.
Cheng Mu took the opportunity to turn her head and see a masked man.
The man's fingers retracted, and she almost suffocated. After a while, the force on the fingers eased, and the man asked, "Do you have any food?"
Phew, it’s time to eat… Cheng Mu regained some courage, “Yes…”
The other party threatened, "If you don't want to die, be quiet."
Cheng Mu nodded quickly. From the strength and power of the hand, she could feel that he was a martial artist. It only took a moment to break her neck. She was quite sensible and took out a bunch of grapes from the space under the cover of darkness.
The person behind him frowned, clearly dissatisfied, "No pastries?"
Cheng Mu replied meekly, "I dare not place cakes in the room at night, as they will attract rats. If you can wait, I will go to the east kitchen and make you a bowl of noodles."
The young man was very unhappy, "Don't try to play tricks."
"Then...if we cook it here, we can make fried noodles for you, young master."
The person behind her glanced at the paper spread out on the table, saw the picture on it, and raised an eyebrow. He looked around the room and saw the stove she mentioned. It was very small, with a clay pot on it, which she probably used to boil water for tea.
Seeing that the person behind her didn't answer for a long time, Cheng Mu thought he still didn't like it, but there was nothing she could do. This was the only thing she had, so she said, "Adding some brown sugar and chopped dried fruits would also be quite fragrant and delicious."
The man was moved and whispered, "You do it."
Cheng Mu moved her neck uncomfortably, signaling the man to let her go first. After a moment, the clamp on her neck loosened.
The man sat down at the table, spread his legs, bent one elbow and placed it on the table. He looked at Cheng Mu and signaled her to hurry up.
The fried flour in Cheng Mei's room was prepared for Mu Yun, as a snack for him besides breakfast and dinner.
The method is very simple. Grind the flour with a stone mill, fry it in a pot, sieve it, grind the fried black sesame seeds, peanuts and walnuts into powder, mix them together, and it can be stored for a while. When eating, stir it with hot water (not too much water), and stir until there is no dry powder.
There's a kind of oil tea here that's similar in recipe, but the difference is that one is in the form of rice paste, drier and more filling, while the other is in the form of tea soup, which is all water. It's simple and convenient to make, and it's also sold on the street, with each household making it differently based on their own habits and tastes.
While Cheng Mu was doing it, the man stretched out his slender fingers, picked up a grape and ate it. Perhaps he had never eaten grapes so big and sweet before, his brows relaxed and his eyes were full of praise.
I ate several of them in a row.
Guessing he must be very hungry, Cheng Mu made a full bowl and said, "Sir, eat some first. If it's not enough, I'll make another bowl."
His eyes fell on her slightly bulging belly and he suddenly asked, "What's your husband's name?"
After Yu moved in, Cheng Xi wore a fake belly every day, and sometimes she was too lazy to take it off before sleeping.
Cheng Mu placed the slender wooden spoon she used to make tea on the edge of the bowl and replied softly, "My husband is just a nobody, not worthy of your ear."
The man stopped asking questions, took off his face mask and started eating the fried noodles in big mouthfuls.
Cheng Mu took a quick glance and saw that he was a handsome man, but she was so frightened that she didn't dare to look at him again, nor did she dare to face him directly, for fear of being discovered by him.
After a few thunders, heavy rain fell.
After finishing his fried noodles, the man started eating grapes. Cheng Mu asked him if he wanted another bowl. He shook his head and tapped the table with his fingers. After a moment of silence, he asked, "Is this family surnamed Li?"
"The previous owner's surname was Li. After he became rich, he sold this house and moved south of the city."
The man thought for a moment and said, "Give me that jar of fried noodles. And all the dried fruits for tea in the room."
Cheng Mu just wanted to send him away quickly and give him whatever he wanted.
The man pulled out a larger cloth from his sleeve, bundled it up, and held it up. "If you want to live, you'll have to keep the fact that you saw me tonight to yourself."
Cheng Xi promised, "I will never tell anyone."
The man looked around again and opened the door.
Rain mixed with wind rushed in from under the corridor, bringing with it a strong wind.
The sound of thunder and rain woke Mu Yun up. He got up and saw that there was still a light in Cheng Mu's room, and there were two people's shadows on the window sill.
He approached quietly, put his ear to the door, and unconsciously clenched his fist, waiting for the man to come out, so he could hit him suddenly.
The man was also a martial artist and was tall. Mu Yun only had the upper hand when he launched a sneak attack. After a few moves, he was at a disadvantage.
Cheng Mu was anxious and shouted, "Mu Yun, stop it."
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