Chapter 30 Will the captain and his men get into trouble with this incident?
Yesterday, after returning from Na Sai Bei Lou, I was probably too full.
When it was time for bed, Yu Nie tossed and turned in bed, finally drifting off to sleep just before dawn. Needless to say, the result of sleeping late was that he woke up late.
She yanked the jacket off the hanger and quickly fastened the buttons. Just as she was about to step out the door, she suddenly remembered that the wide-sleeved gauze robe she had left on the bed was still unworn. She hurriedly went back to the bedside, grabbed the robe, and draped it over her shoulders. After tidying herself up, she trotted off to the backyard.
With lunchtime approaching, Aunt Liu planned to have Ah Hui go to the west wing to call for someone.
She was standing at the kitchen door, having just finished speaking to Ah Hui who was boiling pigments. She looked up and saw Yu Nie appear from around the corner.
Aunt Liu called out, "Rong girl, you've come at the perfect time! The food is ready, hurry up and wash your hands so we can eat."
"Okay, I'm coming right now." She replied with a smile and went to the shade first.
These past two days, Ah Hui has been helping her prepare the paints, and she is now very familiar with the process, knowing the exact proportions of each ingredient perfectly.
She got up late in the morning, and Ah Hui helped her make some paint and put it in the sun to dry.
Yu Nie went to the medicine pot that was bubbling away and simmered it for a while until the peacock blue color began to appear.
She put her hand on Ah Hui's shoulder: "Junior brother, practice makes perfect. You'll probably be able to open a dye shop with ease in the future."
Ah Hui smiled and indicated that the pot of food was almost ready, and the next steps would be taken after the meal.
Yu Nie indicated that she understood, and turned to look for Lang Xi: "Where is Junior Sister?"
"Here it is." Langxi, carrying two bowls of white rice, peeked out from the kitchen doorway: "Go wash your hands quickly, I've already served the rice."
"Okay, Senior Sister, we'll come right after we wash our hands."
The paint in the pot had reached the right consistency, so she turned off the fire and pulled Ah Hui along, saying, "Stop messing around, Junior Brother, let's get ready and go eat."
Before Ah Hui could even put down the wooden spoon, she grabbed it and took it away.
The two stood in front of the wooden tub by the well, rubbed their hands in the cool well water, and then went into the kitchen one after the other.
As soon as she reached the door, Yu Nie sniffed, and the aroma of mung bean soup wafted into her nostrils.
"It's not the height of summer, so why is Aunt Liu making mung bean soup?" As she spoke, she sat down and, with a craving, picked up a piece of braised eggplant with her chopsticks and put it in her mouth.
"You have such a keen sense of smell." The soup that had been poured into the soup bowl in advance had completely cooled down. Aunt Liu sprinkled some white sugar on it and brought it to the dining table: "Look, it's so hot that everyone is feeling anxious. Ah Hui had a nosebleed this morning, so I specially made a pot of mung bean soup for lunch to help you cool down."
"No wonder, my junior brother had a nosebleed but still helped me make the pigments," she said, feeling apologetic. "After delivering the goods to the Rong family, I'll take my junior brother to Saibei Restaurant for another good meal."
Mentioning Saibeilou, Aunt Liu interjected, "You know what, Saibeilou is really worth going back to. The honey-brewed red silk noodles they served yesterday were so delicious, the aroma lingered in my mouth. I used to think that these fancy restaurants were just faking it, but I didn't expect them to actually have some skill. They made an ordinary noodle dish like it was made by a phoenix."
"That's probably why it's expensive. If you still want to eat there, I'll take everyone there again sometime." She made the promise without hesitation.
Lang Xi chuckled lightly: "The price of the Saibei Tower is too high. If we go there again, we're afraid we'll spend all of Qiqi's savings."
"So what, I..." She stopped herself from saying it.
She dared not tell Langxi and the others about her trip to Longdao. Although the three of them had already spoiled her enough compared to her uncle Cui Miaochang, the journey to Longdao was long and almost reached the border of the capital Jian'an.
With a journey of over a thousand miles and bandits frequently appearing in the surrounding area, they certainly wouldn't allow her to risk traveling alone.
In order to obtain saltpeter, she had no choice but to go. The best way to leave the temple smoothly was to keep it a secret from them and tell them after she was gone.
Seeing that she remained silent for a while, Lang Xi's eyebrows furrowed with doubt: "What's wrong, Junior Sister?"
Yu Nie picked up his rice bowl and shoveled down a couple of mouthfuls: "Hey, it's nothing. What I mean is, once I've saved up enough money, I'll take you guys to Saibei Restaurant and order all those delicacies again."
Upon hearing this, Ah Hui gestured and said, "It's alright, if Junior Sister wants to go, Junior Brother will take you."
In the temple, Cui Miaochang would give each person a certain amount of silver every month, more when there was more money and less when there was less.
Therefore, each of them had some spare money saved up.
After the Shen family's downfall, Langxi would send some money back home every month to supplement the family income. Compared to Yu Nie and A Hui, who were orphans and did not need to send money home, she had much less money.
Ah Hui has almost all the money in her own hands. Because Yu Nie is greedy for snacks, Cui Miao often uses the excuse that she spends money recklessly, so she deducts half of her allowance every month and gives her the other half.
Cui Miaochang saved all the deducted money for her, saying that if she wanted to venture out into the world in the future, she could have that money back.
Yu Nie was a bit of a fuss at first, saying she wanted to buy dragon beard candy and poria cocos cake, and also wanted to buy shumai, which she said was not enough money.
In the end, she happily accepted the result, but Cui Miaochang calmly said, "If you make a fuss again, I'll deduct everything from your account."
She smiled ingratiatingly, accepted the offer without hesitation or even a hint of bargaining.
When Ah Hui told her to go to Saibei Tower, Yu Nie stared with her big, round eyes and smiled brightly: "It's still my little senior brother who's the best to me."
She praised him loudly, making Ah Hui's pretty face blush. He lowered his head and focused on eating.
Ah Hui is shy. When they joke with him, his cheeks blush. He is quite shy.
As Yu Nie drank the sweet and delicious soup, he finished half a bowl and couldn't help but think of his uncle Cui Miaochang, who had been away from the temple for half a month.
He murmured to himself, "I wonder where my martial uncle and that senior brother Zhang have gone?"
Langxi was probably also missing his master, and his tone was much lower when he spoke: "Judging by the days, they should be arriving in Lingnan soon."
"If we calculate it this way, Master Uncle will definitely be back on Junior Sister's birthday." She said excitedly, "Then, we'll give Junior Sister a proper birthday celebration, and everyone can have a good time together."
Langxi nodded and smiled: "Yes."
*
After lunch, while the sun wasn't too strong, Yu Nie and A Hui busied themselves with painting in the backyard.
First, it is boiled into a thick paste, then steamed until it solidifies, and finally stir-fried over low heat. Although the three steps are not complicated, they are quite time-consuming.
As time went by, the sun began to set in the west, and the shadows of the trees in the courtyard grew longer.
The two of them were working so hard they were drenched in sweat, and stray hairs from Yu Nie's forehead clung to his temples. Fortunately, the pigments they produced were all of excellent quality, so their hard work was not in vain.
Yu Nie looked down at the peacock blue that was almost full in the wooden box, revealing his undisguised joy. He turned to A Hui, who was mixing the paint, and said, "When we deliver the paint to the Rong family another day, let's go together, little brother. We can go to the city and buy you a new handkerchief. The one you're wearing is all old."
Inviting someone to dinner at Saibeilou was a bit ostentatious, but giving someone a handkerchief as a gift wasn't unusual. It would be good to exchange the gold ingots given by the Rong family for silver notes, making the journey to Longdao easier later.
Ah Hui waved his hand: "Even if it's old, it can still be used. We'll buy a new one when it breaks." He was usually very frugal and would avoid spending money if he could.
Yu Nie leaned closer to him, tilting his head and teasingly asking, "Junior Brother, you're so diligent and frugal, are you saving up money to get married?"
Ah Hui's ears were so red they looked like they could bleed. She was told to stop talking nonsense and hurry up and get back to her work.
As they were chatting and laughing, Langxi led an old man wearing a brown robe with a cross-collar and a gray beard slowly over.
Yu Nie smiled and looked closely: "Isn't this Manager Wang? What brings you to my Lingbao Temple today?"
Manager Wang clasped his hands in a slight bow and said, "Greetings, Fairy Maiden. I have come on the orders of my master to retrieve the Peacock Blue. Is this convenient for you?"
“Convenient, of course convenient.” Yu Nie moved to the steward’s side: “However, there are still a few days before the delivery deadline. We still have some finishing touches to complete. Why is the merchant in such a hurry?”
The manager replied, "Last night, one of our new apprentices made a mistake in our kiln operation, adding too much firewood and causing the kiln temperature to rise too quickly, resulting in cracks in the kiln walls. The master was worried about problems after firing the kiln, so he sent me to your esteemed place to take back all the prepared pigments and immediately begin firing porcelain ewers."
After speaking, the steward paused for a moment, then hesitated before saying, "The other master said, could you please trouble the fairy to hurry up the work and add some of the remaining peacock blue pigment? That way we can finish firing and repairing all the peacock blue porcelain ewers that are to be presented to the royal family, so that the cracks in the kiln walls don't widen and cause further problems, delaying the process."
No one could have predicted this would happen.
Yu Nie readily agreed: "No trouble at all. Steward, go back and inform the merchant that I will deliver the remaining peacock blue to your residence by the day after tomorrow at the latest."
The steward hurriedly waved his hand: "How can we trouble the fairy to personally deliver it? How about this, we set a time, and I will send someone to pick it up."
That's one way to do it. Yu Nie calculated the progress and pondered for a moment: "How about the end of the 5-7 PM the day after tomorrow?"
“Yes, yes, yes…” the elderly steward replied repeatedly, “If the fairy says it is the hour of You (5-7 PM), then it is the hour of You.”
After agreeing on a time, Yu Nie and his group helped organize the paints and delivered the wooden box to the Rong family's carriage.
The steward bowed to everyone in farewell and bent down to sit on the cart.
Just as they were about to leave, the steward turned to them and said, "The city has been restless lately, so young Taoist priests, you should not go into the city."
Yu Nie frowned slightly, quite puzzled: "What makes you say that, Steward Wang? We were all fine when we returned from Huaiyuan City yesterday. How could we have been restless?"
"Furthermore, the Xuan Ce army is still stationed in the city. Even if there are bandits or marauders who want to cause trouble, they wouldn't dare to make a move at this time. That would be like walking into someone's clutches."
The steward explained, "It's not because of that. When I arrived... I happened to see the Xuan Ce army's iron cavalry leaving the city in droves. I overheard the whispers of the street vendors saying that the Xuan Ce army commander had sent an envoy to summon the prefect for questioning. But Prefect Zhao initially agreed readily, only to stand them up at the last minute. The young man leading the army is also a man of strong character, and he immediately sent men to the prefecture to capture Prefect Zhao."
At this point, the steward looked worried: "Prefect Zhao was considered a good official before, but who knew he would turn out to be such a glutton. This time he openly defied military orders, so it seems... he probably won't surrender easily."
At the end, the manager cautiously looked around before continuing, "The two sides might start fighting. You guys should probably stay away from the city for the next few days."
Such an important thing happened in just one day.
After watching the steward leave, Yu Nie and Lang Xi exchanged glances, each feeling a vague unease.
The armies at the prefectural and county levels were nominally under the command of Huan Xun, the commander of the Dingbei Border Army, but Zhao Shuhuai had cultivated power in Huaiyuan for many years and had long since replaced the garrison commanders at all levels with his own confidants. Now, these 30,000 troops probably recognized Zhao's private seal rather than the commander's orders.
In Yu Nie's view, although the Xuan Ce army had Huan Xun's written order, the commander himself was not present, and Huan Xun was newly transferred to the northwest, so his position was unstable. If Zhao Shuhuai insisted that the military order was fake, or made other excuses to delay, he might incite the garrison to besiege the army in order to save his own life.
How could a mere few thousand Xuan Ce soldiers possibly withstand thirty thousand troops? And throughout the entire process, it was hard to guarantee that the Prefect's office wouldn't resort to some underhanded tactics. After all, Zhao Shuhuai was capable of even openly disobeying orders.
Langxi asked worriedly, "Will the captains... be alright?"
This question made Yu Nie very uneasy. She shook her head: "I don't know... but..."
She stopped mid-sentence.
Aunt Liu reassured the three of them: "Even if the prefect is incredibly bold, he wouldn't dare to lay a hand on the commander's troops. The captain and the others will definitely be fine."
Despite saying that, they all knew in their hearts that Zhao Shuhuai, the prefect, was different from others. Behind him was the entire Prince Yan's mansion, and his bloodline was made up of imperial relatives.
Yu Nie lowered his head and pondered for a long time.
An adventurous idea suddenly formed in her mind.
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