Soon, Lu Da led Wang Han and the others to a restaurant. They went upstairs and had the waiter prepare three large tables, laden with dishes. Wang Han, Zhong Shidao, Zhao Fujin, Li Shishi, and Lu Da sat at one table, while Yang Zhi and the others sat at the other two. Lu Da originally wanted to sit with Yang Zhi and the others, but Wang Han asked him to stay. Lu Da was a rough man with no ulterior motives; unable to find a reason to refuse Wang Han's offer, he remained.
Wang Han waved his hand, and three cases of eighteen bottles of exquisite liquor appeared on the table, with twelve bottles distributed to Yang Zhi and the others.
"It smells so good! This wine." As soon as the clear white wine was poured into the bowl, Lu Da couldn't help but slurp up a mouthful of saliva as he smelled the rich aroma.
"This wine is not only fragrant, but also strong." Zhong Shidao couldn't help but take a few deep breaths of the wafting aroma, and continued, "Moreover, this wine is as clear as water; 'rare' is not even an adequate description of its beauty."
"General, could this wine be a heavenly bar?" After praising it, Zhong Shidao couldn't help but joke.
As soon as Zhong Shidao finished speaking, Lu Da couldn't help but take a big gulp. After swallowing it, he took a few deep breaths before saying, "It feels like my throat is on fire, so refreshing! Compared to the General's wine, the wine I used to drink was just water, it couldn't even be called wine."
(The alcohol content of wine in the Song Dynasty was not high; it was similar to beer in common parlance.)
“This can be lit with fire, so it will burn your throat.” Upon hearing this, Wang Han said with a smile, snapped his fingers over his wine bowl, and a bluish-green flame ignited in the bowl. Wang Han then fanned out the flame with his hand, lifted the bowl, and drank it all in one gulp.
Unlike Lu Da, Zhong Shidao was not easily tempted and did not understand many etiquette rules. Seeing that Wang Han had drunk the wine, Zhong Shidao could no longer hold back. He quickly picked up his wine bowl and took a sip, then said, "It really feels like a fire burning. Good wine, refreshing."
...
Not long after the food and wine were eaten, the faint sound of a woman crying could be heard.
“There’s a woman crying in the next room! She must be feeling quite aggrieved!” Wang Han said, putting down his chopsticks.
"Someone is crying." Upon hearing this, Zhong Shidao stopped listening and then called out to the waiter, "Waiter, why is someone crying?"
"Gentlemen!" Upon hearing this, the waiter quickly ran over and apologized, "Gentlemen, please forgive me, I will go and tell the crying person to go elsewhere."
"I asked you why someone is crying, not to chase them away," Zhong Shidao asked. "Do you know why they are crying?"
"Gentlemen," the waiter said quickly upon hearing this, "the crying people are a father and daughter who sing in the next pavilion. They just finished singing, and the customers in the next pavilion have left. The girl feels that her life is miserable, so she couldn't help but cry."
"Go and call that father and daughter over here," Zhong Shidao instructed after hearing Xiao Er's words.
"They are a few military officers." Upon hearing this, the waiter quickly left.
"Gentlemen, the people have been brought." A moment later, the waiter brought over a thin old man with gray hair and a young woman with delicate features whose hair was covered by a green coarse cloth.
Seeing a dozen or so soldiers eating and drinking there, the two men couldn't help but feel a little nervous.
"I was just thinking about something sad, and I was only feeling aggrieved. I didn't expect to offend the officials by having them drink. I beg your forgiveness," the woman said to Wang Han and the others with her father's support.
"Where are you two from, father and daughter? Why are you crying with such grievances? You are both subjects of the Great Song Dynasty. Tell us what grievances you have suffered." Zhong Shidao asked, looking at the two of them.
"Yes." Upon hearing this, Jin Cuilian began to speak: "My father and I are from the capital. We came to Weizhou with our parents to take over our ancestral property. There is a wealthy man here named Zhen Guanxi, who wants to pay for the construction of a house. That house will cover the land of our house. Our family is unwilling to sell it at a low price. Zhen Guanxi then ordered thugs to set fire to our house and forcibly occupied it. He forced my family of three to stay in an inn. My mother was both angry and scared, and she fell ill and never recovered in the inn."
As she spoke, Jin Cuilian couldn't help but burst into tears again. Hearing this, Zhao Fujin also couldn't help but shed tears.
"How is your mother now?" Lu Da asked.
“My mother has passed away,” Jin Cuilian said, weeping. “That Zhen Guanxi angered my mother to death, and he even detained me and wouldn’t let me leave. He forced me to become his concubine by finding a matchmaker and a guarantor.”
“I refused, so he had his men rob my father of his money and valuables, leaving him homeless, hungry, and unable to survive.”
"After that, he bought me as a concubine for thirty strings of cash. I had been in his house for more than three months, but I could not bear the hardship and beatings from his first wife, so I ran away."
"Not only that, from the very beginning, the money was just a pretext, the contract was the real deal. We haven't received a single penny from them yet. After I escaped, they took advantage of our breach of contract and demanded that we pay them back three thousand strings of cash. When I couldn't come up with the money, they pointed out a way for me to pay them back. Only then did I realize that they wanted to sell me into a brothel to earn money to pay them back."
“He’s rich and powerful, so the authorities won’t even take his case. They all say he’s just trying to make money for the government… (I won’t continue here; you can read the original text yourself.)” Old Man Jin continued.
"Alright, stop talking." Zhong Shidao interrupted Old Man Jin. He couldn't listen anymore. In fact, he already understood the reason when he heard that it was Zhen Guanxi, but he didn't expect it to be so unimaginable.
"How infuriating!" Lu Da was so angry that he wanted to overturn the table, but he managed to hold back.
"General, let's help them!" Zhao Fujin said to Wang Han with tears in his eyes.
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