Chapter 10 The Fragrance of Soup Dumplings: Just tell me, are you going to eat it or not?
As a child, Meng Boyuan had secretly grieved over his father's favoritism, but now he was used to it. At this moment, he was neither panicked nor heartbroken, but simply pursed his lips. He had long anticipated his father's temper and knew he couldn't avoid this beating, but he hadn't expected it to come so quickly.
The rattan whipped against his back with a sharp crack, and Meng Boyuan gritted his teeth and straightened his back. The pain turned his face from white to blue, but he didn't utter a sound.
As night deepened, Madam Meng, accompanied by the wives of two of her shop assistants, returned from the night market, beaming with pride as she carried back a large quantity of the latest fabrics she had purchased from the cloth shop. Just as she stepped through the door, she heard a commotion in the courtyard. She quickly shoved the fabrics into someone's arms, lifted the hem of her skirt, and hurried to see what was happening.
Seeing her own son beaten until his skin was torn and bleeding, she couldn't stand it anymore. She rushed forward to protect him and said sternly, "If you're going to hit someone, hit me too! You'll be satisfied if you kill us both! You beat and punish the child without even asking what happened as soon as he comes back. Let him have a word!"
"Would Dr. Zhu wrong him? He's a good-for-nothing! He's stupid and unwilling to study hard. We've spent so much effort and money to support his studies, and he still dozes off in class! He even got the teacher to complain to our home. He's made me lose all face!"
Guan was from Shuzhou and had the most fiery temper. Upon hearing this, her eyebrows shot up and she immediately stood up to retort: "Si Lang only rested at dawn yesterday. How can he have the energy to study today? Besides, people say that thirty is old for a scholar who has passed the imperial examination and fifty is young for a scholar who has passed the imperial examination. Isn't there a fifty-eight-year-old student in the Imperial Academy? Si Lang is only a few years old. Why are you, as his father, in such a hurry? Are you afraid that you won't live to see your son pass the imperial examination?"
"If he doesn't work hard when he's young, are you going to let him waste his life until he's fifty? It's all because of you, his mother, spoiling him..."
Although Meng's father was tough on the outside, he secretly glanced at Guan's face. Seeing that her eyebrows were raised higher and higher, his voice gradually weakened, and he slowly pulled the rattan cane behind his back.
"What nonsense are you spouting! What does this have to do with me? I bore children for your Meng family, and now it's my fault! Fine, if you don't want this son, then make him change his surname to Guan! I'll send him back to Shu Prefecture tomorrow so he can serve my old father. That's filial piety!"
"You...you're being unreasonable!"
"Bah! You're the one who's being unreasonable! Weren't you a complete failure in your studies when you were young? Did you ever achieve even a fraction of success? Yet you have the nerve to lecture your son! It's not too late for you to take the exam now, aren't you? You're only in your forties, aren't you? I think that's the perfect time to make your mark! Tomorrow I'll prepare two taels of silver and go to Registrar Liu to see if he can get you into the academy. I want to see if you, as his father, can outdo Silang!"
Meng Boyuan knelt with his head down, seemingly obedient, but in reality, he was holding his mouth so tightly that it was almost raw, and he was desperately pinching his palms to keep himself from laughing out loud.
Mother is mighty!
As Guan Shi spoke, she grew angrier and angrier, and the more she cursed, the more energetic she became. She rushed forward with her hands on her hips, her brightly painted fingernails poking at Meng's father's nose as she continued to hurl insults. Meng's father was no match for her. He wiped his old face, which was now wet from her spray, and tried to escape, but Guan Shi chased him to the door, grabbed his ear, and continued to curse him all the way to the courtyard.
Meng Boyuan listened intently until his father fled further and further away in a disheveled state, until he could no longer hear him. Only then did he rub his belly and look up at the sky with a sense of melancholy: Mother was so busy scolding Father that she forgot about him!
I'm so hungry, but thankfully I ate two tea-braised chicken eggs.
Meng Boyuan scrambled to his feet and tiptoed to the door to peek out. Seeing that his father had fled somewhere and no one was passing by in the front yard of the woodblock printing workshop, it was quiet. If he didn't flee now, when would he? But a light was still on in an open hall on the west side, and Master Yi, whom Meng's father had specially hired to carve the characters, was still sitting on a low stool, with a pine board in front of him, solemnly and attentively carving the woodblock with a slanted knife.
Beside him stood a young apprentice, about fourteen or fifteen years old, helping him out. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Meng Boyuan peeking around like a thief. He suppressed a laugh, blinked, turned around to block his master's view, put his hands behind his back, and quietly waved to him.
"Ah Yi, thanks!" Meng Boyuan grinned, bowed, and ran off in a flash.
Meng Boyuan was quite carefree. He slipped back to his room and fell asleep immediately. In his drowsy state, he was still thinking about how hungry he was. He wished he could eat a bowl of hot, fragrant mutton soup before going to sleep...
He slept until dawn, when suddenly a series of bamboo whistles sounded outside the window. He opened the window and saw Lin Weiming jumping and waving at him outside his house wall, making a monkey-like noise.
He hurriedly changed his clothes, washed up haphazardly, grabbed his book box without stopping, stuffed the sesame cakes made by the Guan family and the silver he had secretly slipped in, and before leaving, he didn't forget to rub the big head of his family's white guard dog and praise the good dog a few times before rushing off to meet up with Lin Weiming.
"Why are you up so early today?" Meng Boyuan asked in surprise. Usually, he was the one who had to go to the Lin family to drag the man out of bed.
"I made a vow yesterday to study hard," Lin Weiming said with a serious expression.
Meng Boyuan rolled his eyes: "I've said this at least two or three hundred times, let's see how many days you can keep it up."
"Hey, why are you always pouring cold water on my enthusiasm?"
"Do I need to splash it? Every time, you're the one who complains about being tired and gives up!"
"This time it's different!"
"Did you go to the grave to burn paper money yesterday?"
"What?"
"You're kidding me!"
The two bickered as they turned the corner and saw a large crowd gathered in front of the Yao family's house, creating a noisy and lively scene.
The aroma of tea-braised chicken wafted out again, accompanied by a familiar, rich fragrance that filled the entire alleyway and overpowered the original flavor of the tea-braised chicken.
"Young Madam Yao opened for business so early?" Meng Boyuan craned his neck to look and exclaimed in surprise, "She even set up tables and chairs... and this smell... isn't it the smell of instant noodle soup?"
Five or six years ago, Shenji introduced a type of "instant soup noodle" that could be eaten simply by adding hot water. It became a sensation in Bianjing (Kaifeng) and has remained popular ever since. Now, Shenji is no longer the only company in Bianjing that makes instant soup noodles. Each company has its own specialty sauce base. For example, Shenji makes the most authentic braised and pickled cabbage flavors. The up-and-coming Lujia Soup Noodles from Zhouqiao makes knife-cut instant soup noodles with a unique flavor. Another soup noodle workshop, "Tang Shifu," has an exceptional chicken broth sauce base.
Meng Boyuan used to love instant soup noodles. For a while, he ate too many and got a sore the size of a soybean on his tongue. It hurt when he ate or drank. His mother scolded him for it and poured salt into his mouth. He was in so much pain that he ran around and screamed at home. After that, his family stopped buying instant soup noodles. He hasn't eaten them for quite some time now.
The smell made his mouth water, and he couldn't help but swallow.
Lin Weiming had smelled it long ago!
Two more coal briquette stoves, three low tables, and a few small stools were added in front of the Yao family's house. In the steaming white mist, a large earthenware pot was still boiling on one of the stoves, the braising liquid inside bubbling and gurgling. The brownish-brown braised eggs were piled up in the bubbling braising liquid, like a small mountain.
Another stove was placed at the other end of the table and chairs, with a large ceramic pot on top, boiling water.
The two followed the scent, and the closer they got, the more people there were; in the end, they practically had to squeeze in.
A crowd of students had already gathered around Yao Xiaoniangzi's stove, coming and going. Some came to buy tea eggs and left as soon as they were taken, while others, full of excitement, were already sitting around the small table in front of Yao's house eating. One of them was dressed in silk and satin, plump and fair-skinned, and didn't seem to care much for his books. He casually placed the scrolls from his book box on top of his ceramic bowl, and held chopsticks in his hand, eagerly waiting to eat.
Amidst the rising steam, Yao Xiaoniangzi, wearing a floral headscarf and with her sleeves rolled up high to reveal her slender forearms, stood behind the stove. The heat from the stove made her cheeks red, and fine beads of sweat appeared on the tip of her nose. She was extremely busy, sometimes scooping eggs with a strainer, sometimes asking people what kind of soup noodles they wanted, and also deftly serving people noodles, getting bowls, and collecting money.
As soon as Meng Boyuan and Lin Weiming arrived, someone next to them asked, "Miss Yao, how much does this bowl of soup noodles with a tea-braised chicken cost?"
Seeing that someone else was asking, Yao Xiaoniangzi kept working and quickly turned her head to answer: "The different flavors of soup noodles are all the same price. One noodle is twelve coins, the sauce base is one coin, hot water is one coin, and the tea-braised chicken is three coins, for a total of seventeen coins."
The man ordered a braised version, and she quickly took the bowl and plate, arranged the flatbread, scooped a spoonful of sauce, added an egg, and pointed to the side: "Sir, please get some hot water yourself."
No sooner had she finished speaking than someone else shouted, "Madam Yao, there's no hot water left!"
"Wait a moment! Coming soon!" Yao Xiaoniangzi hurriedly went back home and brought back a large earthenware pot with steam rising from its spout. She placed it on the charcoal stove, took the empty pot off the stove, and ran back to the courtyard.
Before long, the newly placed earthenware pot also started to smoke, and the rising steam pushed open the lid, making a hissing sound. Lin Weiming watched with curiosity, inwardly praising his cleverness.
Every household had a drainage ditch under the eaves in front of their house, covered with openwork bluestone slabs, about four feet eight inches wide. Space was limited, and they couldn't pile tables and chairs outside the alley. So she boiled several kettles of water in advance on the stove in her own yard. This saved space, and the already warm water was quickly boiled again by heating it on the coal stove, without delaying her work.
After the student finished soaking the soup dumplings, he sat down. As soon as he lifted the plate, the aroma filled the air. He immediately buried his head in the soup dumplings and began slurping them up. The hot, brownish-red soup made him gasp for breath, but he still kept taking sips.
It smells so good! Meng Boyuan couldn't resist any longer. He had gone to bed hungry yesterday and dreamed about mutton soup with flatbread. When he woke up this morning, he found his pillow covered in drool. He nudged Lin Weiming with his elbow and said, "It's still early. Let's have a bowl before heading to the school."
Lin Weiming looked at the sky; it was still early… but… he was heartbroken: “I got up so early to study! And you dragged me out for soup dumplings? Didn’t I get up for nothing?”
"Just tell me, are you going to eat or not?"
"There are fragrant soup dumplings in books, there are tea-braised chicken in books, and people should have backbone. I won't eat them!"
"My treat."
"……eat."
Before long, the low table in front of the Yao family's house was full, and there was no room left. So the two of them simply sat on the threshold with their bowls in hand and buried themselves in their food. The leisurely autumn sunlight slanted across the eaves of the houses on both sides of the alley, making the roof tiles shine even brighter, as if they had been coated with a thin layer of soybean oil. It also made the sky look like it had been baked, a bright and crisp blue.
Meanwhile, carrying a letter and a bamboo basket containing dozens of eggs slung over her arm, Wu, leading her daughter Yunniang, had also arrived at the entrance of the alley leading to the Imperial College.
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Back in school, I was often this spineless too [doge emoji]. I was so anxious because I hadn't finished my homework, and my deskmate suggested we go to the fruit shop to buy some crisp persimmons.
I said I wouldn't go, I can't finish writing.
Desk mate: It's my treat. [Cat emoji]
Me: Let's go! [Sunglasses]
Now that I'm a beast of burden, all the hardships of my school days seem so wonderful [crying emoji]
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