Chapter 230 Drinking and Fighting
The young lady muttered for a long time, "Ajin, now there are a lot of people visiting my house every day. Those ladies are surrounding me and saying such nice things. I feel like they are praising me to the sky. What should I do?"
The young lady knew that this was a compliment, which meant that she was still sober, but Su Ruojin didn't know how to comfort her, so she could only say, "If you don't want to see me, then pretend to be sick."
When the worried young lady heard this, her eyes lit up, "Hey, this is a good idea."
What a good idea! Who would curse themselves for bad health?
When Su Ruojin didn't know what to say, Yang Si Niang suddenly became happy, "Ajin is really smart. It would be great if your father was still an official in the capital. Then I would come to play with you every day."
In this way, she won't worry and will definitely be in a good mood every day.
Speaking of her father, Su Ruojin took a deep breath. Yang Si Niang was a simple young lady, and Madam Yang was also a capable ordinary woman. Why was Lord Yang such a rebellious person?
She felt that because of Lord Yang's official career, the Yang family and the Su family would inevitably drift further and further apart.
Zhao Lan was sitting in Su Yanli's study, but there was no book on the table. In front of him stood an unremarkable man, dressed like a regular servant, who was reporting something.
"My Lord, that young lady is the fire-maker of the Su family, but she was shown in the capital as a bait. When our people followed her to the foot of the North Mountain, they were ambushed. Fortunately, we predicted that it was a trap. Only one of them was ours, and the rest were hired thugs. Our people escaped."
Zhao Lan's eyes narrowed slightly.
Santai waved his hand, and the unremarkable man quickly retreated.
Seeing the people walking away, Hua Ping couldn't help but speak, "Young Prince, even the Lu family is suspected by the new emperor, what should we do now?"
Zhao Lan tapped the tabletop with his fingertips. "Withdraw most of the spies and keep them dormant."
Hua Ping nodded.
“As for…”
Zhao Lan motioned Hua Ping to come closer and whispered something in his ear, "Go and arrange for the staff now."
Hua Ping paused for a long time before nodding, "Okay."
In the afternoon, Su Ruojin went to Su Ji to check on their business situation, solve any problems that occurred, and say hello to them before leaving if there was nothing else.
Early the next morning, Zhao Lan sent Su Ruojin away from the capital.
"You won't send me to Weizhou County again this time, and then you will stay here again, right?"
The young lady looked defensive, which made Zhao Lan laugh. "If I follow her, what will happen to the seeds in Weizhou County?"
That's more like it.
For some reason, on the one hand, Su Ruojin breathed a sigh of relief. Zhao Lan, who had been working since he was fourteen, suddenly became idle. She was actually quite stressed because it was because of her that he was suspended from his job. Now that he stayed in Beijing, it meant that his work was back to normal.
On the other hand, deep down in my heart, I feel a little lost and reluctant. We have been together every day, and I am not used to being separated suddenly.
So women are really complicated. Even someone as rational as Su Ruojin can have all kinds of emotions at once.
"Then I will wait for good news from Brother Jin in Wei County." Su Ruojin waved her hand pretending to be relaxed, "Goodbye, Brother Jin."
Zhao Lan raised his hand and waved, then stood on the official road, watching the young lady's carriage go farther and farther away. He only turned back to the city when it was out of sight.
Another official was arrested on the street and taken to the Criminal Division Yamen by the Ministry of Justice.
Sitting in the carriage, Zhao Lan heard the noise outside, lifted the curtain and looked for a long time.
Shuang Rui approached his master and said, "Sir, the princess asked you to go back."
"knew."
During the Grain in Ear season, Hua Ping sat next to him. Ye Huaizhen and others sat in the carriage with Su Ruojin. They swayed towards Weizhou County. At noon, they found a clean roadside restaurant and stopped to eat.
After they sat down, the shopkeeper quickly and attentively brought them drinks to quench their thirst.
The cold drinks of the Dayin Dynasty were no worse than those of modern times, except for ice cream and popsicles. There were various types of cold drinks such as ice and snow, cold syrup, licorice soup, medicinal papaya, water papaya, cold water lychee paste, etc.
Bingxue is the Dayin Dynasty version of ice cream, Liangjiang is iced fermented rice soup, licorice soup is iced licorice water, and medicinal papaya is papaya pickled with honey and several Chinese medicinal materials, boiled in boiling water until it turns white, then mashed into a paste, and then mixed evenly with ice water to make a refreshing drink.
It is relatively simple to prepare water papaya. Just peel the papaya, remove the pulp, leaving only the flesh, cut into small cubes, and soak them in ice water.
There is also cold water lychee paste, which looks like it is made from lychee, but in fact has basically nothing to do with lychee. It is mainly made by boiling black plums into pectin, and then dissolving the pectin into ice water. Because it tastes a bit like lychee, people make it into lychee paste, which is a bit like the modern Cantonese herbal tea, which can quench thirst and maintain health.
Of course, these cold drinks cannot be separated from ice, but the Great Yin Dynasty did not have modern refrigeration equipment. Where to get ice on hot days? The answer is: store ice in advance when it is available in winter.
On hot summer days, ice cubes would melt quickly once they were taken out of the ice cellar. But the ancients were very smart and came up with a solution. They used a double-layer wooden barrel, like a modern thermos cup, and put the ice cubes in the interlayer. The ice would not melt for two or three days.
Su Ruojin habitually looked inside the restaurant, wanting to see if there was such a wooden barrel. Of course, she didn't see it. It must have been placed in the back kitchen, so how could people be allowed to look at it casually?
She withdrew her curious gaze, picked up the bowl and looked at the clear brown liquid. This was most likely the black plum soup. She took a sip tentatively. It tasted sour and sweet and seemed to taste quite good.
Just as she was about to take a big gulp of drink, she felt someone staring at her. She raised her head and followed the gaze, only to discover that the woman of the shop was busy welcoming the next batch of customers, and the young waiter was going to the kitchen, probably to serve food to the customers.
No one looked at her.
But she felt that her intuition was correct, someone must be staring at her.
Look towards Mao Ya.
Mao Ya stood beside Su Ruojin and followed the waiter into the kitchen. Unfortunately, she was sitting in the living room of the restaurant and could not see the kitchen.
Su Ruojin seemed to be thinking about something, put down the drink in her hand, and called out, "Shopkeeper, give me a cold drink."
Liangjiang, made from rice, is a drink that most ordinary people drink in this era. It is a standard drink in small restaurants along the official road. Recently, Su Ruojin has also stopped at this small restaurant and knows that they have it.
To make this kind of cold paste, whether it is rice or millet, boil half a pot of thick paste, add half a pot of cold water after it becomes sticky, mix evenly, pour it into a jar, cover it, and let it ferment naturally. After five or six days, the rice will be saccharified, then pour it out, filter out the thick part, and only the rice juice is left. Put the rice juice in small porcelain bottles, put it in an ice bucket to cool it down, and the cold paste is ready, which tastes sour and sweet and is very delicious.
The woman was originally entertaining a group of people who had just arrived. When she heard her shout, she hesitated for a moment before walking up to them and said, "Young lady, the weather is getting colder. We don't have any cold soup except for black plum soup. How about a bowl of rice with water?"
Rice water is actually cold porridge that has not been chilled.
Su Ruojin nodded, "Okay, then have a bowl."
The black plum soup on the table was never touched again.
When the woman entered the kitchen, she glanced at the black plum soup on the table.
Hua Ping, Mang Zhong and Ye Huai were all former spies, so they were very cautious about eating out, so the black plum soup in their hands was untouched just like Su Ruojin.
The cook was a middle-aged man who was being held at knifepoint by two men in black. The woman and the young man were his wife and son. Just an hour ago, they were doing business as usual. Unexpectedly, two masked men in black suddenly held the cook at knifepoint, yet forced the woman and son to do business as usual.
The woman entered the kitchen and said in a trembling voice, "Good...good guys, he...they were very alert and didn't drink our black plum tea at all."
The two men in black looked at each other, and one of them asked, "So what do they want now?"
"Water and rice."
"Hurry up and do it."
“Yes… yes…”
The woman's hands were shaking badly. After she filled the rice and water, another man in black took out a small paper bag, shook out some powder and put it into the rice and water.
"Bring it out and let them eat it."
“Yes… yes…”
The woman quickly took a wooden tray and brought out a few bowls of rice with ingredients added to it. However, the people at the table had disappeared. They had left.
After getting on the carriage, Su Ruojin asked, "I've eaten at this restaurant once, right?"
Mangzhong replied as he drove the cart, "Yes, it's close to Weizhou County. We started from Weizhou and the journey is short, so we don't need to stop here for a meal. We came back from the capital and left the city late the last few times. We haven't reached this section yet, so we've been to this small restaurant once."
Su Ruojin asked, "Uncle Hua, do you think there was any drug or something like that in the black plum soup just now?"
Hua Ping nodded, "Nine out of ten."
Su Ruojin's heart sank, and she felt that she would have to live in fear for the rest of her life.
"Uncle Hua, in your opinion, these people are..."
"Either he is a spy from Liaoxia, or he is in the same group as the people who took Li Xiuzhu away."
"That restaurant and shop won't be in any danger, right?"
Hua Ping said, "Don't worry, Madam. I have secretly asked people to keep an eye on the movements of the small restaurant. If someone really wants to kill the small restaurant owner, they will stop him."
Su Ruojin sighed heavily.
As they were about to enter Weizhou County and passed by a small forest, a flock of birds suddenly flew out from it.
Only the startled birds fly away.
"Not good." Hua Ping waved his sword and asked Mangzhong to stop the car and protect the people on the spot.
As soon as he finished speaking, a dozen masked men in black flew out from the grove and started hacking people.
Hua Ping and others immediately drew their swords and rushed forward.
Mao Ya protected Su Ruojin tightly, Qiuyue jumped out of the carriage and joined the fight.
Inside the carriage, Su Ruojin only heard the sound of someone chopping wood in the carriage. She was so scared that her heart was in her throat. If these people couldn't catch her, they would kill her!
Just as Su Ruojin was daydreaming, she heard Hua Ping shouting, "Leave him alive." The fight seemed to be over.
She quickly pushed open the door of the carriage and looked outside, only to see Hua Ping and Mangzhong working together to grab a man in black. The man was trying to bite her tongue or something, but Mangzhong refused to let him close his mouth.
(End of this chapter)
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