A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 100 Meeting an old friend in a foreign land

"Third uncle,"

Luo Dafu called out, "Why are you here too?"

Luo Wu slapped Dafu on the shoulder and said, "Good boy, you only see your third uncle and not your fifth uncle."

One of the four great joys in life is meeting an old friend in a foreign land.

In Jingzhou, 500 miles away from home, especially in Jingzhou which had just experienced a six-month siege, fellow villagers were filled with tears when they met.

There was a group of men, the youngest was in his twenties and the oldest was in his forties, but as they greeted each other, their eyes were wet with tears.

"Dafu, didn't you come with ten people? Where are the two left, Dashu and Dashan? Aren't they here?" Luo San asked his nephew, pulling his hand.

Upon hearing this, the joyous and excited people couldn't help but freeze their smiles.
"Uncle San, Dashu was killed by Long Bandit scouts outside the city in July. Their heads were chopped off, leaving only a headless corpse."

"Where's the mountain?"

"Some time ago, the Long bandits laid siege to the city. The city was out of food. Dashan was starving, so he ate a lot of sawdust and dirt. His stomach became severely bloated and he couldn't defecate, so he died."

The big tree was buried on the roadside outside the city, and the big mountain was also buried in a pit after it died.

I just kept an old piece of clothing.

Everyone was silent.

After a long time, Dafu asked Luo San why they came.

"We are here with the village chief. By the way, let me introduce you, this is Wuyi, the Taoist boy from the Wuji Temple at the head of our village. He left the Wuji Temple and traveled around the world with Master Li six years ago. He was only ten years old at that time.

More than a month after you left, Wuji and Li Zhenren came back, but later,

Li Yi interrupted Luo San.

"Uncle San, let's not talk about this for now. It's rare to meet someone from my hometown. I'll take everyone out for a good meal."

Dafu and the others were surprised when they heard that the young man in the green official robe and the golden buckle belt around his waist was actually the Taoist boy from the Taoist temple at the entrance of the village.

Everyone still has some impression of the Taoist boy Wuyi from before, but they cannot connect him with the tall young man in front of them at all.

"Yes, let's go eat first. Wuyi is now the village chief of Luojiabao."

Dagui asked, "Just now Zhao Zhanggu said that Li Canjun, Lord Li, is that Wuyi?"

"Well, this is a long story. Let's go eat first."

Li Yi led the eight wealthy men back to the East Market.
This time I didn’t go to the bakery, but found a soup noodle shop.

"Shopkeeper, give each of us two bowls of buckwheat noodle dumplings and mutton soup."

Buckwheat is a common coarse grain in Guanzhong. It is ground into flour with a stone mill and kneaded with hot water, otherwise it will become sticky. Knead it until it is soft and hard, let it rise for a while, and then roll it into long strips as thick as chopsticks on the chopping board.

Cut into thumb-sized pieces, sprinkle with flour, and rub gently with your thumb in the palm of your hand, and small buckwheat dumplings shaped like ears will be formed.

It takes patience to make glutinous rice dumplings, as they have to be rolled one by one.

This shop was obviously run by a family. The husband cooked noodles and made soup, while the wife kneaded the dough and twisted it into cat ears. There were also two girls under ten years old helping to knead and twist the dough.
Their hands are very dexterous. With a rubbing and twisting, a cat ear is formed and a curtain is quickly made.

"When eating buckwheat noodles, mutton soup is a must," said the man, his face full of vicissitudes, but like the old man Wang Mazi before him, he still maintained his enthusiasm and hope for life. "Buckwheat noodles are cooling, and mutton soup is hot. Eating these two together, the cooling and hotness complement each other, making it a perfect match."

Mutton soup has the word "fishy" in its name, but it tastes extremely delicious.

It is actually a soup made with mutton and mutton offal. It is simple to make, but it is not easy to make an authentic delicacy. The old man is quite capable of opening a popular and well-reputed buckwheat noodle and mutton soup restaurant in Jingzhou, an important city on the Silk Road.

Soon, the hot buckwheat noodle soup with mutton was served.

The chewy and soft buckwheat noodles paired with the delicious mutton soup are truly a unique dish.

The eight people including Luo Dafu had been sniffing for a long time. When the buckwheat noodle dumplings and mutton soup were served, they didn't bother to chat anymore.
First sip the soup.

The soup is white and rich in flavor.

One bite and your stomach feels warm.

The soup is very rich in ingredients, including lamb tripe strips, lamb intestines, lamb heart, and large chunks of lamb.

The soup is fragrant, the mutton is tender, and the dumplings are chewy.

Luo San and the others will eat much better now that they have oil as a base. Besides, the food they have been eating with Li Yi for a while has been pretty good.

Li Yi tasted it carefully and elegantly.

At sixteen, he can still eat a lot. Li Yi thinks this bowl of buckwheat noodle soup with mutton is good enough to get a score of nine.

The soup is white, but not too white. The store owner also said that this soup is not made with bones, but only with mutton and mutton offal. The reason why the soup is also white is because the mutton is fresh and has some fat, and the sheep intestines are also fat.

These fats make the soup white.

If you want a particularly clear soup, you have to remove the oil first.

Not much seasoning.

Use real ingredients to make a good bowl of soup.

Dafu and his friends devoured the food like a whirlwind. It had been a long time since they had eaten anything. In fact, even when they were at home, they rarely had any food, let alone working as servants.

They are all able-bodied men.

I have a very good appetite.

After finishing two bowls in a few bites, they only had enough to fill the stomach. Li Yi was considered a wealthy man now, so he was not stingy. "Shopkeeper, give them three more bowls each!"

But Li Yi still underestimated them.

Three bowls were served and eaten immediately, leaving five large bowls piled up there.

They looked like they were still not satisfied.

"Can you eat more?" Li Yi asked with a smile. He had only eaten three bowls and was full. His stomach was full of oil and water, and he had just eaten a few fried cakes.

Dafu chuckled and said, "I'm full, I'm full."

The others also laughed.

"It looks like everyone is still not full, so how about two more bowls each?"

Erlangzi, who was already familiar with Li Yi, said, "Village Chief, you really let us eat as much as we want. Not to mention two more bowls, we can even eat three or five more."

"Don't brag! Five more bowls would make it ten bowls in total. My stomach would burst."

Erlang said that he could definitely eat five more bowls. Brother Dafu also smiled and said that the buckwheat noodle dumplings and mutton soup were delicious, but it was mostly just soup.

Li Yi asked the shop owner to continue.
"Don't worry about the number of bowls. Just eat until you're full."

Then,
The shop owner and his family were busy and happy.

Serving bowl after bowl of full
Soon the empty bowls piled up one by one,
Seven bowls, eight bowls, nine bowls,

I actually ate ten bowls.

In the end, Erlangzi and the others rubbed their bellies and said, "This time we had a really delicious meal."

"Store, check out."

Sixty coins a bowl was cheaper than Li Yi had expected. He had thought a steamed bun in Chang'an would cost twenty coins. This large bowl, with its buckwheat flour, cat ears, and mutton offal, was definitely not cheap, especially after the war, when supplies were certainly scarce. Even a hundred coins a bowl would have seemed reasonable to Li Yi. After all, this was a place that had just survived a six-month siege. A dou of rice in Luoyang cost several thousand coins.

Who knew it was only sixty cents a bowl.

"Shopkeeper, don't think I'm cheap just because I'm wearing this. I'll pay whatever I want."

The old man in the shop said that this was the price. In the past, during the prosperous times, it only sold for five or six coins a bowl, but now it’s sixty-one coins, which is also expensive.

Fortunately, now that the war is over, traffic here has been quickly restored and all kinds of supplies are flowing.

Li Yi thought about it, the mutton here is supplied from the surrounding areas, much of it comes from Lingwu, Yanzhou and other places, and the mutton must be much cheaper than in the capital city like Chang'an.

When Dafu and the others heard the number of sixty-one bowls, they looked at the pile of empty bowls in front of them and felt embarrassed.
Ten bowls cost six hundred coins per person, and thirteen people cost several thousand coins.

"Don't worry, I can afford this guest."

Li Yi did not carry that much copper coins or silk with him. Fortunately, when he was in Chang'an, he exchanged some gold beans, gold melon seeds and other small gold pieces at the gold and silver shop in the West Market.

The small golden beans are one and a half coins each, and the weights are very regular. The golden melon seeds are one and a half liang, and both are very convenient to use.

A small gold bean weighs half a penny and is worth four hundred yuan.

The total cost was 7,800 coins.
Li Yi directly took out a large golden melon seed, weighing one or two taels and worth eight thousand coins. It was stamped with the stamp of Chen Liulang's Gold Shop in Chang'an West Market, and there were five of them.

The old man in the shop looked at the golden pumpkin seeds with some hesitation.

"You can take it to a gold shop for appraisal. This is one ounce of pure gold, worth eight thousand coins. If you have more than two hundred coins, I'll give it to you."

The shopkeeper thanked him profusely and immediately took Heizi to a nearby gold shop for identification. It was indeed pure gold, and he came back trotting to thank him again and again.

Li Yi led everyone out of the store and walked slowly back to his residence.

What is to come will come.
When Luo Dafu and others asked about the family situation again,
Luo San still told everyone the whole story. Not long after they left, a heavy rainstorm caused a landslide in Luojiabao, killing many people.

Including the eldest brother of brothers Luo Dafu and Luo Dagui, a family of five is gone.

Among these eight people, several had casualties in their families.

It took a while for everyone to accept the news. Some cried loudly, some shed tears, and some remained silent.

Everyone has a particularly strong tolerance for suffering. Perhaps it is because they have suffered a lot since childhood, which has made them tough and even numb.

When they feel better,
Liu Heizi continued to talk about the changes in Luojiabao.
Li Yi became the village chief, set up a workshop, and built a school. Most of the villagers worked for Li Yi to earn money, and the children could also go to school for free. Many villagers have moved back to the cave dwellings that did not collapse.

Some cave dwellings have collapsed, and some people have started to repair them.
Although they had experienced a great disaster, Li Yi had helped everyone during this period, lending them food and money, and providing them with jobs, so that they had been able to overcome the difficulties temporarily.

When everyone heard that Li Yi had presented medicine to the King of Qin last time and helped the King of Qin Changwu to counterattack and win, and therefore Li Yi was awarded the Baron of Qianshui County, they all sighed.

"I remember my Sanniang used to play with Wuyi often, but now I can't recognize her at all," Dafu exclaimed in amazement.

Six years ago, Wu Yi was only ten years old.

Wuyi was picked up by Taoist Li and taken back to the Taoist temple, where he lived in Wuji Temple at the entrance of Luojiabao Village for ten years.

It is true that they grew up under their watch.
It's only been six years, but things have changed so much.

Strange, yet a little comforted,
"Village chief, when can we go home?" Dafu asked. He was supposed to serve for twenty days, but now it has been one hundred and five days.

"Yes, if we exceed the deadline, we will only serve for an extra 30 days at most, and the government will exempt us from rent and taxes for a year. But now it has exceeded the deadline by 85 days. Excluding the 30 days to offset the rent and taxes, we still have to work for 55 days more. The court can't let us work for nothing, right?" Jin Zhu also asked.

Li Yi said, "I believe everyone will be able to go home soon. As for the issue of over-service, the court will definitely have an explanation, whether it's compensation or a reduction in future rent and taxes. It won't be in vain, don't worry."

The most important thing is to be able to return safely, everything else is secondary.

(End of this chapter)