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

Chapter 75 Blind Date
As the old saying goes, when the granaries are full, people will know etiquette.

On the other hand, when people cannot even maintain their most basic survival, they will no longer care about etiquette and morality.

In the disaster-stricken areas, some people would sell their bodies for a steamed bun, and some would rent out their wives for two or three years just to get a few dou of grain.

There were even cases where people directly sold their own children as slaves and prostitutes.

right now,

Liu Heizi said he wanted to find a new wife.
Then, in less than a cup of tea, dozens of women were standing in front of him, ranging from those in their thirties to those in their teens, and there was no room for them to squeeze in.

This scene shocked Li Yi.

This is still a short time, otherwise more people would want to come for a blind date.

In the past, I had only seen on Douyin the scene of boys lining up at the doorstep of girls’ homes during the Chinese New Year waiting for blind dates. I never thought that I would see the opposite scene in my lifetime.

Liu Heizi was just a farmhand who had just come ashore after washing his feet.

But Li Yi gave him a little packaging, a new set of clothes, and an identity he gave himself. The victims didn't even bother to verify anything and they all scrambled to go with him.

Liu Heizi was dazzled. He had been a bachelor for twenty-five years and had never seen such a scene before.

In the past, I couldn’t even think about getting a bride, but now I can choose any one I want.

At the critical moment, it was Li Yi who stood up.

"Everyone, please be quiet and listen to me. Liu Heizi is from Nanyang, so he wants to marry someone from Nanyang, preferably around 20 years old and over 5 feet 2 meters tall."

"Those of you who are unmarried, or widowed and childless, please stand up. The rest of you can go your separate ways."

Five feet two inches, about 1.6 meters. Heizi is about 1.8 meters tall, and must weigh nearly 200 kilograms. This big guy can hug a cow and throw it to the ground. If he marries a wife who is too petite, it will not be a match.

This eliminated most of them at once.

There are still about ten people left, all around twenty years old and over five feet two inches tall. After asking, I found out that most of them have been married, and most of them are widows. Some of them have children and don't want to quit. They want to find someone to support themselves and their children.

"Heizi, ask them about their situation one by one,"

Liu Hei woke up as if from a dream, stepped forward shyly, and spoke a little stutteringly. He asked in his hometown dialect, and it turned out that several of them were pretending to be from Nanyang.

After this second round,
There were still seven or eight women left, all of whom had been married, widowed, or lost their husbands, and half of them had children.

Following Li Yi's suggestion, Liu Heizi finally picked a woman who was about 1.7 meters tall. She was not very good-looking, but she met his requirements of being tall, with a big butt and big breasts. She was 20 years old this year, named Cao Yanxiu, and her husband's family also had the surname Liu.

She married into the Liu family at the age of fifteen and gave birth to three children with her husband. Her husband died of illness on the way, and the eldest daughter was forced to sell him in exchange for three buckets of millet.

Although it was a difficult journey to Chang'an with my parents-in-law and two children, the suffering was not over.

The youngest daughter died of illness, and the son was stolen away.

The father-in-law went out to look for his grandson and never came back. The mother-in-law was so angry that she fell ill and died before she could see her husband.

Only the Cao family is left.

She did odd jobs every day to make a living, while looking for her son and waiting for her father-in-law to bring the child home, but to no avail.

She was willing to marry Liu Heizi with only two conditions. One was that he wanted three dou of millet and to repay the money and food he had borrowed from fellow villagers when his daughter and mother-in-law were sick. The other condition was that she hoped Liu Heizi would continue to help her find out about her father-in-law and son in the future.

"I agree to everything." Liu Heizi agreed readily. Although Liu Cao was not beautiful, she met his wife's requirements in all aspects.

Seeing that Liu Heizi chose Cao,
Other women are disappointed.
Some people came to ask Li Yi if he wanted to be a concubine or a maid, and some old men came to ask if he wanted to be a long-term or short-term worker, saying that as long as there was food to eat, no salary would be fine.

"Alang, recruit some followers," Liu Heizi, having settled his own lifelong affairs, began to persuade Li Yi to recruit followers. "Alang, you have more than 200 acres of land in the school, and you also have more than 100 acres of land in Yushuchuan, and another 600 acres in Sanyuan and Qianshui.
We are recruiting some soldiers now and placing them in Luojiabao first. They can farm and help in the workshop. When they are familiar with the land, they can be sent to Qianshui and Sanyuan to farm.

"Private soldiers are much more reliable than hired men."

Li Yi looked at the disaster victims who were surrounding him with expectant faces. They were the ones left after being picked seven or eight times. Some of them were missing teeth, some were hunchbacked, and most of them were in their fifties or sixties. There was no one under forty.

To be honest, he was not very willing to accept this.

It’s not that he is too hard-hearted. If he were to send some food to the victims, he would be willing to do so, but taking it home would be a different matter.

"never mind,"

Li Yi waved his hand, but he still gave twenty coins to each of the dozens of women who had come to the blind date.
It’s just enough to buy a steamed bun.

But in this shanty town, these twenty cents could buy four wheat cakes.

It is called wheat cake, but in fact it is made of wheat bran, sesame grits left over from sesame oil extraction, rapeseed cake, some sorghum and corn, which are crushed into paste and made into cake.

Although it only costs five cents each, it is mainly wheat bran, with only a little bit of sorghum and corn, and a small amount of hemp grits and vegetable husks.

Such wheat cakes can only fill your stomach.

The women who received the money expressed their gratitude to Li Yi one by one, and some even knelt down. This scene made Li Yi very uncomfortable.

He also gave twenty coins to each of the other elderly and weak people, just as a good deed. He didn't have the means to come here to distribute porridge.

Liu Heizi frowned when he saw this.

"Alang, we have to leave quickly, otherwise we won't be able to leave soon."

Cao Yanxiu also became a little nervous at this time, and the maid Hongxiao had already pulled Li Yi's clothes tightly with one hand.

"Let's go! This isn't the way we're distributing money. There are starving victims here. If word gets out, they might strip us naked. Let's go!"

Li Yi also came to his senses and realized that he was indeed a little careless.

So everyone quickly retreated.

Fortunately, Liu Heizi was familiar with this place. He led them around in many ways and soon got out. Along the way, they saw many people rushing towards the place where they had just stayed.

Finally walked out of the refugee slum area,

Li Yi felt his back was wet.

Careless.

The tall and strong Liu Heizi held Cao's hand all the way and breathed a sigh of relief. If something happened to Li Yi here, his job would be gone.

A horse-drawn road,
Separate the shantytowns where the disaster victims lived.
On this side of the road, there are post stations, shops, markets, residential areas, civilization and order. On the other side, there is hunger, darkness and disorder.

After this incident, Li Yi had no intention of staying in Sanqiao, so he took a few people and went straight home.

Dozens of miles,

Li Yi let Hong Xiao ride the horse while he led the way. Hei Zi, also feeling sorry for his new wife, let Cao ride the mule while he led the way.

Walking and chatting along the way,
Cao was quite generous, but Hongxiao was a taciturn person and didn't say much along the way.

"Girl, sing a song for us," Li Yi said with a smile.

Hongxiao doesn't like to chat, but likes to sing.

"What does Alang want to hear?" she asked timidly.

"Anything is fine."

"Then the slave will sing a Xiliang song."

Hong Xiao picked up the pipa that Li Yi had bought for her in the West Market, and plucked it from her horse.

Playing and singing by myself.

Amidst the sound of the pipa, the girl's voice was quite good.
Li Yi didn't know how to play the pipa, nor had he heard of Xiliang music, but as he led his horse along in the sunset, he felt a sense of sadness from the music.
And it’s very atmospheric,
I felt the same shock and emotion I felt when I watched the documentary about the Hexi Corridor.

Liangzhou is located in the northwest and is often cold.

It was as if the whole person suddenly entered into the deep, desolate, magnificent and exciting dream of Liangzhou, and was in the magnificent and soul-stirring river of history.

The song ends.

All four of them remained silent.

for a long time,

Liu Heizi said to Li Yi: "This girl's two taels of gold were not wasted, it was worth it."

Cao was surprised that this skinny little girl cost two taels of gold, while Liu Heizi only spent three dou of millet to marry her.

Li Yi turned to Hong Xiao and said, "This Xiliang song is really good. You play and sing it well too."

Hong Xiao rarely smiled.

"This Xiliang song is adapted from the Liangzhou music and dance. My master said that Liangzhou music and dance was one of the nine musics of the Sui Dynasty, a major piece of music in the Yan music. The complete Xiliang music and dance includes both music and dance, and uses nine instruments, including the pipa and flute. It also incorporates the music and dance of Tianzhu and Kucha, mixing the old Central Plains music with the sounds of the barbarians. During the Sui Dynasty, it was revered as one of the nine national musics..."

There are dozens of tunes adapted from Xiliang music by the folk, and the one sung by Hong Xiao is one of them. Although it is only a solo with pipa accompaniment and no dance, it is already very good.

On the way, Hong Xiao sang a few more songs.
All the way back to Luojiabao.

At the bridge, Sanniang saw Li Yi leading the horse and a girl sitting on it immediately. She was no longer surprised and even felt a little calm.

"Whose noble gift was this?" Sanniang joked.

"This is Hong Xiao. She originally sang for a blind man. I bought her to keep Lanxiang company in the future," Li Yi introduced.

"Sister Hongxiao, you must be tired from the journey. Come, have a bowl of locust leaf tea with me to cool down."

Liu Heizi shamelessly said, "Sanniang, give my woman a bowl too."

"Your woman?"

"Yes, Sanqiao just got it. He also fled from my hometown of Nanyang."

Sanniang saw that the woman had sallow skin and looked a little tired, but she was very tall and her clothes were patched with many patches, but they were still clean. She didn't expect that she was the wife Liu Heizi wanted.

"Hurry up and help the mule off. Come here and have a bowl of cold pottery. Heizi, you must treat others well from now on."

"That's for sure." Liu Heizi said with a smile.

Li Yi also asked Heizi to sit down and eat cold pottery together.

There were many passers-by at the foot of the bridge, as well as some villagers from Luojiabao Guozhuang. They all gathered around to see Liu Heizi's new bride.

But no one cared about that skinny and small girl.

Especially the people in Guozhuang made fun of Liu Heizi. After all, Liu Heizi had worked as a farmhand in Guozhuang for half a year and everyone was familiar with him.

"Ah, just now when he came from a distance, I didn't recognize him as Heizi. But after following Li Daizhao into Chang'an City, he has changed a lot."

"Yeah, I thought it was some Alang coming."

"I thought it was the emperor's imperial guards, tsk tsk tsk."

Liu Heizi did not care about everyone's ridicule. His status had changed. He was no longer the farmhand Liu Heizi who had fled from famine. Now he was Li Daizhao's personal attendant. He was immediately given land and even brought back a woman.

Liu Heizi's luck has turned and he is going to establish a family business in Luojiawan.

When the villagers laughed at Liu Heizi, they were actually secretly envious of him. He had even cheated on Li Dalang before, so how come Li Dalang suddenly valued and appreciated him so much that he settled him down, bought him land, and even helped him find a new wife?

Why?
Could it be that just because he is tall and strong, and has natural strength, he can knock down a cow?

"Wuyi is back?"

Guo Erlang came over from a distance and said, "I didn't see you when I went to your courtyard just now. I heard that you went to Chang'an early in the morning."

"Second uncle wants to talk to me about something?"

Village Chief Guo chuckled, "Just call me brother from now on. Shi Niang came to visit her aunt today. She originally wanted to stop by the school, but you weren't here."

Li Yi nodded.
Du Shiniang came at the right time. He still remembered how Guo had used a knife to kill him.

"Has Shi Niang returned home yet?"

"Not yet. When she saw you weren't here this morning, she took her aunt to the Mati Temple to burn incense. She just came back a while ago."

Li Yi finished the Huaiye Lengtao in his bowl and put it down. "Then I'll go over and say hello."

(End of this chapter)