Chapter 14: Village Gossip
“It’s nothing. I just heard from the manager that the Fourth Young Master is also a friend of Hu Sheng’s, so I wanted to ask him to help me send some strawberries to him, and then give some to the Fourth Young Master’s family as a thank you.” Zhao An gave a plausible reason, hiding his own little ulterior motives.
Feng Shaoping looked at Zhao An’s polite and courteous demeanor and felt it was very out of place. He gave Zhao An a suspicious glance. “Since you’re friends with Hu Sheng, why don’t you deliver the things to him yourself?”
Zhao An said calmly, “The mountain paths are difficult to travel. With my frail constitution, I can’t easily go up the mountain. I’m not as skilled in martial arts as the Fourth Young Master.”
Hearing Zhao An’s pointed mention of the mountain, Feng Shaoping finally admitted that Zhao An did indeed know something about Hu Sheng, and his guard relaxed a lot. “Give the things to me. I will definitely pass them on to him for you.”
Zhao An actually wanted to see Hu Sheng again, but since things had come to this point, he couldn’t very well go back on his word. He counted out fifty strawberries, borrowed a basket from Manager Feng, and handed it to Feng Shaoping.
Feng Shaoping had come to Ruyi House this time to collect accounts for his father. After taking the strawberries, he went to the back courtyard to find the bookkeeper. Manager Feng counted the remaining sixty-one strawberries, gave Zhao An one hundred and eighty-one wen, and then said, “I was just joking when I said business was bad and the extra strawberries couldn’t be sold. Young Master Zhao, you must bring the full amount of strawberries next time. If possible, if you could grow and produce more, we could still take them.”
As expected, businessmen had the ability to change their expressions in an instant. Faced with Manager Feng’s smile, Zhao An also played along. “I will definitely bring the full amount of strawberries to you next time, Manager Feng. It’s just that the strawberry season only has about a month left. If I want to expand the cultivation, I’ll have to wait until next year.”
Even if Zhao An had the ability to let people eat strawberries all year round, in this era with only rudimentary greenhouse technology, it was obviously impossible to eat the same fruit in all four seasons.
He didn’t plan on taking the path of a mystical charlatan, nor did he intend to tell anyone other than Qin Tong and Hai Bo about his ability. So, at most, he could only extend the strawberry season to three months. Anything more outrageous would be hard to explain.
Faced with Manager Feng’s disappointed gaze, Zhao An quickly shared another piece of good news with him. “Besides strawberries, my family has also planted some grapes. They’re big and sweet. When the time comes, I’ll send some over for you to try, Manager Feng. I’m sure you’ll like them.”
“That would be wonderful,” Manager Feng replied immediately. “If they’re delicious, I will definitely buy them from you at a high price, Young Master Zhao.”
Although it was still something up in the air, Zhao An and Manager Feng spoke as if it were a done deal. Grapes had been introduced to the Central Plains for over a thousand years. Even though the yield was not large due to the climate, as long as he could find a suitable variety, he could use his ability to ripen them and improve the taste. And when Manager Feng said he would buy them, it was just an empty promise. If the grapes Zhao An brought were not good, he could simply refuse to buy them.
After leaving Ruyi House, Zhao An took out the copper coins he had just received and said to Qin Tong, who still had a red mark on his face, “You and Hai Bo were both frightened yesterday. Take all this money and buy some sweets and pastries to share with Hai Bo.”
Qin Tong had often received rewards before and was fine with accepting the hundred-plus wen. But he said, “I don’t like pastries and sweets, and Hai Bo is old and doesn’t like them either. Let’s just buy some more meat.”
So, Zhao An bought some more meat, then set aside fifty wen to buy two chickens back in the village. As for buying grapevines, he planned to have Hai Bo take Qin Tong to the prefectural city to buy them for him after some time.
As for himself, he was the one who had been ordered by the emperor to return to his hometown to guard the tombs. If he dared to openly step out of Changxi County, his life would be in danger. Even if His Majesty the Emperor hadn’t sent people to watch him constantly, he was afraid that the next time Zhao Qingcheng had a falling out with the emperor, he, this innocent cannon fodder, would once again be used as a punching bag.
And the frequency of Zhao Qingcheng and Li Xiuye’s quarrels was not low. Yet, no matter how they fought, it was always others who got hurt in the end. To be on the safe side, Zhao An would absolutely not touch the king’s law unless it was absolutely necessary.
The journey back from Changxi County took another shichen. By the time they got home, they had missed the normal lunchtime, but Hai Bo was still waiting for them. Lunch was quite sumptuous: a large bowl of braised pork, a large plate of braised dried tofu, a portion of steamed dried fish, and a vegetable dish. The reason there was so much food was that it had been prepared yesterday at noon. It wasn’t suitable to eat such rich food in the morning, so it was only brought out now.
Ah Wu, who had been monitoring Zhao An’s house from the bamboo forest behind, no longer dared to come. But the overpowering aroma of the braised pork lingered over the entire village. What was even more infuriating was that this aroma had started to spread before lunchtime and had not dissipated even after everyone who smelled it had finished their lunch with watering mouths. This was because Hai Bo had been keeping the bowl of braised pork warm with hot steam before Zhao An returned.
By the time Zhao An’s family finally started their meal, more than half the village was finally freed from this unbearable mental torment. Then, while adjusting the rice seedlings that had been damaged by the rain, they discussed the affairs of Zhao An’s family in the fields.
“That Young Master Zhao is indeed the son of a Prime Minister. Truly formidable. Don’t look at how Zhao Tongming struts around the village all day. When he met a truly ruthless person, he was put in his place in an instant.” Someone, not wanting to continue the topic of Zhao An’s family eating meat every day and making everyone crave it, brought up yesterday’s incident.
Obviously, he wasn’t the only one who had watched the spectacle. It was just that everyone seemed to be avoiding the topic of yesterday as if it were taboo. Now that someone had started, everyone began to discuss it enthusiastically.
Auntie Liu Song, whom Zhao An had run into that very morning, was one of the most animated discussants. “That Young Master Zhao is really skilled. He must have learned martial arts before. When I first saw his frail appearance, I thought he wouldn’t last long in the countryside.”
“And his friend! I happened to pass by Zhao Tongming’s gate this morning and saw him.” The man paused for a moment as if to build suspense, then made a punching motion. “He shattered Zhao Tongming’s wall with one punch.” He then used his hands to form a circle the size of a bowl. “My goodness, the hole was this big!”
“Uncle Ah Da, and then what?” A young man was immediately captivated by Liu Ah Da’s story. He stopped what he was doing, straightened up, and asked him what happened next. The boy’s strict father didn’t force him to continue working this time, also looking expectantly at Liu Ah Da, hoping he would continue the story.
After enjoying the gazes of those around him, Liu Ah Da finally raised his voice and told the fresh story he had witnessed to everyone busy in the fields. “Zhao Tongming’s mother was so scared she collapsed right there. Only then did that lord slowly say, ‘I’ve come for the redemption money for the two people you kidnapped and sold yesterday.'”
He even clasped his hands behind his back at the end, imitating Hu Sheng’s well-enunciated speech. Although it was inevitably tinged with a local accent, the imposing manner was somewhat similar. Unfortunately, the old bachelor Ah Da, with his small eyes and flat nose, was a world away from Hu Sheng.
But the surrounding villagers gave his performance a twelve-out-of-ten approval. Even the clan head, Liu Huan, who had been silently smoking his pipe and watching his three sons work from the edge of the field, was drawn in by his story and urged impatiently, “And then?”
Liu Ah Da said with a grin, “Of course Zhao Tongming gave the money. It was wrapped in a cloth, and it looked about the same as the bundle his family wanted to use to redeem Hai Bo and Qin Tong last night. It should have been fifty liang of silver inside, I think.”
When he mentioned the bundle for the silver, many villagers had a deep impression of it and began to ask about the details of the bundle. Liu Ah Da described it one by one, and the villagers all nodded. “That’s the one, that’s right.”
During their break from work, the villagers confirmed a fact: Zhao An was not to be trifled with, and he had a very capable friend. Even if Zhao An’s family drank wine and ate meat, it had nothing to do with them, the common folk. Just as they felt that the wealthy Zhao Tongming had nothing to do with them, even though they lived in the same village, they didn’t need to interact for weddings or funerals.
This was also a form of the villagers’ invisible exclusion of Zhao An, though he didn’t know it yet. Even when Hai Bo went to buy chickens in the afternoon, because he was treated with extra respect, he didn’t notice anything unusual and easily bought a rooster and a hen for fifty wen. He didn’t hear Auntie Liu Song’s usual nagging about how she couldn’t even afford a chicken during her postpartum confinement, because she had already classified their family as a wealthy household that could eat chicken whenever they pleased.
However, Zhao An was not as rich as the villagers thought. After inquiring with Hai Bo, Zhao An learned that a good grapevine seedling cost at least twenty liang of silver, and he had to find a specialized gardener to buy it. This was because grapes were not cultivated on a large scale in this era but were grown dispersedly in various family gardens like flowers and trees, as a kind of edible ornamental plant.
In that case, even with the fifty liang of silver Hu Sheng had left, he could only buy two grapevine seedlings. If the number of parent plants was too small, it would be very difficult to improve the variety.
Zhao An stood in the courtyard, contemplating the problem of not having enough silver. Then he saw the green mountains in the distance and decided he still had to make a trip deep into the mountains.
He still hadn’t given up on his long-held persistence: to find some precious medicinal herbs. After all, with his ability, cultivating a large amount of medicinal herbs should be a good way to make money. Moreover, he could use these herbs to help sick people. For him, it was a good thing that killed two birds with one stone.
However, the mountain paths had probably been washed out by the rain these past two days and would not be easy to walk on. He should wait for two days of clear weather before considering going up the mountain.
