Mo Sang – CH 164

Chapter 164. A Welcome Feast

Princess Ninghe and Gu Fei followed Li Sangrou, one on each side, watching as she neatly tied a bunch of scallions into a knot and tossed them into the pot. She then smashed a large piece of ginger with a large knife and added it to the pot as well.

She then boiled water in another pot, scalded the sheep’s heart, lungs, liver, and tripe that Hei Ma had cleaned, placed them on a cutting board, sliced ​​and diced them, and added them to the stew pot.

Hei Ma and Da Chang were particular about buying whole sheep and pigs; they always bought them inside and out. Li Sangrou had thrown the sheep’s head to the bottom of the basket, afraid it would frighten Ninghe and Gu Fei.

Princess Ninghe and Gu Fei watched as Li Sangrou finished washing up, stewed lotus seeds and red beans in a large earthenware pot, placed various seasonings in a large bowl, and then poured hot, smoking oil from a small iron pot over them…

Just as Li Sangrou started grilling the mutton over the fire, Pan Dingbang and Eleventh Master Tian entered the back of the courtyard, one after the other.

“Oh! Eating so early? I was planning to treat you to a welcome feast.” Pan Dingbang sniffed, inhaling the rich aroma of fish and mutton.

“Then let’s do it another day! Tomorrow is fine!” Gu Fei immediately chimed in.

“This mutton is delicious, really fragrant!

Whether it’s a welcome feast or not, it’s just about having a meal together. Where we eat does not matter; it’s the thought that counts. How about Eleventh Master and I eat here? That will count as a welcome feast too.” Pan Dingbang craned his neck to look at the pieces of mutton laid out on the grill.

“Is this how you welcome someone? Is this a welcome party for Sister Li, or is Sister Li welcoming someone?” Princess Ninghe glared at Pan Dingbang.

“Eat dates.” Chuantiao had just washed a large bamboo basket of bright red dates and presented it to Princess Ninghe, Gu Fei, Pan Dingbang, and Eleventh Master Tian.

“These dates are sweet! Eat dates, eat dates!” Pan Dingbang immediately started eating dates, ignoring Princess Ninghe’s words.

“Is this considered a welcome party? The money’s gone, is it not?” Li Sangrou put down the mutton and looked at Pan Dingbang with concern.

“Do not mention it! Do not talk to me about money!

Last time, the time I ripped off the Hanlin Academy student, I took out all my savings, thinking I’d make some money, enough for a year or two of living expenses.

But then, I lost it all. And that’s fine, but Eleventh, that guy who cannot keep his mouth shut, told his wife we ​​lost over a thousand taels of silver. His wife is shrewd; she seized on that and started interrogating him.

That Eleventh, scared by his wife, said things he should not have!

Say it! Of all things to tell your wife, why did he have to talk about losing money?” Pan Dingbang was furious.

“How can you blame me? I was the one who let it slip first!

I told my Second Sister-in-law that we’d already lost a thousand or two and asked her to help us out no matter what. Was that what she said to me?

I just thought, since I’d already said it, it would not hurt to say it again! Otherwise, I am usually very tight-lipped. Would I have let it slip?” Eleventh Master Tian protested.

“Alright, alright, I will not argue with you.” Pan Dingbang waved his hand at Eleventh Master Tian. “Anyway, I know what I should and should not know.

My father said that next time we host a welcome dinner for the boss, I will just treat everyone, make sure they eat and drink well, and then tell my Second Sister-in-law when I get back, and she will have someone settle the bill for me. What’s the point of a welcome dinner?

Welcome dinners are meaningless anyway. It does not matter where we go, as long as we have a meal together and have a good time, and the sentiment is what matters,” Pan Dingbang said dejectedly.

“Hey! I have some good news! You won the bet with Ninghe! Go ask her for the money; it’s a hundred taels!” Gu Fei said, pointing at Princess Ninghe and laughing as he looked at Pan Dingbang.

“We will split it fifty-fifty!” Eleventh Master Tian hurriedly grabbed Pan Dingbang.

“Forty-sixty! Forty for me, sixty for him!” Pan Dingbang countered quickly.

Li Sangrou was speechless, turning her face away from Pan Dingbang and Eleventh Master Tian.

“Look at your pathetic state!” Hei Ma, munching on a date, glanced arrogantly at Pan Dingbang and Eleventh Master Tian. “Back in Yangzhou, Xiao Lu and I hauled cartloads of gold, buying houses, shops, fields, and land all over the city!

Cartloads of gold! What’s money?”

“Cartloads of gold? You dare use it? To buy a turban, you’d have to beg Da Chang for a fortune! And to buy a turban I’d worn before, ten coins apiece, selling it as secondhand—I would not even want to talk about it!” Pan Dingbang said disdainfully.

“Secondhand turbans!” Gu Fei laughed heartily.

“What kind of turban do you want? I will send it to you!” Princess Ninghe laughed, waving her hand generously at Hei Ma.

Hearing the laughter and watching the lotus seeds and red beans bubbling in the casserole, Li Sangrou poured in some tender water chestnuts. The water boiled again, and Li Sangrou removed the large casserole from the fire, leaving it uncovered to cool.

The mutton on the grill sizzled, and Li Sangrou flipped the pieces one by one.

Da Chang had prepared a large bowl of chive and vegetable filling and began to pour boiling water over a tender chicken. Xiao Lu kneaded the rested dough, rolled out wrappers, and Mazha and Datou made dozens of thin-skinned dumplings, which were then steamed.

Hei Ma rummaged through the warehouse and brought out two or three jars of wine.

The mutton was roasted, and the mutton soup dumplings were ready. Da Chang chopped the boiled chicken, served it with dipping sauce, and brought it over.

A dozen or so people sat around the large table, heads down, eating heartily. Pan Dingbang took a bite of a vegetarian steamed dumpling, sipped some mutton soup sprinkled with chopped green garlic, and mumbled, “This is how we welcome guests from now on. Is it not great?”

Gu Fei rolled his eyes at him and scoffed.

“Hey, did you really go robbing and pillaging? Along the canal? Whose house did you rob? I did not hear anything?” Pan Dingbang leaned over Princess Ninghe and Gu Fei to ask Li Sangrou.

“Who told you that I went to rob and pillage?” Li Sangrou retorted.

“Do not ask; I came up with it myself.” Pan Dingbang immediately pulled his head back.

“Has Second Brother come back?” Li Sangrou asked, glancing at Pan Dingbang.

“He came back, but I did not see him. I do not want to see him. He always finds fault with me the moment we meet. He’s not my Second Brother, nor my Third Brother, do not make wild guesses,” Pan Dingbang added as a final statement.

“Is that your Second Sister-in-law?” Princess Ninghe asked, craning her neck.

“No, my Second Sister-in-law does not have time. She’s busy with this strategy and that tactic, running around with my Third Sister-in-law every day. Neither of them has time for me,” Pan Dingbang waved his hand.

“What strategies and tactics does your Second Sister-in-law have? Has your Second Brother cheated on her?” Li Sangrou deliberately changed the subject.

“My Second Brother? He dares to…”

“Cheat on her!” Pan Dingbang’s exclamation was interrupted by Gu Fei’s astonishment and Eleventh Master Tian’s coughing and laughing.

“How can you talk like that?” Pan Dingbang suddenly realized what was happening. “My Second Brother dares to have an affair? Does he even have the guts? It’s not about guts; I mean, my Second Brother is so busy, so incredibly busy, how could he have time for an affair? Hey, what are you laughing at?

Oh! I get it. Look at you all. Who says only women can have affairs? Can you tell a tree’s gender? Look at you!” Pan Dingbang picked up his bowl of soup, his face saying, “I will not argue with you, ignorant people.”

“Then what strategies and tactics is your Second Sister-in-law busy with?” Li Sangrou asked with a smile.

“Huh! You do not know? You do not even know about the Evening Post?” Pan Dingbang was not only surprised but also somewhat indignant.

She did not even know about her family’s affairs!

“I was busy robbing and plundering; how could I have time to care? What happened at the Evening Post?” Li Sangrou asked seriously.

“It’s about the last time, when we competed in erudition with the Hanlin Academy. You won, but everyone knows that the ones writing under the grape trellis were all women.

Once that’s known, it’s infuriating. Those little notes of thirty coins each, twenty characters long, were full of ‘womanly opinions’ and ‘ignorance of women,’ not pointing out anything wrong, completely unreasonable, just ‘womanly opinions.’

It infuriated my Second and Third Sisters-in-law, my mother, and the others. They were all furious.

Later, it was my Second Sister-in-law who suggested it, and my mother intervened, having my father write an article first, because of that article…”

Pan Dingbang leaned into the middle of the table, his face full of gossip.

“My mother even scolded my father! I was standing right there, and my father said he was busy, and that my mother and her ilk were narrow-minded and should not be bothered with.

My mother got angry, pointed at my father, and said, ‘Then stand up there, and if you can swallow your anger, then talk to me like that again!’

My mother is really fierce!” Pan Dingbang clicked his tongue.

“My father wrote it, he wrote it overnight!

The next day, the article was placed under the grape trellis, without saying who wrote it. Two or three days later, after those idiots had finished their rant, my Second Sister-in-law and the others said that the article was written by my father.”

Li Sangrou raised an eyebrow and, after a moment, chuckled.

“It was not just one piece. After my father’s piece, there was Privy Councilor Pang’s treatise on military affairs, then the next day, Finance Minister Dai’s piece on finance and taxation, followed by Minister Du and Minister Wu, one each.

Five days in a row, five pieces, and they were bombarded with insults—’women’s views,’ ‘reckless commentary on state affairs,’ ‘shameless,’ ‘frog in a well,’ the ugliest things imaginable!

Later, the articles under the grape trellis were mixed with those by Secretariat Tan, Secretariat Xue, and my Second Sister-in-law.

One article today, another tomorrow—no one could tell if it was women’s views or men’s views. Eventually, no one dared to criticize anymore.” Pan Dingbang chuckled.

“Your Second Sister-in-law is amazing!” Li Sangrou gave Pan Dingbang a thumbs-up.

“That’s right, that’s right!” Pan Dingbang held his head high, feeling proud.

“There’s a joke,” Princess Ninghe said, looking at Gu Fei.

Gu Fei chuckled. “Tell me.”

“At the end of the sixth month, Ah Fei and I sneaked out to Yingxiang Pond for iced soup, the one near the Southern Pharmacy. Halfway through our meal, we overheard some lively conversation next door. We listened intently.

They were talking about Minister Xue’s nephew…”

“I know him, Xue Shaoning, Xue Wu. His scholarship is not much, but he thinks incredibly highly of himself. My Third Brother calls him a self-proclaimed genius. Tell me about him!” Pan Dingbang quickly added that he knew him.

“It’s him. He studies at the Imperial Academy. They said in class that he was giving a long, eloquent critique of an essay written under a grape trellis. The essay was about poetic imagery and atmosphere.

They said Xue Wu said it was clearly written by a woman, with a strong boudoir feel, incredibly stingy, and so on…”

“And that it was all about femininity,” Gu Fei quickly added.

“Yes, yes! They said that after reading the whole thing, all they could say was ‘ignorance’ and ‘nonsense.’ They were having a good time when Chancellor Huang arrived…”

“That article was written by Chancellor Huang?” Eleventh Master Tian craned his neck and exclaimed from across the table.

“Yes! But he did not know. None of them knew at the time.

They say Chancellor Huang’s face was very grim. He said Xue Wu was making a ruckus, showing no respect for him as Chancellor, and was disrespectful to his elders. He punished him by making him kneel on the steps, holding a book with both hands raised, for over an hour!

They say Xue Wu could not even get up.” Princess Ninghe laughed as she spoke.

“And there’s something even funnier!” Gu Fei chimed in, “They said that a day later, they all knew the article was written by Chancellor Huang. They said Xue Wu was terrified and ran to Chancellor Huang early the next morning to apologize, only managing to say, ‘I did not know it was written by you, sir…'”

Gu Fei laughed so hard he could barely speak.

“Before he could finish speaking, the Imperial Academy Chancellor Huang pointed at him and started scolding him, saying, ‘You judge a gentleman by the standards of a petty person.’

He added that as a teacher, how could he punish a student based on academic principles? He was punishing Xue Wu for being loud and disrespectful, saying he never expected Xue Wu to be so outrageous.

Xue Wu was then forced to kneel for over an hour, and the Imperial Academy Chancellor Huang also made him reflect on himself three times a day, and after each reflection, he had to write an article, submitting three articles a day to the Imperial Academy Chancellor, saying it was to make him properly reflect on his mistakes!”

Li Sangrou looked at Princess Ninghe and Gu Fei, who were laughing so hard they were doubled over, and could not help but chuckle. She was not laughing at Xue Wu; she was laughing at these two silly girls. Of all the jokes, they were the ones laughing the hardest.

“At the beginning, the first piece was written by my father; nobody knew about it. The second one was written by Privy Councilor Pang; nobody knew that either.

But my father wrote about the administration of a small county, while Privy Councilor Pang wrote about military post stations.

The insults from those people were overwhelming; as my Third Sister-in-law said, they’d dug up their ancestral graves.

My mother even made me read those little notes to my father. Tsk!” Pan Dingbang clicked his tongue in disapproval.

“Later, Financial Minister Dai and his ilk wrote all sorts of things—spring and autumn odes, this and that—basically, anything about national affairs.

Oh dear, those few days, the notes and mailbags came in cartloads! Someone even wrote tens of thousands of words refuting Financial Minister Dai’s tax treatise, claiming he’d worked in the Ministry of Revenue, and so on.

Some even submitted memorials accusing women of interfering in politics. It was quite a spectacle.

It’s a real pity you were not there! For seventy or eighty days straight, it was a huge commotion; the whole capital was buzzing about it.

One of my department’s junior officials, to my face, said my father’s treatise on the administration of small counties was utter nonsense, completely baseless, and that a woman dared to comment on national affairs. I told him it was my father who wrote it, but he did not believe me, saying it was clearly the work of an ignorant woman and that the writer had never even been to a small county or village.

Some people even came up to my father, saying that it was one thing for women to talk about poetry and nature, but now they dared to discuss current affairs, saying it was not an auspicious omen and spouting nonsense, calling my father’s essay on the administration of a small county absurd and laughable, a fool’s dream.

I was not there, but my Third Brother happened to be. He said that judging from the look in my father’s eyes, if that person were me, my father would have kicked him.” Pan Dingbang clicked his tongue as he spoke.

“That’s common!” Hei Ma gave a thumbs-up to show his knowledge. “Back when we followed our boss, the moment they heard our leader was a woman, those guys would just sneer like that.”

Hei Ma grimaced. “There are tons of idiots like that!

Later, when I mentioned our leader, if Jin Mao saw that sneer, he’d immediately say, ‘It’s our Boss Sang!’ and then that sneer would revert to normal!

The same thing, if I said it was our leader, they’d scoff and say it was just a woman’s ignorance, but if it was Boss Sang, it became profound wisdom! Tsk! How stupid!”

Hei Ma clicked his tongue.

“My Second Brother’s the same way. If I say anything to him, he will say, ‘What do girls know?'” Gu Fei pouted and snorted.

“My older brother is the same way!” Princess Ninghe patted Gu Fei hard. “He does not say it, but his eyes say it all. His eyes are saying, ‘I do not know anything! It’s so infuriating!'”

“Compared to your older brother, you really do not know anything,” Li Sangrou patted Princess Ninghe.

Gu Fei shifted her gaze from Li Sangrou to Princess Ninghe, who was glaring at Li Sangrou, and burst out laughing, collapsing onto the table.

“Our boss said that people, regardless of gender, only know what they are good at.” Xiao Lu finally chimed in, though his comment was a bit off-topic.

“Right, right, right! For example, the boss said I know about water! She always asks me about anything related to water!” Chuantiao patted his chest.

“What do I know?” Datou, standing next to Xiao Lu, nudged him and asked.

“You know how to play dumb!” Xiao Lu quickly replied.

Eleventh Master Tian craned his neck to look at Datou, who had a naturally foolish expression, slammed his hand on the table, and burst into laughter. “His foolishness is not an act! He’s really foolish; he does not need to pretend!”

“I can kill, only slightly less than our boss!” Hei Ma puffed out his chest. “On this trip to Jiangning, we fell into a trap set by the Southern Liang people, and I killed about a hundred of them, one by one!”

“One person killed a hundred? How many did our boss kill? What about him? And him? How many people from Southern Liang must have come? Several thousand, right? Were they going to attack the city? How did they get here?” Gu Fei asked in surprise across the table.

“Look…want some lotus seed soup?” Hei Ma quickly changed the subject.

Xiao Lu, Chuantiao, and Mazha slammed their hands on the table and laughed loudly. Datou was stunned for a moment, then joined in the laughter.

“See, do not expose someone’s weaknesses! Why take Old Ma so seriously!” Pan Dingbang pointed at Gu Fei and laughed.

“Sigh, I thought he was telling the truth. So how many did you actually kill? Did you really kill anyone?” Gu Fei asked with a laugh.

“Look at that, killing is nothing; it’s commonplace! Want some lotus seed soup?” Hei Ma replied without changing his expression.