Chapter 46 Drunk Cow

Chapter 46 Drunk Cow

Chapter 46 Drunk Cow
On the 18th, it snowed heavily.

The road was icy and few people walked on it, and occasionally one could see starving people lying on the ground.

One hundred and twenty miles south of Pingyang City, there was a small tavern on the side of the road. The two men tied their horses outside the inn, shook off the ice and snow on their bodies, lifted the door curtain and went in.

A gust of cold air woke up the thin boss who was dozing off by the fire.

He shrank his neck and looked up, and saw a man and a woman.

The man was wearing a black robe and holding a long sword. He had delicate features and eyebrows. He was more handsome than the third son of Mr. Wan's family in the county town. Mr. Wan had passed the imperial examination this year. He had seen him riding a horse and parading through the streets when he returned to his hometown. He was also a handsome man.

The woman was tall and voluptuous, half a head taller than the man next to her. This was not good, because if a woman was taller than a man, it would affect her luck and make it difficult for her to get married in the future. What a pity.

The thin boss commented in his mind.

The woman said, "Boss, what are you doing? Why don't you come over to greet us?"

"Come on, sir."

The thin boss then remembered that business was slow during this period and in order to save on food expenses and wages, the two waiters had already been given a long vacation.

"I am sleepy and confused. Please forgive me. Please forgive me. What kind of wine would you like to drink?"

The woman pulled out the bench and brushed away the dust with her sleeve, and the man then sat down.

The young man asked, "What kind of wine do you have?"

The thin boss saw that this young man was a man of status.

"Sir, we have three kinds of wine in our shop, namely, Mianshetou, Manwuxiang, and Zuidaoniu."

"Which alcohol is the strongest?"

"That must be a drunk cow."

The young man laughed and said, "Then it should be... 'Drunk Bull'. Isn't this name meant to call a person who drinks as a bull?"

The thin boss quickly apologized with a smile: "Please forgive me, sir. These are all cheap names given by the winemaking workshop. I am a country boy and I am not good at writing, but my wine is good. Please forgive me, sir."

"Okay, okay, prepare 50 kilograms of drunken beef for us."

The thin boss was dumbfounded: "Fifty... fifty kilograms?"

The young man smiled and said, "Bring two pounds for us to serve as a side dish, and seal the rest in the jar and take it away."

"So the guest is here to purchase goods?" The thin boss understood.

The woman frowned and said, "What are you talking about! You have business to do, but you are not happy about it?"

The young man took out a small ingot of gold from his pocket, put it on the table, and said with a smile: "Cook a few side dishes for us, and prepare cooked food for fifty people. If there is meat, it will be packed away."

The thin boss looked at the gold ingot and estimated that it should weigh five taels. He was immediately relieved. It seemed that they were not bandits or spies coming to extort money. Those bastards never paid for drinking and eating meat, and would beat them up if they did not serve them well enough.

"Sir, we still have ten smoked geese, eighty kilograms of cured beef, and more than three hundred white flour cakes. I will ask my wife to steam three pots of rice. Do you think it's okay?"

The young man threw the gold ingot to him and said, "Get ready."

"Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir."

The thin boss put the gold ingots in his arms and did some calculations. He concluded that the profit from this order was worth two years of hard work.

Zhao Xia looked at the shop owner's back and asked in a low voice, "Sir, what are our plans for the next step?"

"The southern part of Pingyang Prefecture is a place of mountains and rivers, with a mix of good and bad people. There are many underworld forces, and bandits gather in the mountains and forests, each of them is a king. Even though the Dragon Scale Society is the largest gang in Pingyang Prefecture, its influence is limited."

"Let's first find a place to stand, settle down, spend this cold winter, recuperate, regroup, and prepare for the coming year." In theory, the northern part of Pingyang Prefecture is closest to Pingding Prefecture, making it convenient to get support from the Sun and Moon Sect, but with the presence of the Third Young Master Tong, this idea can only be abandoned.

Then we had to temporarily avoid the area around Pingyang City, where the Dragon Scale Society was the most powerful.

"Okay, everything will be arranged by you, sir."

Zhao Xia smiled and looked at Zhang Yu. The envoy was a man of both literary and military skills. After he came to lead the Wild Wolf Gang, his burden was instantly lightened by half. With the envoy here, the revitalization of the Wild Wolf Gang is just around the corner.

Not long after, the thin boss came with a wooden tray, placed bowls and chopsticks in front of the two men, a pot of hot "Drunken Beef", and a plate of fennel beans.

Zhao Xia poured wine for Zhang Yu and filled his own glass. He put down the pot and suddenly remembered the night when Zhang Yu was hit by a heavy punch from Peng Canghu in the black pine forest.

"Is your injury still serious? Can you drink?"

Zhang Yu took the wine glass, drank it all, and said with a smile: "It is precisely because the injury has not healed that I need to drink strong liquor, which can both remove the cold and disperse the blood stasis."

Not long after, the boss came over again with a wooden tray and put down a plate of cured beef, a bowl of spicy fried chicken, a bowl of fried dried fish, a bowl of steamed winter mallow, and a small dish of pickled cucumbers.

"This is a simple village inn and I'm really sorry for the poor hospitality." The inn owner apologized with a smile.

Zhang Yu said: "It's okay, are the things ready?"

"The rest of the food has been prepared. Three pots of rice are being steamed at the same time. After the guests have eaten and drunk, they should be almost here. As for the horses of the two guests, I have also added fodder and warm water."

"That's good."

"The guest officer is slow to use."

At this moment, the sound of horses neighing suddenly came from outside the door.

"Brothers, there is an unexpected gain."

"These two horses are great. Take them back to the mountain and present them to the village chief. He will definitely reward Brother Song Chang handsomely."

"I don't want anything else. I just grabbed the little sister-in-law from the Zhang family who came up the mountain at the beginning of the month. Her steamed buns are plump and full of flavor. I'm so greedy."

"I'm afraid it's a bit difficult. Village Master Cao likes those two and has already taken them into his own room."

"It's not difficult for me to say. Maltose tastes good, but you can get tired of it sometimes. It's been more than a month, and maybe the village chief has gotten tired of it. If it really doesn't work out, it would be nice for my brother and the village chief to be a bridge in the mandarin duck tent. Haha..."

"Third brother, you always give bad ideas! It's dark and chaotic here. What if the village chief draws his sword but puts it into the wrong sheath? Wouldn't he kill Brother Song Chang?"

When the thin boss heard the conversation outside the door, his face turned pale and his hands kept shaking, as if he had encountered the death of God or the disaster of plague. The fear imprisoned him in place and he dared not escape.

Zhang Yu looked at him with a smile: "Boss, is this a shady shop?"

Zhao Xia suddenly stood up and picked up a bench. Her Xuanhua axe was too conspicuous, so she didn't bring it with her.

The thin boss had a sad face and whispered, "It's unfair. These are bandits from the Black Wind Village. They often come to our store to eat and drink for free. If I don't deal with them properly, they will beat me half to death and... force my wife to drink with them."

"On a snowy day, they usually don't go down the mountain. I didn't know it would be like this today. I didn't offer sacrifices to the God of Wealth, so I deserve this bad luck."

Zhao Xia said to Zhang Yu, "Sir, it looks like these bandits are trying to steal our horses."

Zhang Yu glanced at the thin boss and saw that his expression did not seem fake. Moreover, if he was really a spy for the bandits, he would have put a lot of knockout drugs in the wine and meat. He smiled and said, "A good man will not suffer a loss in front of him. Just give it to them."

Zhao Xia was puzzled and asked, "Sir, it won't take much effort to deal with these thieves. Why waste two good horses in vain?"

Zhang Yu picked up the wine glass, raised his head and drank it all, then said with a smile: "No hurry, you and I are new here, so we should be harmonious. Let's play with them first!"

(End of this chapter)