[Title here]

by Spring Trees

  Although brawls and arguments among the neighbourhood were common, never once was there a time when the situation couldn’t be salvaged. The most they would do was to throw those who were in a mess due to the fight into the prison after quickly arresting them, and releasing them after a few days.

  Honestly, Nan Ge Er looked forward to prisoners going to prison very much.

  Whenever a disruptive person was arrested, the family members would definitely bring food over during their visits.

  As everyone knows that the government is poor, the person being arrested wouldn’t starve, but who would be able to tolerate having gruel and greens as meals daily?!

  However, the problem wasn’t due to Magistrate-daren abusing his prison personnel, since he himself drank an even thinner gruel than the one served in prison, and even having no vegetables to eat.

  So, what could they do?

  The ones inside the prison had delicious food, while the ones outside looked eagerly on, how could the residents who respect Mo Shu-xiansheng tolerate that?

  Thus, the situation would end up being everyone enjoying the meal instead.

  Therefore, for Nan Ge Er, whenever someone was arrested, it would mean that he would have a better meal for the next two days. That’s why when he saw someone being arrested or brought into the prison, he would look excited.

  Although he wasn’t picky with his food, his human instincts made him constantly hope to be able to eat much more delicious food.

  Guang Tian was such a normal, yet unique place.

  Guang Tian had neither specialities nor had beautiful scenery, the land was neither barren nor fertile, the climate was neither bad nor good. It was just a moderate and normal place.

  However, Guang Tian District’s residents were mostly on the richer side, every household having grains to spare, and one or two barren lands. It was said that even if there was a flood, no one had ever starved to death in the huge district.

  That was impossible in Fang Jun, or should he say, he didn’t believe such a place existed.

  Yet, that was possible here.

  It was like…

  A city of peace and happiness.

  In this entertainment-starved ancient era, everyone’s biggest entertainment was to shop after foreign merchants arrived; viewing the show made by wandering actors who stayed there briefly; and gossiping in the tea house to pass time when they were free.

  Though it wasn’t prosperous or as fun as a metropolis, but the flow of people in the city was very tremendously low. People rarely left Guang Tian for other places, and even if they did, they would still come back along with their families in the end. Eventually, most of the people in the town became familiar with each other…

  People would visit others randomly when they were free since no one had much privacy to speak of…

  Nan Ge Er observed closely for a few days, noticing that there was only one tea house in such a huge district town. The tea house even doubled as a restaurant, but since everyone was local, coupled with the fact that there were too many awfully bored people around, so who would want to eat in a restaurant? Thus, all seats were full upstairs and downstairs in the morning every day. With a pot of tea and a few plates of simple snacks on the table, most residents in the town joyfully passed their time there.

  Why? Because they were able to listen to the gossip of every family there!

  People could even gossip about nonsense there for a whole day; you could totally imagine how bored they were.

  Since the supply of seats in the tea house wasn’t enough for its demands, hence, he decided to set up a tea stall below the tree that was near the office.

  He didn’t ask for much. He would be easily satisfied if the money earned, together with the expenditure, allowed him to not have thin gruel every meal, and occasionally be able to eat meat.

  He didn’t know if he was allowed to earn a quick buck while having a government job, since he was considered a part of the government, but at the moment, he couldn’t even get himself full, while Magistrate-daren even had to have parched peas to curb his hunger, so he couldn’t care much anymore.

  He placed a few crippled stools straight away; picked up a broken table which had a slightly flat top; boiled a kettle of water and brewed tea leaves; borrowed a white cloth, took a brush and wrote ‘tea’ on it, before hanging it on the branches of the tree at the doorway. With that, the tea stall finally opened.

  As he expected, the townspeople were extremely bored, loved gossip too much, and were too lazy to get to the tea house just to squeeze around with others. Hence, they met up with other gossip-loving neighbours and friends, ordered a pot of tea, and passed their time lazily here.

  Since the pot of tea didn’t cost much, everyone could afford it.

  The tree in front of the office was huge indeed, probably because of its age, thus when viewed from afar, it looked like an enormous umbrella, so it was remarkably cooling and comfortable to be under it. Usually, everyone liked to squat under the tree to chat, but now, there was an addition of stools and tea. After finishing their daily work, everyone began to chat and gossip under the tree, having stools to sit on when they were tired, having tea to drink when they were thirsty, gossiping about whatever they wanted, having a deity-like lifestyle.

  Therefore, the business in Nan Ge Er’s tea stall was quite good, so he ended up buying more stools and a few tables to expand the business.

  After all, who couldn’t afford the tea here…

  Ugh, actually, in the district town, there was indeed someone who couldn’t afford it…

  –The magistrate, Mo Shu-xiansheng

  As always, he is clean-handed and pitifully poor.

  Though the money charged for the tea wasn’t much, there are many paying for it. When summer passed, using the savings earned from the tea stall, Nan Ge Er paid back the money he owed Er Gou Zi, bought yet a few more chicks, paid the grain store owner in advance, so that even if the government office had no food in the future, he could get oil and grains directly there. After that, he used the remaining money to buy some glutinous rice and asked the government police officers to help construct a stone trough and a gavel, compensating them with a meal with meat. Then, he asked those that weren’t working then to help in placing the fully submerged, steamed and cooked glutinous rice onto the stone though; before using the gavel to forcefully pound on the rice into paste; spreading oil onto it; rolling it into small rice balls; flatten them; and finally producing Ciba cake1 out of them. Some of the Ciba cakes were then given to the neighbours, together with the ways to eat them.

  There’s not much to say about what came after that, all knew that Nan Ge Er from the government office was able to create a type of strange soft dumplings, called Ciba, which could be eaten after being roasted; could be either wrapped with vegetables or deep-fried; could be given to children as snacks after boiling it soft and smearing it with soy flour; and could be used as a dish. The soft dumpling tasted quite good and was filling, while also being convenient to carry around.

  Nan Ge Er didn’t even sell it, giving it to anyone who wanted it.

  However, no one wanted to take advantage of him, after all, Mo Shu-xiansheng was so poor, plus the fact that the two of them who lived in the office looked so thin, and couldn’t even have a full meal, so how could they freely give out to others.

  Thus, without calling it buying, everyone would bring over items such as meat or rice when they wanted to get Ciba, so as to trade them over.

  Actually, the chicks had already grown to be able to lay eggs, so he could sell the eggs that he had extra, the money gained from the sales could be used to add meat in the government police officers’ breakfast. With the added money from Nan Ge Er, the furniture in the government office was fixed by the carpenter by Nan Ge Er’s request, and generally, everyone was able to have pure rice instead of gruel as meals.

  Gradually catching up to everyone’s living standards, Nan Ge Er was able to not rely on others’ help, but if
he didn’t accept the trades, the women would insist on him selling Ciba.

  He actually didn’t plan on keeping their money, after all, to tell the truth, without everyone looking after him, and patronising the tea stall during the summer, he wouldn’t be able to be so relaxed now.

  He just wanted to do his part for them.

  Out of the three huge jugs of Ciba, two jugs were given out, traded for half a house of grains. The remaining ten or so pieces from the last jug were moved by Mo Shu-xiansheng into his bedroom, strictly refusing to take them out.

  He loved them…

  Having no choice, Nan Ge Er simply told the townspeople how to make Ciba.

  After that, for half a month, various type of weirdly shaped, unevenly textured, disaster-tasting Ciba were given to them by the women, while being given the look of “I’m capable, aren’t I?!”

  …Mo Shu began to treasure his remaining Ciba even more.

  By the way, the widely respected Mo Shu-xiansheng’s favourite way of eating Ciba was to boil and roast them, smear them with the sweet, sweet soy flour, before swallowing them with a look of pure bliss…

  The town’s children and elderly that had poor teeth loved that way of eating them as well…

  Nan Ge Er felt his stomach ache every time he saw that…

  He couldn’t bear to reveal the truth to the townspeople that respect Mo Shu, but for him to ignore that was too agonizing…

  * * *

  Ciba cake1 : cooked glutinous rice pounded into paste – a traditional Chinese food. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciba_cake

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  When he woke up in the morning, he let the hens that could lay eggs out to feed them, before shopping around the market. After he finished buying the necessary grocery for breakfast, he greeted others as he headed back to the office, listened to the two working yamen runners gossiping at the doorway, and then carrying the groceries to the kitchen.

  After walking out of the kitchen, he began his regular cleaning routine.

  As he was in the middle of cleaning, a huge batch of vegetables of new and diverse varieties was sent over by the familiar grocer, while the kitchen aunty arrived as well.

  The kitchen aunty waited for Nan Ge Er to pack all of the fresh vegetables into the kitchen warehouse, before starting to prepare breakfast with the items she bought beforehand.

  As he was packing the vegetables, he listened to the grocer gossiping about various households.

  After he finished placing the vegetables, he led the grocer out, still listening to the grocer’s countless gossip on the way out.

  He casually tidied the place up when he came back: time to eat.

  Dropping the broom and dustpan, he rushed to the canteen.

  The government police officers and yamen runners had already gathered in the canteen, hands holding onto their bowls, eating scrumptiously.

  Replying back to the numerous greetings again, he went over to the kitchen aunty to get his food.

  The kitchen aunty had already prepared his specially-made meal filled with love—

  Mostly having bigger pieces of meat, brighter colored vegetables, a softer and larger quantity of rice than others…

  Taking his meal, he walked back.

  In response to everyone’s calling, he picked a random table to sit down at.

  Yet again, listening to the powerful-looking government police officers gossiping around like gossipmongers.

  Occasionally, “gossip king”—Advisor-xiansheng would be released back to eat by Mo Shu.

  Thus, the wave of gossips in the canteen got more heated.

  Actually, Advisor-xiansheng looked quite well built, dignified, handsome and valiant.

  However, for such a mighty and masculine man, his favorite hobby was actually gossiping!

  Once he started talking about the gossips in the town, he became as wretched as he could ever be.

  After finishing his breakfast, Nan Ge Er went out for a leisure walk, as a means for digestion.

  Sometimes, he got to meet the cruising magistrate-daren—

  He usually noticed Nan Ge Er strolling leisurely around with his hands in his sleeves, and when he did, Mo Shu-xiansheng would always walk towards him, his eyes shining.

  …Hence, Nan Ge Er would consciously give the sweets that he was planning to have as snacks up as a tribute.

  After eating Nan Ge Er’s snacks, Mo Shu-xiansheng threw a useless thanks to him as usual, and continued on with what he was busy with.

  Thus, Nan Ge Er had no snacks left, so he had no choice but to head back…

  He met a few kids that hadn’t reached the age for schooling on the streets, some asked for food from Nan Ge Er, some invited Nan Ge Er to play house together, some…

  Passed the sweet beans in their hands to him, with a look of pity.

  Nan Ge Er was so pitiful, not even having sweet beans when asked for food just now…

  The people in government office were so poor and pitiful…

  Nan Ge Er had his hands full with various random toys, and various snacks, greeting the little brats with a dull look, with a group of little kids wanting to play with him following behind him.

  A bunch of little brats, while following him, told him about who broke something, who got their ass beaten, who peed in their bed that day.

  When he returned to the office, he pushed the objects in his hands to the accountant, telling him who those belonged to, and asked him to give them back when he was “off work” at night.

  When he got back to the courtyard, he was unsurprised when he noticed the kitchen aunty cleaning the places he “cleaned” before again.

  There was no choice, he was utterly bad at things like chores.

  Even though he had been working for half a year, the experience didn’t help at all.

  Thus, he went out.

  A horde of kids was at the door, some riding on the guardian lion statues near the door; some trying to take out the stone ball in the lion statue’s mouth; some squatting on the doorsteps to look at the busy ants scurrying around while talking gibberish to one another; some whistling and shouted as a chase passed by; some having bamboo sticks clamped on their legs, riding on the sticks, hopping here and there.

  And some…

  Pestered the uninterested yamen runners with baffling and childish questions.

  Noticing Nan Ge Er walking out, the yamen runners heaved a sigh of relief, the kids rushed over, surrounding him.

  “Nan Ge Er, what legends are you going to talk about today?”

  “Nan Ge Er, Ah Mao-ge1 couldn’t come today, I saw him being punished to copy books by the teacher at the private school.”

  “Nan Ge Er, let me tell you, Xiao Ya fell into the toilet yesterday because Xiao Ya’s feet got numbed, haha, so smelly so smelly! “

  “Wawawawa, Xiao Ya is a smelly brat ahahaha! “

  “I’ll hit you, hit you, Lai Fu, you got chased by Gou Dan family’s goose and ran half of the streets yesterday, how dare you bully our Xiao Ya!

  “Ugh, Lai Fu is a baddie, I will tell to your mum…”

  “Nan Ge Er, this pancake is for you, my mum said that you’re too skinny.”

  “Nan Ge Er, my cricket is awesome, Xiao Tou’s isn’t better than mine.”

  “Nonsense, my Black-headed General is the best!”

  “Black-headed General clearly got bitten into a crippled general by my Gold-tummy General, haha…”

  “You deserve a beating!”

  “You dare to hit me!”

  Before a moment’s time, there were a few small groups fighting for whatever reasons.

  Nan Ge Er drew the corner of his mouth down, “Stop arguing. I will not tell any stories today if you keep that up.” It’s too bad that his voice was really not loud enough to do any impact on the boisterous kids.

  “Nan Ge Er said to stop arguing. He won’t tell any legends if we keep arguing.” Naturally, there were lackey-like little sidekicks acting as h
is loudspeakers.

  “Shh shh, stop arguing, stop arguing.”

  “I’ll fix you up next time.”

  “Just wait and see.”

  After making a bit of a fuss, the fighting and arguing little ones finally ceased fire.

  “Go and play under the tree now. Don’t fight. We will begin when the others come back from private school.” Nan Ge Er gestured his hand, pointing at the big tree.

  Ever since a certain afternoon, Nan Ge Er became utterly annoyed by the kids for having to reply to their various strange questions when his wrists were already almost going to break from carrying the groceries he bought outside. So he promised to tell a story to them, if they went somewhere else to play and stopped blocking his route by squatting at the office’s doorsteps before it became unmanageable.

  Every day when Nan Ge Er went out for a walk for digestion, there would be a string of tails following behind him.

  Incredulously, in such a huge district town, there wasn’t a single storyteller, people going to the tea house only relied on gossip to pass their time. Presently, Nan Ge Er, a young university student who had been exposed to and influenced by various eight o’clock shows, various legendary stories, and various internet literature before his transmigration, was there by God to satisfy the needs of the townspeople to construct the spirit of civilization!

  Initially, he didn’t weigh in the advantages and disadvantages of it, telling the kids that were playing at the doorsteps of the government office once, only to find that in the afternoon after class, the kids of schooling age squatted and guarded the government office doors, begging him to tell it again. They even refused to go home to eat if he didn’t do so, and even said that Nan Ge Er was biased and so on if he didn’t tell them the story again…

  Thus, after learning from his mistakes, now, Nan Ge Er would usually choose to tell a story after the private school’s classes were over, so that he would only need to tell a story once per day.

  In the afternoon, the children came over after being dismissed from school, the people at the office door gradually increased.