Shi Erwan, a small town with a river mouth advantage. Each year, during springtime, many schools of long-tailed anchovies would come here to lay eggs. Aside from the locals, any tourist who decided to rest here would want to try the fresh and tasty anchovies no matter what.
On the second floor of Xitong Restaurant, a server in one-hand carrying the saury specialty dish and happily said: “Customer, this steam fish is the signature dish in my restaurant, please give it a try, if it’s not good, you can slap me in the face”
The customer wearing a purple robe were used to these kinds of talks from these servers, he impatiently waved his hand, signalling the server to leave, but before he was out of sight, he instructed: “Remind Ma Fu, tonight we will be traveling all night, tell him to feed the horses.”
“Yes, sir I will pack some more food for you to bring on the way, so when you’re hungry at least there’s something for you to chew,” he said happily and left right away.
The lady sitting across the gentleman put on a frown face, looking at him with complaints but with gentle words: “Why do we have to go all night? this place is really far from the capital already, I think…”
The gentleman in the purple robe held up his hand, stopping her from continuing, holding up his chopsticks pointing toward the fish dish on the table: “It’s better to be safe, don’t you like to eat fish? Eat it quickly”.
The lady did not want to go against her husband’s words, she decided to stop talking, hold up her chopstick and eat the food in front of her.
A moment later, the server comes with two bowls of rice, right when he placed the bowl down on the table, a sudden wind passed by and in a blink of an eye, an appearance of a third person suddenly sits next to the purple robe gentleman.
“I’m starving!”
The person sitting at their table is wearing a small-melon hat, with simple blue color clothing, similar to something you would find at the market. His face displayed dust, making him look dirty. When he sat down, he took the chopstick from the hand of the gentleman right next to him, casually used his clothes to wipe it clean and quickly started to eat all the food on the table.
The server still stands frozen on the spot, but aside from him is the couple sitting at the same table also frozen by the sudden appearance of this person.
The man with the melon hat was happily eating, but he did not forget to turn to the server, putting up his thumb as a gesture to praise the food “This dish is so good!”
The server finally snapped back to the moment, he thought this melon hat gentleman was accompanying the couple at the same table, so he decided to happily and accepted the praise “Of course, this dish is the best in this neighborhood. It uses pork and chicken broth with bamboo shoot and cooks it all together”
The melon hat gentleman continued to chew, and suddenly asked: “How come there are no bones?” right after his question, he uses his chopstick to continuously cut the fish and throw it in his mouth.
The server happily replied to the gentleman’s question: “This type of fish has a lot of bones, but we use a knife to scrape the fish meat first, then use a forceps to extract the bones”
“You guys do work hard”
The gentleman in the purple finally realized the situation in front of him, unable to control his anger, he yelled at the server “What is going on? Where did this person come from eating my food?!?”
“You don’t know him?”
The server was taken by surprise, hurried and rushed over wanting to kick out the unknown man.
The gentleman still chewing his food, one-hand pulled out an object from the chest of his shirt, without looking, holding it up in front of the server’s face: “Those not involved, do not disturb.”
His eye stared right at the object placed in front of his face. right away understand the situation and leave right away.
“Wait-” the melon hat gentleman called for him before he disappeared. Using his chopstick knocking on the rice bowl, “bring me six more bowls of rice!”
“Right away sir, right away” of course, the server right did not want to cause any problem, he quickly leaves in a blink of an eye.
Although the gentleman in the purple robe did not see the object placed in front of the server earlier, he is feeling a bit uneasy, one-hand tightly held the edge of the table, his eyes placed on the gentleman still eating at his table “wh- who are you exactly?”
His chopstick quickly sweeps all the leftover rice, lifting the bowl up, pushing them down his mouth; afterward, he places the bowl down, uses his sleeve to wipe his mouth, displaying. a frowned look on his face, he looked over at the man questioning him and loudly replied “Who do you think? you-you, ai ya, why are you running so much? Just because you have a good figure? I had to chase you for so long that I couldn’t even have a proper hot meal…”
“Who are you exactly?!?” he loudly asked, but his voice sounds shaky.
The melon hat gentleman then pulled the object again slapping it hard on the table. A bronze medallion displaying the carved word Department Six (Liushanmen).
“Capital Department Six (Liushanmen) asked me to bring this to you. “The melon hat gentleman tucks his hand in his shirt, searching for something inside himself, then pulls out a piece of paper, passing it to the gentleman in the purple robe.
The man in the purple robe takes the paper from his hand, his face displaying uneasiness, looking down at the paper, he realized this is a wanted poster with a drawing of him, Cao Ge, male, forty-two years old.
The melon hat gentleman takes the paper from his hand, tilting his hand while holding up the poster in the air to make a comparison from the drawing to his face, he nodded: “They drew you very well, but looking from the detail, I can see that your nose is not long enough, not a lot of meat, what do you think?”
During the conversation between the men, his wife sitting at the same table, feeling uneasy and shaky with the current situation, she tried moving her foot, slowly turning to the other side. Suddenly, a movement of chopstick flashed, feeling a sudden pain, she turned her head just to see her pinky being pinned down by the chopstick, unable to move.
“Qi Qiushi, or should I call you Cao Qi Qiushi?” Melon hat said, smirking at her.
Qi Qiushi tried to use strength to get free from the chopstick, but it was useless, the bamboo chopstick pinned her down real hard like it was iron.
“Sit down!” the melon hat said, at the same time pulling the bamboo off Qi Qiu’s hand, letting her pinky go back to its place.
Qi Qiushi was in a lot of pain, but could not cry for help, she could only sit down on command and show a sour face.
“You two are pretty cruel huh? if you wanted to go in hiding then go ahead, you still have to kill the maidservant in the house, chopped off her head, then put on Qi Qiushi’s clothing on the headless body, transferring it to Qi Xiucheng’s house, trying to blame him for the death of his wife?” the melon hat gentleman shakes his head in disappointment “Good or bad, you guys were once husband and wife, even if you love someone else, do you have to be this cruel?”
Qi Qiushi transformed from a sour face to being angry, “Qi Xiucheng is not dead yet?”
“Even though that maidservant displayed a similar body figure, but she’s a virgin, the differences are small, but how can a master like me not figure it out?”
Cao Ge shakingly, unknowingly what to do with the current situation, he then pulled out silver coins, one twenty, and even one fifty, slowly placing them all on the table.
“This amount of money is ten times more than the reward money, I just want to ask that you turn a blind eye, let me and my wife go.” He looked at the melon hat gentleman, displaying a begging gesture.
When he saw the stack of silver coins in front of him, his eyes glow and open wide, forgetting about all the food on the table, slowly reaching out for the silver, counting them repeatedly, happily said, “Three hundred twenty silvers”
“Yes, yes, yes, this is just a small gift, don’t mention it, please take it home.”
“How do you know I’m currently in debt?” The melon hat gentleman mumble among himself seems to be calculating “The tuition for my brother will be due soon, and last month I had to buy a gift for a brother, makes me go broke”
Cao Ge felt hopeful based on the response of the gentleman but then noticed that the man replaced his excitement expression with worries.
“The thing I’m most worried about is if this matter spread, I don’t think I can keep my job, and I cannot kill you both for money”
Both husband and wife suddenly feel shocked at the same time, their faces were as pale as paper.
The melon hat gentleman tilted his head a little to the side, seriously thinking about the possibility regarding this matter, he hesitated and said: “… I don’t think it will work, right?”
Cao Ge senses that he cannot turn this situation around anymore, he stops hesitating, realizing his sitting position was close to the window. While the gentleman was still taking his time thinking about the possibility of the matter, Cao Ge took the opportunity to jump out of the window, standing on the balcony, taking a few steps forward and was ready to jump down.
“Cao Ge!” Qi Qiushi called out for him anxiously, realizing he left her there by herself.
Cao Ge jumped down without looking back.
The melon hat gentleman was not in a hurry to catch Cao Ge, he decided to sit back down and continue eating. At the corner of his eyes, he can notice that Qi Qiushi was disappointed. He shakes his head, and let out a sigh “You tried to frame your husband for murder, and run away with Cao Ge. Now, it seems like he’s done with you”
Qi Qiushi sits quietly at the table without saying anything.
Loud footsteps coming from the stair can be heard, but it was not the servant from before. Appearing before them was a tall, tough man, holding on to a limping Cao Ge, not sure if he broke his leg or sprained his ankle when he jumped.
“I said, Master Xia, can you let me know next time when you throw someone down?” The man is still holding on to Cao Ge while talking to the melon hat man.
“This time it wasn’t me who threw him down, it really wasn’t me, it was him who jumped down by himself.” As he talked, he held up his chopstick pointing at the food on the table, “You’re hungry right? come let’s eat.”
Right at that moment, the server comes up the stairs with six bowls of rice. Melon hat man passed two bowls to the tall man, keeping two bowls for himself and giving the remainder to the husband and wife of Cao Ge. He sees that they are not reacting to his gesture, right away he said: “Eat quickly! from here back to the capital will take about two days and if you don’t eat now when we’re out there don’t complain to me.”
“This type of fish… first, use a knife to scrape the fish meat, then use a forceps to extract the bones.” The tall man pick up a piece of it and throw it in his mouth, chewing it a few times, “Must have cooked it in pork, chicken broth with the bamboo shoot for it to be this fresh and good, however, it is overpowering the main spice. This fish actually is already fresh, just need to brew it with honey wine, add a bit of sauce then steamed it.”
While he was talking, the melon hat man was eating up all the food, filling up the mouth and said: “You know, I don’t know why you’re in Department Six (Liushemen), being a chef is much better.”
“I also really want that, but, my dad…” the tall man let out a sigh, picking up a piece of tofu, and continue to sigh, “this tofu have to be soaked with water three times, then the smell would be removed, but this tofu was properly only soaked twice, and this fried bamboo shoot…”
While waiting until he finishes making comments about the food, the melon hat man was already finished eating, turning to the server asking for tea to be served, then asked for a bucket of water to wash his face.
“They have a big carriage so when we leave we can sit in their carriage, we don’t need to ride our horses and sniff in dirty air.” The melon hat man put a wet towel on his face, “These three days, sitting on the horses, not getting off makes my backache.
Slowly using the towel wiping his face, revealing the dusty skin to be pale and pink. He took off his cap, letting his hair out, dipped the comb in the water and brushed it slowly, then braided the long black silky hair.
“You..you’re a girl?” Qi Qiushi was taken back, feeling shocked, at first she only thought that he was a man with a beautiful appearance.
She replied back to Qi Qiushi: “What? I can’t be?”
“No, no, no, that is not what I meant, it just a surprise that in Department Six (Liusheman) have a lady”
“Nonsense.”
The melon hat mumbles, her name is Yuan Jinxia, currently eighteen years old, and two years because of a coincidence, she entered Department Six (Liushemen); The man accompanying her is YangYue, he is older than her by two years. Both of them are occupying a small position in Capital Department Six (Liushemen).
She said quietly: “Da Yang…”
Da Yang quickly takes the silvers on the table tucking it away in his clothes: “just leave it at my place, wait when we go back then we can write it up”
Jinxia displayed a pretend sad face looking right at him “I have an 80 years old mother… There are…”
“Your mom is not even close to forty yet, saying this, watch out, she might break your leg.” Yang Yue did not even look at her.
“My mother is wise, she knows I have to suffer through many obstacles to complete my missions just for a few grains of rice, don’t say eighty, even if she was eight thousand, it does not matter”
YangYue nodded: “your legs are okay, but my father will break my legs. For my legs, I can only ask your family to grieve.”
The father in Yang Yue’s sentence is Yang ChengWan, not only the head of Department Six (Liusheman) but also the boss of YangYue and Jinxia. All of Jinxia’s kung fu and the tracking skill was taught by Yang ChengWan. To Jinxia, Yang ChengWan is like a dad to her, so she can’t disobey him.
Shi Erwan, a small town with a river mouth advantage. Each year, during springtime, many schools of long-tailed anchovies would come here to lay eggs. Aside from the locals, any tourist who decided to rest here would want to try the fresh and tasty anchovies no matter what.
On the second floor of Xitong Restaurant, a server in one-hand carrying the saury specialty dish and happily said: “Customer, this steam fish is the signature dish in my restaurant, please give it a try, if it’s not good, you can slap me in the face”
The customer wearing a purple robe were used to these kinds of talks from these servers, he impatiently waved his hand, signalling the server to leave, but before he was out of sight, he instructed: “Remind Ma Fu, tonight we will be traveling all night, tell him to feed the horses.”
“Yes, sir I will pack some more food for you to bring on the way, so when you’re hungry at least there’s something for you to chew,” he said happily and left right away.
The lady sitting across the gentleman put on a frown face, looking at him with complaints but with gentle words: “Why do we have to go all night? this place is really far from the capital already, I think…”
The gentleman in the purple robe held up his hand, stopping her from continuing, holding up his chopsticks pointing toward the fish dish on the table: “It’s better to be safe, don’t you like to eat fish? Eat it quickly”.
The lady did not want to go against her husband’s words, she decided to stop talking, hold up her chopstick and eat the food in front of her.
A moment later, the server comes with two bowls of rice, right when he placed the bowl down on the table, a sudden wind passed by and in a blink of an eye, an appearance of a third person suddenly sits next to the purple robe gentleman.
“I’m starving!”
The person sitting at their table is wearing a small-melon hat, with simple blue color clothing, similar to something you would find at the market. His face displayed dust, making him look dirty. When he sat down, he took the chopstick from the hand of the gentleman right next to him, casually used his clothes to wipe it clean and quickly started to eat all the food on the table.
The server still stands frozen on the spot, but aside from him is the couple sitting at the same table also frozen by the sudden appearance of this person.
The man with the melon hat was happily eating, but he did not forget to turn to the server, putting up his thumb as a gesture to praise the food “This dish is so good!”
The server finally snapped back to the moment, he thought this melon hat gentleman was accompanying the couple at the same table, so he decided to happily and accepted the praise “Of course, this dish is the best in this neighborhood. It uses pork and chicken broth with bamboo shoot and cooks it all together”
The melon hat gentleman continued to chew, and suddenly asked: “How come there are no bones?” right after his question, he uses his chopstick to continuously cut the fish and throw it in his mouth.
The server happily replied to the gentleman’s question: “This type of fish has a lot of bones, but we use a knife to scrape the fish meat first, then use a forceps to extract the bones”
“You guys do work hard”
The gentleman in the purple finally realized the situation in front of him, unable to control his anger, he yelled at the server “What is going on? Where did this person come from eating my food?!?”
“You don’t know him?”
The server was taken by surprise, hurried and rushed over wanting to kick out the unknown man.
The gentleman still chewing his food, one-hand pulled out an object from the chest of his shirt, without looking, holding it up in front of the server’s face: “Those not involved, do not disturb.”
His eye stared right at the object placed in front of his face. right away understand the situation and leave right away.
“Wait-” the melon hat gentleman called for him before he disappeared. Using his chopstick knocking on the rice bowl, “bring me six more bowls of rice!”
“Right away sir, right away” of course, the server right did not want to cause any problem, he quickly leaves in a blink of an eye.
Although the gentleman in the purple robe did not see the object placed in front of the server earlier, he is feeling a bit uneasy, one-hand tightly held the edge of the table, his eyes placed on the gentleman still eating at his table “wh- who are you exactly?”
His chopstick quickly sweeps all the leftover rice, lifting the bowl up, pushing them down his mouth; afterward, he places the bowl down, uses his sleeve to wipe his mouth, displaying. a frowned look on his face, he looked over at the man questioning him and loudly replied “Who do you think? you-you, ai ya, why are you running so much? Just because you have a good figure? I had to chase you for so long that I couldn’t even have a proper hot meal…”
“Who are you exactly?!?” he loudly asked, but his voice sounds shaky.
The melon hat gentleman then pulled the object again slapping it hard on the table. A bronze medallion displaying the carved word Department Six (Liushanmen).
“Capital Department Six (Liushanmen) asked me to bring this to you. “The melon hat gentleman tucks his hand in his shirt, searching for something inside himself, then pulls out a piece of paper, passing it to the gentleman in the purple robe.
The man in the purple robe takes the paper from his hand, his face displaying uneasiness, looking down at the paper, he realized this is a wanted poster with a drawing of him, Cao Ge, male, forty-two years old.
The melon hat gentleman takes the paper from his hand, tilting his hand while holding up the poster in the air to make a comparison from the drawing to his face, he nodded: “They drew you very well, but looking from the detail, I can see that your nose is not long enough, not a lot of meat, what do you think?”
During the conversation between the men, his wife sitting at the same table, feeling uneasy and shaky with the current situation, she tried moving her foot, slowly turning to the other side. Suddenly, a movement of chopstick flashed, feeling a sudden pain, she turned her head just to see her pinky being pinned down by the chopstick, unable to move.
“Qi Qiushi, or should I call you Cao Qi Qiushi?” Melon hat said, smirking at her.
Qi Qiushi tried to use strength to get free from the chopstick, but it was useless, the bamboo chopstick pinned her down real hard like it was iron.
“Sit down!” the melon hat said, at the same time pulling the bamboo off Qi Qiu’s hand, letting her pinky go back to its place.
Qi Qiushi was in a lot of pain, but could not cry for help, she could only sit down on command and show a sour face.
“You two are pretty cruel huh? if you wanted to go in hiding then go ahead, you still have to kill the maidservant in the house, chopped off her head, then put on Qi Qiushi’s clothing on the headless body, transferring it to Qi Xiucheng’s house, trying to blame him for the death of his wife?” the melon hat gentleman shakes his head in disappointment “Good or bad, you guys were once husband and wife, even if you love someone else, do you have to be this cruel?”
Qi Qiushi transformed from a sour face to being angry, “Qi Xiucheng is not dead yet?”
“Even though that maidservant displayed a similar body figure, but she’s a virgin, the differences are small, but how can a master like me not figure it out?”
Cao Ge shakingly, unknowingly what to do with the current situation, he then pulled out silver coins, one twenty, and even one fifty, slowly placing them all on the table.
“This amount of money is ten times more than the reward money, I just want to ask that you turn a blind eye, let me and my wife go.” He looked at the melon hat gentleman, displaying a begging gesture.
When he saw the stack of silver coins in front of him, his eyes glow and open wide, forgetting about all the food on the table, slowly reaching out for the silver, counting them repeatedly, happily said, “Three hundred twenty silvers”
“Yes, yes, yes, this is just a small gift, don’t mention it, please take it home.”
“How do you know I’m currently in debt?” The melon hat gentleman mumble among himself seems to be calculating “The tuition for my brother will be due soon, and last month I had to buy a gift for a brother, makes me go broke”
Cao Ge felt hopeful based on the response of the gentleman but then noticed that the man replaced his excitement expression with worries.
“The thing I’m most worried about is if this matter spread, I don’t think I can keep my job, and I cannot kill you both for money”
Both husband and wife suddenly feel shocked at the same time, their faces were as pale as paper.
The melon hat gentleman tilted his head a little to the side, seriously thinking about the possibility regarding this matter, he hesitated and said: “… I don’t think it will work, right?”
Cao Ge senses that he cannot turn this situation around anymore, he stops hesitating, realizing his sitting position was close to the window. While the gentleman was still taking his time thinking about the possibility of the matter, Cao Ge took the opportunity to jump out of the window, standing on the balcony, taking a few steps forward and was ready to jump down.
“Cao Ge!” Qi Qiushi called out for him anxiously, realizing he left her there by herself.
Cao Ge jumped down without looking back.
The melon hat gentleman was not in a hurry to catch Cao Ge, he decided to sit back down and continue eating. At the corner of his eyes, he can notice that Qi Qiushi was disappointed. He shakes his head, and let out a sigh “You tried to frame your husband for murder, and run away with Cao Ge. Now, it seems like he’s done with you”
Qi Qiushi sits quietly at the table without saying anything.
Loud footsteps coming from the stair can be heard, but it was not the servant from before. Appearing before them was a tall, tough man, holding on to a limping Cao Ge, not sure if he broke his leg or sprained his ankle when he jumped.
“I said, Master Xia, can you let me know next time when you throw someone down?” The man is still holding on to Cao Ge while talking to the melon hat man.
“This time it wasn’t me who threw him down, it really wasn’t me, it was him who jumped down by himself.” As he talked, he held up his chopstick pointing at the food on the table, “You’re hungry right? come let’s eat.”
Right at that moment, the server comes up the stairs with six bowls of rice. Melon hat man passed two bowls to the tall man, keeping two bowls for himself and giving the remainder to the husband and wife of Cao Ge. He sees that they are not reacting to his gesture, right away he said: “Eat quickly! from here back to the capital will take about two days and if you don’t eat now when we’re out there don’t complain to me.”
“This type of fish… first, use a knife to scrape the fish meat, then use a forceps to extract the bones.” The tall man pick up a piece of it and throw it in his mouth, chewing it a few times, “Must have cooked it in pork, chicken broth with the bamboo shoot for it to be this fresh and good, however, it is overpowering the main spice. This fish actually is already fresh, just need to brew it with honey wine, add a bit of sauce then steamed it.”
While he was talking, the melon hat man was eating up all the food, filling up the mouth and said: “You know, I don’t know why you’re in Department Six (Liushemen), being a chef is much better.”
“I also really want that, but, my dad…” the tall man let out a sigh, picking up a piece of tofu, and continue to sigh, “this tofu have to be soaked with water three times, then the smell would be removed, but this tofu was properly only soaked twice, and this fried bamboo shoot…”
While waiting until he finishes making comments about the food, the melon hat man was already finished eating, turning to the server asking for tea to be served, then asked for a bucket of water to wash his face.
“They have a big carriage so when we leave we can sit in their carriage, we don’t need to ride our horses and sniff in dirty air.” The melon hat man put a wet towel on his face, “These three days, sitting on the horses, not getting off makes my backache.
Slowly using the towel wiping his face, revealing the dusty skin to be pale and pink. He took off his cap, letting his hair out, dipped the comb in the water and brushed it slowly, then braided the long black silky hair.
“You..you’re a girl?” Qi Qiushi was taken back, feeling shocked, at first she only thought that he was a man with a beautiful appearance.
She replied back to Qi Qiushi: “What? I can’t be?”
“No, no, no, that is not what I meant, it just a surprise that in Department Six (Liusheman) have a lady”
“Nonsense.”
The melon hat mumbles, her name is Yuan Jinxia, currently eighteen years old, and two years because of a coincidence, she entered Department Six (Liushemen); The man accompanying her is YangYue, he is older than her by two years. Both of them are occupying a small position in Capital Department Six (Liushemen).
She said quietly: “Da Yang…”
Da Yang quickly takes the silvers on the table tucking it away in his clothes: “just leave it at my place, wait when we go back then we can write it up”
Jinxia displayed a pretend sad face looking right at him “I have an 80 years old mother… There are…”
“Your mom is not even close to forty yet, saying this, watch out, she might break your leg.” Yang Yue did not even look at her.
“My mother is wise, she knows I have to suffer through many obstacles to complete my missions just for a few grains of rice, don’t say eighty, even if she was eight thousand, it does not matter”
YangYue nodded: “your legs are okay, but my father will break my legs. For my legs, I can only ask your family to grieve.”
The father in Yang Yue’s sentence is Yang ChengWan, not only the head of Department Six (Liusheman) but also the boss of YangYue and Jinxia. All of Jinxia’s kung fu and the tracking skill was taught by Yang ChengWan. To Jinxia, Yang ChengWan is like a dad to her, so she can’t disobey him.
