Chapter 585: The Roads Walked, The Fine Food Eaten |
The seventh of the ninth lunar month, two days away from the Double Ninth Festival.
Before dawn, Chen Ji kept his eyes open pondering the events that happened yesterday. He didn't know why Bai Li went to the City God Temple, nor did he know what happened inside the City God Temple. He only knew that when Bai Li came out of the City God Temple, it was as if she had become a different person.
Chen Ji then heard a burst of grand copper bell rings sounding from afar.
Along with the sound of the copper bells, there was also the Sanskrit chanting of dozens of monks, making people feel as if they had fallen into a dreamscape, as if a Buddhist nation had descended upon them.
Chen Ji got up puzzled, put on his clothes, and walked out of the small courtyard.
He stood at the entrance of Liquor Alley looking out. Astonishingly, in the distant thin mist, a procession of monks carried a solemn and dignified Buddha Statue, passing through Jade River Street in the darkness of dawn.
Eighty-one monks wore gray monastic robes, upper bodies half-bared, carrying a massive and unparalleled Sumeru Pedestal. Beside the Sumeru Pedestal, there were also monks holding Copper Bells in their left hands and Incense in their right hands.
Chen Ji only felt this scene seemed familiar... When he first arrived in the Ning Dynasty, it was also the eve of the Double Ninth Festival, and there was also a Bodhisattva Ceremonial Procession passing Luo City in front of the Taiping Medical Clinic on Anxi Street.
At that time, he didn't yet know the Commandery Princess and the Prince Heir, and no one had yet sewn six Melon Seed Gold Nuggets into his lapels. At that time, Yun Yang and Jiao Tu were currently trying to kill him, his life hanging by a thread. At that time, Liu Quxing was still fiercely competing with him in studying medical skills, and She Dengke was still secretly having a crush on Chun Hua.
Footsteps sounded behind Chen Ji.
He turned his head to look. Astonishingly, it was Bai Li who had taken off her Daoist robe and changed into a suit of white clothes. Even the red jade Collar Pendant at her neckline was there.
At this time, the Ceremonial Procession passed by outside Liquor Alley. The path-clearing monks struck their left and right hands together, the Incense and Copper Bells colliding to produce gorgeous sparks and crisp sounds. The bell sounds echoed endlessly, and the sparks shot up to the sky.
The eighty-one monks lowered their eyes and chanted: "...This is why the nature of all dharmas is emptiness: They are neither created nor destroyed, neither defiled nor pure, and they neither increase nor diminish. Thus, in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, perception, volition, or consciousness..."
Amidst the grand chanting sounds, Chen Ji was somewhat absentminded for a time, as if the chanting sounds brought him back to the past, and he saw that young girl sitting on top of the wall again.
Bai Li walked up close, raising her hand and waving it in front of him: "What's wrong, don't recognize me?"
Chen Ji recovered his senses, smiling and saying: "It really is more suitable for you to wear this outfit; the Daoist robe is a bit too plain and clean."
Bai Li looked down and scrutinized herself, spinning around once in front of Chen Ji: "Xiaoman hasn't seen me before, yet the clothes she helped prepare for me are almost exactly identical to before, and the size is also not off... Did you instruct her?"
Chen Ji was silent for a moment, changing the topic: "Still going to the Sky Bridge today?"
Bai Li pulled his wrist and walked outward: "Right, go to the Sky Bridge, see if they will perform blindfolded Throwing Knives today."
Chen Ji let Bai Li pull him towards the south without asking her why she wanted to walk the path they had walked yesterday all over again.
...
...
On Zhengyang Gate Avenue, it was exceptionally bustling today.
Vendors carrying shoulder poles selling Cornelian Cherry were packed one next to another, bright red Cornelian Cherry Fruits strung into strings and stuck on straw targets. Some people bought them and pinned them onto their clothes' lapels, hoping for good luck.
The prohibition on alcohol was also lifted.
Under the gray-tiled Eaves, the stalls selling Chrysanthemum Wine were surrounded by crowds of people. An old man holding a large ladle scooped pale yellow wine out from a vat and poured it into the guests' Wine Gourds. The fragrance of the wine drifted far away, hooking passersby into sniffing continuously.
It was even more bustling beside the Sky Bridge. With the Double Ninth Festival approaching, commoners coming to the large market were everywhere, rubbing shoulders and following closely on each other's heels.
When Master Zhou, who played with Throwing Knives, saw Bai Li again, his eyes widened. He pointed at Bai Li, getting angry from an unknown source: "You... how do you, this little girl, still have the face to come?"
But Bai Li still stood righteously and confidently in the crowd, as if the person who retrieved the silver and ran away yesterday wasn't her: "I came to see if you will perform blindfolded Throwing Knives today."
In front of the other onlookers, Master Zhou couldn't say anything more. He had to deliver an opening speech addressing the fathers, elders, and fellow townsmen, and followed the prescribed routine to perform 'Nine Stars Arching the Moon'.
When it neared the end, he Played the Same Old Trick Again, collecting money while blindfolding himself. But after collecting the money, he brazenly performed 'Nine Stars Arching the Moon' all over again.
This time, Bai Li's eyes were full of mischievous smiles. She put her palm behind her back, opening and closing it.
After Master Zhou's Throwing Knife left his hand, it surprisingly hovered and spun constantly in the air.
The onlookers shouted 'good' in succession, thinking they finally saw the expert specialty among the Sky Bridge acrobatics. But Master Zhou was shocked into a cold sweat, deeply afraid this Throwing Knife would fall in the wrong place.
He hurriedly cupped his fists towards the crowd and said: "This lowly one has eyes but no pupils, not knowing an expert had arrived. Being newly arrived at your precious land, I have already paid my respects at the Three Mountains Society's dock (acknowledged the local bosses). I also hope the great sir will raise your hands high in mercy, please do not tease this lowly one anymore."
As his voice fell, the Throwing Knife nailed into the wooden target. Bai Li triumphantly pulled Chen Ji's wrist and left: "Serves him right for cheating people every day!"
She then pulled Chen Ji to watch colorful magic tricks, watching an old man make three apples disappear under the watchful eyes of the crowd, then make them come back again under the watchful eyes of the crowd. Then making them disappear again, and making three pears come back.
Repeating this back and forth, the onlookers all cheered.
After the old man finished his magic trick, he immediately instructed his little disciple to carry the copper gong and collect money, loudly promising that as long as enough money was collected, he would demystify the trick for the onlookers.
Bai Li threw a piece of broken silver holding expectations filling her heart, but after the old man collected enough money, he brazenly performed the previous trick again, not mentioning a single word about demystifying it.
Bai Li curled her lip and whispered to Chen Ji: "Why are the tricks on this Sky Bridge all these deceptive gimmicks?"
Chen Ji smiled and said: "These are crafts for eating a bowl of rice. If he had to demystify it every day, very soon he wouldn't be able to eat a bowl of rice."
Bai Li complained: "But everyone won't be cheated by them forever either."
Chen Ji explained: "The Sky Bridge is bustling and crowded, there are always people who haven't seen it."
When the old man performed the magic trick again, Bai Li opened and closed her palm, and the disappeared apples couldn't come back.
The old man was awkward for a moment, taking out three pears again. Covering them with a cloth and then lifting it, the pears also vanished.
Outside the crowd, Bai Li used the hem of her clothes to catch three apples and three pears, smilingly pulling Chen Ji's wrist and walking outward: "Run fast, run fast."
After squeezing out of the crowd, she wiped a pear with her sleeve and handed it to Chen Ji: "For you to eat."
Chen Ji took the pear and bit into it: "Quite sweet. With this ability of yours, you won't lack food to eat anywhere you go in the future."
Bai Li said with a smile: "Right? This Practitioner Pathway of mine is extremely formidable. Let's go, walk around and look at something else again."
Beside the Sky Bridge, a man playing with a bamboo banner was just propping the two-zhang-tall banner pole on his shoulder. The banner pole suddenly flew into the Sky, stabbing into the clouds like a flagpole.
The man tilted his neck and watched for a long time, then the banner pole fell straight down again, steadily landing back on his shoulder. He stood frozen on the spot, unable to recover his senses for a long time.
The man performing the iron ball juggling trick was catching and tossing three iron balls circulating in succession in his hand. But the five iron balls resting on the ground moved automatically without wind, flying into his hand one after another. The man could only cope in a sorry state, spinning the iron balls like wind-and-fire wheels.
Actually, the tricks beside the Sky Bridge had been repeated here an unknown number of times. It was as if the trick masters were stuck in some kind of cycle; once they performed to a certain node, they would be reset by fate, doing the things they did day after day... all over again.
The commoners seemed to never be able to see the blindfolded Throwing Knives, yet still never tired of it.
But this morning, Bai Li turned the Sky Bridge chaotic like Chickens Flying And Dogs Jumping. The trick masters beside the Sky Bridge were forced like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each showing their Divine Abilities, making the commoners who came to the market exclaim repeatedly, thinking they had seen the real stuff.
Meanwhile Bai Li kept laughing at the side, seemingly not having laughed like this for a very long time.
The seventh of the ninth lunar month of the thirty-second year of Jianing, Bai Li used her own way to leave this day in everyone's minds.
Perhaps on a certain day afterwards, a certain commoner who had surrounded and watched this absurd farce would say to people: "The Sky Bridge tricks really do have real stuff. I saw Master Zhou able to fly Throwing Knives into the Sky, the master playing with the bamboo banner could toss the flag banner into the clouds. Those are all incredible big figures, usually concealing their depth and not leaking it out."
Perhaps people would also mention Bai Li, saying there was a girl wearing white clothes that day who was extremely pretty, it was just that the youth beside her was somewhat wooden and didn't speak much.
Perhaps people would also bring up this day and say, on that day the autumn air was crisp, there were mountains and seas of people, everywhere inserted with branches of Cornelian Cherry. This was the best day of the thirty-second year of Jianing, and after that the weather turned cold.
Until twilight, Chen Ji looked at her: "Still coming tomorrow?"
Bai Li looked at the clamor beside the Sky Bridge, then shook her head: "Not coming."
Chen Ji asked curiously: "Then what are we doing tomorrow?"
Bai Li said mischievously: "Take you to eat things."
Chen Ji was puzzled: "Eat what?"
Bai Li deliberated for a moment and said: "I'll take you to taste all the famous foods in the capital city, okay? After all, I grew up in the capital city. Now that you have arrived in the capital city, it's only natural I should take you around, fulfilling the obligations of a host."
Chen Ji thought for a moment: "Okay."
...
...
The eighth of the ninth lunar month.
Early in the morning, Bai Li pulled Chen Ji out the door, heading straight to the Zengshengkui in Checkerboard Street.
The two only ordered one portion of salty tofu brain split into two bowls, plus a door-nail meat pie. Taking a bite of the meat pie revealed filling that was perfectly balanced between fat and lean, and the fragrance could drift over ten zhang away.
Bai Li stirred the tofu brain with her soup spoon, her eyes full of smiles as she watched Chen Ji wolf it down, while not eating much herself.
Chen Ji looked up at her: "Why aren't you eating?"
Bai Li smiled and explained: "I'm not hungry. Today I just wanted to bring you to taste the flavor of this shop's salty tofu brain. When I was young, father brought my older brother and me here. We still lived in the Estate of the Junior Prince (Ten Princes' Estate) at that time, which was just a few steps away from Liquor Alley. At that time I felt the meat pies were extremely delicious, my older brother could eat eight in one breath."
Chen Ji gave an "mm": "Truly delicious, it's my first time eating it after coming to the capital city for so long."
Bai Li asked curiously: "You've been in the capital city for so long, yet you've never eaten Zengshengkui? It's very famous, provincial graduates entering the capital for examinations will all come taste it."
Chen Ji explained as he ate: "I never had the time to attend to it previously."
The soup spoon in Bai Li's hand paused.
After Chen Ji finished the door-nail meat pie in his hand and wanted to buy more, he was stopped by Bai Li: "Don't eat too full, there are still a lot of things to eat."
Chen Ji wiped his hands: "What else is there to eat?"
Bai Li sat behind the table, propping her cheek and recalling: "First go eat the mung bean milk and deep-fried dough rings at Shu's Shop. Shu's Shop is hidden in a narrow alley in the south, the storefront isn't large, with two large pots set up at the door. Father said mung bean milk and dough rings are just like the young male lead (Xiaosheng) and the flowery female lead (Huadan) in dramas, one strong and intense, one gentle and moist, lacking either won't work."
Bai Li's eyes curved into crescent moons from smiling: "However, you might not necessarily be used to drinking mung bean milk. Father coaxed and deceived me into drinking it earlier on. He and my older brother liked it, but I couldn't drink a single mouthful. Later father deceived me again, saying if I drank it a few more times I would like it. He cheated me like this and I drank it another five or six times, but I still couldn't swallow it."
"The stir-fried liver at Tianxingju is at Xianyu Kou in the front gate, there is constantly a long queue at the door. Inside the bowl are liver tips and fatty intestines, the garlic fragrance assailing the nostrils, the sauce thick and translucent-starchy. You don't use a spoon or chopsticks, just rotate the bowl and drink. I liked eating liver tips at that time, so I would pick them from my older brother's bowl. He disliked me robbing him, yet couldn't bear to scold me, so every time he had no choice but to order one extra bowl, and then pick all the liver tips out from his bowl for me."
"Baodu Feng (Quick-boiled Tripe Feng), when going you have to order a plate of scattered tripe, then order a plate of tripe kernels. The scattered tripe is crispy, the tripe kernel is tender. Blanched in boiling water, eaten dipped in sesame paste... Mother brought me there once, just once. She didn't like outside foods, disliking them for being unpresentable. For some reason that day, she was in a good mood, and took my older brother and me there. While eating we even encountered someone assassinating us. Fortunately someone from the Secret Spy Division intervened and blocked the assassins, otherwise it would have been dangerous. From then on, mother felt it was dangerous, and never brought my older brother and me there again."
"Little Intestine Chen's stewed pork with offal is in Ertiao Hutong..."
Chen Ji quietly listened to Bai Li talk about the fine foods she had eaten in the past, as if deeply afraid there wouldn't be enough time, wanting to take him to eat through all the fine foods in her memory in one breath.
Chen Ji also didn't ruin the fun. As long as it was a place Bai Li named, he followed her to eat it.
When twilight arrived, Chen Ji was so stuffed he couldn't quite walk. He let out a burp of satiety and looked at Bai Li: "Going home?"
Bai Li stood amid the bustling crowd on Zhengyang Gate Avenue, suddenly hearing a married woman standing in a deep alley shouting loudly: "Old Li, come home and eat!"
She suddenly looked at Chen Ji with a smile: "Not going home yet, accompany me to buy some groceries first."
Chen Ji was puzzled: "Buy groceries?"
Bai Li turned her back to Chen Ji and walked north: "I haven't cooked for you in a long time, do you still remember what I'm good at making?"
Chen Ji smiled and said: "Braised Tofu, quick-fried mutton with scallions, vinegar-glazed cabbage, cured meat with dried bamboo shoots."
Bai Li gave an 'mm': "I'll make these four dishes tomorrow."
Chen Ji was silent for a moment: "Okay."
Bai Li added: "Then go to Bianyi Workshop to buy a jar of good wine. The Empress said your alcohol capacity is huge, able to drink eighty-eight bowls in one breath from Anding Gate to the Meridian Gate."
Chen Ji's face broke into a smile: "Alright, then let's buy a jar of good wine."
He didn't ask Bai Li what she did at the City God Temple the day before yesterday. Nor did he ask her why she was willing to change into a snow-white outfit again. Much less ask why she suddenly wanted to personally cook a meal.
He also didn't ask Xiaoman again if the carriage was prepared properly, if the dry rations were prepared properly, if the padded cotton coats had been bought. It seemed none of that was important anymore.
The two of them no longer brought up the past, nor did they bring up the future.
...
Book friend masters, food-and-clothing parents, Happy New Year. (End of Chapter)