Chapter 24: Master Er, Your Face

“Brother Li, you…”

Wang Er looked at Li Chaosheng with a face full of grievance. Li Chaosheng bit back a laugh and said, “Alright, Brother Er, I won’t laugh anymore, I won’t laugh anymore. So what, do you want me to accompany you back to apologize to your wife?”

Wang Er said as he waved his arms about, “No, absolutely not. I have gone through hell and back, narrowly escaped death to keep my life. You can’t push your brother back into the fire pit. Just let me hide at your place for a while, that’s enough, just hide for a while.”

Li Chaosheng nodded and said, “Alright, it’s just about mealtime. Let’s eat something and have a drink?”

Hearing this, Wang Er said awkwardly, “I, I didn’t bring any money.”

“My treat, let’s go.”

Li Chaosheng was now quite the wealthy man, worth five hundred taels of silver. Treating a friend to a drink was nothing to him.

Wang Er said sheepishly, “Th-that’s not nice of me!”

“Stop being polite with me. I’m hungry too. Let’s go to the tavern and eat while we talk.”

Without waiting for Wang Er to make excuses, Li Chaosheng led him out of the yard and headed straight for the street-facing tavern called Drunken Old Man. At the entrance a bamboo pole held a sign, the four slightly weathered characters Drunken Old Man tavern. Beside it was a small white flag with the words: Southern Route Baijiu.

Distilled liquor was divided into southern-route and northern-route. People watching dramas or listening to stories often hear the term southern-route baijiu. What is southern-route baijiu? Literally, liquor that came in from the south was southern-route baijiu.

Going deeper, it meant that in ancient times carts bringing wine into the city had to enter through the south gate, so the authorities taxed them. Thus it was called southern-route baijiu, indicating taxed, genuine liquor.

As for northern-route baijiu, the term contrasts with southern-route in a joking way. Northern-route baijiu referred to smuggled liquor brought into the city without using the south gate and avoiding taxes. Usually thieves would soak it in pig or cow urine and clean it, then at a distillery buy some liquor and pour it into the urine-soaked container, tie it off, hide it on their person, and enter through other gates. That liquor avoided taxes.

People joked about northern-route baijiu, but after these bottles entered the city they were bought up by taverns, which still hung signs claiming southern-route baijiu. Northern-route liquor was cheaper. Sometimes tavern owners organized smuggling themselves. After all, everyone had to make a living.

Although northern-route baijiu evaded taxes, the quality was acceptable. It was not like some unscrupulous folk who watered down liquor, and it was unlike modern techniques of producing fake alcohol.

They reached the tavern. It was small, about thirty square meters, with three tables. The tables were interesting: a large wine jar served as the base, with a wooden board on top as the tabletop. Sometimes when the tavern ran low on liquor, the waiter or owner would come over smiling and say, “Excuse me, lift the board, we need to fetch some wine.”

Inside, one of the three tables was empty. The other two had drinkers. At one sat an elderly man with graying hair. On his table was a pot of wine and a small dish. In the dish was soy sauce, and three river stones soaked in the soy sauce.

At the other table two middle-aged men sat, each with a pot of wine. On the table was a dish of peanuts and half a preserved egg. One middle-aged man was using his teeth to pick at the preserved egg, sipping the salty wine.

At a glance these three were seasoned drinkers who truly loved and knew how to drink, unlike Li Chaosheng, who sat down and immediately called for the waiter, “Lai Shun.”

Li Chaosheng and Wang Er were regulars at this tavern. After finishing errands they liked to drink a little here. First, to relax; second, as a pastime. After all, in those days besides drinking, the other popular pastime was visiting pleasure houses to listen to songs.

The young waiter Lai Shun came over and bowed, “Master Li, Master Er, what can I get for you?”

At this moment Li Chaosheng pulled out a small silver coin worth one tael and said, “Do me a favor. Help me and Brother Er buy two roasted chickens from the street, two catties of pig head meat, two pig trotters, and then bring us two jars of wine with the rest. Whatever remains is your tip for the errand.”

“Got it, you two wait a moment, I’ll be right back.”

Lai Shun replied cheerfully. Some readers might ask here, why not spend money on stewed beef? Don’t wandering heroes usually enter a tavern and shout, ‘Waiter, good beef, two plates. Bring two jars of fine wine’?

Actually, that is mostly the author’s imagination. Ancient law clearly stipulated that anyone who slaughtered an ox used for plowing without permission would be put to death.

Even if the ox died of old age or illness, if you wanted to eat its meat you had to be furtive. You couldn’t just walk into a tavern and shout for beef and expect them to pull out some beef for you.

Therefore, in that era brined meats were mainly chicken, duck, goose, and pork. As for mutton, it was sold but not commonly. It generally belonged to the nobility. Some nobles considered pigs ugly and would not eat them, so mutton was a high-end meat. In small county towns, vendors generally sold cheap meats. Mutton was expensive and hard to sell, so over time they stopped brining it.

“Alright, please wait here.” Lai Shun stood to leave, but his eyes flicked to Wang Er’s face, mottled blue and purple. He couldn’t help asking, “Ah~ Master Er, what’s with your face?”

“There was a thief last night. I caught the thief and accidentally took a few hits. Enough, don’t ask stupid questions. Go buy the meat.”

Wang Er bristled and said with impatience, “You waiters have no idea how to speak, asking stupid questions, what a nerve.”

Wang Er looked sullen. Lai Shun hurried to apologize, hunched his shoulders, took the money and ran out, muttering as he ran, “What thief? How did I not hear about it? Probably got beaten by the Apex Predator.”

“You…”

When Wang Er heard that he glared at the waiter and was about to pick a fight, but Li Chaosheng stopped him with a hand, “Alright, alright, don’t pick petty fights with a young waiter.”

Wang Er sat back down at that and glanced at Li Chaosheng, “Brother Li, I’ve made you spend money again.”

Li Chaosheng’s mouth twitched into a smile. He thought it was small change, but he said, “It’s fine. I’m by myself, so I don’t spend much. When I make money I eat and drink. By the way, Brother Er, I have something to ask you.”

“Oh, what is it?”

As Wang Er spoke, the proprietor took a dish of peanuts from his counter and brought it over. Buying two jars of wine made them big customers, so he sent some snacks to curry favor.

Li Chaosheng nodded to the proprietor, picked up a fried peanut with his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth, then said, “You know that butcher Zheng outside the county town was murdered, right?”

“Yes, I know. Old Zhang from their village did it.” Wang Er nodded.

Li Chaosheng looked at Wang Er and asked again, “Right. I just want to ask when they will publicly execute that Old Zhang. I haven’t had any work for several days.”

Wang Er’s expression changed slightly as he said, “This, this Old Zhang, I don’t think he’ll be put to death!”