General’s Gown - CH 61

Chapter 61 Tan Hua Dream Part 10

Helian Rongchuan raised his eyebrows in amazement: “After more than ten years of work, this Qinchuan city became this prosperous?”

Yan Changqing said: “According to the county records, it is because the people of Qinchuan carved out the The White Wolf River.”

If he remembered correctly, Yan Changqing remembered that the people of Qinchuan mentioned that the water vein of the White Wolf River was dug up by the great witch doctor Wuyi who led people up the mountain.

Wuyi pouted, obviously not believing what Fei Lan said: “You haven’t been down the mountain yet, how do you know it’s not good down there?”

Fei Lan said without thinking: “This is what Big Brother said—”

“Big Brother, it’s still big brother!” Wuyi covered his ears irritably, and said loudly: “In your heart, is there no one else except big brother?!”

“Why do you say such a thing?” Fei Lan was slightly taken aback.

“Why?” Wu Yi said: “I saw it all! You go to big brother’s room every day, wipe the things he used over and over again, and secretly drew him a portrait. You know what it means!”

Suddenly thinking of something, Fei Lan said: “So you were the one who destroyed the portrait? You lied to me that it was done by a white wolf?”

Wuyi realized that he seemed to have spilled his secret, and simply admitted it: “I tore it up. I just can’t get used to it! What’s so good about Yun Bugui, why do you think about him every day! He’s not worthy at all!”

“You…”

Feilan was a little angry, and his face was slightly red with anger, but he didn’t want to argue with his brother, so he turned around and left.

Wuyi stood there, opened his mouth, and seemed to want to chase after him and apologize, but after taking two steps, he stopped again.

With a bang, Wuyi kicked over the bucket, and the clear water was scattered all over the ground. The small water scoop rolled on the ground and stopped.

The colors were spinning…

Yan Changqing found himself standing on a dirty, deserted street.

On both sides of the street, there were several dusty small stalls, some selling cakes, wontons, dried meat and other food, some selling bundles of cloth, and some selling handkerchiefs, sachets, rattles and other gadgets. Perhaps because of the cold weather, there were very few people on the street.

“This is Qinchuan City?” Helian Rongchuan looked around. Yes, although the street scene in front of them was much more decayed than the real Qinchuan City, from the direction of the mountains in the distance, this was indeed Qinchuan City.

Qinchuan City more than ten years ago.

Each and every hawker was frozen with red cheeks, chapped noses, their necks shrunk, and their hands tucked into thick cotton sleeves. But in order to make a living and earn a few coins, they still looked around and shouted at a few hurried pedestrians on the street.

A teenager in an old white robe was carrying a small package and was strolling along the street. The smell of food floated over, and the food stall owners on both sides of the street were obscured by the diffused heat from the pots and could not see clearly. Seeing the young man approaching curiously, the stall owners immediately stood up, put their hands in their cuffs, squatted their waists, and shouted loudly.

“Hey chestnut flavoured sweet potatoes eh! If they are not sweet, we do not need your money!”

“Pan fried lamb wontons! Thin skin, big filling! If they’re not fragrant, we don’t need your money!”

Like a rival show, they shouted out one after another. Wuyi listened to a few words, then he couldn’t help swallowing. He looked left, looked right, then finally chose to sit down.

“I want this.” Wu Yi pointed to the pot. He obviously didn’t know what was being boiled in the pot, but the tempting aroma told him that he had made the right choice.

“Okay! A bowl of lamb wontons!” The stall owner rubbed his hands together and shouted excitedly. After a while, the wontons were served. The bulging wontons floated in the hot mutton soup. The white skin as thin as a cicada’s wings faintly revealed the pink color of the fresh meat. Coupled with the emerald green shallots adorning the soup, people couldn’t help but move their index fingers, wanting to eat.

Wuyi ate two bowls in a row, wiped his oily mouth, and said to the stall owner, “Four more bowls!”

The stall owner staggered and almost spilled the wonton soup in his hand: “What? Four more bowls?”

He looked at the young man in front of him, and whispered: How can such a handsome young man eat better than the horse thieves running in the Desert? 6 bowls of wonton, how big of a belly does he have to have?

He could not help tentatively ask: “This guest, four bowls of wonton, are you sure you are able to eat?”

If he forces himself until he bloats to death, his hawker stalls will not be responsible.

Wuyi shook his head: “I’m full. The remaining four bowls are for my second brother.”

The stall owner couldn’t help laughing: “This soup is liquid, how will you bring it? Why don’t you have your brother come over to eat? Anyways, my little stall is here every day.”

Wu Yi shook his head: “My second brother will never come here.” Next to the big iron pot behind the stall owner, there were wontons that had not been placed into the soup.

Wuyi’s eyes lit up: “Then I’ll take the raw ones. When I go back, I’ll cook them myself, okay?”

Helian Rongchuan couldn’t help sneering: “I didn’t expect the great witch doctor to be so stupid when he was a child. How can he bring raw wontons? Won’t they get crushed?”

But this stall owner didn’t care whether the raw wontons were crushed or not, as long as he had money to earn. He hurriedly wrapped the raw wontons in a package of oiled paper and handed them to Wuyi.

In the palm of the stall owner’s palm was a shiny gold coin.

The owner of the wonton stall was instantly dumbfounded, staring at the gold coin for a long time, then remembered something and took a bite.

It’s real gold! It’s real gold!

The small vendors all around came around with a whoosh, scrambling to display their colorful goods in their hands, almost to the tip of Wuyi’s nose:

“Little guest, do you want silk and satin? This is goods of a reputed brand in Sheng’an City~”

“Seeing that you are going to be on a journey, eating my dried meat, you can go a hundred miles without complaining about being hungry ah!”

“Hot cakes! Warm, fragrant and crisp cakes ah ~”

“Chestnut flavored sweet potatoes! Sweet potato-flavored fried chestnuts!”

“Xishi rouge!”

After half an incense, Wuyi carried a bulging package and a large bag of things in his arms, and finally left Qinchuan city. The way up the mountain was very steep, but it was not full of collapsed potholes like Yan Changqing and the others had when they went up the mountain. After a long time, he climbed to the top of the mountain and came to the edge of the lake.

Yan Changqing was a little surprised to find that the lake water ten years ago was very different from what they saw when they went up the mountain.

The lake around Wuyi did not dry up and the lake surface was only slightly lower than the shore, and no black boulders were exposed.

The bottom of the lake was clear and clean, both animals and people could easily fetch water from the river.

Several snow-white wolves were playing by the lake, and when they saw Wuyi approaching, they immediately chased after him.

Wuyi barely revealed his head from the high pile of packages, and said, “Second brother didn’t notice me slipping out?”

The leading little wolf smartly shook his head.

Wuyi breathed a sigh of relief, barely freed up a hand, felt the package, then took out a few pieces of air-dried meat, and threw it to the little wolf: “You must not have eaten this before, It’s just perfect for you guys to grind your teeth. Later, don’t bite my second brother’s table legs again!”

The little wolves grabbed the meat with a whimper and ran away immediately.

“Ehhh, don’t run, there’s still work for you to help me – ah!” Wu Yi originally planned to unload some of the burden on his body and give it to the white wolves to carry, but he never thought that the white wolves would run away after grabbing something. He slipped and several packages fell to the ground and scattered all over the place.

When Helian Rongchuan saw it, he couldn’t help laughing: “What kind of stuff did he buy?”

Wuyi laid down on the ground in distress and picked up, a candied gourd, a rouge box, a large bag of fried chestnuts, a piece of coarse cloth…

He was about to pick up a small purse that had rolled the farthest, but his hand suddenly stopped.

A pair of old, but clean pointed boots appeared in front of him.

Wuyi had no choice but to raise his head: “Second brother.”

Feilan stood aside and looked at him quietly: “Where did you come from?”

Although it was a question without any emotions stirred up, Yan Changqing clearly heard Feilan’s helplessness in his tone. Sure enough, Wuyi lowered his head somewhat unreasonably, and whispered: “Qinchuan City.”

Although Wuyi was already taller than Feilan, now he had shrunk into a small ball with a guilty conscience and didn’t dare to raise his head. He still looked like a kid who made a mistake and was afraid of punishment.

Feilan sighed, squatted down and started to help pick up things. Wu Yi was startled, looked at Feilan, and asked carefully: “Second brother?”

Feilan raised his eyes: “What’s wrong?”

“Why don’t you blame me? I sneaked down the mountain, are you not angry?”

Feilan seemed to think for a while, before slowly saying:” I was thinking if I was wrong.”

Wuyi looked puzzled.

“When the white wolves grow up, the mother wolves will let them leave their nests to see a different world. But when you grew up, I kept you trapped on the Baicang Mountain. Am I being too selfish?”

“Second brother was not selfish, second brother is the best person in the world!” Wuyi looked at Feilan’s faint sadness, and immediately added: “Are you blaming yourself for the last quarrel? I was wrong last time, I won’t make you angry anymore, and I don’t want to go down the mountain again, okay?”

Feilan looked at Wuyi’s clear, dark green eyes: “Is it really fun to go down the mountain? ”

Wuyi’s eyes glanced down to the left, and quickly replied: “It’s not fun. It’s bare, there’s nothing!”

“It’s really not fun, and you don’t want to go anymore?”

“Really.”

Feilan smiled helplessly, then touched Wuyi’s head: “Every time you lie, you are afraid to look at me.”

Wuyi said immediately: “I did not lie.”

“And every time you lie, you respond faster than usual.”

He was thoroughly revealed. Wuyi had no choice but to nod his head listlessly: “Okay, down the mountain was really fun…although it’s dirty…”

Feilan tilted his head slightly and said, “From now on, I’ll let you go once a month, okay?”

Wuyi’s eyes lit up instantly: “Are you kidding?”

Feilan said, “I’m not teasing you. I think my big brother’s instructions, the responsibility of saving the clan, is enough for me alone, I should not have forced you— ”

Before he could finish speaking, Feilan was swooped up by Wu Yi and hugged tightly.

“Great, great! My second brother is great!”

Feilan smiled and hugged Wuyi back, patting his back. He accidentally touched the package on his body, and suddenly there was a “yi” sound.

“What is in your package, why is it sticky and wet?” Feilan asked.

Wuyi quickly opened the package and took out a flattened oil paper package from the bottom.

Feilan looked at the mixture of sticky dough and minced meat wrapped in paper, and said strangely: “What is this?”

Wuyi’s face was full of pity: “Ah! This is a lamb wonton! How did it become like this!?”

Feilan couldn’t help being amused by Wuyi’s stupidity: “This is raw, right? How did you bring it back? Is there no cooked food in Qinchuan City?”

Wuyi said: “I brought this for you. I ate it at that small stall, it was delicious. I thought of you immediately, and I wanted you to try it too. It’s a pity…”

Feilan said with a smile : “I have a solution to rescue it.”

Faint smoke rose. Wuyi sat in front of the small stone table, with his legs crossed, his fingers tapping on the table.

After a while, Feilan came out with a plate. On the plate were several thick, oily, browned and crispy patties.

It turned out that Feilan reused the squashed lamb wontons, mixed them with oil, mixed it with shallots, and baked them into meat patties.

There was a flash of surprise in Wuyi’s eyes, and he couldn’t wait to grab a piece and stuff it into his mouth, only to be burned. He took a few breaths and continued to chew.

“So yummy! It’s even more delicious at the foot of the mountain!”

Yan Changqing watched quietly from the side, this warm scene unconsciously made the corners of his eyes infected with a little smile. However, when he thought of the ending of the two brothers, Yan Changqing felt very sad in his heart.

Was the ruthless great witch doctor once also such a simple, ignorant young man?

Feilan said: “What else is in your pile of packages? Hurry up and take a look at it, don’t crush it.”

Wuyi had already eaten two meat patties. He wiped his oily hands, then started to unpack: “This is a roasted sweet potato. It is said to be sweet. You will definitely like it. This is a purse with gold thread embroidery. I think yours is old, so I’ll give you a new one. I also bought cloth, I think you will definitely like clothes made of this material…”

One by one, each was like a treasure.

Feilan picked up a small porcelain vase covered with gorgeous patterns. This bottle had a round opening and a round head, and it had a very strange shape. There was a line of strange characters on it that he had never seen before.

“What’s this?”

Wuyi glanced at it and said: “I heard the stall owner say that it seems to be divine oil shipped from some another country. There is only one bottle in the whole of Monan, it is very precious.”

Feilan said strangely: “Divine oil? I’ve never heard of it, what’s it for?”

Wuji said honestly: “The stall owner told me sneakily that this divine oil seems to make people become…become particularly durable. One drop can make a person hover between life and death. I heard him say something weird, and I wanted to ask more clearly, but he just laughed and refused to say it. I think this is something to prolong life. A tonic? It can make a person hover between life and death… Maybe it can help us save the clan?”

Feilan nodded incredulously, with a serious expression: “Well, I can consider trying it some other day.”

Helian Rongchuan finally couldn’t bear it after hearing this. He burst out laughing.

Yan Changqing looked at him inexplicably: “What are you laughing at?”

After a pause, he seemed to understand a little bit, then looked at Wei Jin: “The medicine Wuyi bought must be fake, right?”

Wei Jin looked at Helian Rongchuan, who was smirking, then looked at Yan Changqing, who had an unsure face. He hesitated before he waved his hand hurriedly: “I don’t know, I haven’t seen it before, I don’t know.”

“I know.” Helian Rongchuan reluctantly suppressed his laughter. He said with a serious face: “Tianzhu divine Oil, but what divinity is there? I definitely don’t need it, do you want to try?”