Chapter 296: Eight Great Bowls of Xi’an
Chapter 296: Eight Great Bowls of Xi’an
Zao Ying followed Cheng Xu as they headed south.
The militia didn’t move fast; after all, everyone wore heavy armor, so their marching speed couldn’t be helped. By the time they emerged from Huanglong Mountain, the sky had turned completely dark.
Reaching the Loess Plateau beyond the mountain made walking much easier, and their footsteps lightened considerably.
The salt smugglers who had run ahead were waiting there with five hundred warhorses.
Cheng Xu shouted, “Get on your horses! It’s already dark. If we go home on foot, who knows when we’ll arrive? Everyone, mount up!”
Gao Chuwu: “But we can’t ride!”
“For those who can’t ride, lie flat on the horse’s back and hug its neck.”
Gao Chuwu was familiar with this method. Back when Zhong Guangdao and Zheng Yanfu had attacked Gaojia Village at night, he had gone to seek help from Bai Yuan by clinging to a horse’s neck to get back. Doing it again now felt familiar and practiced. He scrambled onto a horse’s back and hugged its neck. Others followed his example. The five hundred horses weren’t enough, so some salt smugglers doubled up, two riding one horse, finally solving the problem.
The five hundred riders, plus Zao Ying’s one hundred and twenty, galloped madly towards Gaojia Village. With warhorses, the distance seemed to shrink instantly. The journey from Duzhucun to Gaojia Village, which usually took half a day on foot, now took just over two hours by horse.
In the distance, the lights of Gaojia Business Circle became visible ahead, a vibrant glow of dazzling colors.
Zao Ying couldn’t help but mutter, “Huh?” It was already dark, yet there were still so many lights ahead? In this remote, wild mountain village, not some big city, how could there be such a bustling place?
Cheng Xu chuckled: “That’s our nest.”
Zao Ying, still believing Cheng Xu to be part of the “rebel band in Guyuan,” thought: These rebels have actually built a town inside the mountains, and created such a dazzling scene? No wonder they dared openly invite me as a guest. They must feel confident, unafraid that their base’s location would be exposed. With so many common folk living here, if the information were going to leak, these people would have already leaked it long ago.
The fact that the commoners hadn’t revealed their secrets demonstrated that these rebels had truly won the people’s hearts. The commoners weren’t willing to betray them for petty rewards from the officials.
This was something Zao Ying genuinely admired.
She prided herself on being a righteous robber, never troubling the common folk, only targeting wealthy nobles. Since these “Guyuan rebels” enjoyed the people’s support, it proved they weren’t enemies of the commoners either. So, she could safely and boldly become friends with them.
Cheng Xu smiled: “We can’t head to the business circle right now. Arriving in full armor wouldn’t be fitting. Let’s go to our military barracks first.”
Zao Ying nodded: “That’s how it should be.”
Following Cheng Xu to the barracks, she braced herself for a dirty, chaotic, squalid, run-down camp. Instead, what greeted her was an enormous stone, fortress-like structure – imposingly magnificent, occupying an entire valley.
Though it was night, lights illuminated the entire valley, making it bright as day.
It turned out…
After the militia expanded to five hundred men, they could no longer fit inside Gaojia Fortress. The fortress only had a little over two hundred rooms, inadequate for the militia. So, Li Daoxuan had already arranged a new “military base” for them on the outskirts.
This base was not far from the firearms bureau. It was also constructed using a gigantic “stone vat,” inverted like a bowl. The walls of the stone vat were several centimeters thick. Once placed inside the model world, the scaled-down thickness became terrifyingly substantial – formidable enough that even a nuclear bomb might struggle to breach it.
It was truly perfect for barracks!
After the enormous stone vat was placed, Li Daoxuan left the internal details to the artisans. They partitioned the vast interior into small rooms for the soldiers to live in, built storehouses for weapons, and even stockpiled some grain. This was a contingency in the highly unlikely event that the militia needed to hole up in this barracks and defend it to the death – then there would be food to eat.
Of course, the probability of that happening was extremely small, so the grain was basically unlikely to ever be needed.
Cheng Xu called out at the barracks entrance, “Where are the logistics troops on duty? Tell the cooking teams to get working immediately… Ah! We’ve traveled tens of miles this trip. We’re all starving!”
Hearing the mention of food, Zao Ying snapped out of her shock from the “massive barracks.” She thought: But it’s a year of great disaster… Do they have enough food reserves? Feeding all one hundred and twenty of us bandits would be no small expense.
Just as this thought crossed her mind, the head of the cooking teams ran out from the barracks, face beaming with excitement: “Instructor He! You’ve returned!”
Instructor He? Zao Ying felt confused: Wasn’t it Captain Ghost?
Seeing the cook’s delighted expression, Cheng Xu asked curiously, “Why are you grinning so stupidly?”
The head cook chuckled: “Just before you got back, the Deity bestowed food upon us! He also said that since the militia achieved great merit today, you deserve a special feast!”
Cheng Xu was overjoyed: “Oh? What’s the good food?”
Zao Ying: “The Deity?”
The team leader turned around and shouted towards the barracks: “Bring out the feast bestowed by the Deity!”
A large group of cooks and logistics troops emerged from the barracks. Each carried a large basin. They moved in groups of eight, each group carrying eight basins of food, each basin containing a different dish.
Zao Ying focused her eyes on the basins and drew in a sharp breath: “Braised chicken, steamed pork with rice flour, pork belly with dates, stewed pork knuckle, wind-dried chicken, salted pork, and sweet glutinous rice… This… is… so extravagant?”
It turned out that while they were on their way back, Li Daoxuan’s delivery order had arrived. He had taken out the “Eight Great Bowls” he ordered, scooped a little portion from each bowl into the miniature world, and handed it over to the cooking teams.
The teams then divided Li Daoxuan’s “Giant Eight Great Bowls” into multiple portions, each portion poured into its own basin. They arranged them into sets: eight basins per set, enough for five complete sets exactly.
Behind Zao Ying, her one hundred and twenty bandits once again emitted the embarrassing sound of swallowing saliva.
“This… this is Xi’an’s Eight Great Bowls, isn’t it?”
“It absolutely is the Eight Great Bowls! But here they’re serving them in basins!”
“This is Xi’an’s Eight Great Basins!”
“Hold on… are we truly in a year of great disaster?”
“There’s famine everywhere! How come they can make Eight Great Bowls here?”
“What kind of wealth do they possess?”
Cheng Xu was also deeply stunned at first. He intended to solemnly express gratitude for the Deity’s generous gift. However, hearing the bandits’ embarrassing murmurs behind him reminded him that he couldn’t act too hastily in thanking the Deity right now.
The Deity staging this impressive sight was clearly meant to showcase the militia’s might and awe the outsiders. He couldn’t diminish Gaojia Village’s aura; they needed to shock these provincial country bumpkins with unparalleled grandeur.
So, Cheng Xu temporarily held back his thanks to the Deity. He turned to Zao Ying with an utterly composed smile: “Mere eight small dishes. We eat like this all the time.”
Zao Ying: “All the time?”
The bandits: “!!!!!!”
Cheng Xu was roaring with laughter internally, though his outward expression remained utterly serene: “Why is everyone still standing there stunned? Aren’t you starving? Grab your bowls and chopsticks! Dig in!”