The next day, the rain had cleared.
"Giggles~"
Early in the morning, an excited crowing sound came from the backyard of Yang Ge’s house.
"Clang."
Yang Ge pushed open the door and was embraced by the brilliant morning sun.
He squinted at the golden sunrise, combed through his messy hair like a big monkey, then stood in the sunlight, yawned widely with a big mouth: "Ahhhh..."
"Whine whine whine."
Huang crawled out of his kennel, his ears perked up like airplane wings and his tail wagging as he sleepily snuggled up, rubbing against Yang Ge’s pants leg.
Yang Ge bent down to stroke the round dog’s head, his mood inexplicably cheerful as he chuckled and asked, "My boy, what do you want for breakfast today?"
Hearing this familiar question, Huang’s smile grew even more noticeable.
Yang Ge: "Preserved egg and lean pork porridge?"
Huang’s tail, resembling a windmill, slowed down.
Yang Ge: "Then how about egg noodles?"
Huang’s tail drooped down to the ground.
Yang Ge impatiently hugged the dog’s head and rubbed fiercely: "You just want to eat a big meat bun, right?"
"Whine whine whine."
Huang grinned wide, stretched out his tongue to lick his hand, wagging his tail so hard his butt was shaking.
"It’s getting late..."
Yang Ge looked at the sun hesitantly, wondering if it was too late to steam buns now?
The ingredients were all at home, and he had even brought back a knife of fresh pork belly last night. There was fresh cabbage in the backyard garden. Pork buns with cabbage and fresh pork belly, once ripped open, would be dripping with oil…
"Slurp!"
Yang Ge swallowed his saliva, struggling as he muttered to himself, "No, you can’t, you’re the store manager at the inn. How could you just skip work?"
"Hmmm… Skipping work might not be a bad idea after all, Zhao Miao is at the inn, anyway it’s just regulars and neighbors coming and going. Besides, Li Qing is there too, nothing can go wrong."
He fumbled around his pockets, somehow fished out a copper coin, and showed it to Huang, "Here, old rule, if it lands on the character side, we’ll eat big meat buns today, and we can even go find Erhei and play by the river in the afternoon; if it’s on the flower side, we’ll eat noodles, and Dad will fry you a couple of eggs!"
Upon finishing, he flicked his finger and the copper coin, spinning, soared into the air and landed on the ground, still spinning.
Huang stepped forward, slapped the copper coin onto the ground with his paw, then tilted his head, looking at his own paw.
Yang Ge squatted down, also staring at the paw: "Reveal it!"
Huang glanced at him, licked his lips and moved his paw away.
The copper coin with "Xiping Tongbao" written on it faced upwards.
Huang couldn’t read, but he looked up into his dad’s eyes, glowing with expectation.
Yang Ge stared at the coin for a few seconds, then decisively slapped his thigh: "It’s settled, I’m skipping work today!"
He picked up the copper coin, blew off the dust and tucked it into his pocket, then got up to go inside to fetch his washcloth, basin, and toothbrush.
Huang followed him step by step into the house, only bolting into the yard with excitement when Yang Ge told him they were having meat buns today, leaping around jubilantly...
...
Shortly after, the unique aroma of meat buns wafted through the entire yard.
On the giant steamer, there were three layers each steam.
Father and son stood by the stove, drooling as they stared at the steamer.
Yang Ge turned his face towards Huang: "Smells good, doesn’t it?"
Huang stared at the steamer, twitching his tail a bit.
Yang Ge proudly raised his head: "Isn’t your dad amazing?"
Huang perfunctorily licked his cheek.
Yang Ge "hehehe" laughed.
Just then, Huang suddenly perked up his ears, his face serious and alert as he looked towards the gate of the yard.
Yang Ge confusedly followed his gaze, just then he heard the yard door being gently knocked.
It was so light, as if the knocker was afraid of being heard, belonging to none of the regular visitors of this yard.
"Woof woof woof..."
Huang darted out of the kitchen, switching from his whining voice to a deep and fierce barking, alerting his dad that he didn’t recognize the visitor.
Yang Ge stood up, replied "Coming," and went to open the door leisurely.
"Creak."
The courtyard gate opened, and a familiar face appeared outside.
"Flea?"
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Yang Ge looked at the man outside the door, who was carrying a long sandalwood case on his back and wiping sweat off his face with a sheepish smile, "What brings you here? Is there trouble at the inn?"
The Flea, whose real name was Fu Qian, was nicknamed so because he was… somewhat condensed in stature and had a pointy, monkey-like face that, along with his biting remarks, earned him the nickname among the inn’s salted fish crowd.
The Flea, bending slightly at the waist and smiling sheepishly, his face covered in sweat, didn’t have the casual demeanor he usually had around Yang Ge at the inn, "Back… back to Second Master, there’s no trouble at the inn. I am here… by the order of His Holiness to return an item that Second Master lost."
As he spoke, he took the long sandalwood case off his back and presented it to Yang Ge with both hands, his legs trembling as if electrified.
Having hung around Yang Ge at the inn for so long, he had almost forgotten that the fellow in front of him was not just a big salted fish too lazy to even turn over but also the number one ruthless killer in the world!
It wasn’t until last night when the Master at another inn signaled him that he rushed over and saw the wound on the Master’s hand, and the headless corpse…
He came back to his senses all at once!
"His Holiness?"
Yang Ge looked at the man in front of him, surprised, and teased with a laugh, "I wouldn’t have guessed, Flea brother, you’re actually the undercover agent sent by that inn!"
He laughed lightly, but as Flea heard these words, his face quickly turned from white to red, then from red to black, almost losing his balance, "Second Master knows, since I’ve been at our inn, I’ve never sent any messages against you…"
Yang Ge laughed, "Steady now, I didn’t say I was going to do anything to you."
He leisurely walked out from the courtyard gate, opened the sandalwood case in Flea’s hands, and sure enough, inside lay the black-armored man’s sword "Snowstorm" from yesterday.
He took it out of the case, drew the sword, and held it upright in front of him, his two fingers slowly sliding along the mirror-like, narrow blade, only feeling slight burrs in front of the hilt, the blade itself intact…
Yesterday, this very sword had collided head-on with the Cold Moon precious sword!
"Great sword!"
He sheathed the sword, placed it back in the sandalwood case, took the case from Flea’s hands, then turned his eyes to a line of silhouettes in the alley, pushing a unicycle cart laden with riveted iron boxes, "And what’s this?"
Flea wiped the large beads of sweat from his forehead and smiled nervously, responding, "This is the… two hundred thousand taels of gold that you lost!"
"I lost?"
Yang Ge chuckled, "Two hundred thousand taels of gold?"
One tael of gold is equivalent to ten taels of silver, so two hundred thousand taels of gold would be two million taels of silver.
He had lost three million taels of silver, publicly claimed it was five million taels, and His Holiness knew it was three million taels.
That is to say, His Holiness had dug into his own pockets to cover the gap of two million silver… filling it up!
Whether his gesture of putting him back on good terms was sincere enough, that was left unsaid.
Being able to gather two hundred thousand taels of gold overnight… the strength of that inn should not be underestimated!
Yang Ge guessed that they must have transported it from the capital city overnight.
Flea nodded and bowed with a smile, saying "Yes."
"I don’t want your money,"
Yang Ge restrained his smile, slowly shaking his head, "I only want my own money. Whoever took it, let them bring it back to me… If you truly intend to apologize, then quickly dig out the person who took my money. Don’t say you don’t know anything. If you knew nothing, that person wouldn’t have approached your inn yesterday!"
Flea’s expression changed, and he was about to say something more, but Yang Ge had already picked up the sandalwood case, called Huang, and turned to enter the house.
Flea had no choice but to swallow the words which had reached his lips, bowed deeply as he watched Yang Ge enter the house and then firmly shut the courtyard gate.
"Bang."
The moment the courtyard gate shut, Flea relaxed completely, instinctively gasping for air with his mouth wide open like a fish on the chopping block, almost collapsing to the ground.
He suddenly realized that only the Yang Erlang in the inn was the big salted fish they knew…
Outside the inn, Yang Erlang was the renowned "Saintly True Gentleman" Yang Erlang!
Inside, Yang Ge casually placed the Snowstorm sword on the weapons rack, just below the Cold Moon precious sword and above the famous Dongying blade, Mikazuki Munechika.
Right after he placed the sword down, he suddenly remembered the big meat buns in the pot and hurriedly rushed to the kitchen, exclaiming, "Ah, my big meat buns!"
…
The father and son had a hearty meal, choking and feeling greasy as they rolled their eyes and shook their heads.
After cleaning up the kitchen, Yang Ge took two big bags of meat buns, led Huang, and went to Liu’s house to chat with the shopkeeper for a long time. After having lunch there, he leisurely left Liu’s house.
Leaving Liu’s house, Yang Ge, leading Huang, strolled around the inn, feeding several big meat buns to the diligent Zhao Cha and inviting Li Qing and the others to taste his cooking. Flea hid stiffly in the crowd, avoiding his gaze, but he realized that Yang Ge hadn’t given him a second look.
Leaving the inn in the afternoon, he took Huang to a paper goods shop, bought a large pack of gold ingot candles, then went to the upper right office to pick up Erhei, who had been left there… Unfortunately, his small courtyard really couldn’t accommodate a precious steed like Erhei; he could only benefit from associating with the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
Man, horse, and dog left the city through Luting East Gate and joyfully ran towards a small fishing village along the sparkling Bian River.
Yang Ge ran alongside Erhei, laughing heartily, "Hahaha… Huang, don’t lag behind, keep up!"
Huang, panting with his tongue hanging out behind him, chased after him, angrily barking, "Woof, woof, woof..."
The warm sunshine of the sunset bathed the trio, not only edging them with a golden rim but also elongating their youthful silhouettes.
Their long shadows, swaying with their running movements, seemed etched into life like a shadow play.
An ordinary evening, laying the subtext for later moments of trance...