Da Tang Shuang Long Zhuan Volume 1 Chapter 9 part2

Kou Zhong caught a glimpse of a large signboard, ‘Liu Chun Courtyard' [lit. preserving spring]; he pulled Xu Ziling's broad shoulder and winked, "Xiao Ling,” he said, "You are more or less sixteen, and soon I will be seventeen. Other men get married when they are fourteen years old, but until today we are still virgin …”

Xu Ziling impatiently cut him off, "I understand what you mean. We have money, and you, this fellow, itch all over your body; isn't that it? I am not opposed taking some money and waste it on some eye-opening activity at all, but at least we should wait until we find a job, find a place to stay, and then we can explore this life of pleasure seeking. Besides, isn't the money left by Niang as our capital? It is enough for us to build a rather decent, simple house, plus to run a small shop; it must not be spent rashly on some extravagant thing.”

Seeing he did not really oppose the idea, Kou Zhong happily said, "Naturally, let us have a big feast first, and then we'll go around to see what kind of work needs manpower.”

By this time they happened to stand in front of a restaurant. They were just about to enter when a big man, as sturdy as an ox, suddenly stormed out like a tornado, carrying a bundle in his hand. He turned to the left and gone. A short, skinny old man ran after him, shouting that man's name. But the man did not even look back, he simply left without saying anything. The short, skinny man sat down dejectedly, leaning against the door to the restaurant, while cursing ferociously.

The two boys were baffled. They were just about to step in, the old man shrieked, "We are closed today, we will be closed tomorrow and thereafter.”

They began to realize that this man was the owner of this restaurant; looking at him covered all over with grease, they also realized that he was the chef as well. Kou Zhong was most curious; he asked, "Why won't you open hereafter?”

The old man looked at the two boys from top to bottom once, and then with a bored grunt he said, "That prodigal son has left, my woman also passed away last month, how can I run this big shop alone?” Hanging his head down, he sighed and said, "Speaking about culinary skill, if I, Ol' Zhang, am considered number two, who would dare to say that he is number one? Any dumpling oil rice, cool-breeze rice, jade-well rice [I have no idea what these are: 团油饭、清风饭、玉井饭], which one I, the Ol' Zhang, am not an expert at? But that prodigal son did not understand and did not want to inherit my consummate skill, all day long he is nagging about joining the army and setting up merit. Just you see, when the day comes that he become a beggar and return home, I won't support him! Humph, I might as well return to my village so that even if he wanted to find me he couldn't.”

The two boys exchanged a glance and both squatted down. Kou Zhong said, "That's too bad, such a big restaurant is closing its door. You'd better hire us as your helpers, and at the same time, your apprentice, so that your, Master Zhang, consummate skill will not extinct. At most we only want you to pay us two hundred five zhu coins [see Chapter 50] each month.”

The Ol' Zhang was stunned; he looked at them again, from top to bottom, and then after a while he curiously asked, "Who are you?”

After Kou Zhong told him some made-up story, the Ol' Zhang said, "So it's twenty strings of coins altogether?”

Each string is ten coins, twenty strings are precisely two hundred coins. Even for one person, it could be considered an unusually meager pay; now that two persons only received two hundred coins, it was excessively too harsh. No wonder even Ol' Zhang's son wanted to leave.

Kou Zhong wanted to learn his rice cooking skill, so that in the future he could make a living. But he was also proficient in scheming; therefore, without giving it a second thought he said, "In that case you must also guarantee our food and lodging.”

Narrowing his eyes, Ol' Zhang spoke in a strange voice, "Guaranteeing your food and lodging is not a problem, but all cleaning and menial jobs will also be your responsibility.”

Kou Zhong laughed, "It's a deal!” he said, "Right now we are extremely hungry, naturally this meal will be on Boss Zhang's account.”

And so the two boys moved in to the room upstairs that was vacant due to Ol' Zhang's son's leaving. Every day before dawn they woke up and started to work. Every afternoon when the Ol' Zhang closed the shop to take a nap, the two boys were responsible to purchase supplies and receive deliveries. After they closed for the night, Ol' Zhang took a bath and went to bed, they washed the dishes and cleaned up.

With such an extremely busy life, not only they did not have time to visit pleasure house for some eye-opening activity, they did not even have enough time to sleep.

But Ol' Zhang did indeed have true culinary skill; not only he was famous locally, even traveling merchants who passed by the town took pleasure in visiting the restaurant.

The menu only consisted of three types of rice, the ones that Ol' Zhang mentioned earlier, i.e. dumpling oil rice, cool-breeze rice, and jade-well rice. But Ol' Zhang's skill was not limited to only these. After having Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling to help him, from time to time he also received some catering order, people who showed up at their door to have a gathering.

Since the two boys intentionally wanted to steal his skill, plus the Ol' Zhang was old and weak and thus in day-to-day operation he relied heavily on them, bit by bit he passed on his culinary skill to them.

Three months later, they were brimming with confidence; they believed that they could spread their wings on their own. While on the other hand they grew tired of this business.

The reason they hesitated over what move to make, and did not make up their mind to leave, was because they did not want to abandon Ol' Zhang, for fear that he could not stand it.

That night, after the shop closed, while Ol' Zhang already went upstairs, the two boys had serious discussion.

"Have we made decision not to join the militia, or perhaps to become Wulin masters?” Kou Zhong asked.

Xu Ziling sprawled himself on the chair; he sighed and said, "Being busy like this every day until the sky turned dark and the earth black, so that we don't have time to enjoy life, does not seem to be quite interesting.”

Kou Zhong said, "How about we endure it some more? Let's stay here three more months, after the end of the year and the spring equinox [4th of the solar terms, March 21 - April 4], when the weather is warm, we'll get out of here.”

Xu Ziling was distressed, "But I am a bit reluctant to leave,” he said.

With a wry smile Kou Zhong said, "Me too. But I have an idea, it is called ‘a real man aspires to travel far and make his mark in the world'. Why don't we take refuge in the Song Family of Hunan? That Song Lu did not treat us too shabbily, if we could do obeisance and take him as our master, perhaps we can really accomplish our dreams.”

And then, gnashing his teeth he said, "If I can master martial art skill, the first thing I do is to kill that traitor Yuwen Huaji.”

Upset, Xu Ziling said, "Last night I dreamt about Niang again, she blamed me for not having a backbone, for not having guts to avenge her.”

Kou Zhong blew a long breath, "We are indeed too timid,” he resolutely said, "We can't be considered real men. The worst that can happen is we die. Yet these days we are afraid the hard work of training martial art, we are also afraid of fire-deviation, hence we do not dare to continue. How is it not letting Niang down? I decided that starting tomorrow, I am turning over a new leaf, I will start training again, and in the future, I will not give up before I kill Yuwen Huaji.”

Xu Ziling's eyes suddenly flashed with unprecedented sharpness as he stretched out his hand to grab Kou Zhong's and said, "It's good that you have made up your mind, I support it with my entire being. Back in Yangzhou our ambition was higher than the heavens; how did we become people who refuse to face reality [orig. shrink the head like a turtle]? We'd better leave tomorrow.”

Kou Zhong was amazed, "How did your eyes suddenly lit up just now? Just like Niang's eyes just before she died.”

Xu Ziling was dumbstruck for half a day; he mused, "Truth be told, although I did not intentionally practice, every night when I lie down, that diagram showing how to circulate the qi appeared clearly in my mind, and thus I followed it automatically.”

Kou Zhong regretfully said, "If I had known earlier, I would have followed your example, diligently and relentlessly trained well. After this I definitely cannot stay idle. Alright! We will be on our way tomorrow.”

Xu Ziling muttered to himself, "Who will tell Ol' Zhang?”

With a wry smile Kou Zhong replied, "Let's do it together. This miserly crafty old man ought to receive a bit of lesson as well.”

Chapter end