inspire-indiana Chapter 1002: Eating is still important
Chapter 1002: Eating is still important
The old man choked, "...Actually, living in the wild is pretty good. With so many of us, we can save a lot of money."
Compared to living in the wild, the few people obviously felt that food was more important. In the wild, as long as they built a shed, lit a big fire, and covered themselves with blankets, they wouldn't be too cold.
Anyway, they have enough thick quilts, and except for the old man, they are all young men with hot tempers, so they are not afraid of these things.
Zhou Guo was even less afraid because he had a carriage to sleep in.
Moreover, since there were two carriages, the things in the other carriage could be moved down when going to bed at night, and the old man could sleep in the carriage with a thick quilt, so he would not feel cold.
After hearing his words, Erpang and the others immediately started to work, making a fire, boiling water, and cooking the duck.
If it wasn't so unpalatable, they would be able to tolerate it.
But the duck that Gouya and the others gave was cooked differently. It was not marinated with any seasoning. Instead, it was salted and it was cold, which was really hard to eat with rice.
Not only Zhou Guo couldn't eat, Erpang, Dashu and Xiaoshu also couldn't eat it.
Although their lives were not so good when they were young, they lived better than the young masters of ordinary landlords during these years with Zhou Guo, and they did not suffer any hardship at all.
Over the years, my taste has become quite picky.
As for the personal soldiers, they enjoyed the food very much.
Several people told Zhou Guo that when a war breaks out, speed is of the essence and there is no way to make a fire and cook. Sometimes you can only have dry food and cold meat for half a month, but more often you can't even have cold meat, and you are lucky to have hard dry food.
Therefore, the cold meat still tasted fragrant and delicious to them.
The old man felt the same way and said, "Thinking back to when we were fleeing, we could eat raw meat, let alone cold meat like this."
At that time, I was so hungry that my eyes turned green. Not to mention going into the woods to hunt, I even scraped off the edible tree bark on both sides of the road.
Zhou Guo said: "Master, if you wanted to eat meat at that time, it was not easy. You could just go to any deep mountain and you would have meat. Have you never sneaked into the mountains to eat?"
They had a lot of people at that time. When we met them, one village had already split into two groups, one group went to the capital, and the other group followed them north. But even so, there were still several hundred people in the team.
With so many people, it is impossible to hide what each household eats for each meal. Even if you go to the shit, someone will follow you. As long as you don't leave the group, what you eat will not escape everyone's eyes.
There was something delicious, but before I even swallowed it, everyone knew about it.
The old man smiled bitterly and said, "At that time, I was the only one in the team who knew some martial arts. Most of the team members were old and weak, and there were few young and strong people. How could I dare to leave?"
Zhou Guo stuck the buns on the branches, held the branches over the fire and roasted them, saying, "Then I followed you into the mountains for the first time, and we caught a lot of fish. That night, every household ate fish, and it was so delicious that I haven't tasted that flavor in all these years."
The old man shook his head. "It's been so many years, but you still mention that year's fish every year. That's because you ate too many delicious foods. We were hungry for so long back then, and we just got such a large sum of money. We didn't have to worry about our future. With that state of mind, we naturally couldn't eat that kind of fish anymore. In fact, any fish cooked now tastes better than that time."
The whole family never forgets it, and even more so the other families in the village.
In the first few years, I would come to him and ask what kind of fish he had caught that year and see if I could buy it again.
Zhou Guo said: "Recalling the bitter past brings back the sweetness. It was so hard back then. Life is better now. Looking back at those days, I feel like they are all in the past. My mother often said that sometimes when she thinks about those days, she feels like she is dreaming."
Soon, Erpang and his friends cooked the duck. After it simmered for a while, they estimated that it should be hot inside.
Then they got up and each took a large piece, chewing on the roasted buns and the hot duck meat.
Zhou Guo took a bite and nodded. As expected, in such a cold weather, one should eat something hot. It tastes much better and at least it’s not fishy anymore.
She ate half a duck and a lot of steamed buns by herself.
After Erpang and the others finished eating, they freed up their hands to bake buns for her.
By the time we finished the meal, more than half an hour had passed.
The old man looked up at the sky and said, "You said you were leaving so early in the morning, but it's already past noon and you're only thirty or forty miles out of the city. I think it won't be long before it's evening. Why don't you stay back for one night and leave early tomorrow morning?"
Zhou Guo laughed, "Master, if you keep going this way, I guess we'll never be able to leave this city. We can't walk very far in the morning anyway, so won't we have to go back every day?"
Erpang and the others didn't dare to laugh and turned their heads away.
The old man snorted, "You also know that walking thirty or forty miles in the middle of the day is ridiculous?"
Zhou Guo's smile faded, and he pointed at the bamboo forests on both sides and cried out, "You were the one who came down to dig these bamboo shoots, not me."
The old man glared and said, "I didn't say that. You wanted to come down on your own."
Zhou Guo: "...If it wasn't for you, would I come down?"
The two men got on their horses while bickering. Erpang and Xiaoshu each drove a carriage, galloping at full speed.
No matter how hard we tried, we still failed to enter the city in time for the city gate to be locked.
The group had to rest in the wild again.
With a few personal soldiers, spending the night in the wild was no longer as painful as before. They could do everything, and Zhou Guo saved a lot of worries.
In this way, they walked and rested along the way. If they came across a city that was not locked yet, they would go in. If they couldn't make it, they would simply stay in the wild and never thought of staying in ordinary people's homes.
Whenever Zhou Guo arrived at a county town where he had a shop, he would naturally go in.
Last autumn, she sent a letter to Hu Zi. One autumn day, Lai Zi Tou brought out most of the brothers from the Beidi Escort Agency, and a huge grain transport team headed south.
Every time they passed a provincial capital or county town, they would stop there, leave some food and mountain products behind, and then carry the rest on their way.
Along the way, she sold grain in every place she mentioned in the letter.
Those who were chosen to run shops and open markets were all talented and capable, literate, and skilled.
More than a month has passed. Now she is back and when she enters the shop, she sees that there are three assistants in the two small shops, and they all serve as the manager and the accountant. There is no other way, as most people would not trust them to be the accountant.
Business is naturally not good.
Because these places are not the North Land and the South River, they have fewer people and cannot compete with the local tyrants, so the grain prices they set are the same as everyone else. The shops are remote and small, and there is little business, so everything has been peaceful.
The shopkeeper asked Zhou Guo, "Master, the owners of these grain shops are quite famous and powerful. They seem to be relatives of the county magistrate. It is said that they are opened by the county magistrate's brother-in-law. The prices are always high, and they don't allow others to sell at a lower price."