TATSD Chapter 67

At Daxi Town, outside the county academy.

“Thank you, Brother Tian, dropping me off here is fine,” Wen Xuan said as he jumped down from the ox cart, gratefully giving Brother Tian a slight bow.

Seeing that Wen Xuan was a scholar, the two strong men had taken good care of him throughout the journey. They didn’t even let him drive the cart, allowing him to sit and rest instead.

White Sand Town wasn’t on the way to the county academy. To go to the academy, they had to make a special detour. Delivering mooncakes was all about who could be faster and earn more. That they went out of their way to drop Wen Xuan off at the academy gate was already a rare act of kindness and consideration.

Wen Xuan felt truly grateful.

“It’s nothing, just a small favor!” Brother Tian waved his hand, urging Wen Xuan not to be so polite. “These are probably too heavy for you, right? How about I help you carry them over?”

Wen Xuan had already told them along the way that he was here at the county academy to find Ji Baoshan.

Now that he didn’t see him, Wen Xuan knew he couldn’t possibly carry all those mooncakes by himself while going back and forth looking for someone. After a moment of thought, he reluctantly decided to trouble the two men again.

“I’ll go in and look for my friend. Could the two of you kindly wait here for a little while? I’ll be right back. Is that alright?” Wen Xuan, feeling nervous, was afraid they might refuse.

“Go quickly and come back soon. We’ll wait here,” they replied.

Having left Zhangliu Town after lunch and arriving at Daxi Town, it was now already the time of Shen (3-5 PM).

In two more hours, the sun would set.

So for the three of them, every moment was precious.

Wen Xuan didn’t dare delay any further and turned to run swiftly.

He had spent two years at the county academy, so he had a good idea of where Ji Baoshan might be at this hour.

At this moment, inside the lecture hall, a slender middle-aged man stood at the front, book in hand, explaining policy essays.

Wen Xuan stood by the window, feeling a bit anxious.

He didn’t dare interrupt the teacher’s lesson, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lin Tai sitting near the back door of the hall. Wen Xuan quickly slipped over to the back door and quietly called Lin Tai’s name from outside.

Lin Tai, who was hiding behind his book while stuffing cookies into his mouth, thought the teacher had noticed him when he heard his name. Panicked, he quickly tried to tidy up, barely chewing the cookie before swallowing it, scratching his throat painfully.

After looking around nervously and seeing the teacher was far away, Lin Tai frowned in confusion.

Seeing Lin Tai hadn’t noticed him, Wen Xuan became more anxious outside the door.

“Lin Tai! It’s me, Wen Xuan! I’m by the door. Look behind you!” Wen Xuan called out a bit louder, and Lin Tai finally noticed him.

Staring at Wen Xuan by the door, Lin Tai’s expression was one of utter shock, as if he had seen a ghost in broad daylight. He mouthed, “What are you doing here?!”

Wen Xuan pointed to Ji Baoshan, who was seated several places away and made a hand gesture. Lin Tai suddenly understood—it was Ji Baoshan Wen Xuan was looking for. Without hesitation, Lin Tai scribbled a few large characters on a piece of paper, crumpled it into a ball, and, while the teacher wasn’t looking, threw it straight at the back of Ji Baoshan’s head.

“Who did that?!” Ji Baoshan, who had been attentively listening to the lesson, cried out in surprise when he was suddenly hit by a paper ball.

The teacher, who had his back to the class, gave a dismissive hum. Ji Baoshan quickly bent down, picked up the paper ball, and unfolded it. After a glance, he instinctively turned around and saw Wen Xuan by the door, waving at him.

“Come over here,” Wen Xuan mouthed to Ji Baoshan.

The two had known each other for a long time, and Ji Baoshan knew that Wen Xuan wouldn’t interrupt him during class unless it was something important.

Knowing his friend needed help, Ji Baoshan didn’t hesitate. He made up an excuse, telling the teacher he had a stomachache, and packed up his books before sneaking out the back door to ask Wen Xuan what was going on.

After all, Wen Xuan had previously said that Lin Tai’s father would be selling the cookies from now on and that he wouldn’t be coming back to the academy to sell them anymore.

“I’m here for work, trying to make some money. Want to join me?”

Seeing Ji Baoshan’s intrigued expression, Wen Xuan explained the mooncake delivery job while leading him toward the academy gate.

“What a great opportunity! A bit of hard work doesn’t scare me!” Ji Baoshan’s enthusiasm was evident, and he even thought Wen Xuan was walking too slowly, pulling him by the arm and jogging toward the gate.

“We’re from poor families. What hardship haven’t we endured? There’s no work too tough, no exhaustion we can’t push through. The only fear is not earning money and not being able to study. If I drop out of the county academy too, I might never pick up a book again.”

Ji Baoshan rambled on about the same old topics as they rushed ahead.

Wen Xuan quietly followed behind him, occasionally agreeing with a few words.

The two moved quickly, and it took them only about half an hour.

When Ji Baoshan saw the neatly arranged rows of mooncake gift boxes in the back of the ox cart, he gasped.

He had heard people mention the price of these mooncakes—two boxes cost one tael of silver! There were several dozen taels’ worth on the cart!

Ji Baoshan’s eyes gleamed as he threw himself toward the cart, startling Brother Tian, who instinctively reached out to push him away.

“Brother Tian, it’s fine. This is my friend, here to help.”

“I couldn’t control myself when I saw how valuable these things are,” Ji Baoshan apologized awkwardly, scratching his head.

Not wanting to delay Brother Tian’s trip to White Sand Town, Ji Baoshan, and Wen Xuan quickly unloaded the mooncake gift boxes from the cart, watching as the ox cart disappeared into the distance.

“So, what do we do now?” Ji Baoshan asked.

“I’ll check the list,” Wen Xuan said, pulling out a paper with the names written on it. Ji Wei had specifically assigned all the county academy orders to Wen Xuan, showing him special consideration.

Just within the academy, there were nine orders. Wen Xuan and Ji Baoshan exchanged glances, then each grabbed six boxes and took turns running to deliver the mooncakes.

By the time they finished delivering the orders within the academy, nearly half of the mooncake gift boxes were gone.

Ji Baoshan copied down half of the list, and they divided the remaining mooncakes equally.

Since they had no transportation and couldn’t carry large quantities of mooncakes while running around, they used the county academy as their base.

Fortunately, Lin Tai came from a wealthy family and had a private room at the academy, where he lived alone. They stored the mooncakes in Lin Tai’s room for safekeeping.

With their worries taken care of, the two then split up and ran in different directions to make their deliveries.

Luckily, the people who had ordered mooncakes were well-off and didn’t live far away, making the deliveries relatively convenient.

The two of them delivered mooncakes until dusk before they finally finished.

“Did you finish your deliveries?” Ji Baoshan, who arrived at Lin Tai’s room earlier than Wen Xuan, was sitting on a stool fanning himself with a book.

On any other day, he would never treat a book so disrespectfully, but after delivering mooncakes all afternoon and running across half of Daxi Town, he was too exhausted to care.

Even though he was wearing an undershirt, his back was drenched with sweat.

If it weren’t for waiting to settle the money with Wen Xuan, Ji Baoshan would have gone straight home to take a shower and change clothes.

When Wen Xuan finally walked in, he didn’t even have the strength to speak and could only lean against the doorframe, panting heavily.

He had always lived frugally and hadn’t eaten well. At a time when he was still growing, his diet of plain porridge and vegetables, just two meals a day, made him look so skinny it seemed like a gust of wind could knock him over.

On top of that, the summer sun was relentless. After just a few deliveries, he nearly collapsed from heatstroke. If there hadn’t been a nearby stall selling iced mung bean soup, where he rested for a while, he might not have recovered.

“What’s wrong with you?” Lin Tai immediately noticed something was off with Wen Xuan. Jumping down from his bed, he handed Wen Xuan a glass of cold water. “You’re not having heatstroke, are you?”

Wen Xuan drank the water and stood there for a moment to recover.

Sweat poured from his forehead like water, and he felt so weak that he couldn’t stand straight. Since there were no extra chairs in the room, and he didn’t want to dirty Lin Tai’s bed, he sat down against the wall.

“Hey, what are you doing sitting on the floor? It’s filthy.” Lin Tai reached out to help Wen Xuan up, but the latter shook his head weakly. “The floor’s cool.”

“Well, alright. You’ve had a hard day.” Lin Tai felt a bit uncomfortable. Before Wen Xuan came to the academy to sell cookies, he, Ji Baoshan, and Wen Xuan hadn’t been particularly close. But after many cookie transactions, they had gradually grown familiar.

Lin Tai came from a wealthy family and had never had to worry about money.

Watching Ji Baoshan and Wen Xuan run around all day just to earn a few days’ worth of living expenses made him realize how fortunate his own life was.

“Hey, I still have some cookies left. Want some?” Lin Tai handed them the remaining half-pack of cookies. Ji Baoshan thanked him and took one.

“Take more than that!” Lin Tai scolded. “Wen Xuan, you too! Don’t just let him take them.”

“Thanks,” Wen Xuan said.

“What’s with the thanks? They’re not expensive.”

Now that Lin Tai’s family was helping Ji Wei sell cookies, Lin Tai could eat as many as he wanted. Every time he went home, he brought back a big bag to school as snacks. His father, Li Yaozu, spoiled him and didn’t say much about it.

“Baoshan, let’s count the money,” Wen Xuan said as he untied the pouch strapped securely around his waist and poured out the silver, forming a small pile.

Ji Baoshan agreed, spreading the coins out on the table.

Lin Tai stood at the side, his eyes widening when he saw the money.

He had never seen so much money in his life.

“Is this all from today’s sales?” Lin Tai squatted beside Wen Xuan, watching him count the coins, feeling a deep envy.

“Mr. Ji said this is all the remaining payment. The deposit was collected earlier,” Wen Xuan counted twice, matching the amounts with Ji Baoshan.

“That’s a total of thirty-six taels and five coins; that’s right.” Wen Xuan let out a sigh of relief, feeling the tension in his mind finally ease.

Lin Tai clicked his tongue. “If the final payment is over thirty taels, then the total must be around seventy or eighty taels!”

Ji Baoshan, who couldn’t compare to Lin Tai’s family, had never even touched a single tael of silver in his life. Suddenly being responsible for such a large sum, even if it wasn’t theirs, made him a bit excited.

“I probably won’t ever have this much money again in my life,” Ji Baoshan murmured as he cupped his hands around the coins.

“If you can pass the imperial examination and become an official, then there’s still hope,” Lin Tai encouraged.

Ji Baoshan glanced at Lin Tai and smiled bitterly. “I’d be satisfied just to pass the county examination; how could I dare to aspire to the imperial examination?”

“You need to have goals to stay motivated,” Lin Tai replied cheerfully.

“It’s getting late; I need to hurry back to Changliu Town. I’ll be leaving now.” Wen Xuan quickly jumped up from the ground. He stood up too abruptly and swayed a bit.

Lin Tai hurriedly supported him and pulled him to sit on the bed. “No way! You’re in no condition to go back. Just stay here for the night and rest before leaving tomorrow.”

Wen Xuan shook his head. “I can’t. Mr. Ji is waiting for me to return the money.”

“If Mr. Ji is as understanding as you say, he’ll understand when he sees your condition tomorrow,” Lin Tai replied irritably. “My father says Ji Wei is someone who does big things; he won’t fuss over such trivial matters.”

“But—”

“No buts! It will take you over an hour to walk back. If you’re carrying all this silver at night and get robbed—” Lin Tai dragged out his words, making Wen Xuan feel a chill run down his spine.

He knew that if that happened, it would be disastrous.

After hesitating for a moment, Wen Xuan finally nodded in agreement.

By the time night had fully fallen, Brother Tian and his companion returned with the ox cart from White Sand Town. Since Brother Tian wasn’t familiar with White Sand Town and they had delivered slowly, they spent quite a bit of time finding the designated meeting place. They apologized repeatedly to Ji Wei for their delay.

Ji Wei didn’t mind too much, paid them for their work, and asked them to return tomorrow.

“Has the young man come back?” Brother Tian asked, peeking into the shop but not seeing Wen Xuan’s figure.

On the way back, he had thought about stopping by the county academy, but since the other person was in a hurry to get home and mentioned it was already dark, Brother Tian didn’t insist.

“Wen Xuan? He hasn’t returned yet.”

After a busy morning packing mooncakes and a busy afternoon with sales, Ji Wei had planned to return home for dinner.

But he feared that the other three from the nearby town would return and not be able to find him, so he waited here on an empty stomach.

With two back now, but still missing Wen Xuan, Ji Wei had a feeling that Wen Xuan wouldn’t be coming back tonight.

Not to mention that the list of mooncakes he took was almost one and a half times the amount for Brother Tian and his companion; the sun had set completely, and without an ox cart, he wouldn’t even know how long it would take to walk back.

After pondering, Ji Wei decided not to wait any longer for Wen Xuan. He locked up the shop and went next door to Zheng Yinghong’s noodle shop to eat.

“Boss Ji, why are you closing so early?” Zheng Yinghong, who had just finished serving a bowl of beef offal noodles, saw Ji Wei come in and quickly set down her bowl to attend to him.

“What would you like? The pork is all gone; all that’s left is lamb. Would you like some?”

“Do you have any beef?”

“Are you joking, Boss Ji?” Zheng Yinghong thought Ji Wei was joking. After all, it was rare to have beef; it indicated that the family was doing well.

Some families treated their cows like ancestors, and aside from those that died naturally, almost no one slaughtered a living cow for meat.

One reason no one did this was because of the expense.

“You caught me joking; I didn’t think you’d notice,” Zheng Yinghong said with a slight frown. Ji Wei immediately realized this and laughed, changing his order to lamb.

“We still have plenty of lamb, but it’s a bit expensive, so not many people buy it. Just wait a moment.” Zheng Yinghong finished her noodles and soup quickly before heading to the counter to sprinkle some flour on the table.

All the noodles in the shop were made fresh upon order, and Zheng Yinghong was the only one working, from taking orders to collecting payments. Fortunately, business wasn’t too busy, or she couldn’t manage alone.

Zheng Yinghong worked efficiently, quickly pulling three taels of noodles, cooking them in boiling water, and transferring them to a clean empty bowl. She added two generous scoops of lamb and finished with a sprinkle of chopped green onions.

“Here you go, your lamb noodles.”

A standard bowl of noodles consisted of three taels of noodles, one scoop of meat, and two scoops of soup.

However, considering that Ji Wei was a nice guy who had treated her to mooncakes for free, Zheng Yinghong generously added two scoops of meat. The noodles were generously covered, and it must be said that the lamb noodles were truly hearty.

The meat had been simmered for most of the day until the bones and lamb were tender enough that they separated easily with a pair of chopsticks. The lamb had a slightly gamey taste, but with the addition of cooking wine and plenty of ginger slices, the soup was fragrant with goji berries. The steaming heat brought out an intoxicating aroma.

No wonder it was a noodle shop that had been open for six years; Zheng Yinghong worked quickly and the noodles looked great. They were uniformly thick, soft, and chewy, paired with the steaming lamb broth that made Ji Wei break out in a sweat.

He enjoyed his meal so much that he exclaimed how good it was, making Zheng Yinghong laugh with her eyes squinted in delight.

“You’re too kind; it’s not that good.”

“You won’t need to go home for lunch anymore; just come eat here with the boss lady.” Ji Wei asked the price and counted out ten copper coins from his pocket, placing them on the table. As he was about to leave, he remembered Wen Xuan.

“Boss lady, if you see a scholar tonight—he’s the one I brought this morning—just tell him to come tomorrow; I’m heading back now.”

“Alright!”

After Ji Wei left the noodle shop, Zheng Yinghong, feeling hot inside, moved a stool to sit at the shop entrance. When it was time for her to close up, she still hadn’t seen the scholar Ji Wei mentioned, but seven or eight young men came wanting to buy snow-skin mooncakes. Hearing that the shop was closed, they left disappointed.

Zheng Yinghong couldn’t help but think, why not buy some mooncakes to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival?