Maid of a wealthy family

Chapter 44
The men didn't answer, but the thin man in the long gown took a step forward, gave another salute, and replied to the old lady, "Responding to the words of the old birthday star: We are from Suizhou Prefecture, and the class number is 'Changle'. I am a The leader of the class. I just passed by the treasure land and learned that the old lady is [-]th birthday, so I want to come to ask for a bowl of birthday wine!" As he said, the man took out an exquisite small birthday screen from his arms, which was carved out of jade. There is a screen seat below.One side of the screen is carved with a dragon, dancing with its head held high; the other side is carved with a phoenix, spreading its wings and flying.The man held the screen in front of the old lady, and continued: "We happen to have a birthday gift, and I will present it to the old lady!" After speaking, he put the jade screen on the birthday case in front of the old lady.

The old lady hurriedly took the jade screen and looked at it. While looking at it, she pretended to say: "Oh, how dare I accept such an expensive gift?"

The man said: "Old lady, don't mind! We people in Jianghu, we eat a lot of food, we value love, and we talk about righteousness. If the old lady doesn't accept it, she will look down on us!"

After hearing this, the old lady said: "Okay, it makes sense! Then I will accept it." Then she called the butler, wrote her name on the "hanging gift book", and then the old lady ordered: "The The guests are sent to the middle courtyard and treated with courtesy.”

The butler agreed again, and led the men out.

As soon as he walked out of the door, the big butler said: "My fellow men, if your things get in the way, you might as well put the things in your hand in the stable first."

The men heard this and said, "You don't believe us, are you afraid that we will move the master's house?"

The butler hurriedly smiled and said: "That's not true! I mean, there are many visitors today, masters bring these knives and spears, don't scare the old people and children."

Hearing this, the man in the long gown immediately said: "That's right!" Then he turned around and said to everyone: "We are here today to have birthday wine, and we don't want to make a fuss, so everyone will hand it over to the housekeeper for safekeeping." Get up!" After speaking, he handed over the big knife in his hand to the housekeeper.Seeing this, everyone also handed over the things in their hands.The butler ordered people to put away those swords, guns, swords and halberds before leading them to the middle courtyard.

The courtyard is full of seats.The big steward saw them, and hurriedly ordered his servants to set up another Eight Immortals table for them.After a while, the table was set, and the men were not polite, they went to sit on the table swaggeringly, and then yelled to serve the food.When the master saw this, he didn't dare to neglect, and went in a hurry.First, a whole chicken was served, and the men pulled it with their hands, and each of them took a piece, and it was gone quickly.Then there was a plate of fried meat with leeks, and after a while, the plate also bottomed out.The third course is a bowl of eight-treasure porridge with candied dates in the middle.The fourth dish is fried meat with lotus root, the fifth dish is fried meat with bamboo shoots, the sixth dish is Gexian soup, and the seventh dish is a plate of steamed wontons.These dishes were quickly snatched up by the men. In the end, everyone got a bowl of longevity noodles, and the men ate a bowl of noodles without waiting for Master Yao to turn around.Then he looked at Master Yao and asked, "Any other dishes?"

Master Yao said, "No more."

The men immediately shouted: "If you say a ball, it will be gone? The stomach has just been padded, where will it be over?"

Master Yao said: "This is called 'Eight Immortals Birthday Banquet', and there are only eight dishes. Listen..." He pointed to the plate on the table and explained: "This dish is whole chicken, whichever is auspicious for life The meaning. The two dishes of fried meat with leeks are called Fushou Long..."

The men shouted loudly before he could finish speaking. "Stop shivering! We have come all the way to celebrate the old lady's birthday, so we can't keep us from eating and drinking? Quickly, bring us good wine and good food."

Master Yao was a little displeased after hearing this.But it was not easy to get angry, so I had to say with a smile on my face: "Guest officers, as the saying goes, you can do whatever you want. If you haven't filled your stomach, I'll go and get you some soup..."

When the men heard this, they became angry and shouted: "Soup is the best fart? I rarely untie my pants to pee when I go out."

Master Yao was very annoyed when he heard the men scolding others, but he still held back his temper and said: "Everyone is here as a guest, don't you know the ten taboos of being a guest? One taboo not to enter the house after opening the door, and poking around the door. Two avoid being impolite when entering the door, and put on airs one by one on the latrine in the latrine. Three avoid laughing in a moody way, and sneer on the nose. Fourth, avoid untidy clothes and hats, like beggars. Fifth, avoid moving dishes and chopsticks first, like grabbing rice. .Liu Ji asks the master for food and drink, for fear that if he does not have enough to eat, the starving ghost will be reincarnated..."

Master Yao hadn't finished talking when a man slapped his face and cursed: "You bastard, how dare you embarrass our skin like this! You and Laozigou lift the door curtain - just open your mouth Dare to pretend to be righteous in front of the old men? If you don’t inquire about it, the old men will be tadpole fish in the field—have you never seen a big river?!” As he said, he wanted to fight, but he was persuaded by the surrounding guests .

Lan Hongen and the butler heard the noise, hurried over and asked, "What's going on?"

The men didn't explain, and just said angrily: "It is said that Lanfu has endless delicacies from mountains and seas, and endless silk and satin, and today I came, but I was so stingy that I couldn't drink enough wine or let me eat food." What do you say when you are full?" As they spoke, each of them took their chopsticks and knocked on the plate "jingling".While knocking, he sang methodically:
"Master Lan, you have good eyesight, and the master you hired is good at craftsmanship.

Well-fried and fragrant, it is better than the emperor's imperial dining room.

The sound of the kitchen knife and the bump of the shovel alarmed all the gods in the sky.

Zhang Guolao, riding a donkey backwards, wants to come to Lan Mansion to have a seat.

He Xiangu took the fence and wanted to come to Lan's mansion to catch a string.

Tieguai Li carried the gourd and came to Lan Mansion to taste the dishes..."

Lan Hongen had already found out what was going on, and seeing that it would lose face for the Lan Mansion to continue singing like this, he hurriedly came to the men, made a bow with a smile on his face, and said, "Masters, don't sing! Said that there is no food or drink for you? Just now, the servant is ignorant and offended you all. I still hope Haihan." After finishing speaking, he immediately turned around and told the master loudly: "Bring the altar of birthday wine to the guests. And the Ninth University Bowl of dishes."

After hearing this, the men were still dissatisfied and said: "Why is the 'Nine Big Bowls' rare? Haven't we eaten the 'Nine Big Bowls'? Even the 'Thirteen Flower Dishes' are reluctant to let us eat?"

Lan Hongen was stunned for a moment, then immediately changed his words and said, "'Thirteen Flower Dishes' is 'Thirteen Flower Dishes', serve 'Thirteen Flower Dishes' to the guests."

After hearing this, the men were satisfied, and said: "That's right, it's still the master who is benevolent and righteous!"

Sure enough, after a while, a young man came over with a jar full of wine.When the men saw it, they hurriedly said: "Bring us a big bowl, this small cup is not enough to drink."

Hearing this, the little fellow hurriedly put down the wine jar, went to hold a stack of big bowls, and put one in front of each of them.Then, Master Mo started serving the dishes again.First there are five meat plates, one plate of ribs, one plate of frozen meat, one plate of shredded pork, one plate of diced meat, and one plate of cold meat.Then there are four dishes, one dish of hair vegetables, one dish of shrimps, and one dish of red vegetables.A dish of antlers.Then there are four dried fruit plates, one plate of crisps, one plate of almonds, one plate of melon seeds, and one plate of peanuts.The sum of all the dishes is called "thirteen flower dishes". "Thirteen Flower Dishes" is just the guide of the banquet, not the climax.Next, start with Shanghai ginseng, which is called "Shen Datou", and it will be considered as the main dish. After the "ginseng head", various famous dishes cooked with bird's nest, shark's fin, chicken, duck, fish, meat, etc. are served in turn, a total of [-] dishes.After the meat dishes were served, desserts were served, and finally the dishes for the meals were served, and a table of Eight Immortals was fully set up.The men were not polite, they filled up the wine while eating and chewing, picked it up and touched the middle, and then drank it like drinking boiled water, "gulu gulu".When the guests on both sides saw it, they were all dumbfounded and speechless.

After drinking for a while, a man said: "It's not exciting to drink like this. Come on, let's shout a few punches, how about it?"

Everyone said: "Shout and shout!"

Then a large bowl of wine was filled in front of everyone, everyone stood up, with one leg on the ground and the other bent on the stool, put their hands on the table, rolled up their sleeves, and started shouting and punching .

Seeing this, the butler walked up to Lan Hongen with some worry, and said, "Master, look at them, what should they do if they're drunk?"

Lan Hongen also frowned and said, "What can I do? This group of poor people are the buns in the stove, and they can't shoot or brag about it."

The butler said: "How about I go and persuade them."

Lan Horn grabbed him and said, "Don't go, it will be a disaster if they go crazy with alcohol and rush to the old lady's wedding. Let them drink."

The butler didn't say anything.

At this time, the other guests had already finished eating, and the boys had already cleaned up the dishes on the table.But this group of people was still yelling wildly, their faces were flushed, and their speech was a little unclear.After shouting for a while, they stopped shouting.Lan Hongen and the butler thought they were about to leave the table, but one of the men looked at the "leader" in a long gown and said, "Brother, no, stop yelling, yelling, annoying, annoying, let's Let's play 'five, five against seven' for a while..."

Hearing this, the lean man in a long gown quickly replied: "Just play, just play, first, first pour the wine, fill it up!" As he spoke, he stood up staggeringly, and poured a large bowl of wine for each of them. .

At this time, the man who suggested to play "five-on-seven" said: "Okay, okay, I will call, call one, brother, call two, and then call in turn. Who, who loses, who drinks, drinks, Don’t pretend, just pretend.”

As he spoke, he yelled "one" loudly.Then, the man in the long gown called out "two".Going down in sequence, the men shouted "three", "four", "five", and "six" one by one.When he came to the seventh man, the man just hit the table with his chopsticks.The man who shouted "one" before shouted "eight".It turns out that this kind of game means that you can't call seven and numbers that can be divided by seven.When this number is reached, the person who should shout cannot make a sound, but can only tap the table with chopsticks, once for numbers less than ten, twice for numbers less than twenty... If you shout or knock wrong, you will be fined to drink.As a result, almost every man drank a few more bowls.Because either the previous person knocked on the wrong table, or the next person called out the previous number.After playing and making noise like this, I drank for a long time, and the jar of wine bottomed out again.At this time, the men turned red-eyed, pushed the bowl away, and stopped drinking.But just as they stood up and were about to leave, each of them collapsed under the table involuntarily as if they had a cramp.After a while, he snored loudly, as if he died.

Seeing this, the housekeeper hurriedly reported to Lan Hongen: "Master, what do you think? I said that they would get drunk if they were so poor and hungry. Wouldn't they be as drunk as mud?"

Lan Hongen also seemed to have something stuck in his heart, so he said angrily: "I'm so drunk, what's the use of asking me? Send some servants to drag them to the empty room under the watchtower and let them sleep!" Wait until you wake up, and tell them to go out again?"

The butler listened, so he couldn't say anything more.Sure enough, he sent a few strong servants and dragged them one by one to the empty room under the watchtower.

The men sleep well this time.The sun went down, and they were still snoring loudly.

Lan Mansion's longevity lanterns were lit again, and the men continued to sleep soundly.

The butler panicked, and he didn't dare to ask the master again, so he had to bring two servants to the room, and shook them, shaking them while shouting: "Hey, wake up! Wake up!"

After shaking for a long time, the men woke up one by one.But they all yawned and muttered sleepily, "What, it's dawn?"

The butler said: "It's still daylight? It's getting late, spare master hurry up, don't miss out on making money"

A man looked outside, came back to his senses, and said, "The lights are all on, where should we go?"

The butler said straightly: "To tell you the truth, we never keep strangers in our master's house!"

After hearing this, the men said in one voice, "Can't we make an exception? Are you afraid that we will rob the master?"

"Yes, the first time you are born again, the second time you are acquainted!"

The man in the long gown stopped everyone at this moment, and said: "Since the master has rules, we will not embarrass the butler! Besides, the master entertained us to eat and drink, it is considered affectionate and righteous, let's go." The butler asked where there was an inn.

The butler said: "Where is the inn in this country? Go out and walk along the main road. It only takes two or three miles to reach Liujiangchang. There are many inns there."

The man in the long gown thanked the butler and walked out with the men.When they came to the yard, the butler was about to pick up their things. The man in the long gown looked at the living room and the yard, and there were still many guests who hadn't left.Some are playing cards, and some are chatting around.The man said to everyone: "Hey, we ate and drank the master's, so we can't just leave like this?"

The butler hurriedly said, "What else?"

The man continued to say to the crowd: "Let's also do a favor and perform two shows for the guests."

After hearing this, all the men shouted in unison: "Yes! The master is sympathetic, we can't be unrighteous, brother, let's speak!"

After hearing this, the butler only wanted this group of people to leave as soon as possible, so he said with a smirk: "We accept the wishes of the masters, so we should leave early."

The "leader" in long gown heard this, and said with some displeasure: "My lord, we don't use guns or sticks. What are you worried about?"

As he spoke, he looked at the Eight Immortals table that had been seated at noon in the courtyard, and said to everyone, "How about we play a 'Nine Towers'?"

Everyone shouted: "Okay! Let's see the big brother show his hand." As they said, they went to move the table one after another.

They first placed a sturdy table on the ground smoothly.The second table is then turned upside down, on all fours, with the top resting on the top of the first table.Then put the four feet of the third table on the bottom four feet of the second table top.Just stack up like this, a total of nine floors were stacked, and eighteen tables were used, which is called "nine floors".When the guests saw the "nine-story platform" set up here, they were very happy and surrounded them one after another.Dacui told the old lady when he entered Houguo.The old lady is a lively person, and today there was a happy event, and when she heard about it, she was overjoyed, and hurried to call Ning, then Chrysanthemum, and walked out of the back garden together.

(End of this chapter)