The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, Chapter 46: The Three People Happy New Year

The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty. 《成化十四年》Chengnian Shisi Nian
The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, Chapter 46: The Three People Happy New Year

Tang Fan can't remember how long it's been since he's had a full New Year.

Ever since his parents died early and his sister married far away, he hadn't paid much attention to this day. In the capital, being an official alone, the annual festivities were even colder, and he was used to being alone in the house, watching the fire.

In fact, when A-Dong was busy posting spring felicitations and making fruit, the long-lost memories that had been hidden in the depths of his memory came back to haunt him.

Although A-Dong was small, she was a girl who had a good hand in dressing up and was very careful about what she wanted to do. She was the only one who did everything in and out of the house.

As the Shuntian Prefecture was being closed down, the Northern Administrative Court was getting busier and busier, and Sui Zhou came home early and late every day, while Tang Fan was the only one who came home early to help.

A-Dong pushed him out of the way with disdain: "Brother, don't make a mess, go write a couplet, and don't forget to cut out the red letters and write a fortune on each house."

Tang Fan laughed, "I wrote it, I wrote it, I posted it all, my sister is not as long-winded as you!"

He leaned on the pillar and watched A-Dong go in and out, warming his heart: "Shall I help you boil some water? Or do you want me to help you clean the pillar? The pillar is so high you can't clean it, so I have to do it."

A-Dong was wiping the chair and gave him a blank stare in disgust: "As long as you don't wait until you're done and don't know where to put the rag, I'll thank God!

Tang Fan was happy and not angry: "I found it later, didn't I? In the meantime, A-Dong, why do I think you've been working a lot harder these days, and you're not even that active in eating anymore, do you want to save me food?

A-Dong spat out his tongue, "No, it was the other day that Brother Sui said something about me."

Tang Fan was surprised: "Said what about you, why didn't I know?"

A-Dong laughed: "It's no big deal. It means you're working hard in the courtroom, so I don't have to be greedy and neglect you."

Tang Fan didn't expect Sui Zhou to remember this, apparently because he was sitting on the threshold of the backyard and got sick that day, so he would say A-Dong in private.

But he also knew that A-Dong didn't really forget to cook for him because he was so busy that he went home and slept through the whole time.

Hearing A-Dong say this, he felt that he had let little A-Dong down: "I'll talk to your brother Sui some other time."

"No need!" A-Dong is still smiling, "I know that Sui would only talk about me if he thought of me as a sister, but he wouldn't even bother to talk about me if it wasn't related to you! Even though I'm young, I know who's nice to me, like the Li Family Madam,. A-Chun, my sisters, they're all nice to me, and I'm taking them all to heart!"

Tang Fan joked: "Then who's bad for you?"

A-Dong shook her head: "Forget it! I was sold into the Li Family as a slave, and those who sold me treated me badly, but now I've forgotten what they looked like. Brother, didn't you say that you have to remember the kindness and not hatred so that you can be happy every day!"

Tang Fan laughed: "Yes! I'm so happy to be a big brother, you remember everything I said, look at your heartlessness, I thought you just thought about eating every day!

A-Dong gave him another blank stare: "Eat is the most important thing, and everything else is the second most important, which is what you taught."

Tang Fan choked and rolled his eyes: "When did I ever teach you something like that, that's not going to make you an idiot?"

A-Dong laughed: "Yeah, you are!"




Tang Fan scowled, "Well, it's getting out of hand!"

They're used to bickering and bickering and A-Dong's not afraid of him and he makes a face and wipes up his chair.

But in the midst of all the hustle and bustle, the New Year had arrived without knowing it.

It's the first day of the first month, and the officials' holidays begin on that day and run until the fifth day of the first month, five days in all, and one has to ask.

One has to ask, "My God, is this a short holiday at the end of the year?”

No, not really. There's a 10-day Lantern Festival starting on New Year's Eve, which is the biggest holiday of the year.

But if there's a national disaster, the Lantern Festival will be canceled, and the emperor's excuse is so grand: how can people still be in the mood for a holiday when they're all displaced? At a time like this, not only the officials' holidays will be canceled, but also the Lantern Festival, which was supposed to be held in the capital, will also be canceled.

Fortunately, this year has been quiet, and there have been some problems, but they've subsided, and they haven't continued into the New Year, so there's no need to cancel the holidays.

The most important thing now is that in the north, when Wang Zhi left the capital, a group of Tartars raided the Datong area, and the government army rushed to the front.

Although the New Year's Day holiday was only the first day of the year, the government offices had been closed since the day before New Year's Eve. Although they had to work on New Year's Eve, they were almost half empty.

Before it was dark, there were no more pedestrians on the road than usual, and everyone was rushing back for New Year's Eve dinner, but the silence wasn't like the cold, lonely silence of the night, and the smell of the food and the laughter of the children was much more lively than usual, and even the sound of firecrackers was far away.

It's spring again.

The people had been working hard all year, and all they wanted to do was to sit down to a New Year's Eve meal, and to have two more plates of fish on the table would have been the greatest reward of the year.

In this small courtyard in the north of the city, there is a new addition A-Dong and Tang Fan had no need to spend the New Year alone.

Even though Sui Zhou had moved out, he still had to go back for the reunion dinner at his parents' house. He had invited Tang Fan and the two of them to eat together, but Tang Fan had declined, saying that he and A-Dong had not spent the New Year together.

Since he said so, Sui Zhou naturally didn't force him to go to the Sui Family to have the reunion dinner, while Tang Fan and A-Dong stayed behind.

At first, Tang Fan accepted A-Dong as a girl only because of A-Dong's plea. At that time, Tang Fan couldn't bear to see A-Dong bouncing around other people, so he broke her contract and took her as a sister so that she could have someone to rely on in the future.

Of course, if A-Dong had a bad temperament, or if she couldn't get along with him, Tang Fan would at most return the deed to her, or find her a family to live with, and would never take her with him.

But since he got an A-Dong, Tang Fan really doesn't have to do anything, even for the New Year's Eve dinner, because he helped to cut the dishes and was kicked out of the kitchen by a little girl who teased him that he was "born rich." Tang Da-ren had to stand aside to help serve the dishes and the bowls, but now he's surrounded by a little girl, but he's still warm and happy.

By the time it was dark, the table was full of dishes.

Tang Fan, there were only two of them and Sui Zhou wasn't coming back to eat, but there were only four dishes and one dessert.

But because the Tang Family brothers and sisters are all eaters, and under Tang Da-ren's influence, A-Dong's cooking skills have improved a lot, and he has learned to make different kinds of dishes, so the four dishes, one soup, two meat, and two vegetables, are much more sophisticated than ordinary people.

One of the meat dishes is pearl dumplings made from chicken breast, which can be eaten with sesame sauce, the sweetest and most delicious.

Tang Da-ren's honey-roasted leg of lamb with A-Dong's honey sauce, which she had learned from Sui Zhou, was also very good. She herself said that the heat control was not as good as Sui Zhou's, but Tang Fan had never eaten Sui Zhou's, and the A-Dong was very good on its own.

There are two other vegetarian dishes.

One is a vegetarian goose, where you wrap boiled yam, glutinous rice, asparagus, mushrooms, etc. in the skin of a rotten bamboo stick, and fry the whole thing in a pan of oil.

The task is simple, A-Dong is busy, so she leaves it to Tang Fan. The others would just fold it in three pieces, and then they did it all over again, but Tang Da-ren had to think of something else to make the word "New Year", but he couldn't do it well, and it was so messy that A-Dong gave him a lecture, and it became the messiest dish in the New Year's Eve dinner.

The other dish was stir-fried gluten, but unlike other people's dishes, it was stir-fried with chicken broth, asparagus, and mushrooms, and all three aromas seeped into the gluten, and the dish was complete.

The main course is a chicken soup congee simmered with chicken stock and ham. A whole chicken is brought back, the breast meat is brought out by A-Dong to make pearl gnocchi, and the rest is put into the soup for two hours. Although there was only rice in the soup, there was no chicken, but the essence was actually in the chicken soup, the aroma of the chicken soup was faint in the white, sticky congee, there was a hint of minced ham in the congee, it's sweet in the mouth, the aroma lingers on the cheeks.

After the meal, there was also a fruit and melon dessert with A-Dong's preserved oranges.

It's an exceptionally sumptuous meal for two people.

Tang Fan looked at the table and exclaimed, "I haven't had a full New Year's Eve meal in years!"

A-Dong wondered, "How many years?"

Tang Fan thought about it and said, "It must have been at least seven or eight years. My parents died when I was thirteen, I was a scholar at fourteen, and my eldest sister married me when I was fifteen, so I left home to travel.I passed the imperial examinations, I got a scholarship, then I became an official in the capital, that's a total of seven or eight years ago, I still remember when I visited my sister, my nephew was still stumbling over his words, it's time he was to start studying, I don't know if he will remember me!"

A-Dong exclaimed, "Then won't I get to be a doting auntie?"

Tang Fan laughed, "Yes, yes, my sister has a child three years after her marriage, and this year she is five years younger than you, but a generation younger than you, but he's a generation below you when he grows up, he won't be happy having you lord over him!"

A-Dong was happy for a moment and worried for a moment, "But I'm not from a good family, will it humiliate him if he calls me auntie?"




Tang Fan patted her on the head, "You know what humiliation means at your young age? Don't use nonsense words! Now that you're surnamed Tang, that's us, the Tang Family, when you're free to return to the countryside to pay your respects, I'll add your name to the family tree. Whether a man is noble or not depends not on his origin, but on his heart, whether he's a founding emperor or a monk, he's no taller than you, and he's not inferior to you, and now he's on his knees and worshiped by all the people. If you are a woman, don't learn to feel sorry for yourself."

A-Dong nodded incomprehensibly and asked, "Brother, you taught me to read and write, but I'm stupid, how can I not learn, will not embarrass us the Tang Family, big sister is not a good reader?"

A-Dong nodded incomprehensibly and asked, "Brother, you taught me to read and write, but I'm stupid, how can I not learn so I will not embarrass us the Tang Family, big sister is not a good reader?"

Tang Fan said with a smile, "Yes, your eldest sister was a talented girl when she was a young girl, but I didn't ask you to study so that you could write poems and paintings like your eldest sister, but so that you could understand what it means to be a human being, it doesn't take much learning, and when you understand the legendary words, you will be a teacher."

Tang Da-ren wanted to say I don't know how to teach a girl, but I'm not afraid that she'll have a hard time learning from a legendary book.

But Tang Fan said, "The truths that teach people to do away with evil and be good are similar to those found in the sages' books, not necessarily in the books.

A-Dong asked happily, "Okay, so if I have time, can I learn kung fu from Sui?"

Tang Fan was surprised: "You want to learn kung fu?"

A-Dong nodded: "I've been stronger than others since I was a child, and Brother Sui said I have good roots and am good for kung fu, and that it'll be too late in another two years when I learn kung fu. When I pick acacia leaves from trees and do cold cleaning, don't try to steal from me again!

People say that after learning kung fu if you want to go to high places, you'll have to report to the emperor's family to get a martial arts scholarship, and then you'll go to the sands to kill the enemies, even if A-Dong is a woman she could says she wants to protect her body, but in the end, she's a foodie.

On the contrary, Tang Fan was so happy that she said, "Good, then we'll plant two fruit trees in the yard and leave the harvest to you!"

A-Dong was salivating, "Why don't you plant some pear and date trees to make a lot of snacks? I'll make glutinous rice stew with pear and date paste cake.

Tang Fan grinned, "Okay, okay!"

The two of them were so happy that they couldn't stay in the same house.

After the two of them had finished their dinner and cleared the chopsticks, it was time to start the custom of celebrating the New Year.

It's not uncommon for people to sleep early at night, but there are exceptions... on New Year's Eve, the whole family has to stay up until midnight... a custom that has been passed down from ancient times and has never changed.

But the night is long and the children can set off fireworks and Da-ren has to come up with many tricks to polish the time.

Now the family only has Tang Fan and A-Dong and Tang Fan doesn’t want to spend the night sleeping.

So Tang Fan got a vase and some bamboo sticks, and they played a game of throwing a pot, betting on who would hit more than one round in five, and the loser would have to stand at the door and bark three times.

Tang Fan, who was still a child, played with A-Dong with great enthusiasm.

After one round, he noticed something was wrong and asked, "How come you're so good at it, you're so talented?"

A-Dong bewildered answered: "What's a Gifted(Talented) Cake? I still haven’t eaten that!"

Tang Fan: "... I think your daily reading task could be a little heavier. Does that mean you're born this good at throwing a pot?"

A-Dong said: "No, it was me who pestered Brother Sui to teach me kung fu and then he gave me a small bow and told me to shoot at the leaves every day. He said when he could shoot at the leaves, I barely passed."

Tang Fan: "Did you shoot the leaves then?"

A-Dong said, "I'm sorry, but it's only one or two times out of ten, and it's all done in the dark."

Tang Fan: "... I think it was a mistake from the time I offered to match you in the pot."

A-Dong blinked, "Big brother, you want to renege?"

Tang Fan said, "Not bad, but can we talk about it and call off the bet?"




A-Dong, who normally looks confused, is quite sly at the key moment, and said: "No, brother, you said that a man should be a man of his word, a promise of gold!"

Tang Fan patted her on the head: "Usually I don't see you so bright in school, but now you're talking about allusions! The three rounds are not over yet, it's hard to say who will win or lose!"

He was aroused to be competitive, nah, sports talent is also a talent, no, Tang Da-ren can be strong if he wants to be strong, it's no use trying to fight for your life, he still lost in the first round, two wins in three sets, he made up his own rules, now he's got the bitter end of the stick.

A-Dong, hey, hey, laugh: "Brother, you're a loser!"

Tang Fan naturally did not want a little girl to look down on him, he thought, anyway, there is no one outside on the night of the big night, open the door and shout twice, what is the matter, others heard it, just as if it is another family's dog barking, then did not move and said: "willing to gamble and concede defeat is natural, your brother is a man of his word, when have you ever repented so good character, you have to learn!"

His Lao Wang's self-aggrandizement was only rewarded with an A-Dong face, and the little girls followed him, just to watch him make fun of himself.

Tang Fan opened the door and hung two red lanterns in the doorway, which gave him a little more light, and he looked happy.

He shouted, "Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!"

Before the last cry, there was one more person who almost scared Tang Da-ren to death.

Then he realized it was Sui Zhou.

Tang Fan: "..."

Sui Zhou: "..."

Tang Da-ren felt humiliated and embarrassed like he did at his grandmother's house.

Tang Fan, the villain, complained: "How come you're here without even a footstep sound!"

Sui Zhou said helplessly, "I've never walked without making a sound, why are you standing in front of the door learning how to bark!

A-Dong's snicker came from behind Tang Fan's old face: "You lost the bet!"

Sui Zhou nodded and gave a whoosh, "What's playing?"

"Throw the pot." Tang Fan blurted out, and suddenly snapped back: "How come you're back so early, aren't you going to be there tonight?"

The two men walked backward and forwards, and Sui Zhou said, "No."

He didn't explain much, but Tang Fan was smart enough to know that he must have suffered some kind of embarrassment at home, so he came back after dinner and didn't ask any more questions, just laughed and said, "It's good to be back.

A-Dong made a face at him: "Yeah, so you picked the hardest pitcher and lost!"

"Bold girl!" Tang Fan made a grimace and pretended to hit her with her hand, and the little girl immediately laughed and jumped away: "I'm going to make you some water and tea tonight.

As Sui Zhou watched the two of them play, a smile appeared on his face, thinking that it was good to be back, because he didn't say anything, and he felt happy just watching.

If Tang Fan found the first year of New Year's Eve after the family's death interesting, so did Sui Zhou, so did A-Dong.

All three of them have different experiences, but they've come together by chance.

It's said that ten years is a long time to live under the same roof, but at least fifty years is a long time to live under the same roof.

With Sui Zhou joining us, the game of chess and cards became more interesting, and Tang Fan didn't have to kill all four parties to win, lose, and laugh.

As midnight approached, the sound of firecrackers was becoming more and more frequent, not only to welcome the new year but also to renew the old, so many people would set off firecrackers after midnight and put them up before midnight to signify the renewal of the old.

Tang Fan, of course, bought firecrackers, and Sui Zhou went out and set off fireworks in the courtyard. The sound of firecrackers was so loud that they were heard in the alley.

After setting off the firecrackers and fireworks, A-Dong went to the kitchen to make the dumplings.

The dumplings were wrapped from a long time ago, with no distinction made between the pork and cabbage filling and the vegetarian filling. The white, tender dumplings rose and fell in the boiling water and were brought back to the plate.

The dumplings on the plate ranged from the best-looking dumplings to the most delicate dumplings, which had been boiled, some of which had broken their skins, and the filling had been exposed, which was unbearable.

Tang Da-ren was also cheeky and laughed, "Well, I guess it's the stuffing that wants to see who's eating it, so he ran out!"

Sui Zhou and A-Dong looked at him together, and although they didn't say anything, they said, "What a shame!

Tang Da-ren looked away and took one, dipped it in vinegar and served it to his mouth, boasting, "It's delicious.

It's a new level of cheekiness.

The other two had nothing to say but to eat their dumplings.

A-Dong spat out a coin out of her mouth with a laugh.

Tang Fan laughed and said, "If you are lucky to eat a coin, you will be lucky in the coming year!"

A-Dong wiped the coins clean and put them on the table.

After a while, Sui Zhou also got a coin.

Tang Fan and A-Dong also said congratulations as usual.

After a while, Tang Fan also ate it himself.

They repeated it several times.

In the end, A-Dong was not happy anymore and said, "Brother, how many coins did you put on the table?"

Thirty dumplings in a plate, and the three of us, minus the ones whose skin that had been broken in the first place, they ate almost thirteen coins.

The dumplings had been filled with coins for good intentions, but now they were backed up and almost broke their teeth every once in a while.

Tang Fan and Sui Zhou were more careful, but A-Dong almost broke a tooth.

The ungrateful Tang Da-ren looked at her like that and laughed: "I never got any coins when I was a kid, so I'll put more now so I don't miss it.”

A-Dong, of course, didn't want to let it go, and the two of them got into a fight again, until Sui Zhou came back from packing the dishes, and the little girl finally got a little sleepy, and he rubbed his eyes, but he was satisfied as he had never been before.

"Brother, do you think we can live like this every year from now on?" The little girl sat next to Tang Fan, waiting for midnight to come.

"What do you say, Gangchuan?" Tang Fan rubbed his head and looked up to ask Sui Zhou who had just walked through the door.




"Hmm." General Sui Baihu answered only briefly but with certainty.


- The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty -



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