Eagle Shooting Hero 2(84)
Guo Jing grew up on the steppes, and as a result, not only he had never seen these kinds of treasures, he had never even heard of them. He thought, “People spent so much effort to collect these objects. What were they going to do with them?”
While she spoke, Huang Rong continued to grope around in the chest. Her hand touched a piece of hard board and she knew there must be another layer underneath it. She moved the jewelry aside and saw rings attached to the board, so she inserted her little fingers inside the rings and lifted the board up. Beneath it were a bunch of greenish bronze colored antiques. Her father had shown her illustrations of some antique bronze ware. She recognized them to be an imperial culture tripod
[long wen ding], an article from the Shang Dynasty (16th to 11th century BC) [shang yi], a plate from Zhou Dynasty (1027BC) [zhou pan], another article from Zhou Dynasty [zhou dun], tableware from Zhou Dynasty [zhou ju lei] and so on. In the end she had to admit she did not know much detail about the articles. If the pearls and jades were considered treasures worth a fortune, then these bronze antiques were priceless.
The more Huang Rong looked at them, the more she marveled. She lifted another board beneath the antiques and discovered rolls and rolls of paintings. She asked for Guo Jing’s help and together they unrolled the paintings one by one. She was shocked! The first painting was Wu Daozi’s ‘Send off a child heavenward’ [song zi tian wang tu]. The next painting was Han Ganhua’s ‘Herding horses’
[mu ma tu] and the other was the Southern Tang Dynasty’s Li Houzhu’s ‘Crossing the forest spring’
[lin quan du zhui ren wu]. Altogether there were more than twenty scrolls and every single one of them had originated from the brush of a famous artist. Several scrolls were calligraphy and paintings by Huizong, while several others were by contemporary artists. Each one of them was of the most exquisite and highest quality. Among them were examples of the imperial court’s artist Liang Kai’s unique two-rolls splashing ink characters, with very vivid images. Some of it reminded her of Zhou Botong.
Huang Rong had only looked at about half of them but did not feel like continuing, so she returned everything to the chest, closed the lid and sat on top of it, hugging her knees. She thought, “Father has amassed all kinds of treasures during his life, but the value of his collection might only be one tenth of the contents of this chest. How did Martial Brother Qu have the ability to obtain so many rare and priceless treasures?” No matter how hard she racked her brain she could not think of a good explanation.
When Huang Rong was thinking hard, Guo Jing never dared disturb her train of thought. He stayed quiet until he heard Zhou Botong calling from outside, “Hey! Get out of there quickly! We need to visit the old emperor’s house for some minced ‘Five-Treasures Mandarin Duck’!”
“Tonight?” Guo Jing asked.
Hong Qigong replied, “The sooner the better. I am afraid I can’t hold on much longer.”
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“Master, don’t listen to the Old Urchin speaking a lot of nonsense,” Huang Rong said, “We can’t go tonight. We will enter the city gate tomorrow in the early morning. If the Old Urchin gets anymore weird ideas, we won’t let him come to the palace with us.”
“Humph!” Zhou Botong snorted, “Once again I am to blame.” He sulked and refused to talk.
That night the four slept on the straw beds laid-out on the floor. Early the next morning Huang Rong and Guo Jing prepared some breakfast and the four, plus Sha Gu, ate together. Huang Rong turned the iron bowl, closed the cabinet wall and put all chipped bowls and broken utensils back inside the cabinet. Sha Gu was indifferent to what was going on around her as she held the handle of the sword in her hand and played with it.
Huang Rong took a small ingot of silver [yuan bao] from her pocket and gave it to her. Sha Gu took it and casually tossed in on the table. “If you are hungry you can use it to buy rice and meat,” Huang Rong said. It was hard to say if Sha Gu understood, since she only giggled foolishly.
Huang Rong felt sadness creeping into her heart knowing that this girl must have some relationship with Qu Lingfeng. If she wasn’t a member of his family, then she must be his disciple. Her six or seven stances of ‘Jade-Green Waves Palm technique’ [bi bo zhang fa] definitely came from Qu Lingfeng, even though she had only roughly learned it. What Huang Rong did not know was whether she had been retarded since birth, or did she have a horrifying experience which shocked and damaged her mind. She wanted to find more information about her in the village, but Zhou Botong kept urging them to move onward. Therefore the four, with their cart, went straight through and entered the city of Lin’an.
Lin’an was, at this time, the world’s most bustling city. When the Song government moved south, it was established as the new capital. All kinds of people converged on the city and it continued to flourish.
The four entered the city via the east gate and went straight to the ‘Beautiful Portal Gate’ [li cheng men] of the Imperial Palace. Hong Qigong remained inside the cart while Zhou Botong and the others looked around. They saw golden nails in the scarlet doors, painted beams, engraved railings and copper tiles covering the roof. There were sculptures of flying dragons and phoenixes, all magnificent in their splendor dazzling their eyes.
“Interesting!” Zhou Botong called out loudly as he took a step to enter.
The palace guards stationed in front of the gate had noticed these three people, one old and two young, with a mule cart making noises in front of the Imperial Palace gate. Four guards with axes in their hands had already stepped forward with menacing looks on their faces.
Zhou Botong loved creating a disturbance very much. Watching the guards with their distinctive armor, tall and powerfully built, he was itching to have an interesting fight.
“Go quickly!” Huang Rong called out.
Zhou Botong stared at her. “What are you afraid of? Do you think these babies can eat the Old Urchin?” he asked.
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Huang Rong quickly said, “Jing ge ge, let’s go and play someplace else. Since the Old Urchin is not listening, we’ll just ignore him.” She flicked her whip and the cart sped along to the west. Guo Jing followed behind. Zhou Botong was afraid he would get left behind while they went someplace more interesting, so he ignored the guards and ran to catch up. The guards thought they were simple villagers looking around the city, so they laughed loudly and did not pursue them. Huang Rong drove the cart to a deserted place. Seeing that nobody chased them, they stopped.
“Why didn’t we break into the palace? Could those wine bags and rice sacks [the guards] stop us?”
Zhou Botong asked.
“Certainly breaking in is not difficult, but let me ask you…are we here to fight or to go to the kitchen and steal some food?” Huang Rong said, “If you break in, the palace will be in chaos. Do you think the chef will quietly make some ‘Five-Treasures Mandarin Duck’ for Master to eat?”
“Fighting and capturing people is the guards’ business and it has nothing to do with the chef,” Zhou Botong reasoned. Actually, what he said did make some sense and Huang Rong was momentarily at a loss, but she was not willing to yield to him, so she argued, “The imperial chef can both prepare food and capture people.”
Zhou Botong stared at her but did not know how to respond. A long while later he conceded, “Fine, let’s just consider I was wrong.”
“What do you mean ‘consider’? You were wrong right from the start,” Huang Rong said.
“Fine, fine,” Zhou Botong said, “Don’t consider anything…don’t consider anything.” Turning his head to Guo Jing he said, “Brother, all the women in the world are very ferocious. That’s why the Old Urchin said don’t take a wife.”
Huang Rong laughed, “Jing ge ge is a good man, so other women won’t be ferocious towards him.”
“Are you saying I am not a good man?” Zhou Botong asked.
Huang Rong smiled, “Are you? You don’t want to take a wife and other people don’t like the way you handle things. You only create trouble and disturbances. Tell me, why don’t you want to take a wife?”
Zhou Botong leaned his head to one side to think, unable to answer. His face turned red, and then pale and it seemed like his mind was full of anxiety. Huang Rong had very seldom seen him this serious, and was astonished.
“Let’s find an inn to stay in. We’ll come back to the palace tonight,” Guo Jing said.
“That’s a good idea!” Huang Rong agreed, “Master, as soon as we find an inn, I am going to prepare a couple of simple dishes as your appetizers and we will have a feast later on tonight.”
Hong Qigong was delighted and he cheered repeatedly.
The four stayed at the Jin Hua inn on the street west of the Imperial Palace. True to her word, Huang Rong prepared three dishes and a soup for Hong Qigong. The aroma spread around the inn causing the guests to ask the innkeeper which famous chef had cooked this fine cuisine.
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Zhou Botong was still mad at Huang Rong’s words hinting that he could not find a wife, so he sulked and refused to eat. The three of them knew his childish behavior. They only laughed and did not pay any attention to him.