Arriving at Forty Seventh Street in the deep night, the door of the Old Brush House was pushed open by someone, then quickly closed. Inside the dim light like stars flashed once and then was again extinguished.
Ning Que took off the heavy weapons from his back, ripping off the covering cloth of the big black umbrella, then removed the heavily drenched outer shirt, handing it over to Sang Sang standing in front of him, and normally he asked, “Hungry, are the noodles cooked yet?”
Sang Sang gave the dry towel in her hands to him, and heavily nodding her head, she happily said, “I’ll bring it over for you.”
A bowl of steaming hot noodle soup was carried over, still with four hot peppers, and chopped onions but a lot more than usual. Spread out on top of the noodles were two golden yellow white eggs that were even more rare. Cutting people down was indeed more tiring than hoeing fields – Ning Que this time was soaked all over, and within his stomach was even more hungry grumbling. How could he resist the temptation of extra green onions and eggs? Immediately in a glance, putting down the slightly wet towel, he picked up chopsticks, and rapidly he ate it in big bites, seemingly extremely sweetly.
Sang Sang happily watched him eating, on her little face’s dark cheeks was a happy expression. Picking up that slightly wet towel, standing behind him she began to wipe his hair; from time to time, reminding that if it’s too hot to not eat too fast.
At this time, inside of the dim shop echoed with the sounds of two coughs. All along no one paying him heed, it seemed that the usually invisible ChangAn City Boss, watched this pair of master and servant chatting as though they didn’t see him, and finally he couldn’t help but to speak up, “The noodles are very fragrant.”
A few hours ago, when Chao XiaoShu came to the Old Brush House the first thing he said were also these words.
Sang Sang continued to rub Ning Que’s hair, acting as though she hadn’t seen anyone, and hadn’t heard these words. But Ning Que’s reaction earlier was a bit different, with his head low eating noodle soup he indistinctly said, “Also give him a bowl.”
With a little work, a second bowl of soup noodles was brought over, and Chao XiaoShu glanced in the four directions, and discovered that besides a circular chair, there was nothing else to sit on. But he didn’t care, and just at Ning Que’s side he squatted down, holding chopsticks and eating several bites, but discovered that his own noodles seemed to be a bit unlike the noodles in Ning Que’s bowl.
The standard four peppers, thirty sliced green onions, but no fried eggs.
He couldn’t help but to use his chopsticks to lightly tap on Ning Que’s bowl’s rim as a reminder. Ning Que used his peripheral vision, and nearly laughing out loud, he turned his head to Sang Sang and persuasively said, “Don’t be so stingy, fry another egg.”
The fried egg finally came, and Ning Que and Chao XiaoShu grasping the “sea” bowls like little pots happily ate noodles. Sang Sang squatted not far from the two people, putting that shirt into a copper basin and roasting, and in the shop no one spoke.
Without knowing how much time had passed, Ning Que put down the bowl of noodles in his hand, and comfortably looked backward, rubbing his small drum of a belly. He looked at Chao XiaoShu squatting next to him and said, “I killed over five people. Give me a new amount……don’t be stingy, I even had Sang Sang fry an egg for you.”
Chao XiaoShu carrying the noodle bowl looked at him and bitterly smiled, saying, “So here you’ve been waiting for me, two thousand two hundred.”
“Deal.” Ning Que seemed as though he did things as he pleased, but he was a little bit excited. As he was squatting next to Sang Sang roasting the shirt in the copper basin, he even more tightly held a little fist, secretly wondering just how big of a pile two thousand two hundred silver coins was.
Sang Sang was about to go wash dishes, and Chao XiaoShu reluctantly passed over a little less than half of the bowl of remaining noodle soup, then his brow slightly scrunched. Slowly lifting up his sleeves to cover up his lips, when he put down the sleeves, there were already more stains of blood.
Ning Que saw his sleeves, and knew that in the repeated battles before, this extremely powerful middle-aged man had after all still suffered heavy injuries. After a period of silence he asked, “Are you okay?”
Chao XiaoShu received a bowl of coarse tea that Sang Sang brought over. With a thanking slight smile, after drinking a gulp he calmly said, “No need to worry. Since I was young I grew up in East City’s poor streets. In this lifetime I don’t know how many battles I’ve fought, and taken how many injuries worse than this one, each time fighting and seeing my whole body covered in blood, when thinking that I would ever be able to get up again, I always could get up and give them a mortal blow.”
Ning Que mocking himself said, “A ruffian that only knows how to fight and brawl can unexpectedly cultivate, and so formidably. My heart is so fixed on the path of cultivation, but I can’t even touch the first boundary. Lord Hao Tian is truly blind.”
Chao XiaoShu smiled, and didn’t continue this topic. The gang leader, immersed his whole life in the underworld of ChangAn City’s JiangHu, in the end was able to become a Great Sword Master at the top level of the Mysterious Cavern realm. Within that, he had a few chances, but those chances weren’t worth mentioning.
“You said before, after tonight your cards will be flipped over.”
Ning Que’s gaze went through the wooden door of the shop, falling onto a distant corner of the palace, and said, “Right now I can roughly guess that your card is the Palace. With such deep backing, no wonder you don’t have to care about ChangAn’s government’s face.”
“After tonight roughly the whole Empire’s people will envy me, because behind me stands that kind of a person.” Chao XiaoShu calmly said, “But no one will know what price I paid.”
“Doing work in place of nobles, what does that need you to pay?” Ning Que asked.
Chao XiaoShu shed a smile, saying, “If these years I wasn’t being bothered by vulgar things, if that person in the Palace occasionally gets an idea, I then have to handle countless trivial and small matters, or else I would’ve long already broken through Mysterious Cavern, and stepped into the Fateseeker realm.”
“Just that?” Ning Que continued to question.
Chao XiaoShu unknowingly thought of something, falling into a long period of silence, his smile becoming a bit thin, and slowly he said, “It also needs you to pay in blood. Doing things requires attention to the overall situation, so sometimes you can’t be happy. Because of needing to force out all of the opponent’s cards, it needed me to bear it for several months, so that I couldn’t even protect my own brothers.”
Hearing these words, Ning Que’s right hand slightly tightened, knowing that this was mentioning Xiao Hei, but he didn’t take it, and didn’t speak of the relationship between him and Xiao Hei. Lowering his head he asked, “How did your brother die?”
“My brother was called Zhuo Er. He was a spy. The Army had him concealed at my side, to have him investigate me to see if I had any collusions with the Yue Lun Kingdom. In fact, they only wanted to excuse to act against Spring Wind Pavilion, even perhaps directly framing me.”
“But brothers are brothers after all, he told me everything about the inside story, and naturally wouldn’t investigate me for the Army and even less, frame me as per military orders. And because he was a soldier of my Tang Dynasty, he also couldn’t betray a secret of a department of the same uniform, so these few months, he was pressed by both sides in extreme suffering.”
Chao XiaoShu’s eyes slightly dropped, and said, “Now thinking of it, even if it angered that person in the Palace, I should have told him the truth earlier, that sooner or later he will die. At the very least in that short amount of time it wouldn’t be so painful.”
Ning Que willingly asked, “But you still haven’t said how he died.”
“Spying is the most dangerous type of work. When he hadn’t fallen to either side yet, at any moment he could possibly die, and once he decided to go with one side, he could even more likely hasten death. That day when he finally decided to tell me the Army’s plan, the Army became aware of the results, and so they cleaned up, and he died at the property across from here.”
Chao XiaoShu gazed toward the shop’s wooden door, gazing towards that gray wall that couldn’t be seen.
After a period of silence, Ning Que asked, “The one who did it was that swordsman from South Jin from earlier?”
“Yes.” Chao XiaoShu turned back and looked at the youth’s young face. With a slight smile he said, “From now on we are brothers.”
Ning Que’s brow slightly jumped, smiling he replied, “Isn’t this a bit too careless?”
Chao XiaoShu smiled and stood up, then said, “One whole life, two brothers. This kind of thing has always been that simple.”
“One whole life, isn’t more than two bowls of fried egg and noodles.”
Ning Que shook his head smiling and said, “This word ‘brother’ is a bit too common. Also I know of those famous brothers, if they weren’t among those people that fortunately died first, then these brothers in the end will all become enemies. Tonight I just wanted to help you, and earn a bit of money. Can you not be so banal, looking for some other meaning from livelihood?”
Chao XiaoShu’s brow slowly scrunched up, with great interest sizing up Ning Que. A bit unexpectedly hearing this kind of reply, he asked, “While you are so young, but the world in your eyes is so dark…..now I’m really curious about your past, in the future if you’re interested in telling me, please remember you absolutely must call me. The tea is on me.”
Ning Que responded saying, “I already don’t want to remember those things, much less act as a storyteller for other people to listen.”
Chao XiaoShu smiled saying, “Alright, then besides fried egg and noodles, what do you believe is the true meaning of life?”
“Life’s meaning of course is career and love, or that is to say money and women. I know you feel that this sentence is very clever, and feel that I’m clever, but is it possible for you to not smile so enigmatically?”
Ning Que helplessly shook his head. In order to make this ChangAn City big shot understand what is called meaning, his finger indicated to Sang Sang who barely walked past asking, “Do you think that one girl recruited into Red Sleeves is suitable to be your family’s lady of the house?”
Sang Sang took her small hand and wiped it on her apron. Afterwards she knitted her eyebrows very seriously thinking for quite a while, only then cautiously and solemnly she said, “I think that the girl sitting on second seat of your left hand side stands out very well.”
“That is Miss Lu Xue.” Ning Que thought of that girl’s soft waist. Smiling he questioned closely, “Why do you feel this girl is very suitable to act as my wife?”
Sang Sang opened her eyes, that pair of willow-leaf eyes, and seriously answered saying, “Make-up on her face is applied thinly and evenly. Her smile feels very clean with neat white teeth, looking at them I feel she is very healthy. And I have secretly looked at her waist and butt, in the future she should be very good for rearing children.”
Ning Que turned his head, to look towards Chao XiaoShu proudly smiling.
Chao XiaoShu looked at the small dimple on his left cheek, staring blankly he thought, Everyday guarding a shop, and discussing with your own underage maid over which prostitute is suitable to bear children and is suitable to act as his own wife, could it be that this is life’s meaning?
All of a sudden he began thinking of leaving the Old Brush House to rely on the small maid in front of the shop’s doorway, thinking of after returning back to Old Brush House the two bowls of hot steaming fried egg noodles, thinking of before when he was forgotten in a corner by himself, thinking that between this pair of master and servant the two naturally wouldn’t let other people insert feelings, gradually he understood a little something. Smiling he said, “In the first place, the meaning of life is to keep on living.”
Ning Que shook his head and smiled while saying, “Forget it, these words are too sour.”
Chao XiaoShu looked at the youth’s expression, and knew that he also didn’t understand what he was saying, naturally he also couldn’t bring into the open those things. Standing up to leave he walked to the doorway, turning his head he smiled saying, “I should go. Tomorrow night ChangAn City still has very many matters that need to be dealt with. Someone will come here tomorrow to give you silver, afterwards he will also take you to go to a place.”
Once he heard the last few words of this sentence, a bit of an alert expression appeared on Ning Que’s face. He didn’t ask what kind of place, and rather directly asked about the core of the matter. “Is it possible to not go?”
Chao XiaoShu pushed open the store’s wooden doors, and neatly and cleanly said, “Impossible.” …… ……