Li Chengjing was usually unreliable, but this time he kept his word. After the Qianqiu Festival, the governors from various places returned to their garrisons, leaving only Li Qishen. The house he lived in was handled by Li Taoqi. There was no time to build a new palace, so he used an empty house left by the previous dynasty. During the renovation period, Li Qishen still lived in the post house.
Living in the post house did not prevent him from going out, and Xie Wangzhi would of course accompany him to play as usual. In addition, in addition to Princess Changning and Cui Shi, who he had known since early years, Li Qishen took this opportunity to make friends widely, including serious and upright men who were determined to make progress, as well as playboys like Chu Er and Jiang San. Apart from other things, he was able to get along well with people who had nothing to do with him, which was also his ability.
By the beginning of August, the house was renovated and located in Anxingfang, not far from the residence of Cui Shi's branch. This made it convenient for Cui Shi to come over when he had nothing to do, and Meiqiu could always sneak into Cui's house to catch a koi.
Meiqiu lived like a wild cat. It was like this in Daming Palace. No flower, bird, fish or insect in any palace had not been attacked by its poisonous claws. Li Qishen could not control it. But Cui Shi came to collect debts every now and then. Li Qishen was annoyed. He found a free afternoon, grabbed Meiqiu, asked the chef in the mansion to cut fish sashimi, and put a whole plate in front of Meiqiu.
This is the scene Cui Shi saw when he arrived. In the courtyard full of flowers and leaves, a man in a round-necked robe moved a Hu bed and sat down, with a plate of freshly cut fish sashimi and a pitch-black cat in front of him. The man held the cat with one hand and pushed the cat's head into the plate. The black cat swung its tail and smacked its lips in grievance.
Li Qishen has good hearing. He looked up when he heard footsteps and asked, "What's up?"
“… It’s okay.” Normally, this scene would be hilarious and Cui Shi would have laughed at it long ago, but today he looked indifferent and sat down at the table, as if he didn’t see anything.
He didn't say anything, and Li Qishen didn't ask. He loosened his hand that was holding the coal ball and let it eat by itself: "Do you like my yard?"
"Not bad." Cui Shi looked around and then returned his gaze to the table. "Fish sashimi?"
"Yes. Cut another plate?"
Cui Shi thought about it and shook his head: "Forget it."
There was no more talking. The courtyard was silent, with only the rustling of the wind through the grass and the sound of a black cat chewing softly.
Li Qishen is very good with coal balls. For both plates of fish sashimi, only the belly of the fish is used. This is the most delicious and fat part of the fish. Steaming it would damage the original flavor, so the best way is to cut it freshly. When eating it raw, you don’t even need to use freshly ground wasabi paste.
The dish that Meiqiu ate had no seasoning, but the dish on the table had an additional plate with finely ground wasabi, and the fish sashimi itself was seasoned with lemongrass flowers and golden orange shreds. The fish sashimi seasoned with these two ingredients is called "golden sashimi and jade sashimi". The spices are light, only covering the fishy smell but not the fishy aroma. You can taste the fat in the fish belly like cheese, and if you taste it carefully, you can also taste the fragrance of lemongrass and golden orange.
This is the way most people eat fish sashimi in Chang'an city, but there are few good chefs. Li Qishen's dish is obviously very well prepared, and the fish belly he chose is also a rare delicacy. It reflects slightly in the sun, and the texture of the fat and meat is clearly visible.
Cui Shi stared at the fish sashimi and was silent for a moment: "Is this what you are eating?"
"no."
“… for cats to eat?” Cui Shi was surprised.
"Yes." Li Qishen said indifferently, "But it seems to hate the taste of orange silk and refuses to eat it."
Cui Shi swallowed and looked up at her husband across the stone table: "You, are you using golden minced meat and jade fish to feed a cat?"
"No?" Li Qishen still spoke in a nonchalant tone.
Cui Shi looked at the fish sashimi on the table, then looked at Li Qishen, and gritted his teeth.
He was not very good at hiding things, and Li Qishen knew it at a glance, but he didn't care. He just said, "If you want to fight, I'll accompany you. But before you fight, think about what you are angry about."
Cui Shi stared at Li Qishen, his teeth clenched, his canine teeth trembling slightly, as if they were about to grind against each other. He had a romantic look, with the corners of his eyes slightly raised, which made him look a bit frivolous, but with his teeth clenched like this and his eyes red, he actually looked like a wild bull filled with extreme resentment.
Li Qishen was not at all panicked. He fed the cat while looking back casually.
The two sides faced each other across the stone table. After a while, Cui Shi suddenly relaxed his strength and said, "Did you know that there is a severe drought in the south of the Yangtze River this year?"
"Know."
"The one who went to provide disaster relief was Fanzhi. He just came back a couple of days ago and told me about it."
Cui Shi mentioned Ye Jian, who was a representative of a serious young man of his age. He did not rely on the influence of the Ye family in Chang'an, but became an official through the imperial examination. There was a severe drought in the south of the Yangtze River for two months, and the victims were displaced. When people are hungry, they can do anything. It can be seen that he was courageous to go there.
Li Qishen was not familiar with Ye Jian, but he admired her: "What did he say?"
"… There was a severe drought in the south of the Yangtze River. Rice and grain were cut off. All the fish and shrimp died. The river water was turbid and could not be drunk. When the drought reached its peak, all I could see was dead grass that could not be eaten. The ground was cracked. All the edible things had been eaten up. The bark of the trees had been stripped clean." Cui Shi lowered his head, his expression gloomy. "The victims had nowhere to go. There were many starving people on the road. Some even ate dirt because they were extremely hungry. The dirt was originally used to make porcelain. It was inedible and would only bloat the stomach. If the dirt could not be excreted, the person would suffocate to death. Even so, there were many starving people fighting for the dirt to eat."
He paused, "Fan Zhi said that some victims fought to death over the clay. He wanted to stop them and asked them if they knew that the clay could not be excreted after entering the stomach, and that if they ate it, they would suffocate to death."
Li Qishen was silent for a moment, and probably guessed how the victims would answer, but he still asked: "How would the victims answer?"
“… If I don’t eat the dirt, I’ll starve to death; if I eat the dirt,” Cui Shi closed his eyes, “it’s good to live a little longer.”
Li Qishen didn't answer.
Jiangnan is a land of fish and rice. There are many poems and essays praising the scenery of Jiangnan and talking about how rich it is, with a vast pond of a hundred miles and people picking lotus and water chestnuts. But no one would have expected a severe drought to bring it to this tragic state today.
"After eating up all the bark and soil, what's left is..." Cui Shi raised his head slowly and continued, "that's a human being."
"What?" Li Qishen, "Trading your children for food?"
"More than that. There is no need to exchange children for food. The place where Fan Zhi went was still okay. In the more severely affected areas, there were groups of people waiting beside the starving people, just waiting to share the food after they starved to death." Cui Shi said, "There are also vegetable people."
"Vegetable man?"
"Three thousand coins for an adult woman. The person must be killed alive. Cut off the two arms first, then hang the person up and cut the meat slice by slice. The person is still alive and bloody. Put the meat slices into the pot first and cook them for the money-spending person to eat." Cui Shi raised his head suddenly, "A living person, only three thousand coins, three thousand! Is this a business, is this murder? This is Lingchi... It's Lingchi!"
At this point, he suddenly became excited and stared at the calm young man in front of him. Cui Shi was born sentimental, and he also played with a pen. The few words he heard from Ye Jian were far less tragic than the local situation in Jiangnan, but they were enough to make his eyes red and tears fall in strings.
"Even in this situation, the relief money and grain are still being extorted at every level. In Jiangnan, a bowl of thin porridge is mixed with half a bowl of sand and gravel! The people of Quzhou are cannibalistic. When Fan Zhi arrived, the governor actually openly asked Fan Zhi if he wanted to share the relief money and grain!"
Having said this, Cui Shi finally broke down.
He was born in the Qinghe Cui family, the most prominent family of the time. He grew up in Chang'an for the first twenty years and saw nothing but prosperity. When he heard what Ye Jian described, he tossed and turned as if on fire. The drought in the south of the Yangtze River had reached such an extent, but the aristocratic families in Chang'an seemed to be unaware of it. Banquets were held like flowing water. Freshly sliced fish and freshly slaughtered lambs were not touched at all and thrown out as they were, stinking in the soil and attracting swarms of flies.
At the same time, in Jiangnan, three thousand coins could be used to kill a person alive and eat his flesh. The victims scrambled for a piece of clay just to survive for a day or two. If they waited any longer, when it snowed in winter, there would be countless frozen corpses outside Chang'an.
He glanced at the golden and delicious fish on the table for feeding the cats, and suddenly fell on the table, his shoulders shaking. He sobbed restrainedly at first, and then broke down and cried. The suppressed crying sound lingered in the empty courtyard, making people feel creepy at first, and then heartbroken.
"Prince, Prince... cannibalism." His voice trembled, "What about me? What about you?"
"Yeah, what about you, and what about me?" Li Qishen was very calm.
When Cui Shi was young, he would be moved no matter how cold-hearted he was, and he might even pat his study partner on the shoulder, but he wouldn't do that now. The situation was like this, and crying was the most useless thing to do. He said in a light tone, "You came to me and got angry over this plate of fish sashimi, is this why you came to me?"
Cui Shi was stunned and looked up: "I..."
"It's easy to lose your temper with me, even if you throw fish sashimi at my face. But even if you did, even if I didn't let the chef fillet the fish, could the fish reach the hands of the disaster victims?" Li Qishen didn't give him a chance to continue, "You demolished this palace, but can the wood from the demolition reach the hands of the disaster victims?"
“…No.” Cui Shi murmured.
"Yes, we can't. We are in such a predicament that we can't do anything." Li Qishen said, "I have read the records of previous years. The weather in Jiangnan has a predictable trend. There is plum rain in May and June, followed by summer drought, rain in August and September, and then more sunny days. There has been no rainfall this year, so there is a severe drought. In fact, there were signs of this in the past two years. I am afraid that the drought will be even more serious in the future."
He looked at Cui Shi and said, "It is normal for the money and grain for disaster relief to be extorted, but what can we do? Even if the building is about to collapse and the wind and rain are raging, you and I are trapped in Chang'an City, what else can we do?"
“… I’m sorry.” Cui Shi was silent for a long time, then wiped his face. “I was impulsive. What’s the point of crying and wailing?”
Li Qishen bent down and touched a handful of coal briquettes: "Why not think about what we can do if the time comes?"
Cui Shi didn't react to what he meant by "at that time" when a figure walked towards the open courtyard door.
Li Qishen had nothing to hide, so the door was always open during the day, and Xie Wangzhi had permission, so he could come in directly without reporting. She didn't hear what the two had said before, but she always felt that the atmosphere in the yard was weird, and she couldn't help but look at Cui Shi a few more times.
Cui Shi's tears were still on his face. Xie Wangzhi looked at Li Qishen who looked calm and was a little confused: "... Oh, is my dear crying? Did you run into any trouble? Why are you so sad?"
"I..." Cui Shi couldn't tell the truth. He held it in for a while and then burst into tears. "I... I'm hungry."
Xie Wangzhi: “…”
The author has something to say: There will be another update tonight! The premise is that I don’t mumble, if I do… just ignore what I said_(:3)∠)_