Chapter 585. Guest Residence (1/2)
When she saw the jade pearl rice, Yu Xiaocao suddenly had the desire to make onigiri. Inside the cooked rice, she added dried meat, crispy melon, ham and some nuts to it. The combination, when chewed, felt very tasty and rich. For Su Ran, this was the first time he had eaten something so novel and he ended up accidentally eating too much. Thus, he had to walk around the vicinity later to aid in digestion.
Zhu Junyang also thought this method of eating was quite interesting and tasty. In the future, the army could add on ready-made onigiri as another type of ration to their supplies. Onigiri contained both rice and other ingredients. As long as you heated them up a bit, they could fill the stomach and they also tasted quite good!
After traveling for another day, they finally arrived at a tiny village at the foot of the wild and flourishing mountain. The word ‘tiny’ truly wasn’t an exaggeration. The village only had around seven to eight families in it, and they were all hunting families. In the winter, wild and vicious beasts often came down to attack the villages around the mountain. Thus, right before it was about to snow for the first time, the villagers would all move about fifty kilometers away to live in town. When spring came again, only then would they come back to their village and begin their planting.
Spring was the season for all of the animals to breed and flourish. Thus, the hunters all had an unspoken rule to not hunt animals that had babies with them, were young, or those that were heavily injured. The fall was the busy season for the hunters. At this time of year, all of the prey was plump and numerous, with glossy fur and high-quality meat. Furthermore, the animals moved around quite a bit at this time so it was more convenient to encounter them on a hunt.
Yu Xiaocao and the others arrived at this somewhat shabby-looking small village. Inside the village, there were only the old, young, and women left behind. All of their adult men had gone into the mountain to hunt. Although the hunters only dared to hunt on the outskirts of the mountain, the forest in that area stretched for hundreds of kilometers. Thus, the men only came back to the village once every ten to fourteen days.
When the elderly and women in the village saw the group of people with their large horses, splendid clothing and imposing demeanors, they knew that they weren’t ordinary folks. Even their bodyguards and maidservants were dressed in such a way that showed that their masters had an extraordinary rank. Thus, these villagers only dared to watch them from afar and even made sure to keep their children and grandchildren close by, in order to avoid inadvertently offending these noble personages and bringing disaster upon themselves.
Although the elderly and women had curiosity written on their faces, there was no sign of timidity among them. After all, these were all the families of tough hunters. Even the women and elders were able to pick up weapons and fight when needed.
Out of the entire group, Yu Xiaocao looked the most harmless. Thus, she volunteered herself to negotiate with one of the villagers to use their home as a temporary resting place for them. She headed towards the largest residence that was in the village and had a bright and warm smile on her face. She spoke genially towards the elder and child who stood in front of the doors and said, “Old Grandfather, it’s nice to meet you! We’re merely passing through the area and it’s getting dark. We would like to rest at your gracious abode. Do you think we'd be able to?”
The old man’s hair and beard had gone completely white with age but his body was still strong and hale. His back was straight and his complexion was ruddy with health. There was a scar running across his forehead that he had most likely gotten from a hunting injury in his youth, but it didn’t make him look scary. The young boy next to him looked to be around ten years old and also looked quite strong. The boy held a hunting knife in his hand and had a wary look on his face.
The old man observed her minutely. He saw that the young maiden in front of him had bright and pure eyes with a brilliant smile on her face. He returned a genial smile and said, “You all are here to hunt, right? I won’t hide it from you. Every year, our village will get a few noble guests like yourselves who are here to tour the mountains and hunt game. If you noble folks don’t mind our crude situations, then please stay here ah!”
“Grandfather!” The little boy didn’t seem to welcome them at all as the expression on his face showed that he rejected them. It would be hard to blame him. After all, not everyone was easy to get along with. Generally, the more noble and highly-ranked the people were, the more issues they had. Last time, when they had housed some noble young maidens and masters, those people regarded everything around them with obvious disdain. They even claimed that the food that was served to them was only fit to feed pigs!
The people in front of them looked a lot more difficult to get along with than their past guests, especially that man who was dressed entirely in black riding on a black horse. That man had an expression on his face as if everyone owed him a couple hundred taels and his eyes were like knives. He didn’t even dare to meet that person’s eyes! As for the man dressed entirely in white, although he had a smile on his face, the smile didn’t reach his eyes, so he clearly wasn’t someone to tussle with either. Out of the six people in this group, only the young older sister in front of him seemed easy to communicate with. His grandfather was already of an advanced age and his mother was sick in bed. He truly didn’t want to serve these people and end up not even getting a word of gratitude back!
The old man lowered his head to look at his young grandson and rubbed his head. These noble folks had headed towards their residence as soon as they entered the village. If they refused them without a good reason, wouldn't that end up offending them to their detriment? That being said, he had lived for many years and had a good eye for people. Instinctually, he could tell that this group of people weren’t the type to throw around their wealth and rank for no reason or bully the common people.
“Honored, noble guests, please head inside!” He commanded his young grandson, “Take these guests and their horses to the stable in the back of the residence. Make sure their animals get some fodder and water…”
“There’s no need to trouble this young fellow. Just tell me the general direction of the building. We brought along fodder for our animals!” Yu Xiaocao wanted to minimize the amount of trouble they caused for these people, so she tactfully refused the old man’s good intentions.
The little boy sneered slightly and muttered quietly, “What do you mean by ‘troubling us’? You may have brought your own fodder along but did you also bring your own water too?”
“Xiaohu!” The old man reprimanded his grandson and smiled apologetically at Xiaocao and the others. When he saw that they didn’t look angry, it confirmed his initial impressions of the group.