The Kingdom That Never Sleeps CH 026 Thinking Of Sir Part 2
Tang Shen asked: "Doctor Liu, what disease did you diagnose him with?"
"It seems to be poisoning. It must be due to consuming something bad. I prescribed some medicine for him and after taking it as usual, he should be fine in two days. I don't know the details but there are many reasons for vomiting due to consuming something. Who knows what he ate?"
Tang Shen: "I know what he ate."
Everyone was stunned.
Tang Shen: "Yao San, go get the bill."
Yao San: "Okay!”
Yao San turned around and walked into Xixia Tower, and took a thick stack of paper from the shopkeeper. “Little boss, the guests who ate at Xixia Tower at noon yesterday and the food they ate are all recorded here."
The woman was shocked, and even Zhao Si, who was lying on the ground and rolling around, was stunned.
Who would have thought that Xixia Tower did everything unconventionally. In the entire Gusu City, even in the entire Song Dynasty, no restaurant would record all the dishes eaten by its customers in a book!
Tang Shen flipped through the papers and pulled out one: "February 19, 3:00 noon, dark face, short body, and a brown birthmark on the left cheek. This must be you, Zhao Si."
Onlookers said: "Yes, Zhao Si has a brown birthmark on the left side of his face."
Tang Shen: "Okay, since this is you, it proves that you have indeed come to my Xixia Tower to eat."
Shrewish woman: "Then what else can you say!"
Tang Shen: "Wait until I finish. What you had for lunch yesterday was a plate of mutton slices, a plate of bamboo shoots, a plate of cabbage… and a plate of sprouts. Tell me, which of what you ate caused you a stomachache."
Zhao Si: "How do I remember? Anyway, it was from eating your food."
"Oh, your wife just said that you felt something was wrong as soon as you ate it, but now you can't remember it?"
Zhao Si was stunned and said quickly: "The sprouts, the last plate of sprouts! When that plate of sprouts was brought to the table, I felt something was wrong. The roots were all rotten. But I was thinking about how a restaurant as big as Xixia Tower could not sell bad food, so I ate it boldly.”
Woman: "Everyone has heard it. Even fools know not to eat rotten sprouts. My husband ate it, of course he ended up vomiting like this!"
Sprouts, also known as bean sprouts. As we all know, you could not eat the rotten roots of sprouts, as eating it would cause food poisoning.
Tang Shen: "Yao San, please count for me the people who ate in our Xixia Tower with Zhao Si at the same time and also ate sprouts. Find them all. I want to see how they are doing now. Do they also have food poisoning?"
Yao San immediately found two people from the bill. These two people were sitting at the table next to Zhao Si and also ordered a plate of sprouts. One of them happened to be in the shop next door at that moment. He was called over by Yao San, and had a surprised look on his face: "I did eat sprouts, but the plate of sprouts I ate was not rotten."
Tang Shen: "Zhao Si, is it possible that I, Xixia Tower, only targeted you and only gave you rotten sprouts?"
Zhao Si got up from the ground and said: "Who knows if you only have one plate of sprouts that is rotten? Don't deny it!"
Tang Shen laughed loudly: "Okay, I can't prove the other things you said, but you dare to say that you were poisoned by eating my plate of sprouts. Yao San, go to the kitchen and get a chicken. Everyone present, if you have rotten sprouts, I, Tang Shen, will buy it from you for ten taels of silver."
"I have it at home!"
The chicken and the rotten sprouts were all brought over. Tang Shen didn't blink and directly fed the whole plate of sprouts to the chicken.
In full view of everyone, the chicken began to vomit.
Zhao Si said proudly: "Yes, I had the same symptoms yesterday, and I still have to vomit from time to time today!"
Tang Shen: "Such big talk! Zhao Si, do you know how long this chicken can live?"
"Ah?”
"I, Tang Shen, will make a bet with you today. If this chicken can live for more than one month, I will pay you one hundred taels of silver. If it does not live for more than one month, and you Zhao Si survives, Zhao Si, do you dare to kowtow a hundred times in front of Xixia Tower to clear my name?"
Sprouts, also known as bean sprouts.
Rotten bean sprouts would produce aflatoxin, which was the same as moldy peanuts and soybeans. It was a highly toxic substance even more toxic than arsenic.
Tang Shen didn't believe it. Someone could eat a whole plate of bad bean sprouts and still not die!
Tang Shen's expression was stern, and Zhao Si was so frightened that his eyes widened. He wanted to bet with Tang Shen, but Tang Shen's confident look made him dare not say a word. His mouth opened and closed again, Zhao Si had nothing to say. His shrewish wife was also frightened by Tang Shen, but she said bravely: "Who, who wants to bet with you! Maybe my husband remembered it wrong. Yes, what he ate was not sprouts. It's the bamboo shoots, that plate of bamboo shoots was bad.”
Tang Shen: “You first say sprouts and now you say bamboo shoots. Okay, Yao San, find the guests who ate bamboo shoots at the same time as Zhao Si that day. Zhao Si, I will go to court with you today to find Magistrate Jia! First of all, you slandered my name, saying that you have eaten something from my Xixia Tower and got sick to your stomach. I, Tang Shen, am a distinguished xiucai with honors. You, A commoner, want to go to court with me, but you are confused and unclear. You will be beaten ten times with a board as soon as you go!”
Zhao Si was so frightened that he sat down on the ground.
Tang Shen: "Brother Yao, pick him up and let's go find Magistrate Jia."
The onlookers also saw at this time that Zhao Si and his wife were clearly here to cause trouble.
"Let's go find Magistrate Jia."
"Let's all go together, we want to see Magistrate Jia administer justice."
When Zhao Si’s wife saw this, she couldn’t help but run away. Zhao Si was weak and was easily captured. Seeing that Tang Shen was about to turn him in to the county government office, he said loudly: "It was the shopkeeper Wang of Ruyi Tower who hired me. Boss Tang, please spare me. Ten hits with the board can take half my life!"
Ruyi Tower was on Suijin Street, half a street away from Xixia Tower. Shopkeeper Wang was standing in the crowd watching the excitement. When Tang Shen said that he would send Zhao Si to the county government office, he turned around and wanted to sneak away. Suddenly hearing this, his expression changed drastically, and he turned around and said, "You hooligan, why are you making false accusations against me!"
"Shopkeeper Wang, you can't burn bridges after crossing the river. It was you who asked me to find a way to slander Xixia Tower and shut it down."
"You, you, you… you are full of slander!"
Tang Shen: "Shopkeeper Wang, is he a slanderer? Let's go together and find Magistrate Jia and listen to what he has to say!"
Shopkeeper Wang opened his eyes wide and was dumbfounded.
A farce came to an end like this. Zhao Si received ten hits by the big board, but Shopkeeper Wang insisted he did not instigate Zhao Si. He refused to admit it, and Magistrate Jia could do nothing to him. However, before he returned to Ruyi Tower that day, he was kicked out by the owner of Ruyi Tower: “You incompetent failure!"
Shopkeeper Wang hugged his baggage and slunk away in shame.
This farce troubled Tang Shen for two whole days. The owner of Ruyi Tower came to the door in person, gave him gifts and apologized, and only then was it settled.
Yao San looked at the gifts on the table and said: “Little boss, this Landlord Wu is quite kind and has compensated us a lot. It was obviously the shopkeeper Wang who ordered it, and he himself doesn't admit it. He is really not a thing."
"Was it really instigated by Shopkeeper Wang?"
Yao San: "Huh?"
Tang Shen stood by the window of the second floor of Xixia Tower. He leaned against the window sill and looked at the few small gifts on the table calmly. Scented soap and Golden Wisp, hey, they were both from the Zhenbao Pavilion!
"Brother Yao, do you really think that a mere Shopkeeper Wang dares to do this by himself? The real mastermind behind this is none other than Landlord Wu."
"What! Damn it, we even accepted his things. I have to throw them all back to him."
"Why bother."
"Little boss?”
Tang Shen turned around and looked at the bustling Suijin Street. As the sun sets, the vendors on Suijin Street have set up lights. The people on this long street will never change themselves because of the death of one person. Just like the entire Gusu City, don't even mention Liang Song, even if the emperor dies, they will still live their lives.
"In the past two years, I have been making soap, scented soap, and brewing Golden Wisp. I have been doing logistics and making hot pot. Many people in Gusu City are jealous of my business, but they have never touched me. Soap is sold by Zhenbao Pavilion. But Tang’s Logistics and Xixia Tower belong to me alone.”
"When sir was alive, they didn't dare to make it difficult for me."
"When sir left, they swarmed over like hungry wolves."
"Sir has actually helped me so much while I never noticed."
Yao San looked at Tang Shen's back and said, "Little boss..."
In the setting sun, Tang Shen's back looked extremely thin. He never turned around, but said lightly: "Brother Yao, only today do I know that sir has truly left."
"Little boss?"
"Sir, has truly left..."
Sobbing suddenly sounded. Even with a soul of more than 20 years old, Tang Shen felt like a large piece of his heart had been dug out, empty and soundless, and he couldn't bear it. He cried loudly and desperately, knowing that there was no way to save the situation, and he was powerless to save it.
He suddenly realized that the person who had treated him best, most sincerely, and most dearly in the past two years.
Had truly gone.
At night, Tang Shen, wrapped in a fur coat, went home with Yao San.
Just after returning home, he saw a person in the courtyard who shouldn't be there.
Tang Shen was stunned for a moment, then stepped forward and said, "Yu Zhi."
Xu Hui looked at Tang Shen's red eyes and said subconsciously: "Did you cry?"
During the seven days of Liang Song's funeral, Tang Shen cried the least among them. Xu Hui thought that he was introverted by nature, or that his feelings for Liang Song were not that deep. After all, the two only had a teacher-student relationship for less than two years.
Tang Shen did not hide anything: "I thought that of sir, and I felt sorrow."
Xu Hui was silent for a while.
Tang Shen said: "I thought you had gone to another place to apply for a post. Didn't you serve as a county magistrate? Why didn't you take up the post?"
Xu Hui: "I was going to leave yesterday. When I was packing up daren's belongings, I found a book. I have never seen this book before. It should be on the customs and sentiments of the Gusu people collected by daren. There was only one time when I didn't travel with daren. He was with you that time. Do you know whose book this is?"
Tang Shen took the book and looked at it: "It was indeed borrowed from Shazhou County with my teacher before the county exam. I had already copied this book, but I didn't expect that sir would borrow it anyway."
Xu Hui: "I want to return this book to its original owner. Do you know how to get there?"
Tang Shen gave a rough description.
Xu Hui frowned: "I have never been to Shazhou County. When you describe it like this, I am confused. Tang Shen, do you have time these days? If you are free tomorrow, can you go to Shazhou County with me? Let’s return it to its original owner together.”
Tang Shen: "Okay."