Chapter 70: What’s Going On Here?
Finally, everyone drew lots to decide who would throw the lantern ball. A fat man drew the bamboo stick. He didn’t dare, so he pulled a person from the road and said he could do it.
I heard this person was a gambling addict.
Yun Ce was very satisfied, Feng An was very satisfied, Liang Kun was very satisfied, and finally, everyone was very satisfied.
When it got dark, snow started falling from the sky. The snow turned into water when it hit the ground. Because of the cold, there were fewer and fewer pedestrians on the streets.
When the snow was falling heavily, even the guards at the An Ran Building entrance shrank into the guardhouse to warm themselves by the fire.
The fat man stuffed a handful of money into the gambling addict’s hands and said viciously, “It’s now.”
Yun Ce leaned over to light the wick inside the lantern ball, closed it properly, handed it to the gambling addict, and kindly said, “Once you’re on the steps, throw it into the hall. As long as it goes in, run fast and don’t come back.”
While speaking, Yun Ce took a handful of money from the communal pile and stuffed it to the gambling addict.
The gambling addict felt the money in his pocket, then looked at the An Ran Building close at hand, held the lantern ball, went up the steps. The guard in the guardhouse shouted and cursed. The gambling addict didn’t retreat but advanced instead. It was only a dozen steps away, reached in an instant. The gambling addict shouted, and under the eager waiting eyes of Yun Ce and the others, he threw the lantern ball into the An Ran Building.
The gambling addict clutched the money in his pocket and turned to run. The guards had just come out of the guardhouse when they heard a “boom” from inside the An Ran Building. A mass of bright yellow flame shot up into the air, instantly climbing to the roof. The bright yellow flames didn’t fall but stuck to the roof and continued to burn fiercely. Occasionally, there were bursts of explosions.
1 A black shadow quickly darted out from the direction of the guesthouse toilet, shook his hand, and a grappling hook hooked onto the eaves of the An Ran Building’s third floor. At the same time, seven or eight more black shadows from all directions were also rushing toward the An Ran Building.
1 Crossbow bolts from the An Ran Building wove together like flying locusts. Some black shadows were hit by arrows, while others luckily climbed up and quickly drilled into the An Ran Building.
1 Yun Ce’s eyes suddenly contracted because he saw Zhang Min’s figure suddenly appear on the fourth floor.
1 While everyone was stunned by the lively scene in front of them, Feng An and Liang Kun had already disappeared. Yun Ce saw that those five guys were mesmerized by the spectacle and didn’t greet them before leaving.
1 Before leaving, Yun Ce glanced at the flames on the first floor. These were special insect flames used by Yun Ce. He had spent quite some time in Hekou Village to find a few parasitic insects, boiled them down to get just this little amount, and now it was all wasted today.
1 Originally, he had planned to take advantage of the chaos to check the exam questions. Now, with Zhang Min there, there was no doubt this goal couldn’t be achieved. However, burning this building and forcing the government officials to make new questions was also good.
1 Back at the guesthouse, Feng An threw a pile of money on the bed and said to Yun Ce, “You went to all this trouble just to get these thirty-five taels of gold?”
1 E Ji happily collected the gold. Hearing Feng An say this, she chimed in, “You were overjoyed with a thousand coppers a month, and now you even look down on thirty-five taels of gold.”
1 Yun Ce wiped his face with the hot towel An Ji brought over and said, “Do more things that benefit yourself, do more things that benefit most people. Many times, don’t just look at the pure result. Sometimes, waiting for the flowers to bloom is the most beautiful.
1 Heaven knows what kind of flowers the seeds you plant will bloom into.”
2 Liang Kun thought for a moment and said, “Will the An Ran Building be burned down?”
2 Yun Ce recalled the characteristics of the insect oil, which couldn’t be extinguished by water, nodded and said, “It will definitely be burned down. With the An Ran Building burned down, this event will surely become a landmark event in the Great Han exam industry. It can also expose many people’s arrangements. If lucky, it might even uncover some dark secrets in the Great Han exam industry.
2 Overall, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.”
2 Liang Kun said again, “You also took advantage of our sit-in protest and our beating. In the end, these all turned into the collapse of the An Ran Building.”
2 Feng An sighed and said, “The three of us have already gotten recommendations for the Grand Competition, so the burning of the building has nothing to do with us three, right?”
2 Yun Ce smiled and said, “Wash up and sleep. A simple event might produce many new changes. I just don’t know if they’ll be good or bad.”
2 Feng An looked up to the sky and sighed, “I already foresee that my life will surely be incredibly exciting.”
2 Liang Kun smiled and said, “And certainly incredibly difficult.”
2 After speaking, he turned to E Ji, who had just finished collecting the gold, and said, “Young Lord E, a thousand coppers is too little.”
2 E Ji hugged her gold and went back to the bedroom without looking back, saying, “It’s not little.”
3 When Yun Ce woke up the next day, it was still dark. However, when the weather was cold, the nights here would correspondingly shorten. This made Yun Ce suspect that what controlled the four seasons of this planet was the distance between the full moon and the planet, not the sun that was always red and hanging in the sky.
3 This discovery was hard to understand. After all, the sun was the heat source, while the moon was just a passive receiver that reflected the heat to the planet.
3 Or rather, the heat from the sun on this planet was constant, and adjusting the seasons required relying on the extra heat reflected by the full moon?
3 Being able to think upon opening his eyes every day made Yun Ce happy. Back on Earth, he was too lazy to think. As long as Yun Linchuan was around, his thinking was useless anyway.
3 E Ji beside him was still sleeping, sleeping with her whole body hot and sweaty, with strands of hair sticking to her forehead. She really looked like Lin Qingxia in her girlhood. Yun Ce pulled a strand of hair from the corner of her mouth, and she pursed her lips and continued sleeping.
3 The movement of Yun Ce getting out of bed startled E Ji. When she opened her dewy eyes like a little deer’s, Lin Qingxia’s appearance immediately disappeared, and she became E Ji again.
3 “Sleep a bit more.” E Ji’s sleepy appearance was very beautiful.
3 “You continue sleeping. I’m going to see if the caravan brought any new things.”
3 “Why go every day?”
3 “Because there are new discoveries every day. As a human, I should care about mulberry and hemp, value millet and beans, see off carriages and horses to the distance, and watch the distant birds return.”
4 “Well said. You go, I’ll continue sleeping.”
4 Yun Ce originally saw E Ji looking delicate and radiant and wanted to kiss her, but she turned over, pointing her buttocks at him. Although equally white and beautiful, he decided not to kiss.
4 When he picked up the basket and went out, frost was falling from the sky again. There was a thin layer of frost on the stone slabs, and he was the first to touch it.
4 After seriously leaving the first footprint on the stone slab, he didn’t care if the subsequent footprints were complete.
4 Coming early, the caravans’ stalls were just being set up. Yun Ce started looking from the first stall. This was a stall specializing in beans. These beans were not quite like the beans Yun Ce found in the wasteland, but they were all very large. There was even a kind of bean shaped like a little baby, with full eyebrows and eyes, round and plump. Yun Ce bought ten jin, planning to steam them and eat with dipping sauce.
4 There was also a kind of bean that was completely black all over. Pinching open the outer skin, the inside was also black.
4 The shop assistant rarely recommended, “South Bay beans. If you don’t buy this time, you won’t see them next time.”
4 Yun Ce accepted the advice readily and bought all the South Bay beans. The shop assistant said while packing them for him, “Just these ten jin or so. The weather is too cold, many armor fish are all gathered in South Bay sunning themselves, people can’t even get in.”
4 Hearing the shop assistant say this, Yun Ce inexplicably thought of crocodiles, not sure if they were.
4 “Crisp celery, crisp celery.”
5 Yun Ce was attracted by the shop assistant’s hawking. Before he arrived, half a celery-like thing as thick as a person’s arm was shoved to his mouth. Yun Ce took a bite; it was indeed crisp and even sweet. Stir-fried with half-fat piglet meat and garlic-flavored grass, E Ji liked it the most. He decisively bought two stalks. If not for their size, he would have bought more.
5 Passing by the stall selling horse meat, that is, mutton, Yun Ce bought more than half a rack of ribs at once, had the shop assistant chop them into large chunks with bones. If this thing was put into cold water with fresh pine wooden clubs and boiled thoroughly, adding only salt and no other seasonings, it could make a person faint from the freshness.
5 Dragon fish—judging by the name, it wasn’t cheap. A two-foot-long one. Yun Ce offered fifty coppers, but they insisted on eighty. Finally, considering the fish’s mouth was still opening and closing, Yun Ce spent seventy coppers to take it, planning to steam it clear with sky-blue grass when back.
5 Unknowingly, two hours passed while wandering. The horizon was completely bright, though the sun hadn’t risen yet. Last night’s snow had no effect on the ground; the ground qi was still warm, and the snow couldn’t stay.
5 With the sky bright, more people came to the market. Yun Ce put heavy items into the dragon pearl, specially placed the good-looking vegetables and meat in the basket—colorful and extremely pretty.
5 With more people, Yun Ce’s good mood for strolling the market slowly disappeared. He squeezed out of the crowd, planning to go back and cook for those lazy ghosts.
5 In Great Han, there weren’t many things that could give Yun Ce a sense of enjoyment. Cooking happened to be the biggest one. Great Han people lived very roughly; they didn’t even have true refined culture, so naturally, they couldn’t nurture a food culture.
5 On the way back, the frost on the stone slab road was trampled by others’ feet and wheel marks into a messy black. Fortunately, there were still some clean spots at the edges. Yun Ce happily hopped along, and many people took him for a fool.
5 Zhang Min saw Yun Ce hopping and jumping specifically to step on the clean frost patches.
5 A clean youth, showing his good mood with a face full of sunshine.
6 “Liu Chang’an!”
6 Zhang Min stood in front of the ruins of the An Ran Building and called out to Yun Ce.
6 He looked toward the voice and saw Zhang Min smiling. He knew she had seen his silly appearance just now.
6 The originally elegant and serene An Ran Building had collapsed, piled up black and smoking, emitting the unpleasant smell of burnt things.
6 Zhang Min had obviously been busy all night, but she was still as radiant as ever.
6 She carefully looked at the basket hanging on Yun Ce’s arm and smiled, “I want to eat some too.”
6 Yun Ce looked at the pile of ruins and said, “What happened here?”
6 I am a person who goes crazy alone, I like excitement. The more lively my brothers and sisters say it is, the higher my writing passion. Everyone come together to build a new world, new story. By the way, seeking votes, seeking subscription.
