Where Immortals Once Walked

For roast duck, the bird had to be fat; for soy-sauce braised duck, lean; and for salted duck[1], neither too fat nor too lean.

It was said that all the ducks supplied to this place were raised on snails and duckweed, and for the three days before slaughter, they were fed osmanthus blossoms. This way, when the meat was served, it carried the delicate fragrance of the flower.

He Lingchuan had been here a few times. He admitted the duck was delicious, though he could not taste any trace of osmanthus. However, that hardly mattered. If there was a good gimmick, there was style, and with style came class, and with class came a higher price tag.

Besides, in Heishui City, the traditional meats were beef, mutton, chicken, and even dog. Ducks, which thrived in watery regions, had never been common here. Xiangsi Tower had carved out its niche by marketing itself as the duck place of Heishui, and it had won itself quite a devoted following.

When He Lingchuan arrived at Xiangsi Tower this time, Liu Baobao personally ushered him into the innermost private room.

This time of year, the private rooms in Heishui City’s large restaurants were notoriously hard to book, but that was nothing Liu Baobao could not handle.

Zeng Feixiong had yet to arrive, so Liu Baobao peeked out the door. “Is the second young master not coming?”

“He’s only fourteen. He’s not yet allowed to drink!”

Liu Baobao gave a discreet cough. “To tell you the truth, Young Master, I’ve got two other tables of guests here tonight. Er, it’s something my father asked me to arrange before leaving Heishui City...”

It was not that he wanted to slight He Lingchuan, but his other engagements had been set long ago. This visit from Young Master He had come at the last minute.

“No problem,” He Lingchuan said unusually amiably. “I’ll let you go soon enough.”

Before the waiter assigned to their private room arrived, He Lingchuan grabbed the wine pot himself, filled both their cups, and then offered Liu Baobao a toast.

Liu Baobao, flattered, downed it quickly before asking, “What’s got you in such a gracious mood tonight, Young Master?”

“Am I not gracious normally?”

Liu Baobao could only chuckle helplessly.

If this young master ever showed restraint, Liu Baobao would have to look up how to write the words “thick-skinned.”

He Lingchuan waved a hand, dismissing the waiter from the room. “I’ve got something to ask you. Remember a few days ago when my old man met with your old man?”

Liu Baobao nodded.

His father, Liu Yang, was the head of the Liu Family Merchant Guild. Just a few days ago, he had been summoned by Commandery Administrator He. That same evening, he had gone to dine at Hongyan Tower with other political and business heavyweights. When he returned home, his face had been glowing, proof that both host and guests had been well pleased.

“What did they talk about?”

Liu Baobao thought for a moment. “Nothing too pressing. Commandery Administrator He mentioned that the lease on Bailu Logging Grounds was up. The Lin Family, who’d been running it, planned to move on. They hadn’t managed the place well in recent years—too much cutting, too little replanting. So, he asked if we’d be interested in taking over. And, well, of course we would!”

Bailu Logging Grounds was government property, not a private estate. There were plenty of such official ventures—mines, logging grounds, even large tracts of government farmland. Further into the state, such enterprises usually ended up leased to some local official’s brother-in-law. However, He Chunhua always put them out to open tender.

He had long since seen the truth: if left to the government’s own management, efficiency would be as low as it could get, with every crack in the system squeezed for graft. The ledgers produced were little more than piles of rotting old accounts.

There was no need to say anything. This was a fat, lucrative contract, and in the past, the Liu Family Trading House would never have had a chance at it.

“And?”

Although still young, Liu Baobao had grown up learning the business from his father and knew all the ways to deal with officials. “Well, there’s nothing worth hiding. My father’s going to the capital on business, and Commandery Administrator He asked him to carry a message to Du Feng, the Minister Steward of the Court of the Imperial Treasury[2], who’s apparently an old acquaintance of the He Family, and told him to be sure to pay a visit to Du Mansion’s matriarch, Du Feng’s grandmother, and tell her about what happened in the Panlong Desert.”

“The old lady of the Du Family?” He Lingchuan was puzzled. “That’s all?”

“That’s all. Nothing else,” Liu Baobao said, with no interest in why He Lingchuan was asking after his father’s affairs. “It was just that simple.”

The two drank for a while longer before Liu Baobao’s personal maid came to give him a meaningful look.

“Alright, go see to your other guests,” He Lingchuan said, busy gnawing on a duck head. This was another of the house specialties. It was first braised, then roasted. It was perfect with wine, though limited in supply since not everyone cared for duck heads.

He had loved them even back in his other world, and the taste now was steeped in nostalgia.

Liu Baobao smiled and excused himself.

He Lingchuan called for the dishes to be cleared, the table reset with fresh utensils, and poured himself a good cup of wine to sip while he waited.

About fifteen minutes later, Zeng Feixiong arrived.

He began with an apology. There had been a brawl in camp, and he had had to deal with it, hence his lateness.

He Lingchuan did not mind in the least, calling over the waiter to read out the menu and quickly ordering ten dishes.

“That’s more than enough, more than enough,” Zeng Feixiong protested. “Who could eat so much?”

“Liu Baobao’s paying. You feeling sorry for him?” He Lingchuan replied, then ordered two more jars of good wine.

Before long, the dishes came flowing to the table.

Though Zeng Feixiong had received generous rewards for the Panlong City expedition, he was used to frugality. Before the New Year, he would think long and hard before buying even a small piece of pork fat to grease his wok. Now, with a fuller coin pouch, his indulgence amounted to visiting a tavern for a few pots of wine he used to consider too expensive, swapping out his old garlic and peanuts for sauced pig tail or wine-pickled river fish.

Xiangsi Tower was a place that he had long wanted to try, but never dared before.

Out in the desert, the two had been close in age and on the same side, and so they had gotten along easily. Back in Heishui City, the difference in their status reasserted itself, and a subtle distance crept in, though that was easy enough to bridge.

A dozen cups of wine, a few rounds of reminiscing about their adventures in the desert, and most importantly, a good bit of shared cursing over that vicious little bastard Nian Songyu, and the mood in the private room warmed considerably.

By the time Zeng Feixiong had polished off an entire roast duck alongside half a jar of wine, the two were calling each other “brother” and laughing uproariously. If the room had not been soundproofed, their laughter would have reached the floor below.

“Here, try this,” He Lingchuan said, using some chopsticks to drop two prawns into Zeng Feixiong’s bowl.

True to Xiangsi Tower’s obsession with tying every dish back to duck, these prawns had been deep-fried to a perfect crisp, then coated in a crumble of salted duck egg yolk fried in red oil—an intoxicatingly fragrant, sinfully rich creation.

On another day, Zeng Feixiong might have demurred with a polite “please do excuse me, Young Master,” the bare minimum of etiquette. But now his cheeks were flushed red. He simply accepted them and crunched away happily, without a word.

By contrast, He Lingchuan’s head was still perfectly clear.

This body’s prodigious tolerance for alcohol suited him well now. At the very least, it made what he was about to do much easier.

Guiding the conversation from Nian Songyu over to Sun Fuping, the two took turns lambasting the state preceptor’s poisonous schemes, such as how he had intended to sacrifice more than two hundred Heishui City troops as offerings.

With wine to fuel his outrage, Zeng Feixiong’s face flushed even redder, his voice rising. But in the end, he grabbed He Lingchuan’s arm to express his gratitude to him and his father. Without them, he would have been buried in the desert sands, with no chance to return home and care for his aging father.

And so, naturally, He Lingchuan steered the conversation to one matter in particular: Sun Fuping’s final moments.

1. This one is also known as Nanjing salted duck. ☜

2. This was an actual position in the nine courts of the Ming and Han dynasties, and possibly some others. See Wikipedia reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Courts☜