Chapter 17: Conflict at the Reception Banquet
Ye Zheng followed Li Shiqing to the bottom of the mountain, and after telling the people in Niujia Village the news that Deng Sanniang had allowed them to join Feifeng Village, everyone was very happy to hear it, and suddenly they all felt that their hearts were in suspense.
So under the urging of Li Shiqing, everyone in Niujia Village packed up their bags and followed him up the mountain, ready to accept the settlement of the cottage.
Along the way, Ye Zheng kept looking for opportunities to talk to Li Shiqing, and through a conversation with him, he roughly knew some of the basic situation and power structure of Feifeng Village. At present, there are more than 1,300 people in Feifeng Village, including Deng Sanniang, and there are a total of three village owners. The two deputy village masters, one named He Taizhi and the other Tang Jiuhammer, are both strong martial artists.
Under the three village owners, Deng Sanniang divided all the people in the cottage into five branches, each branch has a hall master, and the hall manages more than 200 mountain bandits. The mountain bandits in the first, second and third halls are all composed of some middle-aged men who have been trained and know some martial arts and weapons, and their main responsibility is to follow the owner of the village down the mountain to rob, or rush to transport grain and grass materials, but generally they are specialized in robbing those rich businessmen who are not benevolent to the rich and do evil, or collect some money from passing merchant groups and dart bureaus.
As for the four halls, they are also composed of some middle-aged men who are proficient in riding and archery, but most of the mountain bandits in the four halls are alert, agile, proficient in tracking and arranging traps, their duty is to patrol the mountain and guard the safety of the entire Feifeng Village, to prevent the enemy or officers and soldiers from coming to attack the village.
The remaining five halls, that is, in the entire cottage, are the least valued places, most of the gangs in the five halls are composed of the old and weak women and children in the cottage, in Ye Zheng's words, their responsibilities are a series of logistics work such as chopping wood, cooking, laundry, planting vegetables and environmental sanitation, so although the five halls are also one of the five branches of Feifeng Village, compared to the other four branches, their status is much worse.
After Ye Zheng roughly understood all this, Ye Zheng and the others, under the leadership of Li Shiqing, came to the office of the master of the fifth branch hall in the cottage (in fact, it was a few broken thatched wooden houses).
The hall master of Wutang is a cripple, named Chen Fu, about sixty years old, when he learned from Li Shiqing's mouth that Ye Zheng's gang was a new gang member who joined the cottage, he suddenly sighed secretly......;
Thinking of this, Chen Fu couldn't help but be full of sympathy for Niujia Village and others, and after he stepped forward to meet Ye Zheng and other Niujia Village villagers, he warmly arranged a residence for them and settled them down as soon as possible.
At the back of the cottage, Chen Fu allocated a few large thatched wooden huts to the villagers of Niujia Village, and let them live in them for the time being, and then arrange for craftsmen to come over tomorrow and build a few thatched huts for them. After the villagers of Niujia Village were given a new place to live, they were all happily busy packing up, and they were all very happy that they now had a safe and sheltered accommodation.
At this time, Chen Fu, the master of Wutang Hall, stood in their house, and saw the villagers of Niujia Village, all of them were covered with dust and tattered clothes, especially those old and weak women and children, all of them were yellow and thin, as if they had not eaten a full meal for a long time, seeing this situation, he couldn't help but feel compassion, and immediately turned around and shouted loudly outside the house: "Sun Monkey, don't be busy yet, come here, I have something to arrange for you to do." ”
"Hey, hall master, I'm here, what do you want me to do?"
At this time, a young man who was less than twenty years old, after hearing Chen Fu's call, hurriedly trotted all the way to his side, this young man looked black and thin, compared to the bull and the tiger, more than the other, no wonder Chen Fu would call him Sun Monkey.
Seeing Sun Monkey touching the sweat on his forehead, bending down and standing respectfully in front of him, Chen Fu was very satisfied with the attitude of this henchman, and then groaned for a moment, and said loudly: "Monkey, you go to the cottage room now, and tell the guys in the house to cook a few pots of meat, stew a few chickens, and steam some white-flour steamed buns. ”
As soon as Chen Fu said this, everyone in Niujia Village present shouted with joy. Originally, they had fled in the mountains these days, and they had never eaten a full meal and slept peacefully, let alone eaten a fragrant boiled meat, but now when they heard that this Chen Futang mainly gave these newcomers to the new tenants to wash the wind and wash the dust, cook meat and stew chicken, they all suddenly drooled, and their good impression of Chen Fu skyrocketed.
At this time, after Sun Monkey heard Chen Fu's order, his face showed a trace of embarrassment, and he hesitated for a long time before he whispered: "Hall Master, let's ...... The pigs, beef, and chickens in the house are left...... It's not much, these are left for the second and third halls to go back to the mountain...... If we give this meat to these new brothers, and the people in the second and third halls know about it, will they ......?"
"Sun Monkey, if I want you to go, you can go, where did you get so much nonsense!"
Chen Fu's tone was a little displeased, but thinking that Sun Monkey was doing all this for his own consideration, he was afraid that the people in the second and third halls would find trouble for him, so his tone was soft again, and he said in a low voice: "Monkey, I know that you are thinking about me, and I am afraid that the people in the second and third halls will embarrass me, but you look at these old people and children, all of them are weak, like refugees, I really can't bear it!" I still want to cook some broth to replenish their bodies, if there is not much pork and beef, you can find a way to evenly dispense it, and don't worry about the rest, I have my own opinion. ”
Sun Monkey looked at Chen Fu, and then at the old and weak women and children in Niujia Village, and suddenly, nodded, and said, "Monkey, let's do it!"
After speaking, Sun Monkey left quickly, and when he just walked to the door, Chen Fuhu added: "Well, monkey, wait a few people to go to the wine cellar and get an altar old wine." ”
Sun Monkey nodded, didn't say anything more, and at this time sped up his pace and disappeared outside the door.
When the people in Niujia Village heard that there would not only be meat to eat, but what made those big men even happier was that there was actually wine, and suddenly, the cheers broke out again, and everyone shouted loudly: "Thank you hall master, haha!"
"The hall master is really worthy of being a bold person, and he knows what my generation likes!"
"Hehe, I'll have a few drinks with you later......"
At this time, Ye Zheng, who was standing on the side, saw Chen Fu being so righteous and kind, and immediately had a much friendlier impression of him, and secretly said that this Chen Fu is really a good person. But at the same time, he was a little puzzled by the conversation between Sun Monkey and Chen Fu just now, and he didn't understand why the Sun Monkey actually showed a trace of embarrassment on his face after hearing Chen Fu's instructions, but because the two of them were far away and their voices were small, Ye Zheng didn't know what they had just said.
After a morning of busyness and tidying up, Ye Zheng and the people in Niujia Village managed to make a few thatched huts clean and tidy, and they were barely able to live in. Just when everyone was sitting on the newly laid thatched mat and talking, at this time, lunch was ready, and Sun Monkey personally came over to lead Ye Zheng and the people of Niujia Village to the room for dinner.
The house in Feifeng Village is also at the back of the cottage, not far from Ye Zheng's residence, and it takes about a few minutes to walk.
The room is built by several huge thatched huts, the area is very large, there are hundreds of square meters, the inside of the room is a row of huge stoves and cupboards and kitchen utensils, and outside the stove is several rows of simple huge wooden benches and wooden tables, the wooden benches and wooden tables are very long and large, and there is no problem with sitting more than 100 people casually.
At this time, dozens of pairs of dishes and chopsticks were placed on the table, and there were also seven large pots of pork boiled wild vegetables and seven large pots of chicken stewed mushrooms.
Far away, Ye Zheng and the people of Niujia Village smelled the fragrance, and suddenly, everyone's saliva flowed, and their index fingers moved, under the signal of the hall master Chen Fu, they sat on the wooden table one after another, and couldn't wait to gobble it up.
At this time, Ye Zheng, who had already eaten half full, found that in addition to his own group of people on the table, there seemed to be no other people from the cottage on the table to eat, even Sun Monkey, who had just brought them over, was just sitting on the side of the stove, bowing his head and poking with a wooden stick boringly, while the hall master Chen Fu, he was holding a tea bowl, smiling and watching his group of people eat, slowly drinking tea.
Seeing this scene, Ye Zheng and a group of men in Niujia Village hurriedly got up to pull Chen Fu and Sun Monkey and other guys over, ready to have a good drink together.
However, except for Chen Fu who came over and politely said a few drinks to them, kitchen guys like Sun Monkey politely excused themselves and did not serve them. Ye Zheng and the others saw it, and they were even more reluctant to go, secretly thinking that people had worked hard to cook for their own people, but after they were cooked, they didn't go to the table to enjoy it with themselves, so it was too embarrassing, no matter what, I had to pull them over to eat and drink together.
In the middle of pulling and pulling, suddenly, a group of strong men rushed into the thatched hut of the house, Ye Zheng glanced at them, and found that those strong men were all naked, full of gangsterism, and their expressions were extremely fierce.
At this time, the leader of a tall and strong man with a black tiger tattooed on his chest kicked a bench that was blocked in front of him, rushed to Chen Fu with a fierce momentum, turned up the bull's eye with a copper bell, and roared in an unkind tone: "Chen Cripple, why is the amount of wine and meat I got in Santang so small today?
When he roared, he suddenly alarmed everyone to put down the dishes and chopsticks, and stared at him with an unhappy expression, but the strong man didn't think so, but glared at Ye Zheng and the others fiercely, and then he roared loudly: "You cripple who should be killed, if you don't explain the matter to me today, Lao Tzu will immediately lead someone to demolish your room!"
Chen Fu was scolded by him for being a cripple, and he was not angry, but said lightly: "Yang Hongtang Master is too careful, Chen has always been trusted by the owner of the village, taking care of the internal affairs of this meal, he has always been strict with himself, and he has never been greedy, how can he hide his secrets?"
Hearing this, Yang Hong said angrily on the spot: "Fuck it! If you cripple don't hide your selfishness, why do we have so little wine and meat in Santang?
Chen Fu knew that the three hall masters were short-tempered, but he didn't expect him to speak so ugly today, and suddenly, he couldn't help but be a little unhappy: "The wine and meat in the cottage haven't been bought for many days, and it's normal if it's not enough, why should the second hall master Yang bother to make such a big liver fire for this matter, why do you have to say so ugly." ”
Yang Hong sneered: "Dead cripple, you are really good at quibbling, I sent someone to the wine cellar to get wine late last night, and when I asked you, you said that the wine and meat are enough for today, but today, you actually can't say enough, such nonsense, who can believe it!"
When Chen Fu heard him say this, he was immediately speechless, and said with a red face: "The wine and meat were originally enough for today, but because there are new brothers joining the cottage today, Chen Mou took the initiative to prepare some wine and meat for them to wash the dust with them, is there any problem with this?"
When Yang Hong heard this, he couldn't help but think of when he entered the room, he saw a group of strangers who were eating, and then he turned his head coldly and glanced at Ye Zheng and the others, and saw that most of them were old and weak women and children, and suddenly, he sneered and sneered: "What kind of big man is I, I need to put down the wine and meat in Feifeng Village, catch the wind and wash the dust, and after watching it for a long time, it turned out to be just a group of refugees who eat and drink, hum......"
As soon as these words came out, the whole house was furious!