Traveling through an ancient military camp: Bao'er's survival song

"Jiao Niang, look, can you make several identical wine gourds like this?" Wu Suining asked Yin Zhu to bring out Uncle Sun's wine gourd.

Luo Jiaoniang examined the wine gourd inside and out, then said with a disdainful look, "I thought it was something precious, but it's just an ordinary wine gourd."

Wu Suining sighed and said, "If it were just an ordinary wine gourd, I wouldn't have come to you. I want a wine gourd that is identical in appearance, shape, condition, and even smell."

Luo Jiaoniang picked up the wine gourd again and looked at it, puzzled. "It can be made, but it looks like an ordinary wine gourd. Why go to all this trouble?"

Wu Suining felt a little embarrassed; she really didn't want to talk about it.

Although it was fun to tease Peng Zizheng back then, the method was really...emmm, not elegant enough.

Luo Jiaoniang glanced at Yinzhu, who immediately said with a serious expression, "I wasn't there. I was in Menglian Mountain at the time."

Upon hearing this, Luo Jiaoniang immediately became excited, no longer acting coy or weak. She clapped her hands and laughed loudly, "You really have something to say? Look at you, all shy and timid! Tell me! I won't do it for you if you don't tell me. Anything that can make you, Miss Wu, lose your composure must be quite fun!"

Wu Suining frowned: "What do you mean by shy and timid? If you don't know how to use words, then don't use them!" Then she went on to tell the story of how she was kidnapped by the drunken Peng Zizheng and how she tricked him. However, she didn't expect that Peng Zizheng would remember Sun Bo's wine gourd after just one glance at it. So Wu Suining had to find a way to clean up the mess.

Luo Jiaoniang laughed even harder, and even went up to hug Wu Suining's face and kissed her, saying, "Good Suining, you are so funny. Even my senior brother probably couldn't have come up with such a wicked idea!"

Wu Suining frowned slightly, wiping the lipstick stuck to her face with a handkerchief in disgust: "You're quite amusing too. You have such a free and easy personality, yet you always pretend to be a sickly beauty. I've told you the whole story. How long will it take to make ten gourds like this?"

Luo Jiaoniang pursed her lips and held up one finger: "One night. But I also need you to bring over a jar of the wine that Uncle Sun often drinks."

Wu Suining said, "I've got it. I've already asked Uncle Sun to bring the wine over. He's probably talking to Aunt Zhou right now!"

Luo Jiaoniang grew anxious: "You had Junior Sister watch the wine, and there's still some left? I need to save it to brew gourds! Yinzhu, hurry..."

……

General Guide's Mansion.

Peng Zizheng, with his arm in a sling, listened thoughtfully to Zheng Xi's report.

Just as he had predicted, the scoundrels who had mocked him were not some bandits. These small-time thieves around the capital had no concept of "honor among thieves," did not speak the dialect of those burly men, and had no reputation for righting wrongs; they were all genuine bandits. After Zheng Xi finished his investigation and sent a message back to the capital to Peng Zizheng, he waited with the remaining eight soldiers. Sure enough, Peng Zizheng gave him the order to annihilate the bandits in the area. They then crushed the groups with overwhelming force and handed the captured bandits over to Shi Liujie, the Prefect of Jingzhao.

"However, one of the bandit leaders, in order to gain favor, confessed to a crime that his subordinates found suspicious."

"tell me the story."

"These bandits usually bully the old, weak, women, and children; they wouldn't dare touch anything tough. On the fifteenth, they noticed a group of unfamiliar people. Although the carriages and horses had lost their markings, they could tell they weren't of commoner quality, so they didn't dare make a move. They also suspected they were spies sent by the government to suppress bandits, so they kept a close watch from a distance. However, this group only stayed in the mountains for two or three hours before leaving. Following the trail, they found an empty wine sack with bloodstains inside. The bandit leader had told a petty thief to throw it away because it was dirty. I asked around, and it was just an ordinary wine sack, the kind that costs three coins in the market."