Chapter 9: The Ox Must Wear A Nose Ring

  Liu Lao Shi got up very late on the second day. When he woke up, the sun was already at its fourth pole and it would soon be noon.

  He rubbed his head, which was still a bit dizzy from the hangover, and walked out of the bedroom. He saw Liu Yitiao carrying a bundle of hay towards the cowshed, so he quickened his pace to catch up.

  The ox was the family's precious treasure, not to mention its use, just the silver spent on buying it made him heartache for half a day, five taels of silver, if it really died, wouldn't that silver be wasted?

  "Dad, you're awake. You drank so much last night, aren't you feeling uncomfortable?" Liu Yitiao slowed down his pace and walked alongside Liu Laoshi.

  "Uh, nothing, just had a bit too much to drink last night, my head is still feeling a bit heavy. I'll be fine in a while. Oh, by the way, how did Uncle Yang leave yesterday? He seemed to have had quite a few drinks too. Didn't you keep him behind?"

  Liu Yitiao smiled and said, "Dad, Yang Shu's capacity for wine is much greater than yours. After drinking two jars of wine, he was still as calm as if nothing had happened. In the end, when you fell drunk, he chatted with me for a while before leaving on his own."

  Liu Laoshi said: "That's also true, your Uncle Yang used to be a wandering martial artist and had some skills, I couldn't drink more than him which is normal. But it was so late and he still let me go back, that's impolite."

  "What?" Liu Yitiao automatically filtered out the previous sentence and asked Liu Lao with great interest: "Was Uncle Yang a river lake runner before? It's not visible at all, was he very powerful before?"

  "I'm not quite sure how formidable he is, but back then even Wang Kui at his most ferocious wouldn't dare to provoke him easily. Otherwise, why would Wang Shuai have let you off so easily last time and even offered to compensate with a few silver coins? That was all because of Yang Shu's face."

  No wonder those captors were so polite to him, a small old hundred, it turns out that this Yang Bofang is also a person with a head and a face.

  "How can he be so concerned about our family's affairs? First, he saved me, and yesterday he even came to remind me to beware of Wang Kui. It seems that he is not a relative of our family?"

  "That's some family matters from the past, you're just a young kid, don't know too much about it." Liu Old Honest said perfunctorily. "How's our cow doing? Has it recovered somewhat? I'm still counting on it to work hard after spring arrives."

  Liu Yitiao smiled complacently and said: "It's already 80% better, by noon after another dose of garlic juice it will be fine."

  "Really? It's over so soon?!"

  Lao Liu obviously didn't expect the garlic juice of Liu Yitiao to be so effective. In the past, cows that got intestinal obstruction either dragged on for half a year or died after struggling, but he had never heard of any cow recovering overnight.

  "If you don't believe me, go take a look. It can now eat and sleep. The hay I'm holding is what I feed it."

  Liu Yitiao waved the dry grass in his hand. As a graduate of a well-known agricultural university in China, he was considered an elite student, and treating a common diarrhea cow was not a big deal for him.

  Liu Laoshi quickened his pace, burying his head in the cow's buttocks, his eyes fixed tightly on the cow's hindquarters, which were much drier than they had been the night before.

  Liu Yitiao threw the hay beside the calf and let it lower its head to chew and swallow.

  In the absence of modern fodder, in winter, this long-leafed hay is the best food for cattle and sheep.

  "Eat, eat, eat more, and in another month you can help with the farm work." Liu Lao Shi was overjoyed, his mouth couldn't close, and he kept smiling foolishly at Little Cow. Five yuan could buy a sturdy cow, and he felt like he had gotten an incredible bargain.

  "Dad, taking advantage of the current gap, we can't put the cow nose ring on it first. Otherwise, after a while, when it grows bigger, it will be difficult to wear." Liu Yitiao suggested, looking at the little cow eating happily.

  "Wearing a cow's nose? How can you wear it?" Old Liu was puzzled, how could he not understand his son's words in just a few days?

  Liu Yitiao was stunned, how come the Tang Dynasty didn't have this method of wearing a cow nose ring? Then how did they use oxen to plow the land, just relying on that rope on the ox's neck?

  "Dad, isn't leading an ox supposed to be by its nose? How come you've never seen anyone wear an ox's nose before?"

  "What's with the cow's nose? You're talking nonsense in broad daylight, how can you lead a cow by its nose when it's just that small? Are you kidding me?" Lao Liu began to suspect that his son had been beaten silly by Wang Shuai, otherwise why would he say such ridiculous and laughable things?

  Liu Yitiao smiled and said, "Is that so? Then let him start from me."

  He walked up to the calf's head, stroking its ears and said loudly to Old Willow: "Dad, the cow is going to be nose-ringed!"

  Liu Yitian said with a serious face, and Lao Liu didn't dare to ignore him anymore. After all, Comrade Xiao Liu had just cured one of his sick cows. He might have his own reasons for saying this, although Lao Liu couldn't quite understand them.

  "So tell me, why wear it and how to wear it?"

  "Dad, when you used to farm with other people's cows, didn't you ever feel that they weren't very easy to handle? For example, you'd point east and it would go west, point south and it would go north, and sometimes it would even take two steps back. People who were a bit weaker couldn't even drive it forward. And what about when it saw something green and wanted to eat it, sometimes even nibbling on the crops?"

  Liu Yitiao did not answer Old Liu's question, but instead spoke out one after another about the problems people encountered when herding cattle in this era.

  Lao Liu nodded repeatedly, responding with "uh-huh" and "ah", as Liu Yitiao's questions all hit the nail on the head, every one of them a headache-inducing problem.

  "Then you can wear the cow nose! With it, all problems will be solved!" Liu Yitiao felt like a vendor selling dog skin plaster. "Wearing the cow nose, wherever you want to go, it will go there without any delay or effort, even little Hui, such a small child, can easily control it."

  Lao Liu's body and mind were stirred up, and his blood pressure all rushed to his face.

  "Really?!"

  "Really!!"

  "Then wear it!!"

  "Dad! What are you guys going to wear?"

  At this time, Liu Er Tiao walked in from outside, followed by a middle-aged Confucian scholar over 40 years old. He looked like their private school teacher.

  Liu Er Tiao brought the Confucian scholar before Old Liu and Xiao Liu, and respectfully introduced him: "Mr. Huang, these two are my father and brother. The second half of the couplet you wrote yesterday was actually written by my brother."