Chapter 29: The Marvelous Kitchen Chapter 29: The Flaw

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Protagonist:

Song Miao

She had been ambitious and insatiably greedy since childhood, and was also fickle, often liking one thing one moment and another the next.

But no matter what she liked, her family supported her wholeheartedly.

She couldn't remember how old she was when, for a while, she took a liking to embroidery.

As soon as she embroidered a flat green leaf, her great-uncle praised her again and again, saying she had extraordinary talent and would surely become a famous embroiderer known throughout the world, leaving her name in history.

When Er Niangzi returned and saw it, she held the leaf and looked at it again and again, saying she wanted to frame it and hang it by her bed, and repeatedly urged someone to go find her a teacher.

Her great-uncle said that since they were hiring, they must hire a gold-thread embroidery teacher, "an inch of gold-thread embroidery is worth an inch of gold"; if they were going to learn, they should learn the most top-tier craft.

The uncles from the Shen family next door came down the mountain the next day.

They split into two groups: the elder went to Dingzhou and brought back an old embroiderer skilled in embroidering patterns of fortune, longevity, and auspiciousness; the younger went to Suzhou and brought back a young embroiderer skilled in embroidering flowers, birds, insects, and fish.

She studied for half a year, but had barely entered the door; children lack steadiness, and she was even worse, soon growing tired of needles and threads and throwing tantrums.

A child raised at home, no matter how smelly, is still fragrant.

San Niangzi scolded Er Niangzi, saying she didn't know how to choose; women's needlework was already difficult, and gold-thread embroidery was the most difficult of the difficult. If the child liked it, fine, but with her temperament, how could she be so bound?

She also scolded her great-uncle for having a brain tumor; previously, when painting cakes for others, he had painted flaws. Her own child's most important thing was health; as long as they grew up safe and sound, living an easy and smooth life, that was far better than anything else. If he really wanted to leave his name in history, let him jump into an ink vat and roll his name on paper himself, instead of ruining the child.

Naturally, no one on the mountain was willing to force her to endure hardship, so they let her drop it, and she went on to like something else.

But the teachers they had hired did not resign.

The old embroiderer from Dingzhou had no children; as she grew older, her eyes and waist grew worse. Compared to returning to her hometown to eat at her nephew's house at the mercy of his expression, she preferred life on the mountain, settled down there, taught a bit here and there, and made clothes for everyone.

The Suzhou embroiderer, meanwhile, developed feelings for the Shen uncle who had invited her up the mountain.

The two married and later had a daughter, given the single name Xing—the character Xing was a name Song Miao picked from a box.

Unfortunately, little Xing did not survive; she died at the age of three.

Later, her great-uncle got into trouble, and everyone hurried down the mountain; the Shen uncle and his wife were among them, only saying they would write to report their safety once settled.

But she waited many days and received no letter, then...

Song Miao couldn't help but lower her head and look at her hands.

It had only been a few days since she arrived, but this pair of hands, which the original owner had never dipped in water, had already acquired many traces of work.

And at the base of her right thumb, there was a small mole.

The color and size of the mole were exactly the same as the one on her original hand.

The "Song Miao" of now and the "Song Miao" of Mount Pingyang decades ago seemed to share the same body, yet were clearly not the same person.

But this missing embroiderer at this time was also surnamed Shen, also from Jiangnan Donglu, named Xingniang, and also skilled in gold-thread embroidery.

Could she have some connection with Shen Uncle's family?

Song Miao didn't know, but as long as she could find some news from the mountain, she wanted to try.

At this moment, the woman beside her had more to say.

She spat words like flying saliva: "This kind of cut-silk embroidery is originally known by few people; that embroiderer was originally from Jiangnan East Road, generation after generation doing weaving and embroidery, but her branch had the most outstanding skill, especially this missing one—it was said she went to a foreign place to apprentice under a master, studying for over ten years before learning it, weaving even better than the one who taught her; the phoenixes, birds, and butterflies she wove seemed alive, as if they could fly when you looked at them!"

"Coincidentally, the day she finally finished it and was about to take it to the Embroidery Workshop to hand in the work, who would have thought that both person and things were lost together!"

At that moment, someone else curiously asked: "You just said she made a rosy cloud sash for the daughter of a Minister of Rites—which Minister of Rites?"

"The one from the Ministry of Rites; this is a real personage who wears a purple robe and a jade belt!"

At once, everyone present laughed.

"If the rosy cloud sash of the daughter of the Minister of Personnel were lost, maybe it could be found; as for this Ministry of Rites... it's a Clear Water Office, hard to say!"

Song Miao stood there for a while, listening to everyone's discussion; seeing there was no more useful news, she carefully memorized the content on the notice again, then turned back to the government office.

She walked along, carefully thinking over the situation of Shen Xingniang she had just learned.

The Capital Prefecture Office had sent people to search many times, and the Embroidery Workshop had also been searching, even posting wanted notices with rewards, but there was no news. As for her, a newcomer with no money, no connections, and no status or influence, it was naturally impossible to get results so easily.

Although she was anxious, she was not in a hurry.

At present, there were no clues, and besides, everything has its order.

Save others by first saving oneself.

Right now, she herself was still a mud Bodhisattva crossing the river; she must strive to protect herself, first solve the troubles on her back, then she could free her hands to look into other matters.

At this moment, the one equally anxious was not only Song Miao alone.

In Guozixue, the student Wang Geng finally waited for the food box sent by his servant; opening it, he found indeed steaming hot buns, quite similar to the steamed wheat cakes from the morning, with three varieties: Green Onion Mutton Filling, Green Onion Pork Filling, and Shepherd's Purse Bamboo Shoot Tofu Dried, all fragrant, so he finally breathed a sigh of relief and smiled with satisfaction.

He first picked up a Green Onion Mutton Filling one.

But just as he tasted the flavor, Wang Geng couldn't help but frown.

The filling of Green Onion Mutton Filling naturally wouldn't taste bad, but perhaps it was a first impression, he always felt this was inferior to what he ate in the morning by more than a little.

Wang Geng was not a cook and couldn't distinguish the advantage of mixed raw and cooked meat filling compared to ordinary raw meat filling, but he could tell the morning one was more fragrant and fresher, even the scallion taste was fresher and refreshing.

Not only that, the outer skin of the morning ones was truly beautiful, thin, indeed like a small flower.

The buns in the food box now were also pinched into flowers, but no matter how you looked at it, the petals were not as beautiful or light as the morning ones—one bite, and indeed the skin was a bit thicker.

The seasoning was not so suitable either, seemingly a bit salty.

One thing after another, actually all details, but once eaten, they became a lot worse.

However, no matter what, if full marks were ten, this Green Onion Mutton Filling bun would have at least seven points.

But when he picked up another Shepherd's Purse Bamboo Shoot Tofu Dried steamed wheat cake, before it even reached his mouth, the smile on his face could hardly be maintained.

The skin was indeed thin, but just in the time it took to pick it up, it had already broken; fortunately, the bottom had not broken.

However, after one bite, Wang Geng felt that whether it was broken or not hardly mattered anymore.

—It actually contained meat oil, and the soup juice was somewhat greasy.

This vegetarian shao mai is eaten for that one clean, wild flavor; adding so much meat oil, plus who knows what seasoning, ruined much of that refreshing feeling.

If he hadn't eaten the shao mai this morning, he might not have thought there was much of a problem, but compared side by side now, he even felt somewhat embarrassed to give it to He Qi as an apology.

But this cannot be blamed on the Wang Family's cook.

One must know it had been passed on and passed on again; they were not Empress/Emperor See themselves, nor had they eaten it, so how could they know what the morning's shao mai was like?

Besides, Wang Geng was not a cook; his description was mostly colored by personal preference, so the cooks could only guess wildly—if they were to improvise according to their own methods, it would surely be much more delicious.

At this moment it was like a themed composition, where the examiner not only provided their own self-righteous textual analysis, full of their own wild imaginings; the students, upon seeing it, truly felt it would be better not to have it at all, and naturally, however they answered, they would stray from the topic.

But after all, it had been delivered, so Wang Geng still carried the food box back to Xue Zhai, carrying it on one side while worrying in his heart on the other—he himself had eaten it and felt it was not very satisfactory; once it entered He Qi's sharp mouth, who knew how many faults he would pick out?