Chapter 65: Miao Chef Chapter 65: Visiting Card

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Protagonist:

Song Miao

Diao Zi hurried off to find that Liu Er, while He Qi was busy dealing with the shrimp before him.

The shrimp were half a palm long, their shells red and shiny; the shrimp's tail connected to its body curled into the shape of a bow, coated in thick amber-colored sauce.

The wasabi was fine, fresh and slightly spicy, its heat relatively restrained, but those mustard seeds had a pungent aroma.

Thanks to the hot wok stir-fry, most of the spiciness had dissipated by now, leaving only that rushing fragrance.

The aroma of the sauce blended with the shrimp oil was unique; He Qi couldn't bear to peel the shell directly, and couldn't resist sucking the sauce off the shrimp meat first.

Salty and fresh, with a hint of milky fragrance, and a touch of spicy punch hanging on — not harsh, yet remarkably mellow, with exceptionally rich layers.

The shrimp were butterflied and deveined, so He Qi couldn't be bothered to peel them by hand; he just used his teeth to strip the shell in his mouth and eat the meat.

The shrimp meat was very thick, firm; although this variety was strange and lacked much of the fresh sweetness live shrimp should have, the sauce had thoroughly penetrated and coated it fully, perfectly making up for that shortcoming.

As he chewed, the shrimp meat gave full bounce-to-the-teeth texture and mouthful-of-meat satisfaction, with a very faint fresh shrimp sweetness; the sauce carried soy sauce's salty fragrance, shrimp paste and shrimp roe's intense umami, honey and sugar's sweetness, and also a touch of garlic fragrance blended with the fresh punch of wasabi and mustard seeds.

At the very end, there was a lingering hint of milky fragrance — this was the ring of cow's milk Song Miao added when taking it off the heat, to enhance the flavor.

This sauce smelled too good; if those shrimp shells weren't really too hard, He Qi would even have wanted to chew and swallow the flavor-infused shells!

He ate several in a row, with no time to peel shells, just messily eating the meat clean in his mouth.

He Qi only focused on eating the mustard seed wasabi shrimp, and early forgot there was still that dish of golden flower fried eggs on the side.

And Zhu Jie'er, who was eating the golden flower fried eggs, also early forgot there was a plate of shrimp on the side.

This dish made with flowers grew extremely pretty, perfectly suited to children's liking.

The golden flowers were wrapped in a layer of egg liquid; after being lightly stir-fried, the egg liquid set, looking like golden yellow and tender yellow wrapping each other, the color extremely fresh and bright.

Zhu Jie'er didn't use chopsticks, but used a spoon.

One spoonful scooped into her mouth, the egg was rich and fragrant, the golden flower's texture tender — especially since Song Miao used flower buds, tender upon tender.

The floral fragrance was very comfortable, fresh and sweet with a hint of floral nectar flavor.

The nectar flavor wasn't cloying, but fragrant and sweet, carrying the flower's aroma, wrapped in the egg's fragrance.

As Zhu Jie'er ate, she felt she had been thoroughly soaked through by that floral fragrance and nectar, completely becoming a true little flower fairy!

She ate a few bites of golden flower fried eggs, felt the floral fragrance wasn't as strong as the first bite, hurriedly tasted a sip of porridge to cleanse her tongue and mouth, then continued eating the golden flower fried eggs — at once, that floral fragrance was full again.

Just like that, one mouthful porridge, one mouthful golden flower fried eggs, Zhu Jie'er didn't know how many times she repeated being a fairy, playing extremely happily.

It was He Qi who ate quite a few shrimp in one breath before suddenly realizing, hurriedly peeled one for Zhu Jie'er too, dipped it full of sauce and put it in her bowl, saying: "Zhu Jie'er, eat shrimp."

After taking care of a shrimp for his little sister, He Qi's hands didn't stop, busy peeling for himself too, his mouth constantly praising "Song Stall Owner has good skill!" "How is this shrimp so delicious" and so on.

Hearing his praise, Zhu Jie'er hurriedly joined in praising too, anxiously praising a few lines "How is golden flower fried eggs so delicious!" "How is Sister so good at cooking", only unfortunately she only had one mouth, in between praising a few sentences, hurriedly went back to eating shrimp and golden flower fried eggs, taking advantage of swallowing the deliciousness, then busy inserting a few words of praise, too busy for her mouth to handle.

Half-an-adult-palm-long shrimp, Song Miao made half a bucket, at least forty or so; the shrimp meat was thick, substantial even shelled, yet was eaten clean by this one big one small sitting there, with only a few set aside in advance.

After eating this simple meal of porridge and rice, since Song Miao had said early on she still had matters, the siblings didn't stay long, led by the one acting as older brother, reluctantly taking their leave.

Taking advantage before they left, Song Miao first wrote down the mustard seed wasabi shrimp recipe and gave it to He Qi to keep, then claimed she had prepared ingredients early and had someone take away the remaining half bucket of shrimp, but the hospitality was hard to refuse, so seven or eight were hard-left to be kept in a basin.

Having received these free shrimp, Song Miao then gave each of the two a bamboo tube of rice crispy cheese.

Learning the rice crispy cheese was made by cooking extremely fine rice paste pounded by stone pestle together with rock sugar and cow's milk, a little sweet snack to eat for fun, Zhu Jie'er hugged it and refused to let go.

She kept making wishes to Song Miao, only saying she wanted to come play often in the future, asking if she could.

Song Miao naturally agreed, smiling as she saw her onto the carriage.

Taking advantage of the moment Zhu Jie'er got on the carriage, He Qi turned his head back, hesitated a moment, still took out a letter and handed it to Song Miao.

Song Miao received it, asking with some surprise: "What is this?"

"It's a visiting card, my Big Brother's." He Qi became a bit embarrassed, "I know Song Stall Owner's household has some troubling matters at this residence, and I can't help much, so I asked Big Brother for a visiting card."

"If it really can't be resolved in the end, you might as well take this visiting card to the Capital Prefecture Office's Shiyuan and find a recommending official surnamed Xie, see if he can help."

"If he can't help, you come tell me again, I can still entrust others to think of other ways — originally I wanted to come as soon as I got this visiting card this morning, but feared disturbing Song Stall Owner, so delayed until noon to go out, but if I hadn't delayed until now, where would I have gotten to eat such good food!"

As He Qi spoke, not knowing if he thought of the mustard seed wasabi shrimp flavor, he couldn't help laughing.

Although Song Miao didn't know what specific identity this He family "Big Brother" had, hearing even He Qi say "if it really can't be resolved in the end" before using this visiting card to call, she knew this visiting card must be extremely precious, and hurriedly thanked him.

He Qi only waved his hand, while leading the North and East two branches onto horses preparing to advance, laughing: "I've come freeloading meals two days in a row, originally very embarrassed, this counts as having exerted a bit of effort!"

Watching the carriage and the horse-riders go far, Song Miao only then returned to the room.

This time as soon as she locked the door, the guards in the inner room and the back came scrambling out.

Seeing everyone, Song Miao also felt very embarrassed, saying: "Didn't expect to delay this long, making you all hungry for half a day."

The others were still somewhat unfamiliar, too embarrassed to speak, but Sun Lizheng sighed deeply, saying: "Hungry is fine, but smelling such fragrant smells from outside while inside, I feared the gluttonous bugs in my belly would cry out, and that Young Master and Little Girl would hear, thinking there's a ghost haunting somewhere!"

Song Miao had actually prepared early, at this moment smiling: "Sorry, sorry, the food Qin Jie had people buy should be on the road by now, I'll also add two small dishes for everyone, it'll be ready soon."

The people here chatted and laughed, while a few streets away, just past noon, Diao Zi ran back in a hurry to report to Boss Liao: "The Liu family says Liu Er didn't return last night, but the government office's runners went to his house at midnight, saying the Archives Library had urgent business to find him."

"Most likely those runners met him halfway and took him away, so until now his family has had no news."

Boss Liao felt even more that something was wrong.

He didn't use Diao Zi again, but arranged other people to investigate.

News came very quickly.

"Last night Liu Er's government office called back several people, saying superiors wanted to check archives, but the people called back haven't shown their faces at all today."

Being able to climb up from the bottom-most pile of people, Boss Liao's reaction could not be called slow.

He immediately went to find an acquaintance.

The Capital Prefecture Office has many people and loose tongues, the matter of Qin Jie summoning people for questioning the previous day wasn't deliberately hidden either.

He spent some silver and soon received word.

— Liu Er committed a mistake and was investigated.

Not only Liu Er alone; Zhang Ji, who had often partnered with him these two years, was also investigated.

Although he could not find out exactly what the mistake was, that acquaintance surmised that most of it likely had to do with the house sale documents.

Upon learning the situation, Steward Liao immediately became cautious.

Over this past year, he had used Liu Er's hand to handle quite a few matters; the properties he had raked in were too many to count on two palms.

But forging documents is a serious crime.

If Liu Er was caught for some other matter it would be fine, but if this really was the cause of the exposure, then to exonerate himself he would most likely drag me down with him.

In a bad case, a beating would be the end of it; but once sentenced to exile, by the time I returned, who knows what state this fine family business would be in.

Steward Liao had not read many books — of the four characters "prepare in advance," he did not even know how to write two — yet he understood that one absolutely cannot wait until the matter is at hand to think of a way; in everything, connections must run ahead.

He first summoned everyone connected to that Song Dalang, asked every detail clearly, and only after learning that everything had been handled cleanly did he set his mind at ease; he first had the account room prepare this month's profit share, then went home and had his wife take out a newly made set of head ornaments.

His wife was very reluctant, and asked: "It cost three hundred guan to buy back, it hasn't even warmed in the house, and now it must be sent out again?"

"I'll have new ones made for you in the future," Steward Liao promised.

"It's not that I want these valuable ornaments; I was originally a village woman, a wooden hairpin would do, chopsticks would do, what can't I use?"

"But ever since you got this steward's title, outwardly it looks glamorous, yet you spend even more; silver flows out like water, all year long you send so many things to Wu Yuanwai, yet you yourself don't gain much good — why bother?"

"In my view, it was better when the former steward was here; we worked steadily, earned some labor money — wasn't that more comfortable than these days with our hearts in our throats?"

His wife persuaded for a long while, but Steward Liao paid it no heed; impatiently he waved his hand and said: "You woman, long hair short knowledge, what do you know!"

He added: "Without Wu Yuanwai behind me, could I sit stable in this position? What I get today, tomorrow I must spit out in full to feed him full; only then do we have our share to eat."

Finished speaking, he carried the box holding the ornaments, also brought along that profit-share money, and hurried off to City West; arriving at the gatehouse, he sent someone in to pass the message, and with almost no wait was called in.

He was led into the study.

Wu Yuanwai was plump, his face glowing red, his forehead full; the flesh on his face was piled on.

Although he was already nearing sixty years of age, there were hardly a few wrinkles on his face; he looked kind-eyed and benevolent; at this moment he was sitting playing with a jade ring.

Seeing Steward Liao, Wu Yuanwai did not rush to attend to him; he lifted his eyelids, glanced, then lowered his head and stroked that jade ring for a good while before setting it aside, raising his head and asking: "How is this month, coming so early?"

"Recently collections everywhere have been good; the little one thought the mansion's young lady will soon reach her hundred days, so I added thirty percent and sent it over; although the Yuanwai may look down on this bit of small money, it is the little one's bit of sincerity."

Steward Liao took out that collection silver and the ornaments, placed them on the desk, and opened them one by one, saying: "There is also a newly made set of head ornaments, for the young lady to take and play with."

The full heap of silver ingots, the gold head ornaments worth fully three hundred guan, made even Wu Yuanwai nod repeatedly, saying: "You are a capable one; no need for me to say more, do well!"

He sighed again and said: "Only at my age, I don't know which ancestral grave I failed to tend, that to this day there is still no incense offering."

Steward Liao hurriedly said: "The Yuanwai is precisely in dragon spirit tiger vigor; it is entirely those women who are useless — take a few more concubines, where would there fail to be an incense offering born?"

"Taking concubines is not easy to do nowadays either; absolute beauties are hard to find after all." Wu Yuanwai shook his head.

Speaking to this point, he suddenly seemed to remember, and asked: "That young lady you spoke of last time, the one surnamed Song, I saw she was born quite well; now the first lunar month has passed, her family's white funeral should have been finished long ago, why has it been this long and you still haven't sent her over?"

Steward Liao "ah"-ed, and told of Song Miao's refusal, the village head eating inside and crawling outside, and also the matter of that young lady pushing a cart to set up a stall at the Taixue gate; finally he said: "The student is hard to deal with; the little one feared stirring up a commotion, so could only take it slow."

He added: "But slow is only for this stretch; at most after the Cold Food Festival, I will certainly send her to you."

Hearing that it involved a student, and a Taixue student at that, Wu Yuanwai's expression did not look too good; he said: "I recall there is a gambling house nearby; you had better not let the student get entangled, lest it bring trouble."

He coldly laughed and said: "This woman, her whole family dead and gone, yet she has such a temper; don't just wait idly, move faster — I want to taste what flavor she is."

Steward Liao hastily agreed, then carefully said: "There is another matter; among the gambling houses I handle, many of the buildings were obtained by entrusting people to find ways to get them; right now those handlers seem to have run into trouble for some reason."

He told of Liu Er's matter, and added: "Other things are not feared; what is feared is that the Capital Prefecture Office will follow the trail and investigate to the little one's head. I don't mind a beating or eating prison food, but if it implicates the business…"

Hearing it was the Capital Prefecture Office, Wu Yuanwai did not take it too seriously, saying: "I'll find someone to say hello to the inside."

He added: "Watch the gambling houses well, don't ruin the business; and that woman…"

"Yuanwai rest assured, the little one will think of a way right now; if she truly refuses, I'll tie her up and carry her to you!" Steward Liao smiled, "Once raw rice is cooked into cooked rice, what temper could she have left? She might even have to thank me for sending her to the Yuanwai's house to enjoy blessings!"