Su Qingluan's mouth twitched, and she suppressed the urge to complain and said, "Thank you, young master. This 'tofu pudding' of mine has to be cut into more than a thousand pieces."

"Yeah, so what?" Xie Zian asked the most provocative question in the most innocent tone, "Wouldn't it be better if you had a few more people to help you cut it?"

"...But I only made this one this time. If anyone in your family is willing to help, please come earlier another day. It's already late today..." Su Qingluan struggled to maintain a smile.

The old butler beside him was obviously more knowledgeable than the middle school boy Xie Zian. He whispered in Xie Zian's ear, "Young Master, it seems that it is difficult to find a chef with such...superb knife skills in our mansion..."

Xie Zian looked up at Su Qingluan, then turned to look at his old butler: "We hired five or six chefs, but none of them can compare to this young lady? Aren't those all called 'famous chefs in the area'?"

Su Qingluan gritted her teeth as she listened. Hey, this brat is really annoying! Is this considered sexism? She should be thankful she can't offend him right now, or else she'll have to let the brat learn a lesson: what it means to be put in a sack, what it means to speak out of turn, and what it means to be punished by heaven!

The old housekeeper was obviously much more intelligent than the naughty kid: "Those chefs are naturally capable, but the cook you personally hired, young master, is naturally more skilled than the chefs hired by ordinary people."

Su Qingluan, who was listening nearby, grinned: "What a boast!" He praised her cooking skills and Xie Zian's discerning taste, yet he didn't say that the original chefs were "incompetent". He was indeed a shrewd person who served in a wealthy family and kept his words to himself!

Xie Zian nodded after hearing this, and finally gave up the idea of ​​asking the chef in the mansion for "help". However, he suddenly remembered something and looked at Su Qingluan: "You are such a great cook, why don't you stay here and be my cook? I will pay you double... no, triple the wages of others."

"Thank you for your kindness, young master. However, Qingluan is just a country girl. She is lazy and ignorant of etiquette. I'm afraid she is not suitable to stay with you..." Su Qingluan said dryly with her head down.

Who would want to stay with a brat who doesn't care what he says?! With such a whimsical "boss" around, Su Qingluan felt like her life would be shortened.

The old housekeeper must have seen that Su Qingluan didn't want to stay, so he said, "After all, this lady is a girl. It might not be convenient for her to stay with the young master..."

"What's the inconvenience?!" Xie Zian was a little unhappy.

"The old lady at home..."

"Okay, okay! I get it!" Xie Zian waved his hands impatiently.

The old butler returned to his original serious yet kind expression.

Su Qingluan didn't care much about the riddles between the two. She was only concerned about her own "mission progress." So when she saw that the two opposite her had stopped talking, she stepped forward and smiled brightly: "Xie Xiaolangjun, have I passed this 'trial'?"

"Oh, I passed!" Xie Zian nodded, "You can go and see that rare thing!"

Su Qingluan: ...Who the hell wants to continue working? What she wants is that 100 taels of silver! !

Suppressing the complaints in her heart once again, Su Qingluan forced a smile: "Thank you, young master, for the promised banknotes..."

Xie Zian waved his sleeves and said, "Don't worry, am I going to default on my debt?"

Su Qingluan thought, who knows if you'll default on your debt? I can't read your mind, and I'm not a worm in your stomach. More importantly, she had been busy making that chrysanthemum tofu for nearly an hour and a half, and she was really tired and didn't want to jump into the next "battle" right away.

So she put on a miserable expression and began to play the victim: "Don't say I'm a living person. Even if I'm using livestock to grind the mill, I still need some food and fodder, right? It's pitiful that I've been busying around for so long, and I don't get any compensation... Wuwuwuwuwu..."

Su Qingluan put herself in the shoes of a poor office worker whose wages were withheld by her black-hearted boss, and she was suddenly overwhelmed with grief. Her crying was originally 100% fake, but she actually acted with some sincerity and squeezed out a few tears.

Although Xie Zian is usually a scoundrel, he is, after all, a rich and pampered young man. The people serving him are all smart and insightful. Where has he ever seen such a rogue like this?

So although Su Qingluan's level of "selling misery" was only the most basic level and had not yet reached the point of throwing a tantrum and crying, it was enough to make Xie Zian, a "hothouse young grass", stunned.

"This...you...don't cry!" Xie Zian jumped down from the bench in a panic. He wanted to pull Su Qingluan's sleeve, but then he realized that she was a woman and such an action was a bit frivolous. So he scratched his head and turned to look at the old housekeeper: "Hurry up and exchange the ten taels of gold for silver notes!"

The old housekeeper probably had never seen such a "relaxed" woman. He was stunned for a while, and only after hearing the instructions from his young master did he respond as if awakened from a dream, then turned and left.

Su Qingluan really didn't want to hear any more of the irritating nonsense the brat opposite her could spout, so she kept covering her face and sobbing fake tears.

Then Xie Zian exclaimed curiously, "How can you cry so much? Aren't you tired?"

Su Qingluan: ...She couldn't pretend to cry anymore. Could she kill this naughty kid?

But soon, all the anger in Su Qingluan's heart disappeared - because the old butler came back, and with him came the silver note with a face value of one hundred taels!

The old butler respectfully sorted out the silver notes that had been exchanged into small denominations of five and ten taels and placed them in front of Xie Zian: "Master, these are it."

Xie Zian didn't hesitate and directly picked it up and handed it to Su Qingluan: "Here, stop crying, this is the reward you asked for!"

Su Qingluan naturally had little trust in the old butler. Just to be on the safe side, she counted the denominations of the banknotes again. The bitter expression on her face immediately dissipated, replaced by a bright smile: "Thank you, young master. What exactly is that rare ingredient?"

Su Qingluan prayed silently, hoping it wasn't some rare species that would be imprisoned for a lifetime in modern times - she had no experience in cooking wild animals! That would really touch upon her blind spot!

Xie Zian looked at Su Qingluan's expression in surprise, and said in amazement: "You change too quickly, don't you?"

Su Qingluan smiled so hard that her teeth were visible and her eyes were invisible: "I'm naturally happy to see the reward."

Xie Zian curled his lips, without commenting, and then ordered: "Follow me!"

Upon hearing this, Su Qingluan immediately followed him, walking along the corridor of the courtyard, and then came to a hall. In a corner where the sun didn't shine, there was a fish tank as big as a small pond.

At Xie Zian's signal, Su Qingluan walked over, and was immediately stunned: Not to mention it was a "rare treasure", it was even a very common ingredient in modern times!