It smells good.

It smells so good.

Mo Xuan, A Qing, and Dai Zi sat in a row, each holding a piece of lamb chop, gnawing on it at the table until their faces were glistening with oil, seemingly completely captivated by the lamb.

"My wife's cooking skills seem to have improved quite a bit... Mmm... This mutton is delicious... The mutton soup is also very good. I drank three bowls in a row, and my stomach feels perfectly comfortable... So comfortable, so very comfortable..."

Mo Xuan devoured four pork ribs in a row, leaving a small pile of bone fragments at his feet. Now he was holding a bone marrow and sucking out the marrow.

"It's still more comfortable staying in the restaurant. These days, I've been missing my wife's cooking... I miss my wife so much, I just hope (chew chew chew)... that my wife will come back soon after finishing her business... (chew chew chew)... slurp... (slurp slurp)..."

—He even chewed and sucked the marrow from the bones until they were tasteless before he would let them go.

"Thank goodness you still remember me. I thought you were still thinking about being the Dragon King of Dongting Lake and didn't want to come back to sweep the courtyard?"

Xu Milu shook the hem of her clothes, brushing away the ghostly aura that had just settled on them, and then said:

"After you finish eating the meat, go to the underworld and find Ox-Head and Horse-Face to bring back Aigard's soul."

"The souls of those foreign devils? After all this time, they've probably been worn down by trials of life and refined in boiling oil..."

Xu Milu pretended to hit him, and Mo Xuan immediately raised his hands in surrender:

"Hey, hey, hey! My wife called me to run errands, how could I refuse? I'll go after I finish this mutton..."

Mo Xuan smacked his lips and agreed repeatedly. He then turned his head and stared at the big bone in A Qing and Dai Zi's bowls. The taste of the marrow was unforgettable. How could one bone be enough?

Seeing his greedy look, Xu Milu remembered how silly he looked when he ate so much he couldn't even fly, and couldn't help but give him a light kick:

"Hurry up and go, and take this food box with you, along with some paper money and ingots, as a token of our gratitude to the two underworld messengers for their hard work."

Mo Xuan rubbed his buttocks and muttered:

“If my wife brings people back again, there will be no room for me in this shop—hey, hey, hey, my wife, watch your step, I’ll be right there.”

Seeing that Xu Milu was about to lift her foot again, this guy quickly grabbed the food box and transformed into a swirling black gust of wind, disappearing into the ground.

...

...

Dai Zi also imitated Mo Xuan by sucking the marrow from the bones. She flipped her palm up and down, and two reed tubes appeared:

"When eating mutton, you must drink the soup and suck the marrow from the bones; that's the essence—Dai Zi, you can't taste it like that, look—"

With a gentle snap of her fingers, the lamb bone split in two, revealing a strip of white, tender marrow, resembling tofu pudding.

"Ah Qing, here's a reed for you too. Suck it like this... Slow down, slow down. Tonight I'll go to Ma San Niang's place and buy some lamb trotters to braise. After it's done, I'll pour garlic sauce over it. I guarantee you'll like that too."

"Sizzle—"

Following Xu Milu's example, Aqing pinched the reed tube, took a deep breath towards the joint, closed her mouth, flicked her tongue, and the marrow fell into her mouth:

It has a different flavor from mutton; it's soft, tender, and bouncy, even more tender than tofu, with a hint of oiliness. You don't need to chew it thoroughly; just a sip and your mouth is filled with fragrance.

"It's delicious."

Aqing sincerely praised, "I never thought that mutton could be cooked so deliciously. The mutton you made is like the tasteless dough I used to eat."

She took another sip of soup, her face full of satisfaction:

"What are those Russian devils you were talking about? Are they spices used in cooking? Like for braising lamb trotters? Are they tasty?!"

"Who uses human souls to cook? How disgusting!"

Xu Milu was shocked, fearing that Aqing might have some strange thoughts, and immediately explained:

"That Egard was a villain I encountered when I was out searching for ingredients. He relied on the protection of the gods and the ability to be reborn after death to commit all kinds of evil deeds and become a local tyrant. He not only burned, killed, and looted, but also treated human life as a plaything. He was utterly despicable."

After I captured him, he intended to feign death and escape back to the rule of that foreign god, but unexpectedly I brought him to the underworld and used the Mirror of Karma to examine him—”

Xu Milu recounted all the bad things Aigard had done, including numerous heinous acts that were too numerous to list, which filled Aqing and Daizi with righteous indignation.

"So that's how it is! How could such a wicked person have divine protection?"

"Are the gods of those foreign lands blind? How could they protect such wicked people? Aren't they afraid of the Heavenly Court and its rules?"

Heavenly rules?

Does that kind of magical dimension exist?

From what she knew about the mythological system of the magical plane, the demons there might be more reliable than the angels.

Xu Milu touched her chin, seemingly lost in thought.

...

...

After breakfast, Xu Milu didn't rest. She went to the East Market again, visited several meat stalls, and finally bought thirty-two pairs of lamb trotters.

She hadn't planned to keep the sheep's hooves from that sheep to eat, and there were only four, which wasn't enough, so she gave them away.

Since we're making braised lamb trotters, we should naturally make a lot. There's more bone than meat on lamb trotters, so if we make too little, it won't be satisfying to eat them.

The lamb trotters are singed over a fire, then the stray hairs are carefully shaved off with clippers, and the areas that cannot be singed off are thoroughly cleaned with a torch before they can be cooked.

Place the lamb trotters in a pot of cold water. Add spices such as cinnamon, fennel seeds, cloves, nutmeg, star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, white cardamom, and bay leaves to the pot. Then add sweet wine, ginger slices, cooking wine, salt, oyster sauce, and cooking wine and simmer together.

The heat shouldn't be too high. After the pot boils, turn the heat down to low and keep it simmering gently. Ideally, the pot should always be kept at a state of just about to boil. Only by simmering it slowly over low heat for an afternoon can you get a good pot of lamb trotters.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!