26 Visitors from Gu Mansion

◎Let out a short scream◎

Song Jinyi introduced that there was a tea menu on the table and a picture on the wall showing the new tea menu. The customer didn't even look at it and pointed directly at Xie Wuyang's unfinished tea cup, "This one looks good. Give me a cup of this one."

Everything was ready, and Song Jinyi quickly made a cup of honey grapefruit tea and served it.

The man finished drinking, praised a few words, put down the teacup, and made a dull sound. Song Jinyi heard him say, "Madam Song's craftsmanship, whether it was the tortoise jelly in the past or the pomelo tea now, is excellent."

When Song Jinyi heard him mention Guilinggao, her eyebrows moved slightly, "I wonder who you are, sir?"

The other party said frankly: "The housekeeper of the Gu Mansion had met Madam Song once before and was quite impressed."

Song Jinyi understood instantly and the smile on her face faded. The boss had guessed right. It was neither a noble person nor an enemy.

That night, candles were burning in Song Jinyi's house. Through the thin window paper, the candlelight covered most of the yard.

This yard is rented together with the shop. It is very small, with only a pomegranate tree half a person's height, two livable bedrooms, and a storage room.

After Song Jinyi settled the bills last night, she had to calculate every penny she spent. She chose to cover the walls with white chips and yellowed corners with a piece of floral cloth so that she wouldn't be bothered by them.

As for the broken tiles, she cleaned up the damaged areas, spent a few cents to buy oil paper to cover the gaps, and used stones to press down the four corners. She just made do with it, but the squeaking door frame gave her a headache.

She looked in the direction of the wind and saw that a corner of the window paper on the window frame, which was thinner than rice paper, was lifted up, leaving its belly open to allow the cold wind to pour in and blow out the candle.

"Swish--" Song Jinyi immediately stood up and the chair was thrown away for a distance by inertia.

She hurriedly moved the candlestick, the only source of light in the room, inside. Her heart was pounding, and she only breathed a sigh of relief when the candlelight gradually became stable in a safe environment.

Looking back at the window paper, she felt mixed emotions.

The business had just started, and she had not had time to take care of her residence when the Gu family sent someone to ask her to make preparations and set off in half a month.

Hey, what should we do with this store?

It is impossible to ask the people from the Song Mansion to help take care of it, and Xie Wuyang can't rely on them either.

The cold wind was blowing, and she was so worried!

She squatted in the corner, staring at the candlelight in a trance. After a while, she slowly stood up holding the candlestick, her knees numb from squatting.

She blew out the candle, went to bed and comforted herself: "Forget it, go to sleep, we can talk about everything tomorrow, maybe after a good night's sleep, everything will be fine."

******

The next day.

Song Jinyi went shopping, passing through the busy streets, like a rock thrown into the tide, submerged by the crowd.

This time she wanted to develop a new grape-flavored product. She heard from the neighbors that there was an alley in the south where an old woman was selling very sweet grapes at the entrance.

Song Jinyi walked around the place the neighbor mentioned for a long time, but couldn't find the old woman who bought grapes. She wondered to herself, "Could it be that I've come to the wrong place?"

As soon as she finished speaking, she heard someone behind her call her "A Jin."

Song Jinyi was very familiar with this gentle voice. She almost immediately remembered who it belonged to. Turning around, she saw it was indeed Xu Ruolan, holding the things she had bought in her hands.

The market was noisy and not a good place to reminisce about the past, so Song Jinyi pulled Xu Ruolan back to the cabin.

Xu Ruolan looked at her, then sat down and asked why Song Jinyi was kidnapped that day.

Song Jinyi was silent for a moment, not knowing how to respond. She only sighed softly and said, "It's hard to put it into words, but fortunately my hands and feet are all intact, so I'm fine." She asked Xu Ruolan, "Sister Ruolan, how are you doing?"

Xu Ruolan replied, "It's hard to explain in a few words." She continued to talk about what happened after Song Jinyi left.

Since Song Jinyi left, there has been no pastry chef in the store. The tea was already mediocre, and the tea pastries were what attracted customers. Now that half of the customers are gone, the money earned is also less.

At first, the shopkeeper was desperate and hired a tea and pastry chef. Unfortunately, few people in Yunzhou City could match Song Jinyi's craftsmanship, and these ordinary tea and pastries could not revive the business.

Unexpectedly, the shopkeeper went crazy and refused to accept the loss of such a good business. He drove away the refreshment chef and began to withhold the wages of the waiter and Xu Ruolan.

In the end, she couldn't stand it anymore, so she left. Now she does odd jobs in a dried fruit store.

Song Jinyi took her hand and said, "Sister Ruolan, can you come and help me?" Song Jinyi told Xu Ruolan about her difficulties today and expressed her hope that Xu Ruolan could stay with her and help her take care of the business.

"I'm glad you trust me, but there's one thing I don't understand. Why do you insist on earning a thousand taels in three months? It's not something you can just say."

Song Jinyi pondered for a while, and just as she was about to speak, Xu Ruolan said sympathetically, "If you don't want to talk, then don't talk. If you have any difficulties, I will naturally do my best to help you."

Song Jinyi smiled silently. She really liked Xu Ruolan's character of not asking any further questions. "This is a bet between me and someone else. I must do it." Song Jinyi said the last sentence in an extremely firm tone.

Xu Ruolan just smiled slightly, her eyes were gentle, but her words were as firm as Song Jinyi's, "Okay, let's work together to achieve our goal."

Xu Ruolan became Song Jinyi's strongest helper. The only problem left was how to teach her all the tea drinks in less than half a month.

When Song Jinyi taught the class herself, she found that this problem was not a problem at all.

Xu Ruolan had learned how to make tea before, and she knew how to make tea easily. However, there were so many varieties of tea that even a successful scholar would find it difficult to memorize them all at once.

Song Jinyi had to look after the shop during the day and only had free time at night. She stayed up all night for several days and wrote most of the tea recipes on paper.

Song Jinyi handed the sweet water tea recipe to Xu Ruolan with two big dark circles under her eyes. "Sister Ruolan, the drink recipe and fruit tea recipe above are not difficult to remember. With your intelligence, I think you won't need this tea recipe soon."

Xu Ruolan first stroked her dark circles, said "thank you for your hard work", took the tea recipe and flipped through it, then said: "Ajin, if you are willing to write down the tea recipe carefully, I will not let you down."

Since Xu Ruolan came, Song Jinyi's burden has been lightened a lot. She finally has some time to breathe every day. Also, the honey pomelo tea she developed that day was well received as soon as it was launched, and almost every table ordered one.

Not only because of its sweet taste, but also because Song Jinyi specifically emphasized its medicinal effects when promoting it: honey nourishes yin and moistens dryness, grapefruit tastes sweet and sour and is cold in nature, and has the effects of regulating qi and resolving phlegm, moistening the lungs and clearing the intestines, and replenishing blood and strengthening the spleen.

Also, the restaurant next door has a great dish of braised pork, but it's easy to get sick of it if you eat too much, and this grapefruit tea is just the right way to remove the greasiness, so people who have just finished eating meat next door come here specifically to drink tea.

She is the only one in Yunzhou City that specializes in making this kind of tea and fruit. In addition to people from South Street, people from other streets also come here to try it when they have nothing to do. There are people waiting for the tea from the moment the door opens every day, and sometimes there are even long queues outside. The pomelo tea is in short supply. At the beginning, pomelo was only sold in baskets, but later it was shipped in trucks.

Song Jinyi usually sends Xie Wuyang to receive the goods.

The vendor, Madam Li, was cheerful and generous. Seeing Xie Wuyang's handsome appearance, she joked with him, "My dear, are you thinking about me? That's why you take care of my business every day. You bought so much..." As she spoke, she leaned closer and asked, "Do you want me to marry you?"

Seeing that Xie Wuyang's face was red as if blood was about to drip out, and he looked like he was about to faint from shame, she waved her hands and giggled.

After finishing, Xie Wuyang had a dark face and complained to Song Jinyi, saying that he would never buy grapefruit from her shop again, which made Song Jinyi laugh heartily.

The days passed one by one, and the day for Song Jinyi's departure was getting closer.

The prize money for this competition was one thousand taels, which was just enough to solve her gambling problem.

In order to win the competition, she specifically asked the steward of the Gu Mansion about the nobleman's hobbies, but the nobleman seemed to be a very important figure, and the Gu Mansion was very secretive about him.

Just tell her that she will know when she gets there, and don't let her ask any other questions.

This made Song Jinyi even more curious about the nobleman, but it was a pity that the people in the Gu family were very tight-lipped.

Without much information, Song Jinyi had to figure out how to prepare on her own. She remembered that when she was competing at the Gu Mansion before, Mrs. Gu mentioned that the old woman was also from Yunzhou.

She wanted to study Yunzhou cuisine, but unfortunately she was not a native of Yunzhou. She was a modern person who had come through life halfway. How could she know what the most authentic Yunzhou cuisine was?

Although she didn't know Yunzhou's delicacies, she knew that there was someone who knew Yunzhou's delicacies best - Mr. Feng!

She followed the address that Mr. Feng had told her before and found the alley where Mr. Feng's house was located. She had sent someone to deliver the invitation to Mr. Feng in advance on the opening day, but for some reason Mr. Feng broke the appointment and did not show up.

She came here just to find out.

The alley was not long, about a hundred steps to the end, and there were only two families inside. The door of the first family was ajar, and the sound of children playing could be heard from inside.

Feng Lao was an elderly widower left alone, so her home wouldn't be so bustling. So she walked straight to the second house without hesitation, only to see that the door was closed and there was a dusty spider web at the junction of the door and the corner of the wall.

Song Jinyi frowned slightly, having a bad feeling in her heart. She rang the doorknob, but it rang "bang bang" for a long time, but no one responded.

The first house in the alley heard the noise and slowly pushed open its door. A little head popped out. A child with a small bun on his hair raised his voice and said, "Stop knocking. Old Man Feng is not here."

Soon after, the elder of the family also came out. When he learned that Song Jinyi was looking for Feng Quan, he said, "My lady, you came at an unfortunate time. Mr. Feng received a letter from home last month and left in a hurry the next day. It has been a month and he hasn't returned yet. I don't think he will be back anytime soon..."

Things in this world are always so unfortunate.

Song Jinyi returned alone along the same route.

As she walked, she couldn't help sighing. Mr. Feng was a walking food map of Yunzhou. There was no restaurant he didn't know about, and he even knew all the delicacies in the corners.

He could probably name all the most famous, distinctive and worth-trying delicacies in Yunzhou with his eyes closed.

When they returned to the cabin, Xu Ruolan was busy preparing dinner in the small kitchen, and Xie Wuyang was helping her. Song Jinyi also went over to help and asked Xu Ruolan about this matter.

Only then did I realize that Xu Ruolan was not a native of Yunzhou, so how could she know what authentic food Yunzhou had. She had only been in Yunzhou for five or six years and had never had the opportunity to taste the authentic local food.

Song Jinyi was now in a dilemma, but then she thought: With her skills, she can excel in anything she does, right?

******

By mid-September, it was only a day or two before departure for Shengjing.

Thinking that the journey to Shengjing was long, Song Jinyi exchanged all the points she had saved for card drawing opportunities. There were a total of fourteen times, and she drew ten times. In addition to four answer cards, there were two cannon fodder physique transfer cards, a time pause card, a double gold coin card, a blood lock and life-saving card, and a favorability bonus card.

Song Jinyi looked at the Time Stop Card curiously. This could be considered an SSR-level card! Maybe it would be very useful in the future.

Song Jinyi packed her bag in a good mood, thinking that with these function cards, she could just go and show off her skills. However, she encountered another problem two days before departure.

The night spread, and half of the pomegranate tree in the yard was shrouded in dark shadows, while the other half was dyed orange by the window paper. The shadows of the leaves fluttered, and a human figure could be vaguely seen among them.

Song Jinyi was packing her luggage, and her eyes would always inadvertently glance at the figure outside the door.

This morning, Song Jinyi did not go to the front room to work, but stayed in the back room to pack her luggage alone. Xie Wuyang put down the work in his hands and asked Song Jinyi why she didn't tell him that she was packing the luggage.

This made Song Jinyi stunned for a moment. She had never thought of taking Xie Wuyang to Shengjing.

Regardless of whether this trip to Shengjing is a blessing or a curse, Xu Ruolan is simply too busy to handle the business in the store and needs someone to help.

After receiving a rejection, Xie Wuyang obediently walked away and went to the front to help. When the store closed, he stood quietly in front of Song Jinyi's window, saying nothing, just standing there all night.

Song Jinyi used brute force to stuff several pieces of autumn clothing into the package. Her movements were rough, revealing her inner irritation at the moment.

Two people, one standing outside the window and the other sitting inside the house, were silent with tacit understanding.

Xu Ruolan came back from outside and saw Xie Wuyang standing outside like a wooden stake. She asked, "Why don't you come in?"

Seeing that he was silent and didn't answer, she patted his shoulder and said, "If you have something to do with your sister Song, just follow me inside. It's cold outside."

Xie Wuyang shook his head without moving. Xu Ruolan said it was cold and asked him to go back, but he refused to go. Xu Ruolan sighed softly and turned to go into the house.

Xu Ruolan sat down, watching Song Jinyi pack her luggage. She tilted her head to glance at him and asked, "Why don't you let him in?"

Song Jinyi paused while packing up and said, "It's not that I didn't let him in, he just wanted to stand outside."

"What's going on?"

"He wants to go to Shengjing with me." Song Jinyi told her everything that happened this morning. "How can I take him with me? I was busy with other things and couldn't take care of him. He would only cause trouble for others. Besides, you need help here too."

Xu Ruolan remained silent. This was a matter between Song Jinyi and Xie Wuyang, so she didn't say much and turned to talk about what happened in the store.

Xu Ruolan said, "These past few days, many tea drinkers know that you are a good tea maker. They keep telling me to get some dim sum in the shop. Otherwise, they won't come anymore. Or should we hire a dim sum chef?"

"I've thought about it, but I just haven't met the right person."

Xu Ruolan smiled and said, "Indeed, compared to the tea chefs in Yunzhou," she waved her hand, "there's a world of difference."

"Less poverty."

"Oh, there's one more thing. Aren't you in a hurry to earn a thousand taels? Besides income, you also have to pay bills and be frugal. I ran into an old acquaintance the other day. Their family sells pomelo.

It's a little far, in the north market, but the goods are cheap and affordable, what do you think?"

Song Jinyi thought for a moment and said, "It would be great if we could reduce the cost, but we must ensure the quality of the ingredients."

"That's natural."

On the day of departure, early in the morning, Song Jinyi was washing up when she suddenly heard a noise from the kitchen outside and a short scream.