Chapter Twelve

While chanting blessings, the matchmaker scattered peanuts, red dates, and longans—fruits symbolizing many children and abundant blessings—on the wedding bed.

Finally, the matchmaker loudly proclaimed, "May this last for a thousand years after the wedding night is over!" and then led her maids out of the bridal chamber.

After having some snacks with Gu Leyao, Li Heng called over a guard and asked him to escort him back to his residence.

Gu Leyao was a little dumbfounded. Shouldn't the two of them live in the same house after getting married?

Why did Li Heng leave?

Gu Leyao thought for a moment and realized that Li Heng's legs might be injured, and he might be unable to have sex, but he was too embarrassed to say it.

Li Heng's quiet choice to live separately from Li Heng shows respect for each other.

Gu Leyao lay on the bed in a daze for a while. She felt a sharp pain in her thigh. When she turned around, she realized that the matchmaker had scattered a lot of peanuts and dates on the bed. It must have been uncomfortable for someone to sleep on it.

Gu Leyao opened the door and called out to the outside.

A short while later, Chuntao came in.

Chuntao called out, "Miss! What's wrong?"

Gu Leyao pointed to the wedding bed, "There are a bunch of nuts on the wedding bed, I can't sleep."

Gu Leyao and Chun Tao worked together to pick up all the fruit on the bed.

Chuntao peeled open a longan and ate it. It was big, sweet, and juicy. She collected all the fruits and put them in a cloth bag. She liked to eat these nuts and could take them home to eat slowly.

After tidying up the nuts, Chun Tao helped Gu Leyao change into her wedding dress and remove her bridal makeup.

Gu Leyao was exhausted after a long day, so now that Li Heng had left, she decided to go to bed early.

According to Zhou's mother, she and Li Heng will be going to the palace to pay their respects to the Emperor and Empress early tomorrow morning.

The Empress Dowager in the palace had passed away long ago. In ancient times, it was believed that the eldest brother was like a father and the eldest sister-in-law was like a mother. Li Heng had no parents to pay respects to, so he could only take Gu Leyao to the palace to pay respects to the emperor and empress.

After tidying up the house, Chun Tao left with the bag of nuts, and before leaving, she helped Gu Leyao blow out the candle.

It got dark, and Gu Leyao, who was very sleepy, felt a little dazed lying in bed and couldn't fall asleep.

She just got married like that?

After leaving the Gu family, Gu Leyao felt much better. At least she wouldn't have to listen to Gu Baozhu and Gu Ronghua say those sarcastic and cryptic things during meals.

In the original owner's memories of her previous life, she didn't see the Prince of Dingbei having any relationship with any woman. Li Heng wouldn't have any concubines in the future, so Gu Leyao felt that she could perhaps consider the Prince of Dingbei's mansion as her home.

It's funny, Gu Leyao didn't have a home in her previous life and was abandoned by her father at a young age, but in this life in ancient times, she unexpectedly has a home.

Gu Leyao's mind was filled with a mix of ancient and modern memories. As she pondered these thoughts, she drifted off to sleep.

*

The night was cool and still, and the moonlight was soft and gentle.

Li Heng was in another courtyard, sitting in his study reading a book, occasionally turning the pages. "What is the Princess Consort doing?"

A masked female bodyguard emerged from the shadows. "After you left, Her Highness the Princess asked Chun Tao, who was by her side, to help her clean up the wedding bed, which was covered in nuts. After that, Miss Chun Tao helped the Princess wash up, and then the Princess turned off the lights and went to sleep."

Li Heng's lips curled slightly. "Just like her."

He felt that Gu Leyao was a very simple girl. Her needs in life were very simple: a courtyard of her own, enough to eat, and enough clothes to wear. That would be enough for her to live happily.

At the flower-viewing banquet that day, Li Heng agreed to the marriage arranged by his sister-in-law. This was partly because his elder brother and sister-in-law had been working hard to arrange a marriage for him, and they both felt that he had harmed his health for the sake of the Great Zhou, so they hoped that he could settle down and enjoy the joys of family life. Li Heng couldn't bear to disappoint them.

On the other hand, it would be a lie to say that Li Heng wasn't moved when Gu Leyao cleared his name that day.

Despite being a petite girl, Gu Leyao clearly stated the time of each of his battles.

Li Qi told him that Gu Leyao was not doing well at home, and that Madam Bo preferred the daughter she raised by her side and disliked this biological daughter.

Li Heng felt that this girl might be different from the other noble ladies in the capital. Perhaps this girl named Gu Leyao would be happier if she married into the royal family.

Li Heng's legs were completely crippled, and he considered himself a disabled person.

If he could help Gu Leyao escape the quagmire of the Gu family and live a happier life.

This is truly a fortunate thing.

As night deepened, Li Heng had several more palace candles lit.

The palace candles flickered and the lamplight swayed, and as he turned the pages of the book beside him, his thoughts drifted away involuntarily.

He actually got married, that's unbelievable!

*

When Gu Leyao got out of bed the next day, it was just dawn, but she felt full of energy.

The beds in the Prince's Mansion were of much higher quality than those in the Earl's Mansion. The Prince's Mansion's beds were made of nanmu wood with golden edges, carrying the unique, calming fragrance of nanmu wood. Gu Leyao lay on them and slept soundly all night.

Gu Leyao had something on her mind, which is why she got up early.

She planned to show off her skills to the prince by personally preparing a modern-style breakfast.

After all, they were newlyweds, and Gu Leyao felt that they should still have some sense of ceremony.

Gu Leyao had already planned it out before going to bed yesterday. She wanted to make Cantonese dim sum from the future: steamed shrimp dumplings, chicken feet with black bean sauce, crab roe soup dumplings, and fish porridge.

These dishes are actually quite complicated to make, but fortunately the cooks in the Prince's mansion can help her with the ingredients.

Gu Leyao only needs to do it directly.

The first dish I made was braised chicken feet in black bean sauce. This dish requires the chicken feet to be tender and the bones to be soft, so it must be stewed for a long time.

Trim the nails off the chicken feet, cut them in half and set aside. Boil water, add scallions, ginger, star anise and fennel seeds, then blanch the chicken feet in the water to remove the fishy smell. Take them out of the boiling water and immediately put them into ice water. The hot and cold water will make the finished product tender and easy to debone.

Drain the prepared chicken feet and fry them in oil until golden brown. Leave a little oil in the pan, add fermented black beans, sugar, aged vinegar, and Shaoxing wine, stir-fry, and finally transfer to a plate and steam over high heat until cooked.

The fish, shrimp, and crabs were all caught this morning. Since there are no hairy crabs at this time of year, we can only use mud crabs from the river. The mud crabs were still crawling one moment, and the next moment they were steamed with scallions and ginger by an experienced cook. The crab meat and crab roe were extracted, and the crab oil was heated in a pan and fried to make golden-orange crab oil.

Gu Leyao asked the cook to select a piece of fresh lean wild boar meat, cut it into small pieces, add crystal salt, an egg, and prepared peppercorn water to the minced pork, and stir continuously in one direction. Then, she poured crab meat, crab roe, and crab oil into the minced pork and stirred until the filling became slightly sticky.

Gu Leyao used the dough that the cook had prepared to make small wrappers, rolling them out into sixteen small steamed bun wrappers in total.

She skillfully filled the dough with filling, while the cook, following her instructions, cooked the shrimp, peeled them, minced them, added blanched bamboo shoots, salt, finely ground pepper, a little sugar, and bright green scallions, and stirred it into a slightly sticky shrimp dumpling filling. After Gu Leyao finished making the crab roe xiaolongbao, she also wrapped the shrimp dumplings into crescent shapes.

The cook helped her put the crab roe soup dumplings and shrimp dumplings into a steamer, boil water in a cold pot, and steam them over high heat until cooked.

Fresh grass carp has a lot of meat and few bones. When sliced ​​into paper-thin pieces and placed in the early morning sunlight, you can see the fine lines. Marinate with a little oil, salt and cornstarch.

The cook boiled the fragrant rice until it released its oil, then spread out the marinated fish fillets and quickly put them into the pot. After about a minute, she turned off the firewood, covered the pot, and let it simmer until cooked.

Gu Leyao worked for a while and finished preparing these dishes. Afterwards, she couldn't help but sigh again, "It's so good to be rich. Someone will help me prepare the ingredients, and I can eat whatever I want."

Once the food was ready, Gu Leyao asked Chuntao to set it on the table, while she went to Li Heng's courtyard to find him.

Li Heng was being pushed out by Li Qi when Gu Leyao saw this and immediately quickened her pace, wanting to push Li Heng to eat.

Seeing that the princess was about to push the door, Li Qi was unsure whether he should give in or not, so he looked up to see Li Heng's expression.

Li Heng remained silent for a moment, then nodded slightly.

Feeling a little uncomfortable being pushed around by Gu Leyao, Li Heng opened his mouth but hesitated for a moment before saying, "The guards can push the wheelchair. You are a princess, you don't need to do these things."

Gu Leyao smiled, clearly in a good mood. She said, "We're husband and wife now, so you have to get used to things like this. We can't keep teaching the guards to do these things; it's not good for our relationship."

Seeing that Gu Leyao was in a good mood, Li Heng stopped talking.

When he arrived at the dining table, he looked at the dishes, which were exquisite and small, and smelled delicious.

Gu Leyao tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at Li Heng, saying, "The cook in our household helped me prepare the ingredients, and I made these dishes myself. You should try them quickly, and if you like them, I'll make them often in the future."

Li Heng tasted a bite of the fish porridge; it was tender and smooth with no fishy taste.

He hadn't expected Le Yao to be such a good cook, and immediately praised her, "It's really delicious, no less than the imperial chefs in the palace."

Gu Leyao knew that Li Heng said this to make her happy. She did think that her cooking skills were indeed good, but she was definitely not as good as the imperial chefs in the palace.

The imperial chefs were all experts recruited from all over the country. Every imperial chef could become the founder of a school of thought after leaving the palace.

The dishes she made did taste fresh and delicious, but her skills were certainly not as good as those of the imperial chefs. Gu Leyao was aware of this.

Gu Leyao sat down to eat as well, worried that Li Heng wouldn't know how to eat crab roe soup dumplings. She demonstrated to Li Heng how to eat the dumplings, using a small bamboo tube to sip the soup inside before finishing the dumpling.

Li Heng asked curiously, "Is this how you eat it in your hometown?"

The original owner's memories did not include soup dumplings; soup dumplings were a dish that Gu Leyao learned to make in modern times.

Faced with Li Heng's question, Gu Leyao vaguely replied, "I guess so, hurry up and try it, is it good?"

The two ate together for about fifteen minutes, and had eaten most of the dishes on the table.

Li Qi, a guard beside Li Heng, saw this and couldn't help but say, "The princess is really capable. The prince ate more in one meal than he usually does in two."

Li Heng glared at Li Qi, who shrank back and retreated to a corner to grow mushrooms.

Gu Leyao laughed, "That's great! It means my cooking is popular. I'll cook more often from now on. A cook needs people who enjoy their food to appreciate it; that's what makes them happy!"

There were still two baskets of shrimp dumplings, one basket of crab roe soup dumplings, and a plate of chicken feet with black bean sauce left in the steamer.

These things were clean; Li Heng and Gu Leyao hadn't touched them during their meal.

Gu Leyao took the initiative and gave the crab roe soup dumplings to Chun Tao, while leaving the shrimp dumplings and braised chicken feet with black bean sauce to the guards around Li Heng so that they could divide them among themselves.