Chapter 101 Chapter 101 Autumn Banquet at the Foot of Zhongnan Mountain...
When the Jinhua cat first started eating and drinking in restaurants, Duan Zhiwei asked it:
"Do you have a name?"
It said seriously: "For great monsters like us, we can't just give our names to others casually."
"But other monsters have been very generous in telling us their names." Duan Zhiwei was very confused.
A suspicious blush crept up its face: "In short, I will never tell anyone something as important as my name!"
This led to the fact that for a long time, everyone in the restaurant just called it Jinhua, as if that was its name.
Now everyone knows the reason.
"......So Jinhua, your real name is Shigou......" Everyone's faces turned red from trying to hold back their laughter, and their shoulders trembled slightly.
It raised its two front paws to cover its pointy ears, then rolled on the ground: "Ahhhhhhhh stop talking."
Dugu Jiuyuan sat and drank a bowl of yogurt elegantly: "That year, the heavenly dog raised by the family gave birth to nine little heavenly dogs. The next day, this one was born. It happened to be the tenth, so Aye named it Shigou."
This mysterious cat-ghost family with strange legends in the dark night of the Sui Dynasty also feels quite unruly.
Jiu Yuan hugged the box containing Axue's soul and stood up: "I came to Chang'an because I have something important to deal with at the Monster Catching Division. I will take the soul of this stone lion away first. It will be back in about half a month."
As she spoke, she bowed gracefully to everyone, put on her veil, and turned away.
Aunt Duan enviously said from behind: "This girl is obviously a young lady carefully nurtured by a big family. She exudes elegance in every move."
Pu Tao tilted his head to look at the Jinhua cat that was secretly licking the buttermilk. It rolled around in the maple forest for several times, and there was a lot of grass debris on its body. "You are all from the same family, why are you, Shigou, neither clean nor elegant?"
"I already told you, you are not allowed to call me a dog!"
In short, with Jiuyuan's assurance, Axue should be back soon. Amo, who caused a big disaster, was also taken away by the Demon Catcher. They said that he would be examined carefully, and if the evil spirits were eliminated, he would be returned to the land temple.
After all, this year was a bumper year. Just after the community day, the stone lions at the entrance of the land temple disappeared, which was bound to cause discussion and panic among the people of Chang'an.
Everyone in the restaurant felt relieved and turned their attention to the upcoming Double Ninth Festival.
On the Double Ninth Festival in this dynasty, the emperor would climb the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, hold a chrysanthemum banquet on the banks of Qujiang River to entertain his ministers, and also carry out a series of hunting, horse racing and other activities. Obviously, only one day off for the Double Ninth Festival was not enough.
Therefore, the sage waved his hand and gave two to three days of holiday to everyone in the world, from high-ranking officials to peddlers. As a result, the ladies and gentlemen had time to go outside the city to bid farewell to the emperor. It won’t do without some cakes and wine.
The price of chrysanthemum wine in wine shops began to soar. This chrysanthemum wine is made with millet as the base, mixed with chrysanthemum petals, leaves and stems. The jars are sealed one year in advance and opened again on September 9th of the following year.
It has a strong sense of ritual and people of this dynasty like it very much.
Only Duan Zhiwei felt that the wine had a green smell of plants, and she didn't like it very much. However, drinking chrysanthemum wine was one of the important customs of Double Ninth Festival, so she had to go to the wine shop early to order a jar.
It was the golden autumn, and the crabs had grown very large and fat. Duan Zhiwei carefully selected those crabs with big and round navels and steamed them.
Eating crabs is popular in this dynasty, but most restaurants still boil crabs, which causes a lot of crab roe and crab paste to be lost into the soup.
Steamed crabs not only have firmer meat, but the crab roe and crab paste are also well preserved and have a richer aroma. Moreover, unlike other restaurants that serve crabs with orange paste, Duan Zhiwei always serves crabs with a dish of shredded ginger and balsamic vinegar.
This made the crabs at Duan's restaurant very popular, and also gave Duan Zhiwei a rare sense of superiority as a modern person.
Aunt Duan treated this matter as a business secret. She would move a small couch to the door of the kitchen and sit there every day, for fear that others would discover her family's secret of cooking crabs.
But the other restaurants were not stupid. They understood the trick after just touching the crab shell. They no longer boiled the crabs but steamed them instead. Aunt Duan was so angry that she didn't sleep well for three days.
Duan Zhiwei was fine. She often studied other people's secret recipes. Moreover, as the first restaurant to steam crabs, Duan's Restaurant was still very popular among diners.
The Chongyang cakes launched by Duan's Restaurant this time are quite standard. Ma Ge cake, snowflake cake, and chrysanthemum cake are all common cakes. However, the word of mouth is there, and the business is as good as ever. The steamer works from morning to night, and the white steam never stops floating in the sky.
Every diner who came into the restaurant today could get a small plate of sweet chrysanthemum cake for free. Duan Zhiwei distributed it, but only a man named Gao refused to take it.
Because "gao" has the same pronunciation as "gao", he has to avoid it.
The saint is preparing to go to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda to pray for blessings again this autumn, which has caused the Jinwu Guards to be busy again. Yuan Shenji has been on guard near the Da Ci'en Temple for a day and finally returned just in time for curfew.
Duan Zhiwei prepared mung bean and chrysanthemum noodles in advance for him to wash his hands.
Yuan Shenji took it and peeled a plate of yellow meat and pushed it to her to eat.
Duan Zhiwei shook his head: "This crab meat is cold. I've eaten a lot today. I won't eat any more because I'm afraid it won't be digestible."
Recently, the banquets in the corridor of the government office have always been crabs, and he is tired of eating them, so he only picked two pieces of crab as a token of his appreciation, and would rather eat pickled eggplant with rice.
Duan Zhiwei put the plate of crabs aside and shouted to the backyard: "Shi Gou, come and eat crabs."
No creature paid any attention to her.
She was puzzled for a while, then suddenly realized what was going on, and then she said again: "Jinhua, here is a plate of peeled crabs, come out and eat them."
The Jinhua cat then came out from the backyard awkwardly, looked at her resentfully, and then returned to the backyard dragging the plate.
Duan Zhiwei and Yuan Shenji looked at each other.
Then there was a great burst of laughter.
When Yuan Shenji first heard that the Jinhua cat's real name was Shigou, he choked on a mouthful of chrysanthemum wine and then laughed out loud, shaking his shoulders.
The name "Ten Dogs" must be very powerful to be able to make this cold-faced Jinwu Guard laugh so happily.
It was late tonight and the dew was heavy. The temperature in the room was extremely low. Duan Zhiwei was hugging the big stove next to him, but he still felt his feet were cold.
Yuan Shenji pinched her ankles gently and placed her feet on his abdomen, which was burning hot.
Duan Zhiwei felt her feet were more comfortable. She remembered something and asked, "When will you take a day off on Chongyang?"
The activities for the Saint Double Ninth Festival were fully scheduled, which kept him very busy and made Duan Zhiwei very depressed.
Yuan Shenji said: "It's my turn to rest on the last day."
"So there's still time to rest?" she asked happily.
Duan Zhiwei smiled particularly brightly under the dim candlelight. He was moved and raised his hand to pinch her face: "You look so happy."
"I plan to pick a day during the Double Ninth Festival and take everyone to the foot of Mount Zhongnan for a farewell banquet." She leaned her head on his shoulder: "I would be very happy if you could go too."
He suddenly felt warm and bent down to kiss her smooth forehead: "Okay."
Duan Zhiwei worked hard for the Double Ninth Festival banquet. She hired two ox carts, loaded the felt tents, wine vessels, various tableware and food, and then the group of people marched towards the outside of Chang'an city.
The weather was very good on the Double Ninth Festival. The woods in Mount Zhongnan were like small cakes of different colors, red, yellow, and orange, layered upon layer. Occasionally, a group of wild geese formed a neat V-formation in the blue sky, migrating towards the south.
It was very lively outside Chang'an City. Many people were sitting on the grass, drinking and reciting poems.
Duan Zhiwei deliberately walked deeper into the forest because they had a special guest.
The tent was set up, wine and food were served, and the autumn banquet began happily.
Pu Tao invited Zhu Niang, and the two of them took the little wolf to look for various insects in the forest, wanting to catch them and raise them, but they were sternly rejected by Aunt Duan.
The ten dogs wagged their tails while waiting for the sizzling grilled fish on the charcoal stove.
Zhen Hui, Su Qian, Li Heng and Yuan Shenji drank chrysanthemum wine and listened to Wang Qian telling the story of "When the time comes, the wind will send Tengwang Pavilion away".
He was an expert at writing storybooks, and unexpectedly he was also quite capable as a storyteller. The stories he told were very fascinating and kept the gentlemen fascinated.
It is said that on the day before the Double Ninth Festival, the young genius Wang Bo went from Shanxi to Jiaozhi to visit his exiled father. When the boat reached Madang Mountain, it encountered a storm and stopped there. Wang Bo got off the boat to enjoy the river view and met an old man with a celestial appearance. The old man said, "Tomorrow is the Double Ninth Festival. There will be a banquet at Tengwang Pavilion. If you can go, you will definitely write a wonderful poem and be famous for thousands of years."
Wang Bo said that this place was far away from Hongdu and it was really difficult to get there. The old man said, "I will lend you a breeze, and you can go there on your own."
Sure enough, Wang Bo arrived at Tengwang Pavilion on time the next day and wrote the amazing "Preface to Tengwang Pavilion".
Su Kui sighed and said, "Wang Bo was a man of great talent, but it's a pity that he died young."
A few people recited a few lines of "The setting sun and the lone wild goose fly together" and raised their glasses to drink happily.
Aunt Duan and Ah Pan are learning how to make silk flowers from Chen Guifang. She is deft with her hands and the silk flowers she makes with gauze look lifelike.
Duan Zhiwei looked around and made sure that there was no one else here, so he opened the small wooden box on the car with confidence, took out the little lion inside and put it on the ground.
Axue's soul is currently placed on this little lion that is only the size of a palm. It is much cuter and lighter than before.
But this time, in order to ensure that it would not break so easily, the Monster Catchers replaced it with a copper shell.
Ah Xue lingered at Duan Zhiwei's feet for a while, a little disappointed: "Didn't he come?"
Duan Zhiwei smiled and pointed to a suspicious pile of fallen leaves in the distance.
The pile of fallen leaves was huge and was still shaking slightly. Upon closer inspection, the huge stone lion A-Mo was hiding in it.
"Maybe he's embarrassed to see you." Duan Zhiwei said.
Axue angrily swung her tail, strode over, quickly climbed onto Amo's head, and then raised her claws to hit him: "You are such a big fool! How could there be a monster as stupid as you in Chang'an City? You are a disgrace to us monsters. You lost your mind because of a little tree spirit. I am ashamed for you."
Ah Mo stretched out his paws to cover his head: "I'm wrong, I'm sorry, it hurts."
Everyone rushed over to try to stop the fight: "He already knows he was wrong. You two haven't met for hundreds of years. Stop scolding him and make peace."
Ah Xue was even angrier: "You could have come to me earlier to apologize, but you were hiding under a pile of leaves and shivering. I got even angrier!"
Ah Mo covered his head and said, "I really know I was wrong. I'm sorry, Ah Xue."
The two lions were still quarreling, and Pu Tao came over and said, "We secretly hid a hemp rope. Do you want to play tug-of-war?"
Duan Zhiwei said: "This is a good suggestion."
The crowd was divided into two teams according to their body sizes. Aunt Duan stood aside as a referee, complaining that her back was not in good condition.
Amo asked, "Can I play?"
"You are not allowed to play!" Everyone said in unison, looking at the huge stone lion.
The afterglow of the setting sun finally shone through, dyeing the mountains and forests a warm orange. The laughter and joy at the banquet also subsided, and everyone got on horse-drawn carriages and ox-drawn carts and headed for Chang'an City.
Duan Zhiwei and Yuan Shenji were riding in the same carriage. She leaned against his shoulder in the back, feeling sleepy. "How about we come here every year in the future?"
He looked up at the sky and saw the first star appear in the orange-red sky.
"Okay." He heard his own voice.
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