Chapter 64 Chapter 64 A vague feeling of uneasiness in the wisteria trellis...
The strange stories about the Liu Mansion can be described as heart-wrenching and full of twists and turns. Although the rumors have spread to every corner of Chang'an City, they are still an excellent fertile ground for writing a storybook.
Duan Zhiwei seized the opportunity and adapted the story with a brush under the lamp every night. She also asked Zhen Hui to polish it and sent it to the bookstore. The owner took a few glances at it and thought it was wonderful. He bought the story immediately. If it sold well in the future, she could get a share of the profits.
After receiving the fee, she was not in a hurry to return to the restaurant. Instead, she went to the East Market to find a free craftsman.
Originally, there was a wall of flowers behind the rouge shop, with wisteria, forsythia, and morning glory entwined together, covering the entire wall and branches. Duan Zhiwei planned to build a wooden frame in the backyard and lead the wisteria onto the frame. When the slender vines had all climbed up the beams of the wooden frame, the hanging purple flower strings would sway gently in the wind.
Then put a swing under the wooden frame, and the sunlight shines through the cracks in the frame, casting mottled shadows on the wisteria. It will definitely be a beautiful picture.
Of course, this is not the point. The point is that the attractive and thick purple petals are mixed with taro puree, purple sweet potato and some honey to make wisteria cake. It tastes fragrant, sweet, delicate and soft, which is really unforgettable.
According to historical records, Wisteria cake should have been a specialty dessert of Peking's pastry shops during the Republic of China period. Perhaps due to the scarcity of Wisteria, it became less common later on. Duan Zhiwei spent the entire afternoon tidying up the backyard and finally managed to clean up the flower wall.
The next big project was to tidy up the backyard which had been so badly damaged.
There were originally two little rabbits, one black and one white, in the backyard. Yuan Shenji had caught them when he went winter hunting in Zhongnan Mountain. He thought they were cute, so he brought them to the restaurant and gave them to Duan Zhiwei to play with, and he specifically told Duan Zhiwei not to put the rabbits into the pot.
Duan Zhiwei hugged the rabbit and said, "How could I put such a cute furry thing into the pot? Don't underestimate me."
She was sweating secretly. In fact, when she saw the rabbit for the first time, she wanted to try the famous dish "Baxiagong" in "Shan Jia Qing Gong".
The two rabbits were very small and cute at first. Pu Tao liked them very much and would touch them every day. As a result, the two rabbits grew bigger and bigger, and Pu Tao spent a lot of money on them. In spring, the two rabbits started to have babies.
Before the birth of the first litter, no one in the restaurant had any experience. Duan Zhiwei thought that the female rabbit must have gained weight from eating too much lettuce in the backyard. Unexpectedly, on a rainy night, the rabbit gave birth to eight rabbits at the foot of the wall.
Duan Zhiwei and a few others were left standing in the rain, holding up sheep-horn lanterns in amazement, their faces disheveled in the wind.
These ten rabbits were like a swarm of locusts. They not only devoured all the lettuce, greens, and radishes planted in the backyard, but also the camellia and hosta flowers that were bought to welcome the spring, and even the colorful banners hanging on the flowers.
The Baozhu camellia was sold at a very high price, and Aunt Duan was very angry. Under Aunt Duan's rage, Duan Zhiwei had to take some family planning measures.
After all, the rabbit was raised by the family themselves, and they were reluctant to eat it, and it would be difficult to sell it at the moment. Duan Zhiwei tentatively asked the Jinhua cat lying on the eaves to bask in the sun, and the cat said that their Jinhua clan was aristocratic and only ate high-quality and fat herring.
Duan Zhiwei said dryly: "I've never seen you eat less of the dried silver fish."
Aunt Duan carried a box of baby rabbits and delivered them door to door in the neighborhood. Some families with children kept a few, but even that was not as fast as the mother rabbits giving birth. In the end, Pu Tao found Zhu Niang, who had many of the same clan, and many spider spirits were willing to raise the rabbits to pass the time. Besides, spiders only eat insects and not rabbits, so it was very safe. Only then was all the baby rabbits delivered.
However, a few months later, when Duan Zhiwei took Pu Tao and Xiao Lang to the Ba Zi Niang Niang Temple to burn incense, they met several people squatting in front of the temple with resentful looks on their faces selling rabbits. One litter was white and the other was black. Duan Zhiwei hurriedly took the two children and ran away without looking back. Of course, this is a story for later.
For the remaining pair of mandarin ducks, Duan Zhiwei built a rabbit nest with stone bricks and kept only the female rabbit. He threw the male rabbit back to Yuan Shenji and asked the old housekeeper to take care of it.
The restaurant was finally quiet. Looking at the barren backyard, Duan Zhiwei could only lead everyone to renovate the backyard.
The warm spring sunshine shone in the backyard. Duan Zhiwei rolled up his sleeves, cut the last bundle of weeds and threw it into the corner. Fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead and she finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"The land has been turned over." Yuan Shenji, as the culprit of this drama, was also pulled over to help. Behind him was a freshly turned vegetable field, and the fragrance of soil filled the air.
Duan Zhiwei walked over, stood on tiptoe to wipe the sweat off his face, handed him the kettle, and promised him, "Thank you for your hard work. I'll plant some cabbages and radishes later, and cook cabbage dumplings for you when they're ripe."
On the other side, A Pan took Little Wolf and Pu Tao to build a shed in a corner of the backyard. By standing up the bamboo poles one by one and covering them with a layer of oil paper, a sturdy shed was soon built in the corner of the yard.
Duan Zhiwei had already thought about it. He decided to hang the pickled bacon here and let it dry slowly in the spring breeze. In winter, dried meat stewed with radish and water chestnuts is delicious.
"Madam, do you think this shed is sturdy?" A Pan asked, wiping his sweat.
Duan Zhiwei looked up and saw the sunlight shining through the gaps between the bamboo poles, casting mottled shadows on the ground. "Thank you for your hard work, everyone. I'll go make some food now."
As the sun rose higher, everyone's stomachs began to growl. Duan Zhiwei collected a lot of fresh wisteria petals from the flower wall, preparing to use them as fillings to make some wisteria dumplings.
The steamer on the big stove was already emitting steam. Duan Zhiwei divided the kneaded dough into small pieces and filled them with fillings made from wisteria flowers, honey and sesame seeds. Her fingers deftly pinched out folds, and small wisteria flower balls were neatly placed on the chopping board.
Yuan Shenji didn't like sweets, and Aunt Duan couldn't eat sweets either because she was old, so she made some salty ones. She seasoned the dough with five-spice powder and salt, kneaded it into an Aiwowo shape, and stuck flower petals on the outside of the dough so that every bite could have the fragrance of the flower petals. She then used a pestle to pound some garlic and added soy sauce to season it, and it tasted very delicious.
Everyone was resting and drinking water under the flower stand when Duan Zhiwei brought out a plate of freshly steamed wisteria flower dumplings from the stove room.
"Come and try it, this is what I just made." Duan Zhiwei put the plate on the stone table and brought over a pot of peach honey drink.
Pu Tao couldn't wait to pick up a piece of the sweet dumpling, took a bite, and his eyes lit up immediately: "This dumpling is soft and chewy, and the fragrance of wisteria flowers is so rich!"
Everyone sat under the wisteria trellis, talking and laughing.
Aunt Duan hurried in carrying a basket and a book, and said cheerfully, "Hey, Zhiwei, your storybook is very popular. I was walking around the East Market and saw a long queue of people in the bookstore, all wanting to buy your legendary story."
Yuan Shenji took the notebook first and flipped through it. Duan Zhiwei had also told him about this. He flipped through it and said, "It's well written, but Wang Jun is not very happy. He thinks you've taken his business away."
Duan Zhiwei snatched the storybook from his hand: "How can he, a wealthy man from the Wang family of Langya, have the nerve to steal business from a small restaurant owner like me?"
She smiled happily. The legendary book became popular, which was also a part of her income. Leaving the restaurant was another step forward.
Seeing that the sun was almost setting, Yuan Shenji stood up and said goodbye to everyone. The spring hunt was approaching, and the Jinwu Guards and the Qianniu Guards were old rivals. In order to protect the reputation of the Jinwu Guards, he and a group of subordinates trained in Zhongnan Mountain every afternoon. Sometimes, they were too late to return to the city because of the curfew, so they would stay overnight at the inn at the foot of the mountain.
Duan Zhiwei saw him out, and when no one was around, he held his hand. It must be hard to draw a bow and shoot arrows and ride a horse. His palms were covered with thick calluses, and there was a hideous scar at the base of his palm, which ran diagonally through the entire palm. Duan Zhiwei touched the scar on his hand with heartache: "You should also take care of your health. What's the first thing about spring hunting? It's not as important as your health."
She exuded the fragrance of wisteria, and Yuan Shenji was intoxicated. He hugged her in his arms and said, "I will definitely win the first prize in this spring hunt."
I will give the most precious treasure bestowed by the Daming Palace as a betrothal gift to the wife who is the most precious in my heart.
The next day, Duan Zhiwei woke up in the morning and opened the window, only to find that it was raining outside again. The lead-gray clouds were very low and the air pressure was also very low.
Such rainy days are what shop owners least want to see, because it means that customers will be less willing to go out, and business will be much worse than on sunny days.
Duan Zhiwei just felt depressed and had an indescribable discomfort.
Business was indeed bad today. Apart from a few scholars living in the inn next door who came and ordered a few dishes, there was no one else. Even the number of pedestrians on the road had decreased a lot.
It was raining outside. Ah Pan lit a candle the size of a bean and looked at her clothes. Putao sat on the front teeth and taught the little wolf how to fight for grass. Aunt Duan sat by the window admiring the colorful silk flowers she had just bought.
Duan Zhiwei first wandered around the restaurant, then sat down and read two pages of a storybook, but found that he couldn't concentrate on anything, so he had to stand up again.
After admiring her silk flowers, Aunt Duan saw her jumping up and down and couldn't help asking, "What happened?"
Duan Zhiwei couldn't explain it either, so he could only say, "I don't know either, I just feel depressed and uncomfortable."
Aunt Duan consoled her, "It's rainy and humid, and it's late spring and the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold. It's hard not to feel uncomfortable. Wait, I'll make you a pot of honeysuckle tea. You'll feel better after drinking a bowl of it."
After drinking a large bowl of bitter honeysuckle tea, Duan Zhiwei did not feel any changes. A Pan also sympathized with her and prepared some light dishes for lunch.
Pickled beans, spiced dried radish, pickled cabbage and a thin porridge stewed in a casserole.
The rain was getting heavier, and a green shadow rushed in from outside the door.
Everyone in the restaurant looked up and saw that it was Su Xun. He was still wearing his green official uniform. Although he was carrying an umbrella, perhaps the rain was too heavy or he was running too fast, the rain flowed from his head to his feet, forming a small puddle on the ground.
Aunt Duan quickly handed him a dry towel and said, "What's the matter? Why are you in such a hurry? Mr. Su is a frequent visitor here. Even if he comes at a late hour, we will still receive him."
He wiped his face with a towel and then spoke. Perhaps because he was too shocked, he stuttered: "No... It's bad... Captain Yuan was injured by a tiger in Zhongnan Mountain."
The bowl of porridge in Duan Zhiwei's hand fell to the ground and broke into two pieces.
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