Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Bring along the fried crispy meat and the cold basil drink...
“One does not know the passing of spring when it rains continuously, and only when the weather clears up does one realize how deep summer is.” After several continuous spring rains in Chang’an, the sun finally peeked out from behind the clouds.
It was noon, and the municipal office beat drums three hundred times along the streets. The East and West markets of Chang'an officially opened, and the shops also began to open for business one after another.
In the past, the most prosperous area of Tongyifang was next to the century-old ginkgo tree. It was a gathering place for foreigners such as the Arabs and Byzantines. There were fortune tellers, acrobatics and shadow puppet shows, and it was very lively.
The most famous tavern "Southeast Flavor" is located here. Its signature dish is the golden minced meat and jade slices that were praised by Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty.
In fact, to put it simply, it is thinly sliced sashimi kneaded with some fragrant and soft flower leaves, and a few slices of golden fresh tangerine on the plate.
Although it is simple to prepare, there is a constant stream of diners coming to the restaurant. Even princes and grandchildren of the emperor would often send their servants to buy some to take home.
Because the business was delayed by several rains in the past few days, the store owner saw the sun coming out and hurriedly sent someone to buy a large basket of lively sea bass early in the morning. However, it seemed that he had miscalculated today, as there were very few diners in the store.
Finally, two scholars in robes and futou arrived, holding lotus leaf bags in their hands. They sat down and shouted to the store owner, "Master Wine, give me some golden and jade minced meat and a pot of wheat and potato wine."
As he spoke, he could not wait to open the lotus leaf bag. The fragrance instantly filled the air, and not only did the two scholars salivate with delight, but the diners around them also looked at them with awe.
The waiter, who had brought over a pot of cold wine, was also attracted by the aroma. He stared at the golden and crispy fried meat in the lotus leaf package and said, "Hey, sir, what is this? It smells so good."
The scholar proudly poured a glass of wine and said, "This is a new dish from the soup and noodle restaurant at the end of the city. It's called something like... fried crispy pork. The business is extremely good. I waited in line for half an hour to buy it."
At the end of Tongyifang are a few unremarkable fruit shops, silk and clothing stores, and snack bars. However, due to the bad location, there are naturally not many people, and even the few Chinese toon trees are wilted.
Today, there was a long queue in front of the little-known Duan's Soup and Noodle Shop, which attracted passers-by to stop and watch.
A small stove made of bricks was temporarily built in front of the shop. Next to the stove was a large coarse porcelain basin filled with pork belly that had been marinated with pepper, star anise, salt and eggs for the whole morning. The oil pan above was steaming.
A pretty lady in a crow-colored double-breasted jacket was frying meat in an orderly manner in front of the stove. She first sprinkled in chopped Sichuan peppercorns and stir-fried them until fragrant, then put in the skinless and marinated pork belly.
After the surface becomes crispy, throw it in and fry it again at high temperature. The fried pork belly will be golden and crispy on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside.
She skillfully wrapped it in a dry lotus leaf and tied it with a hemp stem, and handed it to the impatient diners waiting in front of the stove.
Occasionally she looked up at the flying eaves and corners outside the low wall of the block, and then continued to work.
The shop owner, Aunt Duan, has been a widow for many years, living a hard life with a face full of worry all the time. But today she changed into a bright red high-waisted skirt and smiled happily while tapping an abacus.
The diners gathered in front of the shop had been waiting for a long time, so they got together and started chatting about everything, from which restaurant in the East and West Market had the best food to the recent changes in the Da Ci'en Temple.
"Auntie Duan, who is this young lady?" Madam Yelu from the tailor shop next door was attracted by the aroma and curious about this unfamiliar girl. But Auntie Duan said cheerfully, "She is my niece from Liangzhou."
The young lady also looked up at Aunt Yelu, and seeing her eyes constantly glancing at the fragrant oil pan, she smiled knowingly and said politely, "My name is Zhiwei, and I have just arrived in Chang'an. I haven't had time to greet my neighbors yet. I will bring you a portion of crispy meat after I close the stall."
He looks lively and quick-witted, and even remembers to send a portion to his neighbors on both sides.
Aunt Yelu satisfied her gossip and got a free meal. She was so happy that she didn't know what to do. She just said, "What a smart lady. I won't bother you anymore." Then she turned around and went back to her tailor shop.
"Of course I'm not from Liangzhou." Duan Zhiwei was thinking while working. She was working on a food special in Qinghai and was driving on a large loop route when she somehow overturned her car in the Gobi Desert. When she woke up, she was already in Liangzhou of her own dynasty.
It turns out that there is also a lady from the Duan family in this world. When she was traveling with her parents, she encountered an avalanche on the way, and she was the only one rescued. Of course, the person who was rescued was not her, but Duan Zhiwei, who was still thinking about the Qinghai food special.
The story begins with a catastrophe, but fortunately Duan Zhiwei traveled through time as a good citizen with a registered permanent residence. When she goes out, she can pretend to be serious and say, "I am from the Xiping Duan family..." Although she is not as majestic as the Wang family of Langya or the Cui family of Qinghe, she is much better than being a refugee or a slave.
Liangzhou is actually the largest state in Hexi. With the sun setting over the long river and the lonely smoke in the desert, Duan Zhiwei could see the desolate Gobi Desert in the distance to the west when she lifted the curtain of the ox cart in the city. It was freezing cold.
The taverns in the city lit their fires early, and Hu Ji danced the Hu Xuan dance and sold wine and roasted lamb. It is also a different story, but Duan Zhiwei has no relatives or friends in Liangzhou, but he unexpectedly learns that an elder aunt married to Chang'an when she was young.
Which modern person can refuse Chang'an? With the spirit of "since he was already here", Duan Zhiwei saved money in Liangzhou for some time, found a caravan of Hu merchants, rode on camels for several months, and finally arrived in Chang'an.
After selling all the fried crispy pork in the morning, Aunt Duan happily lowered her head to count the copper coins. Duan Zhiwei was very hungry, so he lowered his head to finish a whole plate of steamed buns. As for the taste, well... it was mediocre.
She remembered something and curiously asked Aunt Duan what the "popular lectures at Da Ci'en Temple" meant when she heard the man in the queue talking about it at noon.
She naturally knew about Da Ci'en Temple, a famous tourist attraction in Xi'an and the temple that tells the story of Xuanzang's journey to the West to obtain Buddhist scriptures. All I know is that the adult ticket is 30 yuan. If you want to climb the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, that's another price, and it's different in peak and off-season.
Aunt Duan took a sip of yogurt and thought for a while, saying that on the first and fifteenth day of every month, the monks of Da Ci'en Temple would explain Bianwen.
What is Bianwen? In simple terms, it is the stories that Buddhists tell regularly in temples to attract people to listen.
Recently, I specially invited a master from Dunhuang to write a transformation text. It tells the story of Jiujiang County, where the playboys were drinking and having fun on a boat at night, and suddenly they heard the sound of a pipa coming from outside.
There was the sound of pipa in the vast Xunyang River. It turned out that there was a singing girl wearing a white veil playing the pipa on another boat. The playboys drank some wine and ordered the boatman to row closer.
The woman, wearing a thin scarlet skirt with gold plaster on it and holding a pipa, looked unspeakably strange in the dark night. The young man, taking advantage of his drunkenness, pulled off her veil, causing her to fall into the boat in fright and order the boatman to row away quickly.
"Is the singer ugly?" Duan Zhiwei asked hurriedly, listening intently.
Aunt Duan shook her head and said, "That was the Feitou Man transformed into a woman. The boy lifted up the veil and found only a cavity but no head."
Duan Zhiwei listened with great interest, picked up a bowl of yogurt and drank it, then coughed loudly: "Aunt, can you please not put onions, ginger and garlic in the yogurt?"
The popular lectures at Da Ci'en Temple made Duan Zhiwei think about something. Chang'an had just warmed up, and there were waves of heat as he walked on the road.
So to speak. After listening to the vulgar story and wiping the sweat off the lady, she will definitely feel...thirsty.
This is like Duan Zhiwei taking a long walk around a huge museum, and when he came out he found that the stalls selling fried starch sausages and osmanthus cakes in front of the museum were crowded all the way. Among them, the stall selling lemon tea had the most people.
Of course, in the hot summer, people who go out for a walk will feel thirsty and have to drink some refreshing water to quench their thirst.
Here comes the business opportunity.
The "Six Drinks" are mentioned in "Book of Zhou": water, juice, sweet wine, cool wine, medicine, and elixir. In this dynasty, it developed into "black plum juice" and "salted plum water".
The method is also very simple. Dry the fresh plums, mix them with salt, and then pour them into hot water. This can be regarded as the predecessor of modern sour plum soup.
Aunt Duan had a bag of chopped plums at home. Duan Zhiwei boiled some water and drank some. It was very salty. She walked around the whole market, bought some fresh plums at the fruit shop, and then went to the medicine shop to buy some basil and licorice and took them home.
She fetched a bucket of well water, washed the plums, and pickled them with salt to remove the astringency. Marinate the plums with young ginger, perilla and rock sugar for half an hour until the juice comes out.
Then boil the pickled plums with licorice, tangerine peel, hawthorn and mint in a pot. Bring to a boil over high heat and then lower the heat. You will get a pot of clear pink basil drink.
Duan Zhiwei took a look at the clear soup, nodded with satisfaction, and called Aunt Duan to come and taste it.
Aunt Duan walked to the backyard, fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan, and exclaimed in surprise, "What a beautiful soup color." It was completely different from the black plum juice with flying debris and salt blocks.
Duan Zhiwei poured a bowl and handed it to Aunt Duan. She drank it all in one breath. She could smell the sweet fragrance of plums, the fragrance of basil and the coolness of mint all rushing to her head. Aunt Duan sighed, "This drink is so good that even a saint can drink it."
That’s a point, Duan Zhiwei thought. It is said that Emperor Renzong of Song Dynasty once held a competition to evaluate drinks all over the world. After comments from expert judges from the Hanlin Academy, Erchen Drink, Mint Drink, Osmanthus Drink and Wu Drink all lost to this Perilla Drink.
Duan Zhiwei carefully sealed the basil drink with beeswax and poured it into the well. Since Song Renzong liked it and the two dynasties were not far apart, people of this dynasty...should like it too.
Another kind of thing to sell is peach blossom cheese, which is actually very simple. It only requires milk and fermented rice, boiled and then cooled. People at that time loved to eat flowers, so they added a few slices of peach blossoms on the cheese.
The ladies in Chang'an love beauty, and this is the peach blossom cheese that uses "whitening" as its selling point.
Everything is ready except... wait, we still lack a means of transportation. Duan Zhiwei slapped his forehead and ran to the donkey rental shop. The other party asked for fifty cents a month.
Duan Zhiwei had made a lot of money in the past few days. She bargained with the shop owner for half a day, and finally they both compromised. Duan Zhiwei chose an old donkey, and the owner gave her ten cents less, and finally the deal was settled at forty cents.
Duan Zhiwei came back in a donkey cart, thought for a moment and knocked on the door of a nearby steamed bun shop. A blonde, blue-eyed Sogdian beauty came out from behind the curtain.
Duan Zhiwei said, "Yena, I'm going to set up a stall near Da Ci'en Temple tomorrow. Would you like to come with me?" She told a story about the popularity of Da Ci'en Temple and said that the steamed cakes should sell very well there.
Ye Na was stunned by what he said, and after hesitating for a moment, he agreed to share the ten cents for renting the donkey with her.
The next day, as soon as the market opened, Duan Zhiwei loaded the prepared peach blossom cheese and basil drink into the car, and slowly strolled with Ye Na to the vicinity of Da Ci'en Temple.
As expected, the Da Ci'en Temple was already crowded with people. The temple was backed by the wall of the Daming Palace and was quite majestic.
In early summer, the pond in the temple is already covered with green lotus leaves in an orderly manner, and the tender and delicate pink lotus flowers stand tall and graceful, attracting countless tourists.
Duan Zhiwei chose a shaded area at the main entrance of Da Ci'en Temple and placed two buckets and jars on the dining table. She took out a small lotus-shaped wooden bowl, served it with a bowl of clear pink basil drink and placed it in the front to attract customers.
It was still early, and everyone was heading towards the Da Ci'en Temple. Duan Zhiwei was not in a hurry and found a rock to sit down on, fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan.
There were bursts of Buddhist chants coming from the Da Ci'en Temple, as if a secular lecture had begun. After an hour, people began to come out of the temple one after another.
Duan Zhi smiled and called over a woman who was wiping her sweat with a handkerchief and handed her a bowl of cold basil drink. He said, "Excuse me, you seem quite thirsty. Would you like to try this cold and sweet basil drink? The well water has been boiling all night and I've added some nectar."
The woman was tall and plump. She picked up the bowl and drank it all in one go. It was icy, sour, sweet and delicious. She hurriedly said, "Three more bowls."
The restaurant successfully attracted customers from the beginning. Duan Zhiwei hurriedly poured her another bowl. The woman laughed heartily and said, "It's delicious, delicious." Her voice was a little louder, attracting the attention of a group of people.
Soon, many people gathered around Duan Zhiwei's stall. Seeing a group of ladies in gauze skirts coming over, Duan Zhiwei opened another jar. The smooth and tender cheese was covered with red peach blossoms.
"This is a good thing. Drinking milk can make your skin whiter, and peach blossoms can make your face look like a peach blossom without putting on rouge."
Duan Zhiwei was born with fair complexion, and seemed to be very convincing: "I grew up in Liangzhou. The wind and sand at the border hurt people. The people there drink cheese, which can make their skin much whiter."
The ladies were moved and took out money one after another. Duan Zhiwei took the money and said, "I have a small restaurant under the Chinese toon tree at the end of Tongyifang. Ladies, if you are interested, you can find me there. If you drink this peach blossom cheese for a month, I guarantee that your skin will be as white as cream."
Duan Zhiwei's goal was to play the long game and catch the big fish. Many ladies really memorized the locations of the restaurants, laying a solid foundation for some customers.
Finally, they were sold out before sunset. Duan Zhiwei moved the two empty jars back to the donkey cart and tied them up with coarse hemp ropes. Ye Na only brought a basket of steamed cakes, which he sold out early and ran to listen to the monks' lectures in the temple. He has not returned until now.
Seeing Ye Na coming back, he asked Ye Na, "Was today's vulgar talk fun?"
Ye Na nodded excitedly, thought for a moment, and said in her half-familiar Chang'an dialect: "Today's story still comes from your Liangzhou."
"Oh?" Duan Zhiwei became interested and asked, "What's the content?"
It is said that Yuan Shenji, the commander of the Zhechou Prefecture in Liangzhou, accidentally got lost and fell off a cliff in Guzang Mountain in Liangzhou. He had a high fever and was unconscious. His devout prayers moved God, and a fox fairy transformed into a beautiful woman came and offered her white inner elixir to save him.
Two months ago, Yuan Shenji came to Chang'an to take up his duty as the Jinwu Guard. He told this story to his literary friend, who then turned the story into a Bianwen.
Ye Na sighed, "It is said that Captain Yuan once led elite cavalry outside Yanmen County to cut off the Turkic grain route. The Saint admired him very much. He was promoted to the fourth rank at a young age, but now he has been bewitched by a fox spirit. I wonder how many beautiful ladies in Chang'an have been hurt by him."
This clichéd story did not attract Duan Zhiwei's criticism. It was a hot summer day, but Duan Zhiwei was sweating profusely. Ye Na looked at Duan Zhiwei in confusion and asked, "What's wrong with you?"
Duan Zhiwei shook his head and said guiltily, "It's just that the weather is too hot."
I thought to myself, what white magic pill can save your life? It's clearly my last ibuprofen.
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