While the two were deeply in love, a thousand miles away, in the Liu family mansion and Feixian Academy in Tangshan Prefecture, the lights were on full display.
The girl stared blankly at the large sack on the ground, and it took her a long time to come to her senses. "Didn't he always stingily send only two or three bags the last few times? What's going on today? Why did he send a whole sack? Has this master thief gone mad?"
Hua Yi smiled and said, "Miss, all the cabinets in the main kitchen of Su's Restaurant are locked with iron locks. The master thief could only take two or three packages from outside when the waiters weren't paying attention. He had been secretly making lock-picking tools until these last two days. The lock-picking tools were finished, and just then, Su Erhu delivered new ingredients to the restaurant, so he simply sent them all over to us."
Liu Yuxian stepped forward, opened the sack, glanced down at it, and confirmed that it was indeed hot pot base.
His joy quickly faded slightly. "The master thief hasn't been discovered by the Su family these past few times, has he?"
"Don't worry, Miss. The master thief has never failed in his thieving skills." Huayi nodded and smiled. "When the previous two or three packages were stolen, Su Erhu and the others just thought they were stolen by rats in the gutter. They are now searching all over the county for rat repellent."
The missing bag of hot pot base will only be discovered when the restaurant opens tomorrow, but by then it will be too late, and no one will suspect the young lady.
Liu Yuxian was still somewhat uneasy upon hearing this. She had already experienced firsthand how cunning Su Hua was. The first time, she had caused Su Hua to lose an entire estate for nothing, and the second time, she had given away a large piece of spring-colored jade and ten rough stones of indistinguishable quality. Every time she thought about it, she felt nauseous.
There's no third time's the charm; we can't let Su Hua trick her a third time.
The girl lowered her eyes, staring at the hot pot broth for a long while, and then said in a deep thought, "Go to the kitchen right now and ask the head chef to come over and check if there's anything wrong with these hot pot ingredients."
"Yes, this servant will go right away," Huayi replied hastily.
A short while later, he returned with the head cook.
The head cook was a middle-aged man in his forties. His round face was full of weariness, not because he was tired from being dragged out of bed, but because he had been working on hot pot recipes in the kitchen.
The man followed the woman in the painting to the door, then knelt down and bowed, saying, "This humble servant greets Miss."
"Get up." Liu Yuxian raised her hand and went straight to the point. "I called you here to have you take a look at this bag of hot pot base and see if there's anything wrong with it."
"Yes, Miss." The head cook got up and took a few steps into the room. When he got to the sack, his narrow eyes widened suddenly. The sack was full of ingredients, several hundred oil paper packets.
He didn't dare to delay, so he immediately took out a packet, carefully tore open a small hole, dipped his fingertip in the base sauce and put it on his tongue to try it. He nodded in satisfaction, "Not bad, this is the hot pot base sauce."
All the base ingredients delivered these days are with him. Just one bite is enough to tell that they are the same as the previous base ingredients.
Liu Yuxian felt a little relieved, but she was still not completely at ease. "Look more carefully. I have a very important use for this hot pot base. If anything goes wrong, I will hold you responsible!"
"Yes." The head cook's heart skipped a beat.
He quickly laid the sack horizontally, borrowed a pair of scissors from Huayi, cut one side of the sack open, and took out two packets of base material from the top, middle, and bottom. He tasted them, and was about to speak when—
An unsealed oil paper package rolled out from the bottom of the sack.
The paper package was not sealed, and seven or eight oddly shaped things, such as tree bark or pitted granules, lay on the ground.
"What is this?" Liu Yuxian's heart, which had been slightly relieved, jumped again. She subconsciously took two or three steps back, until she was behind Huayi.
The Su family is cunning by nature. Could it be that this bag of ingredients is just a cover, and they actually intend to poison her?
Seeing her strong reaction, Huayi felt a pang of unease and looked at the oil paper package with suspicion.
Only the head cook next to the sack, upon seeing what was on the ground, suddenly brightened up, quickly picked up the bark, and smacked his lips.
The speed of their movements was so fast that the Liu family master and servant couldn't even stop them. "Master Xu, what are you doing..."
The head cook's lips trembled, but his narrow eyes shone with excitement. He picked up the spices with trembling hands and exclaimed, "Miss, this packet is a real treasure!"
"Good stuff?" Liu Yuxian looked suspicious.
"Yes, this package is full of spices for making hot pot ingredients." The cook grinned and handed the tree bark in his hand to the girl.
"This ingredient is cinnamon. A few days ago, I tasted the numbing and fragrant flavor of hot pot broth and suspected it was cinnamon. But after seeing this, I can confirm that it is indeed cinnamon as a medicinal herb."
You'll know the sir is right once you taste it.
Liu Yuxian was overjoyed to hear this. She glanced at the saliva on the cinnamon bark and silently looked away. "So, if we can find these ingredients in the same way, we can make our own hot pot broth?"
"Logically speaking, that should be the case." The head chef rubbed his shiny head and hesitated, "However, these four or five spices should only be part of the base ingredients."
There should be more than ten kinds of spices in the hot pot base.
"Where did you obtain these spices, Miss? If you could bring just one of them, I could make the hot pot broth tonight."
Liu Yuxian's joy faltered, and she coldly glanced at the man with her fox-like eyes. "You want me to bring you all the ingredients?! Then why should I bother you with all the effort to research the recipe?"
"I've given you so many packets of base ingredients, surely you can figure it out yourself!"
The head cook looked embarrassed and quickly nodded, "Of course, it's possible, but it may take some time."
"There are already four or five kinds of spices in this oil paper package. Since cinnamon is a medicinal material, the others can probably be found in a pharmacy as well. I will have someone arrange this." Liu Yuxian paused for a moment.
"As for the other ten or so spices, I'll give you a month to develop the recipe for me."
"A month?" The head cook broke out in a cold sweat. He had only managed to find a single cinnamon bark in the past three or four days, and that was after working day and night.
To come up with a formula in a month? Is this going to kill him?
"What's wrong? Is there a problem?" Liu Yuxian glanced at him with a hint of melancholy.
"No, no, I'll go and do it right away." The cook shook his head vigorously. Everyone knew the young lady's temper. If he dared to contradict her now, he might lose his life. He could still try his luck in a month. Maybe he could really make something of her.
After the person left, Liu Yuxian looked at the hot pot base packets scattered on the ground and smiled, "Huayi, what's the opening date of Su's Restaurant in the prefectural city?"
Huayi didn't quite understand what she meant, and pursed her lips, saying, "Three days later."
Liu Yuxian nodded. "I need you to take over the shop opposite Su's Restaurant within three days and open a Liu's Restaurant. The opening date will be the same as Su's Restaurant."
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