Seeing his eldest son like this, Wen Zixiao couldn't help but scold him, "Cheng'er, what are you doing? Walk properly."
Wen Shunben returned to the side courtyard in fear, when he suddenly heard his father's scolding. He shuddered with fright, and looked up to see his father, aunt, and mother sitting in the main room. He then stood up, picked up the food box and ran into the side courtyard and the main room.
As soon as he entered the main hall, everyone sitting there smelled a milky aroma, and another aroma that was a bit like meat but richer. It was very tempting and they couldn't help swallowing.
Wen Zixiao had originally wanted to scold his eldest son for acting like a thief, but when he smelled the smell, he couldn't help but ask, "What's that smell?"
Wen Shuncheng opened the lunch box, revealing the stir-fried shredded eel inside, and took out fish balls and steamed buns wrapped in oil paper from his arms.
He said, "Dad, why did you come back so suddenly?"
When Wen Zixiao saw his son bringing food back, he thought that he had earned money from selling eels and bought the food outside to improve the meals of the third room.
"Where did you buy this food? It smells delicious. And what kind of dish is this? It looks a bit like eel."
Eels are commonly made into eel soup, but I've never seen this method used. It seems like they cut the eel into strips. Does this mask the earthy smell of the eel?
If river fish isn't properly prepared, it can have a strong fishy smell. Making it into fish soup is a common practice, but some people cut it into pieces and cook it with heavy seasonings, which is only average. There's a restaurant in the capital that makes excellent eel soup, and he missed it terribly. He hadn't had a good meal since arriving in the border town.
The dishes in a restaurant like Donglaiju should be good, but he couldn't bear to go in for a meal. A meal would cost at least two or three taels of silver. Two or three taels of silver was not a big deal in the past, but now he couldn't bear to do it.
Wen Shuncheng chuckled, "Dad, this not only smells good, it tastes even better. This is stir-fried shredded eel, this is fish balls, and this is milk buns. I'll get the chopsticks, you guys try it."
After he finished speaking, he ran to the small kitchen and brought back a few pairs of wooden chopsticks.
Wen Zixiao didn't bother to be polite with his son. He took the wooden chopsticks and picked up a chopstick of stir-fried shredded eel.
The shredded eel is smooth, crispy, tender and fresh, without any fishy smell.
Wen Zixiao let out a sigh, took another milk bun, and took a bite. It was full of milk aroma, soft and sweet. The white and plump fish balls were also chewy and delicious, without the fishy smell of fish.
"Dad, how does it taste?"
Wen Zixiao said seriously, "This is the most delicious food I've ever tasted in my life. Even the best restaurant in the capital can't make it taste like this. Brother Cheng, where did you buy it? It's not cheap, is it?"
Could it be that my son went to Donglaiju specifically to buy it?
In Yuanbao Town, the Donglai Restaurant on East Street is the largest and has the best dishes.
When Aunt Bai, Madam Meng, Brother Gong and Sister Tao tasted the food, they were all amazed.
Wen Shunchengcai whispered, "Dad, this was made by my fourth sister-in-law."
"Fourth sister-in-law?" Wen Zixiao didn't react for a moment.
He remembers that Cheng Ge'er is the fourth child in the family, right?
Aunt Bai swallowed the milk bun in her mouth before saying, "Your second sister's fourth daughter-in-law is Yu Niang."
This milk bun is really delicious, soft and fluffy.
Wen Zixiao then realized that he was talking about the Fourth Prince.
He also knew that the Fourth Prince's current wife was a girl sent out by the Marquis of Dechang's Mansion as a replacement bride.
I didn't expect this girl to be such a good cook.
The family finished off the several dishes. Wen Zixiao then asked, "Why did you sneak back just now?"
Wen Shuncheng scratched his head and told him about how he met his fourth sister-in-law when he came back from catching eels today, and how his fourth sister-in-law hired him to work. He would have to go to her house to work every day and receive a string of coins every month. He then said, "It's because my second sister always asked me about my fourth sister-in-law's family in some subtle ways, as if she had some ideas about her cooking skills. My fourth sister-in-law also gave me so many delicious foods, and I was worried that I would run into her when I got home and she would ask me all sorts of questions. That's why I'm being careful." In fact, he had never run into her on weekdays, but he was subconsciously a little worried, afraid of causing trouble for his fourth sister-in-law's family.
The second sister he mentioned was Wen Yunling, the second oldest among her grandchildren.
Wen Zixiao frowned slightly, "Even if she's discovered, so what? Even if she really has some ideas, we don't owe her anything. No matter what she thinks, our family and your fourth sister-in-law's family won't indulge her, so you don't need to worry."
When he returned, he first went to pay his respects to his father and mother. He also learned from his father that Aunt Gui had contracted tuberculosis and had left the Wen family and returned to the Pei family.
When he returned to the third room, he asked his aunt again, and his aunt also insisted that Aunt Gui had tuberculosis.
"By the way, how is your Aunt Gui?" Wen Zixiao asked.
Wen Shuncheng said, "Aunt Gui is doing well. Her complexion is getting better and better, and she's even gained some weight."
Can tuberculosis cause weight gain?
Wen Zixiao looked at Aunt Bai in confusion, feeling that something was wrong, and couldn't help asking Aunt Bai what was going on.
Aunt Bai said calmly, "The doctor said it's tuberculosis, so it must be tuberculosis. It might not be serious. Your Aunt Gui was tortured too badly before. It would be better if her children and grandchildren took her back and took good care of her. Otherwise, look at our third room, look at your Aunt, your wife, and Sister Tao. Isn't each of them thinner than when they first came to Yuanbao Town? And their complexion is even worse."
Wen Zixiao's face darkened. He had long thought of dividing the family. His parents were partial to each other. He knew that his eldest and second brothers were legitimate sons, so he never argued with them. But his father treated the third brother as servants, and he could not tolerate it any longer.
Even if the family was divided, it wouldn't matter if the old man didn't give him any money. He had secretly saved a lot. If the money was not enough to buy a house for the time being, he could rent a house first. Otherwise, he was afraid that his concubine, wife and daughter would be as tired as Concubine Gui.
But how should I ask the old man to separate the family?
…
Wen Zixiao was in favor of letting Cheng Ge'er go to help his second sister's family with work. As for Gong Ge'er, he didn't have much to do on weekdays, so it would be nice for him to follow Cheng Ge'er to help Xuan Ge's wife out and do some running errands.
Wen Shuncheng stayed at the Pei family. He worked efficiently and would run out of town in the morning to catch his eels.
I bought all the eels I caught for several days to my fourth sister-in-law.
Wild eels are good for the body, so Xu Qinyu made many delicious dishes with eels, such as stir-fried shredded eel, dry-pot eel, fried eel paste, dry-fried eel slices, scallion-fried eel slices, steamed eel, eel porridge, eel soup, Liangxi crispy eel, etc. She made them all and ate them to her heart's content.
She wanted to give Cheng Ge'er money for the eels, but Cheng Ge'er refused, so she asked Cheng Ge'er to bring some food back every day. In addition to the eels and milk buns she made every day, there were also braised fish, fish head stewed with tofu and fish balls, which she took turns bringing back for the people in the third room to eat.
The third branch of the Wen family has been eating well recently, and their complexion is visibly better.
No matter what kind of food you eat, the aroma is the strongest when it is just out of the pot and can be smelled from far away. When it is warm, there is not much aroma left. You can still smell the aroma of food in one room, but the main room and the second room are very far away from the side courtyard, and there are several courtyards in between, so naturally you can't smell anything. I don't know what Cheng Ge'er is doing for Yu Niang.
In a blink of an eye, Wen Shuncheng had been working at the Pei family for half a month, and Wen Shungong also had to do some odd jobs at the Pei family.
The main reason was that the two brothers were usually together, and that morning Wen Shungong was not feeling well, so he did not go fishing with him.
Gong'er was two years younger than Cheng'er, barely ten years old. Xu Qinyu had wanted to give him some wages, but they both refused, saying they already had enough to eat at her place. That was true; the two brothers usually ate together whenever there was food, and the half-grown boys were big eaters. So Xu Qinyu didn't pay the younger one any more, just one guan (a banknote) of cash.
After working for only half a month, Wen Shuncheng had become very proficient. He was very skillful in killing fish and washing the intestines, and pounding the fish into paste was no problem at all. This really saved Xu Qinyu a lot of effort.
Gong Ge'er's job was mostly helping to take out the trash, and he would often take Feng Ge'er and Yan Jie'er to play with Mo Yu in the yard.
Xu Qinyu found that Cheng Ge'er learned very quickly and his knife skills were quite good. Although the fish fillets he sliced were not as thin as cicada wings, they were quite thin and of uniform thickness. He must have some talent in cooking. Xu Qinyu planned to observe Cheng Ge'er for a while to see if he was willing to be a chef. However, before that, she had to train Cheng Ge'er's knife skills first.
Every chef starts by practicing knife skills, which is essential.
Xu Qinyu is very busy here. It has been a month since her fourth brother left.
She still missed her fourth brother a little bit, and wondered how he was doing with the caravan.
The disaster in the north has not yet passed. Although there is no heavy snow, the weather is still very cold.
In the southwest, they have already started wearing thin jackets.
The refugees who fled from the disaster in the north should mostly go to the south or the capital, and would not flee to the southwest. Not only is it too far, but the road is also damp and full of insects and ants, which is not conducive to escape.
Not only did news come from the north, but within two days, Wen Shuncheng, who had just returned from catching eels, told Xu Qinyu something mysteriously.
"Fourth sister-in-law, I just went out to fish, and when I came back I heard that the pirates on the canal had robbed the government ship!"
Xu Qinyu gasped, "They even dared to rob government ships? Are those pirates along the canal so bold?"
There have always been some water bandits and mountain bandits on the cliffs on both sides of the canal. In fact, they are from the same family. There is a section of the canal with towering cliffs on both sides. Those water bandits live on the cliffs on both sides. Because the terrain of the cliffs is dangerous, only those water bandits are familiar with the route. Living in the mountains, they are also considered mountain bandits, but on weekdays they mostly rob merchant ships on the canal.
Xu Qinyu also heard that there were actually two groups of pirates.
One group robbed merchant ships of bad reputations. They didn't kill anyone, but when they robbed things, there would definitely be some fighting and killing, and some people would be injured.
There is also a group of pirates who rob everything and kill people. I heard that a merchant ship was robbed by this group of pirates before, and all the people on the ship were killed.
The imperial court was furious and sent soldiers to suppress the bandits, but due to the cliffy terrain, they were unsuccessful after several attempts.
But I didn't expect these pirates to be so bold that they even robbed government ships.
The official ships on the canal are transporting coal and iron ore. Anyone who dares to rob them is guilty of a capital crime.
The pirates in the past did not dare to rob the government ship at all, but I don’t know which group will rob the government ship this time.
"Did they rob the coal mine or the iron mine?" Xu Qinyu asked.
Wen Shuncheng whispered, "More than that, both ships were robbed. Not only the iron and coal on board, but also the other two ships were taken away. I don't know where the ships went."
Usually the two official ships travel together.
Xu Qinyu remembered that the iron and coal mines had started working a few days ago, so the dock became bustling. As the weather was getting warmer, she also planned to dry some beans and make some dried fermented black beans and bean paste. After making a bucket of fermented bean curd, she would set up a breakfast stall near the dock.
These beans had just been bought when such a big thing happened on the canal.
The imperial court will certainly not let these pirates off so easily, and the docks have been in a state of unrest recently. Well, it seems that business at the docks is not easy to do. It is better to set up a breakfast stall in West Street or East Street after making the fermented black beans, broad bean paste and fermented bean curd. There is no need to go to the docks anymore.
…
On the Zhangbi Mountain on both sides of the canal, there is a large open space halfway up one of the mountain walls, hidden by dense trees. There are many small wooden houses and rows of vegetable fields on the open space.
This is the hiding place of the pirates on both sides of the canal.
Inside the village, a very sturdy man was stroking his bald head, his honest face full of confusion. "Boss, do you think the people on Boss Lei's side have gone crazy? How dare they rob the government ship? Isn't this going to provoke the imperial court to come and suppress us again?"
They are the pirates that Xu Qinyu mentioned who don't kill people but only rob merchant ships with bad reputations.
The man the bald man called "Boss" was about thirty years old, also burly, with a full beard. He frowned upon hearing this, "Boss Lei, have you really gone crazy? We'd better be more cautious these days. We need to send more people to the village entrance, the front and back mountains. If there is any sign of trouble, we should immediately abandon the village and hide."
There was a frail man in his twenties beside the boss. After hearing what the two said, he shook his head and said, "No, it definitely wasn't Boss Lei who did it. Boss Lei has a cruel temper, but even so, he wouldn't dare rob a government ship. Otherwise, he would have done it long ago. Robbing a government ship would mean completely opposing the court. He's not that stupid. Robbing merchant ships is enough for him to make money."
No one wants to mess with the imperial court, not even Boss Lei. Besides, how would they get rid of the coal and iron ore on the official ship if they robbed it? It's impossible to get rid of the coal and iron ore without connections, and even if they did, it would be difficult to get rid of them. You'd be crazy to rob them.
So he knew it wasn't Boss Lei.
The bearded man frowned, "If it wasn't Boss Lei who stole it, then who did it?"
The frail man pondered for a moment and said, "But I still remember that some small caravans were robbed in a similar way to ours. The owners of the caravans had made a lot of ill-gotten gains before and were robbed, but it wasn't us who robbed them. Although the methods were somewhat similar to ours, it wasn't Boss Lei's doing. If Boss Lei had taken action, no one on those merchant ships, including the thugs, would have survived. So there must have been another group of people, and they must have been the ones who robbed the official ship."
Everyone in the village fell into deep thought. Who on earth would dare to rob a government ship?
Will this also bring them devastating pressure?
…
In fact, the imperial court was indeed very angry. When the news reached the palace, Empress Dowager Fu was furious. She immediately sent officers and soldiers to track down the whereabouts of the two robbed official ships. She also sent a letter to the prefect of Raozhou in the southwestern border at full speed, asking him to immediately send officers and soldiers guarding the southwest to suppress the bandits on both sides of the canal.
After giving these instructions, Empress Dowager Fu turned around and saw her son lying on the chaise longue, with a beauty serving him fruit.
Empress Dowager Fu frowned and asked, "Why haven't you reviewed the memorial yet?"
The new emperor grinned. "It's not that we have the Queen Mother here. She can just review it. I'm too lazy to read those ministers' memorials. They're nothing more than about the disaster victims in the north, asking for funds from the treasury to be allocated for disaster relief, or impeaching the Queen Mother and me. I'm really disgusted. These ministers are so annoying. I've been on the throne for so long, and they still keep bringing up things from the past. Besides, I even spared my fourth brother's lineage and only exiled them."
The two beauties trembled.
Since the new emperor ascended the throne, countless palace maids and beauties have died in the palace.
Concubine Fu glanced at the two beauties and waved her hand. The two of them hurriedly leaned back and carefully closed the palace door.
Only Empress Dowager Fu and the new emperor were left in the hall. Empress Dowager Fu didn't think it was a problem for her son not to review the memorials. It was fine, as she could review the memorials. But seeing her son so lazy, she was a little angry. "Since you are so idle, why don't you go find the imperial edict and think about where your father might have hidden it. If we don't find it, it will be like a sharp arrow hanging over our heads."
She just thought, why did Wen, with her birth, ascend to the throne of empress, why did she win the favor of Emperor Sheng Jing, and finally even wanted to make the eldest prince the crown prince and wrote an edict.
Also, it was because of the censors who wrote petitions to the emperor all the time that she released all the members of the Pei family. However, even after releasing them, the censors did not give up and kept nagging her all the time.
She not only wanted to kill Pei Weixuan's lineage, she even wanted to kill all those censors who had nothing to do but write letters to the emperor all day long, and put an end to it all.
But she couldn't kill him. The imperial edict hadn't been found, and there was no need to fight to the death. She wanted a good reputation, a prosperous and peaceful era, and to be recorded in history books as a good empress dowager during the Kaiyuan Period.
Emperor Sheng Yuan, however, felt that instead of looking for the imperial edict, it would be better to go to the animal park where his fourth brother had raised animals, pet a lynx, feed a golden eagle, ride a yak, and touch a white tiger.
"Hurry up and go!" Concubine Fu said sternly.
Seeing that his mother had lost her temper, Emperor Sheng Yuan had no choice but to get up and finally left the hall, leading the eunuchs and palace maids. However, he did not go to Emperor Sheng Jing's previous bedroom, but went to his fourth brother's bedroom.
Emperor Sheng Yuan felt that he had been searching for several months. Maybe his father had lied to them before he died. There was no edict at all. He just wanted to scare them so that they would not feel at ease even if they ascended the throne. Thinking of the way his father looked when he died, Emperor Sheng Yuan felt a little sad. That was his father, and it was his mother who did it. He knew that if his mother did not do it, and it was his eldest brother who ascended the throne, then they would be imprisoned and exiled.
Emperor Sheng Yuan thought as he walked towards his fourth brother's bedroom.
When we arrived at the fourth brother's bedroom, there was a garden where the pets were kept.
Those ferocious beasts had no animal nature at all and were very well-behaved, so Emperor Sheng Yuan kept them. It was a unique experience to go and see them in his spare time.
When he arrived at the garden, he asked the palace servants to open it.
The white tiger, golden eagle, lynx and yak immediately came to greet him.
The white tiger rubbed against him affectionately, and the golden eagle also accompanied him, gently fanning him with its wings that were three or four feet long when spread out. There was also a very beautiful golden lynx, which lay lazily beside him and let him stroke it.
Finally, we rode a yak around the garden.
Emperor Sheng Yuan stayed in the garden for an hour and left feeling very satisfied. He felt that petting these furry pets made him feel different and was more comfortable than having a beautiful woman by his side.
Speaking of beauties, Emperor Sheng Yuan thought of the third daughter of Marquis Dechang's Mansion. She cried so hard that she was about to cry. She looked so delicate and weak that it made people feel distressed.
When he goes back and talks to his mother, the beauty contest will begin in a few days. The third daughter of Marquis Dechang will definitely also enter the palace for the selection, and then she can stay in the palace directly.
After Emperor Sheng Yuan left, the palace servants closed the garden gate. The white tiger, lynx, yak and the big golden eagle immediately got up and ran to a small lake specially dug for them at the back of the garden. They started rolling around, getting covered in mud, and then slowly washed the mud off their bodies with the lake water.
The golden eagle was washing its wings while calling "wa wah wah", and one could actually feel a hint of grievance and anger from its calls.
When the palace servants guarding the garden heard the cry, they knew that the golden eagle was angry. After all, the golden eagle never cried like this when it followed the Fourth Prince.
But the palace servants didn't dare tell Emperor Sheng Yuan, as they might lose their heads. It was better for them to pretend they didn't know and help the Fourth Prince guard them.
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