Chapter 104 (Red Bean and Barley Porridge...)

The old emperor did not die immediately after all.

Under the threat of Concubine Lu, all the Imperial Hospitals tried their best to treat the old emperor. Although the old emperor is not living very comfortably now, he is still alive and conscious. He can even make trouble in the Dali Temple. Why haven't they caught the murderer who hurt his son?

Yan Qiushu felt regretful when she heard the news, but she soon stopped paying attention to it and stared at the fire in the pot in front of her. When she confirmed that the time was up, she poured the soup in the pot into the bowl.

At first sniff, the soup smells very pleasant, but if you sniff carefully, you can smell a strong bitter taste.

This is the medicinal tonic soup made by Yan Qiushu. Xiao Huaiting has been drinking it for two days. His complexion has improved visibly and his wounds have healed very quickly. However, this soup tastes weird.

It tastes good, indeed, with a light and salty flavor, but there is always a weird bitter taste that offsets all its goodness, making people who drink it feel uncomfortable in their mouths.

After all, it is a medicinal food, and Chinese medicinal materials rarely taste good.

Yan Qiushu's soup was ready, so she brought it in first, letting Xiao Huaiting drink it, and then she went to deal with the rest of the dishes.

Under normal circumstances, Xiao Waiting would definitely be eager to eat, but at this moment, he frowned and did not dare to take the bowl of soup.

"Take it!" Yan Qiushu scolded him when she saw him like this.

The two of them had been together day and night for two days. At night, they slept on the same couch and bed, with the curtains drawn, as if they were two roommates who did not interfere with each other. However, they were facing each other during the day, and they became much more familiar with each other than before when they were a little unfamiliar.

But because of this, Yan Qiushu's true character was gradually exposed. She was not as shy as everyone thought. On the contrary, she was quite scary when she was angry.

Xiao Huaiting was scolded, but he did not dare to hesitate and wanted to pour the bowl into his mouth.

"Wait for it to cool down for a while!" Yan Qiushu hurriedly stopped him.

"Oh." Xiao Huaiting held it obediently and blew on it.

Seeing that he didn't drink it immediately, Yan Qiushu turned around and went out to do the final steps of lunch with peace of mind. Shui Yu had already helped with the previous steps.

As soon as she left, Xiao Huaiting immediately placed the soup bowl on the ice bucket in the room, and touched the ice with his hands. When his hands were cool, he touched the wall of the bowl to cool it down faster.

Sure enough, his approach was correct. After a while, the temperature of the hot soup dropped a lot.

Xiao Huaiting tasted it, and when he was able to accept it, he pinched his nose and gulped it down, then took two big gulps of tea, trying to wipe away the strange taste in his mouth, but the action was a bit too big, causing pain in the wounds on his body. He didn't dare to scream, so he could only vent his anger with a grimace.

When Yan Qiushu came in with the dishes, she saw that the soup bowl and tea bowl were empty. She glanced at the person in front of her.

Xiao Waiting looked at her and smiled: "What are you doing today, Ah Shu?"

Yan Qiushu put down the bowl and let him look at it: "There is another dish, you eat it first."

Xiao Huaiting shook his head and continued to wait for her.

When Yan Qiushu came in again, all the dishes were ready. Today's portions were stir-fried spinach, cumin lamb, and red bean and barley porridge. After putting everything down, she watched Xiao Huaiting's expression change from frowning to happy and then to bitter face.

He doesn't like eating vegetables or sweet things.

But spinach and porridge just hit his sore spot. Even if Yan Qiushu's cooking skills were enhanced, it wouldn't change. Something he didn't like became his staple food. This was painful...

Yan Qiushu did it on purpose. In fact, there are other blood-replenishing dishes to choose from. However, she found it very interesting to see Xiao Huaiting's expression change in the past two days.

For example, now, she was watching and started to smile.

Xiao Huai Ting didn't seem to notice. He sighed silently and then took his chopsticks and obediently prepared to eat.

Yan Qiushu asked casually, "You don't seem to like the food these past two days?"

"No?" Xiao Huai Ting quickly denied it, picked up a piece of spinach with chopsticks and put it into his mouth. He obviously didn't like it, so he quickly ate it twice and swallowed it, but he still showed the expression of tasting delicious food, and nodded with satisfaction: "Well, it's really delicious, everything you cook is delicious!"

Yan Qiushu smiled and gave him some mutton: "Then you should eat more of this."

"Hmm!" Xiao Huaiting nodded quickly and put the mutton into his mouth. The mutton seemed to be roasted, soft and tender, full of cumin flavor, with a little bit of almost imperceptible spiciness, and just the right amount of saltiness. Compared with other dishes he usually has, it is simply stunning!

Seeing this, Yan Qiushu smiled with satisfaction and took a sip of the porridge from the bowl.

She didn't actually add sugar to the red bean and barley porridge, but it seemed to have a sweet taste, light in flavor, and was obviously quite delicious.

After taking a sip of porridge and a bite of spinach, Yan Qiushu felt that the taste was a little bland in her mouth, so she picked up some spicy beef sauce.

She also made some sauce when she was free, but now it was summer, so she didn't make much, and could only eat a small plateful each time. If she couldn't finish it, she couldn't leave it alone, otherwise it would go bad.

Although it is cold in winter, food cooked in winter is difficult to spoil. This advantage of a natural refrigerator is still very good. She is looking forward to the arrival of winter.

Last year at the Xiao family, she forgot to make sautéed intestines, but unfortunately, the sautéed intestines have not been damaged so far.

Sausage...

Yan Qiushu remembered something and was about to speak when she saw Xiao Huaiting reaching his chopsticks towards the beef sauce.

She didn't move either, just glanced over lightly.

The chopsticks immediately turned in a direction and picked up a piece of mutton. The mutton was diced and ate it. He took a bite of it and quickly scooped a mouthful of red bean and barley porridge into his mouth, barely covering up the light sweetness of the porridge. Then he smiled at Yan Qiushu: "This porridge is delicious too!"

Yan Qiushu smiled and stopped teasing him, saying, "If there is meat that can be preserved for a long time, can your army take it with them when they go out to fight in winter?"

"As long as the military pay is sufficient, it's fine." Speaking of this, Xiao Huaiting also became more energetic: "In winter, we can bring more things than at other times, but the meat will still go bad easily if left alone. After all, we have to sleep outdoors..."

Yan Qiushu understood. She remembered that there was pickled meat, but pickling meat required a lot of salt. Salt was also very expensive in ancient times. If it was used to make pickled meat for military pay, it would definitely cost a lot.

It is different with sausage. Just add more seasonings and less salt. The thin outer casing can block a lot of bacteria. You can just steam it when you need to eat it. You can keep it for a long time when you don’t want to eat it. As long as it is not summer, it will not go bad so quickly.

Yan Qiushu thought of it and said to him: "There is a kind of food called braised intestines. It doesn't require a lot of salt. It uses pig intestines, washes them into a thin layer, and then stuffs the meat in. The steps are a bit troublesome, but it can be stored for a long time after it is made..."

Xiao Waiting's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he was looking forward to it: "Thank you, Ah Shu, for telling me."

"But we can't make it now. We have to wait until it cools down a bit." Yan Qiushu pursed her lips and smiled. Seeing how happy he was, she couldn't bear to dampen his confidence. She thought of something else: "There's also hot pot base. It only requires butter and various chili spices. If you make it, when there's nothing to eat in the barracks, just add a piece of it and cook Chinese cabbage. It's delicious..."

Anyway, it was her own army, and chili peppers were still a fresh product in that era, but if the army needed them, she would just send them and leave the seeds.

If you reduce the amount of other seasonings a little, you can still make a similar hot pot base. The taste of noodles cooked with it is much better than noodles cooked with plain water, and it also contains oil and water.

Xiao Huaiting listened quietly, his heart filled with joy.

As a general who was paid for his troops all year round, his desire to feed his soldiers better made him think about whether he could see the target the first time he heard these fantasies.

As he thought about it, he felt the wound on his back itchy.

Speaking of which, after taking some medicine, consuming medicated food and some tonic prescriptions in the past two days, the wounds on his body have healed much faster than before. It's really amazing!

The wound only began to heal in a short time, and it was time for him to go.

After Yan Qiushu finished speaking, she saw the person in front of her gulping down a whole night's worth of red bean and barley porridge. He seemed to feel that his mouth was too sweet, so he quickly ate several mouthfuls of cumin mutton cubes, relying on this taste to suppress the sweetness in his mouth.

He wiped his mouth, smiled, and said, "I have to leave tonight."

"Ah?" Yan Qiushu blinked and looked at the person in front of her, not reacting for a moment.

As usual, Xiao Huaiting rubbed the top of her head with his right hand and said softly, "I still have a mission to complete. I can't be out for too long, otherwise they will get suspicious."

Yan Qiushu pursed her lips, quickly adjusted her mentality, and smiled: "Well, then you should eat more."

"When I come back, I'll ask my mother to come over to discuss the wedding date, okay?"

Yan Qiushu nodded and smiled: "Okay."

That night fell.

Xiao Waiting just left. Although he was obviously injured, he opened the door and left quietly.

Yan Qiushu didn't sleep well that night. She didn't draw the curtains on her bed and lay on her side, looking at the soft couch.

It was not until she felt sleepy that her eyes slowly closed. When she woke up again, it was already 3:45 in the morning of the next day, which was considered very late for her to get up.

The ice in the room had almost melted, and the temperature in late July was still a little warm. She lazily lay in bed, not wanting to get up until Shui Xuan came over excitedly. She didn't come in directly, but knocked on the door: "Girl! Several young masters and young ladies are here, and they brought a lot of potatoes!"

Potato?!

Yan Qiushu jumped up from the bed and put on her shoes incorrectly because of her excitement.

After finally getting out, Shui Yu was also full of joy: "I'll go get some water for the girl, and quickly wash up..."

"Well, go quickly!" Yan Qiushu also urged, looking forward to seeing how many potatoes there would be.

Prince Huai brought back a lot of potatoes before. Although a lot of them were distributed to the major families, many were kept as seeds. Moreover, if every eye of a potato grows well, it can grow into many potatoes, just like peanuts, one seed can grow into a bunch of peanuts.

The potato growth cycle is two to three months. It has been exactly two and a half months now, and the harvest is normal. This time, these children can bring them here, so the quantity will definitely be quite large.

She can also keep some for seeds!

If we calculate it, now is the end of July, we can still harvest one crop by the end of September or the beginning of October. If we want to plant in October, we have to build a greenhouse, so that we can still plant one crop of peppers...

Yan Qiushu thought about a lot of things during the short time she was washing. After wiping her face, she couldn't wait to go to the outer courtyard.

When she arrived at the outer yard, she saw a truckload of potatoes in sacks in the yard. She was so surprised that she quickened her pace.

At the same time, Dongdong, who had just arrived here and was jumping around curiously, also saw Yan Qiushu. His eyes lit up and he jumped over happily: "Sister Shu!"

But he saw his sister Shu passing by him and rushing towards the potatoes: "So many potatoes!!!"

Dong Dong: “…”