As the roaming god had predicted, just as the fifteenth of the month was about to pass, new customers began to arrive at the Mountain and Sea Restaurant.
When customers came to the shop, Xu Milu was busy in the backyard. She planned to pickle some salted eggs while she had some free time. When the weather got warmer, if she was too lazy to cook, she would make a pot of thick white rice porridge, serve it with a dish of bitter almonds and salted chives, and add the salted eggs to the porridge.
—The salted egg yolks are sandy and have a texture comparable to crab roe. Salted eggs that are pickled until they are oily are the most delicious. Drink a bowl of cold porridge with them and all the summer heat and sweltering heat will be completely eliminated by this one bite.
Although there are simpler ways to pickle eggs, Xu Milu privately thought that salted eggs pickled using the old method were more flavorful, so early in the morning she sent Mo Xuan and Chen Xiang to the river outside the city to fetch several loads of yellow mud.
Upon hearing that the yellow mud needed to be tamped before use, Dai Zi pulled Bai Tuan'er along and volunteered to tamp the yellow mud in the yard:
"The brine that my wife ordered to be boiled is ready. It's placed by the well to dry so that my wife can use it. Oh! Dai Zi's new clothes are dirty."
The little white vine spirit was mixing water into the yellow mud when it accidentally splashed a little mud onto Dai Zi's chubby arm. The little wisteria spirit, mimicking a human child's coquettish manner, barefoot and pouting, demanded that Xu Mi Lu hold her.
"My wife, hug me! Hehehe!"
Wood spirits have difficulty transforming into human form, so Dai Zi was born as a chubby baby. The key is that she will remain in this form for at least several hundred years. However, she is clever and mischievous. She realized that Xu Mi Lu couldn't handle a baby, so she always fawned over Xu Mi Lu and acted silly.
"You were the one who said you wanted to play in the mud, but you're already tired after less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea? Here, take ten coins. Wash yourself clean and then go with the group to buy some candy. Don't cause any trouble here."
Xu Milu shook her head, pulled Dai Zi out of the wet yellow mud like a radish, fetched a bucket of water to wash her feet, and then turned back to continue smearing mud on the eggs.
Today she is going to pickle two kinds of salted eggs. The first kind is a little complicated. She adds salt and oil to yellow mud, stirs it into a paste, and then rolls it on the eggs. She puts it in a jar, seals it, and pickles it for more than 20 days. The salted eggs pickled in this way will not be too salty, and they are delicious to eat on their own.
The second method is much simpler and more direct. Boil the salt water, let it cool, and seal it in a jar with the washed eggs. Place it in a ventilated place for a month, and the salted eggs can be taken out and cooked. Eggs pickled using this method are saltier, but the yolks are oily and have a unique and delicious flavor.
Yin Wenjiao sat beside her, wearing only a white dress for working. She loosely rolled up the sleeves of her shawl, revealing most of her snow-white arms. In the streets of Chang'an, it was common to see women with exposed skin, and women working in the fields would go barefoot without anyone saying it was "immoral."
Of course, if anyone dares to say such a thing, someone will surely come to their house and throw excrement at them that very night.
In front of the two was a pile of dark green wheat ear egg stalks. Wrapped in the lush green leaves were neatly arranged wheat ear eggs, each egg about the size of a duck egg, with a smooth, pale white shell and a leaf stalk at the bottom.
Xu Milu skillfully peeled the eggs off the leaf stalks, wrapped them in yellow mud mixed with salt, and placed them one by one into a clean jar. The "mud balls" that were almost exactly the same size looked neat and tidy, which was strangely comforting.
"The world is vast, and there are indeed many wonderful places that no one knows about. Take this chicken, for example. It grows like an ear of wheat. If my sister hadn't told me, I would never have believed that it grew from the ground."
Yin Wenjiao chuckled and sighed, taking the mud ball from Bai Tuan'er's hand and piling it into the jar:
"I don't know if the eggs that grow on this tree are considered meat or vegetarian. If Liu'er can eat them, I'll offer a few to the Buddha after they've been pickled."
This is nothing compared to the challenge of deep-fried dandelions appearing; that will truly be a problem for Buddha.
Xu Milu couldn't help but imagine the scene, and said somewhat uncertainly:
“The monk said, ‘All eggs should not be eaten, for they all contain offspring.’ These wheat ear eggs grow from the ground, so eating them does not accumulate negative karma and should be harmless. I’ll ask the monk another day to see if it’s feasible.”
She spoke a little slower, and when she turned around, she saw Bai Tuan'er holding two eggs covered in mud, looking at her with bright, sparkling eyes, like a child waiting for praise.
"Madam Xu, is my little demon wrapped up well? If there are any leftover eggs, could I take them back with me?"
At this point, Bai Tuan'er seemed a little embarrassed, and a faint blush rose to her cheeks:
“Cultivation is difficult for rats, and everyone in the city hates them. A few days ago, I saw a nest of mice in the east of the city that had just gained intelligence, so I adopted them as my offspring. That’s why I thought of asking Madam Xu for some chicken eggs to feed them.”
Xu Milu: "..."
Mice seem to eat eggs.
She simply couldn't reconcile this little girl with the charming and alluring rat spirit in the book.
"It's very well made. If you want to eat chicken, I have plenty. I saw an old man selling sugar figurines coming from the street corner ahead. You two can go and buy some sugar figurines to eat in a bit—"
Xu Milu praised Dai Zi without reservation, but when she turned around and looked at her, her face turned green:
"Dai Zi, how many times have I told you, you can't drink dirty water!"
Dai Zi was holding the wooden basin she had just used to wash her feet. She tentatively tried to bury her head in it to drink the water, but before she could succeed, Xu Mi Lu lifted her up with one hand.
The short-armed and short-legged wisteria spirit thrashed pitifully a few times, like a harmless little turtle:
"Muddy water, sewage, bathwater, it's all water. Besides, this water was just drawn from the well and was only used to wash the little demon's roots. Even if it's mixed with yellow mud, it's fine. The little demon has drunk the water that Mo Xuan used, so why can't it drink this muddy water?"
“That makes a lot of sense, but it won’t work. If you’re thirsty, you can go to the well to fetch water yourself. But you can’t drink the dirty water that’s been used. A few days ago, Mo Xuan complained to me that you were always stealing his bathwater, and I didn’t believe it. But today I caught you red-handed. If you want to be a human being, you have to act like one. I’m punishing you to face the wall for half a day. Go now.”
Xu Milu delivered her verdict in a rather "cold" manner. The chubby little wisteria fairy was extremely aggrieved, pouting as she walked to the wall and curled up into a ball—clearly intending to ignore her for a while.
Yin Wenjiao laughed at her worried expression:
"Little sister, you are so young and have not yet given birth, but your demeanor is more impressive than that of a woman who has given birth. It is said that the eldest sister is like a mother, and I suppose you are the same at home?"
No, at least her little Xiaomi won't go and drink the bathwater.
Xu Milu could only sigh.
Although Dai Zi has the mind of a child, she is very good at reading people's expressions. Compared to her initial timidity, the little wisteria demon can now act cute and charming in front of her. Even Mo Xuan is only a little fierce to her, and he always remembers to bring her a share of anything fun or delicious.
—Add to that the naturally naive Chen Xiang, and Xu Milu always gives the impression of taking care of a child at the Mountain and Sea Restaurant.
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