Chapter 37: Dinner at the Mansion (Part 2)
Honestly, the portions of food prepared by Jiang You were quite generous, more than enough for the four of them. By the second half of the meal, everyone noticeably slowed down, switching from wolfing down their food to savoring it in small bites. It was simply because their stomachs were almost full, but their mouths weren't.
At this point, it was time for Jiangyou to eat.
The white skeleton, with a thick [non-existent] face, smiled at everyone, "Hehe", with the fire in his eyes dancing cunningly: "Give me some reward?"
Holly was confused, but Aunt Wolf and Jericho, already extremely familiar with the process, nodded. The skeleton's long, slender claws hooked, and two balls of soul fire flew into her hands.
Holly swallowed his mouthful of food and glanced timidly at his nanny. Seeing Aunt Wolf nod at him, he said, "I, I can do it too."
"Okay~"
A small ball of soul fire flew out of Holly's chest and landed in Jiangyou's bony claws. Holly suddenly felt the oppressive feeling that had been weighing on his heart like a huge rock dissipate. He took a deep breath and felt the stagnant air around him begin to flow again, no longer feeling as oppressive and suffocating as before.
Jiang You only had Aunt Wolf's soul fire left to eat. She hummed a song as she put the remaining excess soul fire into a small leather bag, then opened her skull and stuffed it in: "Hehehe, reserve food GET!"
Jericho: "...So your skull is your storage room?!"
"Hehe! Almost there! I learned some space magic to expand the capacity of my skull! Now it can hold a whole room of stuff!" Jiang You shook his head: "Look! It won't fall out at all!"
Everyone: "..." I really don't know whether to praise her or complain about her.
After finishing all that, she took a sip of Aunt Wolf's soul fire and sighed with satisfaction. "Ahh, pineapple and black pepper beef, really good! Hmm, the shredded potatoes are a bit bland, as expected, without vinegar it's not quite right! Oh... I really want a bowl of traditional hot pot soup! Hmm? Why doesn't it taste like rice?"
She stopped sniffing and looked at Andrei dimly: "I'm almost out of staple food, can you break it off a little?"
Andrei almost choked on the beef and couldn't help coughing: "I thought my soul fire had no taste?"
"Indeed, it's similar to steamed buns, but I'm just missing a staple food, right?" Jiang You smiled, holding out the open bone claw and tickling it with his fingertips: "Break some?"
"take."
A ball of white soul fire jumped onto Jiangyou's bone claws, and the white skeleton ate it with one mouthful of "vegetable" and one mouthful of "steamed bun", enjoying it very much.
"So, when you said you wanted to open a shop, you meant to sell these delicacies?" Holly's eyes sparkled. "I agree! I'll be your supplier. I have all the vegetables, fruits, soybeans, rice, and flour you need! We also have access to meat and can recommend some to you!"
"Hmm," Jiang You swallowed the soul fire in his mouth, "Actually, it's not a store that sells delicious food. To be more precise, it's a brewing workshop! Soy sauce, rice vinegar, rice wine, fermented rice, yogurt... I plan to make all kinds of brewed and fermented foods and sauces."
She thought about it again and said, "Well, considering that many of the sauces here are indeed new to people, it might be a good idea to open a counter selling food made with these sauces."
The easiest way to change a place’s deeply rooted food culture is naturally to let people taste delicious dishes.
The taste buds are the first to feel the impact of delicious food, and your mentality will change accordingly.
If these "foreigners" with a taste buds comparable to that of the British first saw a jar of black, salty soy sauce, they might not be interested in buying it or asking questions or learning more about it; but if they first saw square, chewy, oily, sweet and sweet braised pork with the fragrance of osmanthus, then most of them might ask "what is this" and "how to make it".
Andre, Jericho, Aunt Wolf and Holly all nodded. As long as they could eat these delicious foods, they didn't care whether Jiangyou opened a restaurant, a pub, a brewery or something else!
"Speaking of which, I'm curious." After a satisfying meal and a few drinks, Jericho rubbed his round belly and asked, "Pertmin wants to frame Holly, but if she succeeds, who will take over the Axe family's botanical garden? Whipson is useless. She can't take care of so many plants on her own, right?"
"Oh, that's right," Holly explained. "She definitely can't do it alone, but she has the Priss family behind her. The Priss are a very old-fashioned Haff family. They pass down farming techniques to their sons, not their daughters. Ever since Pertmin married into our family, the Priss family has been headed by Pertmin's distant cousin.
"That distant cousin is very handsome, a world apart from my second uncle. I've often heard that if the Priss family hadn't been facing bankruptcy due to poor management, Pertmin wouldn't have married into the family, but would have married that distant cousin instead. This rumor has always bothered my second uncle!"
"Big families are really chaotic..."
"Who says it isn't? I think if Pertmin's plan goes according to plan, it won't be long before the businesses of the Axe family and the Priss family are merged into one, and all become Priss's property!" Holly curled his lips and sniffed. "Fortunately, they are the ones who betrayed their own family. It's just that my second uncle and my younger uncle... sigh..."
Jiang You was also a little speechless when he thought of the fake sister pair: "Is the relationship between these sisters really that bad?"
"Pertmin is eight years older than Pearlamine! The age difference between the two is so huge that they have nothing in common. Pearlamine was still a little girl when Pertmin got married!" Aunt Wolf gossiped. "Pertmin was lucky enough to have caught up with the good times. When she was a child, the Priss family was still quite prosperous and poured a lot of resources into her upbringing. I heard that her cousins would let her sit in on their classes.
"She probably learned her knowledge of plants and pharmacology at that time.
"Polamine didn't catch up. She was Priss's daughter, born in her old age. She had no siblings or cousins to grow up with, and the Priss family couldn't afford to hire a tutor for her. She only learned housekeeping and needlework from her mother for a few years, but her horizons were really limited."
Aunt Wolf has worked as a nanny, tutor, and wet nurse for many years... She really has a say in the education industry in this world.
"Eight years apart!" Jiang You exclaimed, "I can't tell at all! The people of the Hafu tribe all look so young to me... Is it because of their height?"
Everyone: "..." They took a look at the skeleton whose age was completely unknown and whose gender could only be determined with some special professional [autopsy] knowledge, and fell silent again.
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