Chapter 81: Goodwill
After beating up those troublesome kids, Si Li and Ah Xiang went back to the kitchen. Ah Xiang was originally a quiet person, and after being frightened by Si Li, she became even more silent, like a frightened rabbit, and would be frightened even if a piece of firewood was struck.
Wanglaiju did not release quotas for ice jelly in the afternoon sales, and only sold two kinds of milk tea, but the price was 20% off the original basis, so there was no trouble. With Si Li's current second-level cooking skills, she can make two-star dishes very easily. She also showed off her skills by using another method of making sweet potatoes with oil bottom slurry. The sweet potato cubes and syrup are blended together, and the taste is more crispy. The first portion was served to the prince of Yue, and he even received a compliment of "not bad".
Si Li raised her eyebrows proudly. That was because her skills had been upgraded and were far superior to her previous ones.
Just as I was about to leave, I suddenly heard him ask, "Are both of these people in the kitchen familiar with your cooking skills?"
"Of course... not." Si Li paused, denied it, and said frankly, "Although Ah Quan has talent, he is good at calculating and is more suitable to be a shopkeeper. Although Ah Xiang is less talented, she can make up for her shortcomings with diligence and has a simple mind. In the end, it is hard to say who will get the position of chef."
After all, there is no need to limit a person's future development because of one thing. Si Li does not think she is a smart person who can predict everything, and she cannot guess how the future will develop. Just do your best. The matter of inheriting the Wanglai Residence should at least be decided after she completes the mandatory task and runs away. It is too much to sentence Ah Quan to death now.
"Being soft-hearted to wolves will lead to your death."
She clearly realized that Jiang Shizhi was angry about this, but why? Si Li turned around and met a pair of cold eyes, cold and bone-chilling. She shuddered, forced a smile, and insisted on her own thoughts, "It's just a trick to protect themselves. Isn't it too much to say that they are jackals? Or are they children?"
"It's up to you." Jiang Hengyun narrowed his eyes, flicked his sleeves and left.
I've never heard of the Crown Prince of Yue or anyone in the Palace of Yue being backstabbed by their friends' subordinates... ?
Si Li picked up the sweet potato with two chopsticks of her hands in dismay. It would be a pity to pour it out, but it would be a bit dirty if she ate it. As she was hesitating, the guard Hulu, whom she had met at the dessert shop, came up and said, "Little Si, I'll take it away."
Okay, don’t think about it. Even when I was angry, I didn’t forget to eat.
Hulu packed food and ran, finally catching up with his master who strode into Qiyun Tower. He thought that the prince was going back to the palace, but he suddenly stopped at the back door of Qiyun Tower, turned around and went upstairs, and sat down by the window on the second floor.
Changed the position, but still saw the same view.
Hulu wiped his face, took out the still hot shredded sweet potato from the food box and placed it in a neat place. "Your Highness, I thought you hadn't even taken a few bites, so I gave it to you without permission. Please punish me."
"You're acting on your own. Get out!"
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The business at Wanglaiju was booming, and there was a certain regularity in the noise in the lobby and outside the door. Si Li sent Wang Ting to find out where she could catch fresh shrimps in winter, intending to make amends with the newly drawn recipe. After sending the people out, she quickly forgot about the angry Prince of Yue.
The potatoes and corn stored in Wanglaiju were being consumed in large quantities. The things that Wang Ting had bought earlier were not released. The several red and gold-inlaid wooden boxes in the yard were very impressive, but no matter how you think about it, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and cumin powder should not be placed in such boxes. When Si Li passed by the wooden box after delivering the food in person because he was too busy in the front hall, he finally couldn't help but open the lid of the box, and was immediately shocked and froze in place.
Moon-catching satin, Hundred Flowers Brocade, Flowing Pearls Silk... a box of dresses made of expensive fabrics worth who knows how much money were exposed outside. The box was directly pressed on the undried snow water, and there was no worry that the clothes would get wet and dirty.
This was Si Tang's dress that the original owner had envied. In the past, she foolishly thought that Si Tang was willing to lend her his beautiful clothes because he really wanted to be close to her, and she never considered that this was something that the original owner had the capital to enjoy.
After looking at the contents of one box, Si Li already had an idea of the other two boxes. She opened them one by one. One box was half with clear glass cups and half with jade cups, and one box was filled with jewel hairpins arranged in separate compartments. Si Li alone could see five or six sets of head ornaments.
The Jian family is indeed a family of merchants who followed the Empress on a long ocean-going ship. They are extremely wealthy and their every move is lavish.
"Xiao Si? Are you okay? Oh my god, you really scared me. Are you okay? Just stay here and enjoy the fresh air!" The lively voice behind her called Si Li's attention back. Before she could close the box, Xiao Qi jumped in and saw her. She gasped, "Wow——"
Xiao Qi hooked her arm around Si Li's shoulders and looked at her strangely, "Where did you get these things? These lapis lazuli, East Sea Pearl, Moon-grabbing satin, and colored glass cups are not something you can buy with money."
"I really should fire that guy in the royal court who plays both sides." Si Li pressed his brows and explained, "It's not mine."
"Fired? Is that your new dish? What kind of fish is squid?" Xiao Qi hooked the lid of the box with her toes and snapped it shut. "You don't show your wealth. Who wants to harm you? Speaking of which, I don't know what the Si and Jian families are doing outside. One wants to come in and the other wants to stop them. They've been making a fuss for two days, just like a big show."
Si Lidun felt that having a normal second uncle was also good. At least he could get along with Si's father and stepmother, so that she wouldn't be caught in a difficult position. Just as she was feeling lucky, Ah Sheng ran in holding a wooden box, his face full of hesitation, "Boss, what do you think we should do?"
He stood in front of Si Li and told her about how a customer queuing outside suddenly stuffed a wooden box into his house and said it was a gift from someone else. The family that could do such a thing could be either the Jian family or the Si family. Si Li stretched out her hand to open it, but it was a box of osmanthus cake.
If she remembered correctly, the original owner liked to eat sweet-scented osmanthus cake for a long time when she was a child, until she got cavities and stopped eating it. The sweet-scented osmanthus cake still tasted the same, but the person was no longer the same person. It should be a comfort to the original owner that someone could remember her past.
"Who sent the gift?" Xiao Qi rested his head on Si Li's shoulder and opened the lid of the box. The angle shifted and a small word "简" appeared on the lid.
"It's nobody's business." Si Li sighed and threw the osmanthus cake she had eaten back into A Zhuang's hands. "If anyone else tries to stuff something in front of us, we won't accept it. Just put it in front of the door and leave. Don't let them block our business."
"yes."
Si Li originally thought that such a cold refusal would put an end to the Jian family's overtures, but in the next two days, the trend of gift-giving intensified. Just from what A Zhuang said, there were many people outside the team waiting for the diners to give money and then help deliver things. And there were even more people pretending to be diners and wanting to enter the residence. If it hadn't disturbed the brother and sister of the Yue Palace in the backyard, "Jiang Lang" would have directly sent two guards to help guard the door. I'm afraid Si Li would have been able to meet those who wanted to come in.
The intention may be good, but such harassment is extremely annoying. Even the diners who came to queue up were left with only the servants. The business of Wanglai Ju was inevitably affected.
Seeing that this was not going to work, Si Li Gan Cuisine only opened half of the door and no one was allowed to come in. It was modeled after the windows of modern dessert stands, where people could buy and leave, and only did takeout.
Even so, Xiao Qi looked at Si Li with more and more strange eyes. After Si Li finished adjusting Ah Xiang's operation, she jumped out from the back kitchen door, grabbed her sleeve, and asked, "You don't have a secret identity, do you? Your family has alarmed the Si Jian family and the Si family... the Si family's side branch?"
Si Li was stunned by her question and said helplessly, "Don't guess. I thought your mother had already found out when she was shocked before, so I didn't tell you. The eldest daughter of Prime Minister Si's family who has been ill for more than ten years is me, Si Li."
Xiao Qi, with a puzzled look on her face, replayed Si Li's words twice, "Wait, who said before that she had nothing to do with Lord Si?"
Si Li was very calm, "It doesn't matter. The government stopped paying me my monthly allowance and let me fend for myself. What else does it matter? By the way, since you don't know, you can talk to your mother about this. I remember Tao Tao said before that according to Daning law, parents who abandon young children and children who abandon elderly parents will be punished."
Of course, her good stepmother could definitely say that she ran away from home or something like that, but the evil Si family should still be able to do it.
"You're awesome." Xiao Qi stuck out her tongue and hugged Si Li tighter. "Follow me in the future, and I'll make sure you won't have to worry about food and drink."
Si Li glanced at her sideways, "You eat all my food, and you still protect me?"
"Shopkeeper." Wang Ting pushed the back door and came in, sighing as if complaining, "I can't find it. Isn't it difficult for me to find this in winter? Auntie, are you going to make a new dish? Can you change it?"
When Si Li asked him to go find shrimps before, she didn't hold out much hope. "Forget it if you can't find them. I'll think about it."
"It's difficult to say, but it's not difficult either. I saw A Zhuang put out a jar in front of me." At Si Li's warning look, Wang Ting immediately shut up.
"What are you looking for?" As they were talking about this, Jiang Hengyun, who had been playing chess in silence with his sister, suddenly asked.
Si Li was a little embarrassed. The food she wanted to give as compensation had lost its popularity when she came back and she couldn't find the ingredients. She had to ask the recipient to provide the ingredients herself. It was really too much. She laughed vaguely and said, "No big deal, Shizhi, shall I give you ginger date milk tea or jasmine milk tea this afternoon?"
Jiang Hengyun asked for his opinion, "A Fei?"
This was originally just a routine question, and he didn't expect a response. Jiang Rufei stopped playing chess, tilted her head towards Si Li, and said in a small but clear voice, "Pear jelly."
Si Li watched as Jinhe Princess went from never speaking to occasionally saying two words, and now even knowing how to order food. She couldn't help but laugh and softened her voice to coax her, "Okay, make it for the Princess. How about Shizhi, the same?"
Xiao Qi gradually frowned at the strange atmosphere between Si Li and the brother and sister. If anything, it was as if they were a family, not just a diner and a restaurant owner.
"Are you too close to the Prince of Yue's Palace? Do you want to marry the prince? Or have you already decided to spend your life together?" As soon as Si Li entered the kitchen, she was stopped by Xiao Qi, who kept asking her questions.
This topic had been brought up once before, but compared to the last time, Si Li took a while to deny her guess, "We're just friends, why are you making wild guesses?"
Xiao Qi looked at her for a while, then started to laugh and stretched out her voice, "It's still possible for the daughter of the Prime Minister's family to marry the prince. Don't refuse so quickly. The Prince of Yue's Palace will hold a flower viewing banquet in a few days. As friends, the prince will definitely invite you to go."
"I was hoping to find a beautiful place far away from the capital to retire and spend my old age. Stop kidding."
Si Li sighed and pushed her out. Just as she left the kitchen, a head suddenly popped out from the wall next to the dessert shop next door, "Your Highness, the person is awake!"
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The author has something to say:
The prince and Lili will be awkward for a while, it's still the ambiguous period now