Jiangnan, Fushoulou Restaurant.
The new apprentice, Liu Er, was busy in the kitchen. He looked at the contents of the pot and felt a little nauseous.
Inside the pot, boiling water was bubbling away, and black-haired rats were rolling around inside. He was stirring it constantly with an iron spatula.
Only rats that have been thoroughly boiled in hot water can be better skinned and pickled.
"Hey, hurry up and turn the pages. It'll be lunchtime soon, and all the merchants coming and going will be coming down to eat. If you don't prepare anything, the guests will say that Fushoulou is not providing adequate hospitality."
Young master Lu Wei, holding a lottery ticket, stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking at the busy waiters, and said, "Our Fushoulou is the largest inn on this trade route. All the people coming and going are merchants. These people are our bread and butter, so we must serve them well."
"Young master, don't worry, we guys will definitely treat those customers like our own parents."
Chef Liu Mou followed his lead and began to flatter him: "Brothers, give it your all. When you're out in the world, you have to be worthy of the wages your employer pays you."
Upon hearing this, Lu Wei immediately laughed: "Master Liu understands me best. You apprentices should follow Master Liu closely. If you can learn even half of what he teaches, you'll be set for life."
Watching them sing in unison, Liu Er couldn't help but say to the servant beside him, "Our young master is really good at bragging; he can even make the dead sound alive."
"Guests are our providers; what kind family would feed their parents rats?"
He had barely finished speaking when he noticed his colleague looking at him with a horrified expression.
Liu Er turned his head and saw the young master Lu Wei looking at him with a frosty expression.
"Liu Er, what are you muttering about?"
"No, I didn't say anything!"
"Didn't say anything? Then why did I hear you muttering to yourself just now?"
Seeing Lu Wei's gloomy face, Liu Er began to stammer. He stood there, not knowing what to do.
Looking up at his surroundings, hoping that his companions could help him out of this predicament, he found that everyone around him had their heads down and dared not speak, for fear of getting into trouble.
"Alright, since you say you didn't mutter anything, then I'll assume you didn't mutter anything just now."
"Come here, Liu Er, I'm asking you now, what's cooking in this pot?"
Lu Wei pointed with his fan at the rats tumbling in the pot and asked.
Liu Er raised his head, glanced at it, then lowered it again, not daring to utter a sound.
Seeing that he didn't speak, Lu Wei got a little angry and slapped his face with his fan: "What's cooking in this pot? What's cooking?"
Seeing that he couldn't avoid this question, Liu Er had no choice but to answer with a stiff upper lip: "Replying to you, sir, it was boiled rat."
Upon hearing this, Lu Wei burst into laughter, then tucked his fan into his waistband and swung it around, slapping the person across the face.
"Smack!"
A crisp slap brought the kitchen to a moment of silence, followed by the sounds of spatulas clattering and knives hitting the cutting board.
Liu Er was so slapped that he saw stars and lay on the ground for a while before he came to his senses.
Lu Wei grabbed his clothes, pulled him to the boiler, pressed his head against the stove, pointed at the boiling pot with his fan, and then asked, "Don't say I'm bullying you. I'll give you one more chance. What exactly is cooking in this pot?"
"It's...it's...it's a black-skinned rat!"
Looking at the black rats in the pot, Liu Er hesitated for a moment, realizing that he might not have said everything.
Lu Wei looked at him and laughed out loud in anger.
"Heh~, listen to this guy, saying that what's cooking in the pot at our Fushoulou restaurant is rats."
After saying that, he pointed at Liu Mou and waved him over: "Master Liu, this is the one you brought over. Tell him what's cooking in this pot, so he won't feel resentful after being beaten."
Looking at the rat in the pot, Liu Mou said, "Young master, what's cooking in this pot is duck meat."
"Haha, I'm happy that Master Liu said duck meat, but if you said black rat, I'd still slap you twice."
"Our Fushoulou restaurant's signature dish is Five-Flavor Duck, made with the finest water ducks that grow up eating fish and shrimp."
"Not the black rats in the stinking ditch. What are black rats? Those are things that starving people eat during famines."
Lu Wei slapped Liu Er's face with his fan, then scolded, "If you leave Fushoulou and see this thing, you can say whatever you want."
"But at Fushoulou, this thing is a duck, a water duck that costs one tael of silver each, understand?"
"Sir, I understand, I understand."
"Alright, Liu Er, I'll ask you one last time, what's cooking in this pot?"
"Yes, sir, it is...it is a duck."
"Oh, that's right, this is a duck, a top-quality duck. Don't get it wrong next time."
Lu Wei released Liu Er and waved to the two waiters behind him: "Drag him to the woodshed and give him a good beating!"
When Liu Mou saw his nephew being captured by the waiter, he quickly pleaded, "Young master, he knows he was wrong, please let him go."
“Master Liu, this isn’t a place to let horses run wild. If he makes a mistake today and I let him off the hook, what if someone else makes a mistake tomorrow and I let them off the hook too? How am I supposed to keep this shop open?”
“Don’t try to persuade him today. If you help him now, you’ll only hurt him. If you don’t make him remember this beating today, he’ll still call this thing a black rat in the future.”
"You go ahead and do your thing. Don't worry, you won't get hurt. It'll just be a little bit of physical pain."
Seeing that pleading was useless, Liu Mou shook his head, sighed, and went back to the stove to continue his work.
Liu Er was dragged to the woodshed by two men and given a thorough beating.
After he finished, he wiped the blood from his nose and limped back to the kitchen.
"Sigh, you need to watch your mouth from now on, talk less and do more."
Liu Mou scooped up the skinned black rats, placed them on a wooden plate, and handed him a kitchen knife: "You just sit here quietly, cut these rats into pieces, and then marinate them."
"Remember to remove the rat's head, otherwise the guests will easily spot it."
Liu Er nodded, still feeling wronged. Looking at the rats in the wooden tray, he couldn't help but think of them as Lu Wei, who had bullied him.
He grabbed a mouse and slashed it down hard with his knife, silently thinking, "You dare bully me, you dare bully me."
With each swift cut, he felt much more at ease, but he didn't notice that a rat's head was mixed in with the chopped meat.
After he finished marinating the rat meat, Fushoulou also got busy.
The cook grabbed a handful of rat meat, mixed it with a handful of duck meat, and put them all into the pot.
They didn't notice at all that a tiny rat's head was rolling around in the pot.
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