Chapter 117
Chapter 117
“What now? You can boil eggs with tea leaves too?”
After seeing tea leaves used to boil milk, now they could be used to boil eggs as well?
Jiang Yunsui obediently put the last piece of egg white into her mouth and finished eating it.
“Mm-hmm, you can.”
She lifted her little hand and began counting on her fingers.
“You also add star anise, cinnamon bark, bay leaves, soy sauce, salt…”
Fat Chef rubbed his chin. “With that many things added in, how could it not taste good?”
“What’s soy sauce?”
Jiang Yunsui froze. “Huh? You don’t have soy sauce? I think it’s made from beans.”
She flipped through the inheritance Tuantuan had given her, but there was no specific method for making soy sauce.
After all, in that era, soy sauce had long since entered every household. Unless someone specialized in making it, even chefs wouldn’t know how to make soy sauce.
All she knew was that it was made by fermenting soybeans.
“Then let’s not add soy sauce.”
Fat Chef, however, fell into thought because of what she had said.
“Soybeans. Fermentation.”
He patted the little one’s head. “All right. One of these days, I’ll make you tea eggs.”
Jiang Yunsui’s eyes curved as she smiled, utterly delighted.
“Oh right, Fat Grandpa hunted a wolf. Do you want the wolf pelt?”
After saying that, he shook his head again. “No, that won’t do. The wolf fur is too coarse. Come on, let’s go stroll through the market and see if there are any fox pelts. I’ll buy some and have a set of clothes made for you.”
With that, he easily scooped the child up and set her on his shoulders.
She was taller again. Jiang Yunsui had only just been happy for a moment when, on the way out, her head smacked straight into the doorframe.
With a loud duang, she clutched her forehead and whimpered, looking like the most pitiful little animal.
“Old Pang, are you blind? How did you not see a door that big?”
“Aiyoh, that must’ve hurt. Hurry, get down and let us grandpas take a look.”
Jiang Yunsui glanced at Fat Grandpa, who looked full of guilt and remorse. She sniffled and said in her soft, milky voice that she was fine.
“It doesn’t hurt.”
But her eyes were brimming with tears, and she did not look like it didn’t hurt.
Little Mushroom was pretending to be strong, and it made the whole group of rough men ache with sympathy.
Jiang Yunsui mumbled, “It only hurt for a tiny moment. I wasn’t paying attention. It has nothing to do with Fat Grandpa. I like it when Fat Grandpa lifts me up high.”
Fat Chef immediately cheered up.
“All right. If you like it, Fat Grandpa will carry you next time too. Next time, I’ll definitely watch out.”
“Okay!”
The group left the kitchen affairs to their apprentices and odd-job workers, then took Jiang Yunsui to the market.
Every single one of them was tall and broad, making her look especially tiny by comparison.
“Come take a look and see what you like. Fat Grandpa will buy it for you.”
“Do you even have money to buy anything?”
Though they were all single and the monthly silver issued from above was decent enough, every one of them spent money like water.
With the mindset that wealth was not brought at birth and could not be taken after death, almost every man’s monthly silver was gone within half a month of reaching his hands.
Still, they did have a few things put away for emergencies.
Back when they were fighting wars, General Ji and the Old Duke had both been decent men. Any money they stripped from enemy soldiers counted as their own.
Sometimes, when they seized an enemy treasury or the like, a portion would also be shared with them.
So they did have a bit of retirement money saved up.
“Who says I don’t have any? I brought it on purpose.”
Fat Chef patted the bulging purse at his waist.
Jiang Yunsui looked at the animal pelts and began muttering the Rebirth Mantra in an extremely soft voice.
It wasn’t that she thought humans killing these animals was cruel. She ate meat herself, after all.
She just wanted to chant a little, in case any resentment still clung to those animal pelts.
At first, she wanted to pick a few rabbit pelts, the pure white kind, just like the scarf Cook Chen had made for her before.
Fat Chef picked up a piece of red fox fur and handed it straight to Jiang Yunsui.
“This one. This one is pretty.”
The vendor immediately chimed in with a stream of flattering words. He certainly had a silver tongue.
“What fine taste you have, honored customer. Is this your granddaughter? You’ve raised her so well. With that little face, she looks just like a tiny fairy from the heavens. Red fox fur is soft, and I hardly need to tell you what Mobei winters are like. Fox fur keeps out the cold, and this color is beautiful too. Make her a little outfit from it, and it’ll set her off even more wonderfully…”
Jiang Yunsui’s little face turned a bit red from all the praise.
Fat Chef and the others were even more satisfied.
“Good eye. We’ll take this fox fur. Do you have more in this color? What can we even make with just one piece?”
“Yes, yes, of course…”
Solid-colored animal pelts were hard to find, especially fox and sable.
Those animals lived far from human settlements, hiding in places rarely visited by people. They were fast and cunning by nature, and not easy to catch.
That was why pelts like these were so expensive.
One piece of solid-colored fox fur cost more than a hundred taels of silver.
Jiang Yunsui held up her little mushroom-shaped little embroidered pouch. Nanny Zhou had sewn it according to her preferences.
“I have silver too.”
“How could we let you pay? We said we’d buy it for you, so we’re buying it for you.”
The adults firmly pressed down her small hands, paid the money, and collected two beautiful pieces of red fox fur in one smooth motion.
Jiang Yunsui could only lower her little embroidered pouch again.
Fat Chef pinched her little cheek.
Jiang Yunsui’s face was plump, and a child’s skin was especially soft. With one pinch, two little dimples appeared in her cheeks.
“Don’t forget, we made that sweet potato starch, and the Young Master rewarded me quite a lot for it.”
Jiang Yunsui nodded. That was right. She had received a reward too.
“Come on, let’s keep looking and see if there’s anything else you like.”
Fat Chef and the others bought some mutton, planning to go back and make a good meal.
Jiang Yunsui, meanwhile, had her attention drawn to the gemstones on a Hu merchant’s stall.
Red ones, blue ones, yellow ones…
So many pretty stones.
Little Mushroom liked pretty, shiny things like these. She wanted to collect them.
“How much silver is this?”
She ran over to the Hu merchant’s stall on her own, picked up a beautiful red gemstone, and asked in her soft little voice.
The Hu merchant could speak a little broken Central Plains speech.
“This ruby. Pretty. Costs this much silver.”
He held up two fingers.
Jiang Yunsui looked at him eagerly. “Two… two taels?”
The Hu merchant: “…”
“No, no, no… two hundred taels of silver.”
Jiang Yunsui touched her little embroidered pouch. She hadn’t brought that much silver with her.
Two hundred taels of silver was very heavy.
“I didn’t bring that much silver. I’ll have to wait until next time.”
After Fat Chef and the others finished buying the meat, they realized Jiang Yunsui was gone and shouted for her in loud voices.
Jiang Yunsui quickly put the gemstone down and trotted back.
“I’m here.”
“See anything you like?”
Jiang Yunsui shook her head. “Nope. Fat Grandpa, let’s go buy some fruit. I saw peaches over there.”
“Sure.”
The peaches outside ripened later, and they were smaller too.
They didn’t taste anywhere near as good as the peaches from the few Peach Tree plants at Ji Mansion.
“We’ll have to wait until next year to eat the peaches at the residence again.”
Jiang Yunsui nodded.
She had planted some in her own courtyard too. In order to eat delicious fruit next year, Jiang Yunsui decided she would have to be even more diligent about going to the courtyard to absorb moonlight.
It was almost time for the afternoon meal. They didn’t return to the military camp, but instead went to Fat Chef’s house outside.