HCB Chapter 185
Chapter 185
Food business is still very good in winter. Both mutton soup and spicy soup are very popular.
Every once in a while, the family would send various ingredients through the county town, including fresh leafy vegetables grown in greenhouses, which made the stir-fries at noon very popular.
Today, when I received the food from the escort agency, it also included a letter
"I have to go to the Xue family again, oh!" Shen Lingzhu put down the letter and rubbed his head. It snowed a few days ago, and the grandmother slipped and fell. Brother Songzhu had to take care of her and couldn't come to the capital to deliver the New Year gifts.
The other uncles were not familiar with the city, and they did not want to come to the Xue family and be looked down upon.
Uncle Ten, Shen Man, was the only one who came on his own initiative, but no one in the clan trusted him.
Shen Xianzhu lifted the curtain to see the snowflakes falling outside, and then looked at the few customers in the store.
He said, "The business in the county town has to be taken care of by Uncle Seventh. We are in the provincial capital, where it is freezing cold, so there is no need for him or other uncles to make a trip.
After buying the gifts, Uncle Jiu and I will go."
Shen Lingzhu shook her head: "The backyard..."
"I am the great-nephew, and I can directly pay my respects to my great-aunt's generation. If you come too, I won't feel safe if you enter the inner house.
Of course, it's best not to meet." Shen Xianzhu didn't have a very good impression of the Xue family.
Shen Lingzhu thought about it and suggested, "How about we ask an escort agency to deliver it."
"This...is not appropriate. Sooner or later someone from the Xue family will find out that we opened a store here. We are clearly in the provincial capital, but we are sending New Year gifts instead of escorting them. This will offend people." Shen Xianzhu was really tempted when he heard this at first, but he couldn't do this.
Shen Lingzhu: "Okay, Aunt Jiu and I will go too."
"No, just me and Uncle Jiu." Shen Xianzhu thought carefully and was undecided about whether to meet his great aunt or not.
As soon as he made the decision, he called Huang Xunzhi to the counter to assist him, and he went to the kitchen to find Uncle Jiu.
Shen Lingzhu walked back and forth behind the counter holding a hand warmer, "Cousin Zhi, is it snowing heavily outside?
If it’s too big, you’ll have to clear the snow off the roof tiles in the hallway leading to the kitchen.”
The east wing is the kitchen. After the lease was confirmed, a small east ear room was specially built to connect the east wing and the main hall, making it convenient for diners to buy meals at the window with tickets.
"Let me take a look." Huang Xunzhi took two quick steps and was about to push open the curtain when another guest lifted the curtain and came in.
A teenage girl brushed off the snow and asked, "Where can I buy a ticket?"
"Here." Shen Lingzhu and the other person's eyes met, and she recognized her as cousin Xue's maid.
Qingxiang was surprised: "Cousin, why are you here?"
She trotted to the counter, "You..."
"Look up at the painting above. What do you want to buy?" It was almost the end of the Si hour (11 a.m.), and Shen Lingzhu was thinking that she was here to buy some stir-fried dishes.
Qingxiang said, "I'd like to buy a few of your new pickled cabbage dumplings. I heard they taste really good.
Cousin, is this the shop your family runs?
It's easy to imagine that my cousin is so young and is the niece of a Jinshi scholar, it's impossible for her to travel so far to work for someone else.
She clutched her purse, hoping that it was a shop opened by the Shen family, so that she might not have to pay. In the future, when her sisters wanted to eat dumplings, she could make a few more trips and earn some money by running errands.
"These are from my grandfather. How many do you want?" Shen Lingzhu didn't intend to refuse payment.
Qingxiang was very good at reading people's expressions and knew that she would not refuse to pay, so she asked for five servings.
Shen Lingzhu did not save a single penny. The sauerkraut was made from the cabbage bought by the family and then pressed by someone hired by the family. The meat used for the stuffing was also the freshest meat bought at five in the morning every day.
She handed the meal ticket to Haruka, "Do you have a lunch box? If you use ours, you'll need to pay a ten-cent silver deposit."
"So expensive?"
"Five portions require two lunch boxes, and you may not return them on the same day you take them."
"I heard that Hu Ji Food Store will deliver it. I'll wait at the back door of Xue's house to pick it up." Since there was no bargain, Qingxiang no longer spoke softly.
Shen Lingzhu handled the matter impartially and asked his cousin Zhi to arrange for the meal to be delivered.
Seeing Qingxiang leaving with an unhappy look on her face, she didn't mind. If it was her cousin Xue, whom she had met before, who came to eat, she could give her a discount.
Shen Lingzhu saw that her elder brother had not come out of the kitchen yet, so she left the counter to her cousin Zhi and told her elder brother what had just happened.
When she entered the kitchen, she only saw her grandfather, her two brothers, Aunt Jiu and Aunt Ding.
"Where's Big Brother?" Grandpa wasn't needed to make dumplings, so she pulled him out of the east wing kitchen and said, "Grandpa, I'm afraid I have to go to deliver the New Year's gifts tomorrow."
"Why?" Grandpa couldn't sit still, sitting at the chopping board, making dumplings. "There weren't many people in the shop, so Xianzhu and your uncle went to order gifts before noon."
Aunt Jiu and Aunt Ding, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, are also in charge. The men from the Xu family are currently staying on the second floor, which is rarely visited.
Alas, it’s cold and the first floor is not full.
The store takes advantage of the snow to make more dumplings and freeze them, which can be used for several days.
When Shen Lingzhu told her about the little girl Qingxiang buying dumplings, her grandfather said, "Go, it's not a dangerous place.
Don't worry about the Xue family's legitimate wife or concubines. The Shen family's aunt has a grand order to ask for a title. Just go and pay your respects and leave. Don't worry about the legitimate wife.
"Last time, the wife of the Xue family sent someone to invite..." Shen Lingzhu didn't dare to guarantee that the wife of the Xue family would not cause any trouble this time.
After listening to her, the grandfather taught her, “If we don’t go with the servants, she won’t dare to carry you there.
I said I was busy at the store and couldn't leave you for too long, so I left the house quickly after seeing Aunt Shen."
"It works?"
"It works. I'll say happy new year and leave."
"Okay, I'll listen to grandpa. By the way, it will be frozen tomorrow, so there will definitely be fewer customers. Should I cook less mutton soup?" Shen Lingzhu determines the amount of soup for the next day based on the number of customers from the previous day.
Grandpa nodded: "The day after tomorrow is Laba Festival, I will prepare for the annual leave."
"After the 15th? It'll be just in time for their younger brothers and sisters' hundred-day celebrations on the 20th." Normally, the two little ones were born on August 26th, so today is a hundred days.
But the hundred-day banquet may not be held on the same day. My uncle intends to hold it later so that the family can prepare more sufficient and comprehensive ingredients.
The letter Shen Lingzhu had seen before also mentioned that it was snowing continuously, so for safety reasons they were asked to go on holiday early.
She said, "Tomorrow morning the four of us won't be in the store. Grandpa, please pay attention to the front. Jian Zhu can sit in a wheelchair now, so it's okay for her to collect the money.
Of course, we won’t have lunch at Xue’s house, we’ll go there early and come back early.”
Adhering to this principle, Shen Lingzhu and his four companions went to the Xue family as soon as the breakfast peak the next day.
Fortunately, it didn’t snow heavily yesterday, so there was less snow on the road and it was easier to walk.
But she never expected that as soon as she and Aunt Jiu entered the inner house and met her great-aunt, she led them to the courtyard of the wife of the main house.
Then he said, "Sister Ning was punished for eating your dumplings last night. Please plead for her."
"What? Why would I be punished for eating dumplings?" After lunch yesterday, Haruka actually went to the store again to buy raw dumplings.
Shen Lingzhu didn't know what this family was thinking.
The great-aunt, who was walking briskly, turned around and said, "There was a strange smell in the dumplings. The taste lingered in her mouth after she finished eating them. The maids in the palace noticed it and said that my Xue family doesn't know how to teach children."