His heart beating like a drum, this was the first time his ice-cold face split open a crack.
“Ai, really is a good brother!” Lin Wuniao bloomed with joy, completely forgetting her partner and the setting, hooked his neck, hanging from Miao Manxi’s neck as she swung around, "Then I’m going back first to prepare, thanks, thanks!”
She was perfectly satisfied, skipping along on the road, completely ignoring the already petrified Miao Manxi.
“Young Master, Young Master, you have a nosebleed!” Miao Family’s servants swarmed around him, diligently carrying the Miao Manxi who had a chin full of blood from his nose.
“Young master, you have hang on……”
A great gust of wind, faintly and distantly from within the wind could be heard the sad and shrill cries of Miao Family’s servants.
Comrade Lin Wuniao and her pocket of instant noodles finally obtained a chance to enter the Imperial Palace as a chef.
Speaking of this, Concubine Tang Xin was the most pleasantly surprised, because the mother relies on her precious daughter, she had already moved every nook and cranny to Lin Family Head’s courtyard, the buttoned jacket made of coarse cloth and gown with big flowers on her body had also been exchanged for damask, gauze, and satin, on it was no longer big flowers, rather it was embroidered full of all kinds of depictions of meat and vegetable dishes.
This was the special glory that only the favored concubine could obtain.
Usually one person was distributed one platter of Lin Family Head’s famed recipes, fortunately concubine Tang Xin was allocated Crystal Sugared Pig Hooves (rock sugar), on that outer clothing of fragrant green autumn silk, was embroidered big pig hooves (part of the pig’s front shoulder) in dark red.
“Bestow, three basins (unit of volume equal to approximately 128 liters) of the household management’s vegetables and meat for practicing.”
“Ai? It isn’t Fresh Vegetable and Tofu Soup? Lin Wuniao squeezed the leaves of the vegetables, looked dumbstruck towards the Lin Family’s servants who were shuttling back and forth, inside everyone’s hands was a vegetable and meat dish, its oil glistening brightly, the light sparkling and glittering.
The first one was Simmer-Fried Lion’s Head (meatball)…… one after another, bigger than the bowl, much fatty meat, little lean meat.
The second one was Simmer-Fried Salt-Cured Meat Bits (bacon)……the cut of meat was astonishingly big, concubine Tang Xin took a bite, wasn’t able to get her breath back for half a day.
The third one was a bit more simple yet elegant, it was only a plate of Twice-Cooked Pork, its oil shining and glistening, Lin Wuniao lifted her chopsticks several times, but didn’t have the courage to grab a piece.
“Ai, how to eat?” She sighed.
Tang Xin blinked and winked her eyes, from inside her mouth still dangling a piece of meat, “Niao er, you must know, it is only the favored that can eat the Lord’s practice dishes, this mother of yours, it has already been a full ten years that I haven’t eaten these.”
She opened her mouth wide and cried bitterly, the meat in her mouth fell onto the table with a patter, thick and heavy juices flowed down, not long after, the juice turned into a white solidified substance.
OMG, Lin Wuniao was considered as really going to the extreme now, that’s the reason why each and every one of the concubines by Lin Family Head’s side was tough and stocky with the back of a tiger and waist of a bear, if they eat in accordance to this, it would be weird if they weren’t as tall as a group of three people.
“Mother, how to finish eating these three dishes?” She found it difficult to do.
Tang Xin stared: “How are you unable to eat any more, one meal at noon, one meal in the evening, one meal for the midnight snack, guarantee it will all be finished spotlessly, if don’t eat it all, the Lord will incessantly make (more), incessantly send it over, he is the sort of person that pledges not to give up if he doesn’t achieve the optimum state, that way, a person would eat to death!”
She was suddenly in the midst of her memories just as if she had sunk into a nightmare, trembling uncontrollably from head to foot.
Lin Wuniao almost started crying, looking at the three huge dishes of vegetables and meat on the table, she doesn’t even have a little bit of appetite.
Fortunately, Tang Xin raised tens of basins of flowers, the food they couldn’t finish eating, the two wasted an afternoon, burying it all underneath the flowers.
“Niao er, I feel that those flowers can’t raise up any energy.” After burying the last Lion Head (meatball), Tang Xin raised her head, saw the rapidly wilting flowers, and was very dejected.
“Don’t be worried, burying a little every day, as time passes, they will become used to it.” Lin Wuniao answered firmly.
Just as her voice dropped, at a visible speed the flowers along with the meatball, rapidly withered and wilted away, the branches and leaves that were left also swayed and wobbled amidst the wind as it trembled with fear.
“Look, (even if) there are no flowers, actually those green leaves are also very pretty.” As soon as she said so, those leaves on the ends of the branches, shook and rocked with the wind, in a flash dropping down onto the ground.
Only bald and bare branches remained, ash gray and dark black, it was extremely unsightly.
“En, (even if) there are no green leaves, the twigs are also very pretty.” Lin Wuniao falsely (untrue to one’s convictions) complimented, compared with her own three highs (high technology, high performance, and high quality), she can only apologize to this row of plants.
Tang Xin slanted her eyes to glance at her daughter, using a skeptical manner to respond to Lin Wuniao.
Early in the morning the second day, there was someone over here to pick up Lin Wuniao, Golden Jade Dynasty required its Imperial Chefs to live inside the Palace, there is an area opened exclusively, known as the Room of the Imperial Chefs, this is precisely their residence.
Much over half of the Imperial Kitchen is male, only the Lin Family this kind of aristocratic and influential family of the Imperial Kitchen, will select and send over a couple female Imperial Chefs once in a while to enter the Imperial Palace, usually after entering the Imperial Palace, were not at all in charge of the cooking by themselves, rather they must follow after their senior colleagues, and study two to three years only then can they finish their apprenticeship.
By the time they are able to finish their apprenticeship, brandishing their ladles these two or three years, they had already exceeded marriageable age long ago, if they weren’t let out of the Palace, then they stay behind as so-and-so royal prince’s mistress.
The female disciples this time is particularly few, there is only Lin Wuniao and the one additional female Chef that Miao Man Family selected.
The vehicle that picked them up and dropped them off, gathering outside the Palace gates, had to register to the palace eunuch in charge who oversaw that day’s matters, only then could they enter inside the Palace, and be assigned their housing.
“Name?” The one in charge of the affairs today was the favored person by the Emperor’s side, Eunuch Zhou, always pose (flaunt?) himself with a fairy’s conduct, even walking he rose in spirals (curl upwards, wave gently) along with the wind.
Even when talking he liked to stick up an orchid flower (hand gesture in traditional dances with joined thumb and middle finger, the rest extended).
His extremely powdered face, his wrinkles like the Persian chrysanthemum, even more visible.
Towards this much beloved profession of palace eunuch, he always greatly loved to excessive grief, if he must list one dissatisfaction, one aspect he is continuously confused about, that is precisely……that he can never again grow out that little mustache in the shape of the character eight (Fu Manchu style?) of his.
“Hurry up, hurry up, your name!” The him at this moment, held a writing brush dipped full of ink, stamped his feet, he protested coquettishly as he urged the registering little assistants with bent heads.
“Miao Fang Fei!” Standing in front of Lin Wuniao is Miao Family’s distant relative, young lady Fang Fei, lifted her head and straightened her chest, her appearance as if showing disdain for all the land under heaven (the whole world).
The white of her eyes much exceeded (the space of?) her eyeballs, she always used the corner of her eyes to look at people.
From inside her eyes that cast slanted glances, Eunuch Zhao sensed not just one thread of contemptuous color.
This towards a fairy-like eunuch, definitely is a kind of humiliation, therefore his resentment came out and left him, he shook his hand, pinched it out into an orchid blossom, and pouted playfully:” You, you, you what is that expression in your eyes?”
Miao Fang Fei as before slanted that pair of her eyes, pursed her mouth, and cast ice-cold glances at him.
Lin Wuniao who was standing behind her shivered uncontrollably all over from head to toe, because she saw that Eunuch Zhou’s face already had red changing into green, and started to be on the edge of being enraged.
“Eunuch Zhou, from childhood Fang Fei eyeballs had a little bit of a slant, when she looks at people, she will always unconsciously glance sideways, contrary to expectation she truly did not do it on purpose.” Miao Manxi originally stood at the very end of the queue, contemplating with his hands clasped behind his back, heard a dispute rising in the front, and strolled over neither urgently nor slowly.
He is the Emperor’s most respected Imperial Chef, it is said that one time after the Emperor ate and drank to his heart’s content, he commended, “If there wasn’t Imperial Chef Miao, we (this imperial) would eat without tasting the food, and then never again have happiness in this life.”
Speaking of this, the Emperor had, before Manxi entered the Imperial Kitchen, once suffered from a strange kind of illness, towards the vegetable and meat dishes filling the table, tastes as if one is chewing wax, even if he was hungry to the point that his head was dizzy and his mind crazy (?), he was still unwilling to eat one bite of victuals, the Imperial Chefs of the Imperial Kitchen were chopped down wave after wave, good cooks from every part of the country, practically all of them were transferred into the Palace, nevertheless the result was not in the people’s expectations.
However the Executive Chef Miao and Assistant Main Chef Lin who were in charge of the matter, were worriedly seething with anger and spouting smoke through the seven orifices, every day they were alarmed and anxious, fearing that they would suddenly lose their necks.
It was so much that, owing to the tense and pressed Imperial Chef Miao, beneath the high pressure and weight, he contracted a serious illness. Sir Manxi had no choice but to enter the Imperial Kitchen, to act on the behalf of his chef father.
However, a miracle occurred!
After that one meal, His Majesty relied on the good dishes made singlehandedly by Sir Miao Manxi.
Therefore, (you) can offend anyone (you want), all except Sir Manxi, even the current Imperial Consort (empress) Queen Mother still had to yield somewhat to a degree.
Eunuch Zhou smiled awkwardly, firmly opened his eyes wide to take a glance at Miao Fang Fei, and answered eccentrically: “Even if she is to blame for squinting, with a word from Master Manxi, can this slave not bow his head and yield?”
Even though he looked at the surface of Miao Manxi, with a tolerating tone of his voice, but the raging fury in his heart actually ignited (even more).
Miao Manxi slightly nodded his head, and lead Fang Fei to be the first one to walk inside.
The next one up was Lin Wuniao.
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