Border Cook

Chapter 31 Opening

There were two earthen kangs, and each person lay on one, and they all turned their backs to each other without any prior agreement.

Keeping this distance made Xia Mingyue feel inexplicably at ease, and she closed her eyes peacefully.

After a good night's sleep, when Xia Mingyue woke up the next morning, she saw Lu Qiyan practicing martial arts in the yard again.

This time, Lu Qiyan practiced a set of boxing techniques.

Each punch was powerful and the momentum was quite sharp, and the body was also very agile.

If Xia Mingyue were to imagine such skills, it would be difficult to associate them with Lu Qiyan's handsome and gentle face. But when she saw it with her own eyes, she felt that they were very harmonious.

As if that's how it should be.

However, Lu Qiyan's skills are considered to be among the best in the army. No wonder he could become the captain of a battalion after just a few months of joining the army.

Xia Mingyue sighed.

Wu Jin, who was squatting in the yard, looked at Lu Qiyan with a droopy face.

You're doing something again, right?

When he saw Xia Mingyue walking into the main room with admiration in her eyes, his face became even more uglier.

Dogs really hate conspicuous bags!

Because he disliked Lu Qiyan, Wu Jin was quite dissatisfied with the fact that he was the one adding food to the earthenware pot in the morning. Even though the pot contained its favorite fried rolls soaked in rice soup, it refused to eat and just turned its head to look away.

Xia Mingyue was quite surprised when she found out that Wu Jin didn't eat. She nibbled the oil roll in her hand again and again, "There's nothing wrong with this oil roll today."

"No." Lu Qiyan replied, "The fried rolls are delicious."

The steamed oil-fried rolls are fluffy and the dough is kneaded many times. The rolls have many layers and each layer has enough pepper and salt. They taste delicate and full of pepper flavor.

Accompany it with Xia Mingyue's cold dish of tofu shreds, mung bean sprouts, peanuts, and carrot shreds, take a bite of the fresh and tender, slightly runny egg, and drink a spoonful of soft and glutinous rice porridge...

Light, tasty and very satisfying.

But since the fried rolls are so delicious, why doesn’t Wu Jin eat them?

Xia Mingyue felt a little strange.

Lu Qiyan paused and said, "Maybe Wu Jin doesn't like to eat this."

After all, Wu Jin is a canine, so logically, he should prefer to eat meat.

When Wu Jin heard Lu Qiyan say this, he immediately jumped up.

How could it not like to eat this? You are just trying to sow discord between them!
Just say that this person is hated by dogs!
Wu Jin glared at Lu Qiyan fiercely again, buried his head in the earthenware jar, and started chewing.

The way he eats happily, it is obvious that he likes it very much.

That just now...

Xia Mingyue and Lu Qiyan were both confused and looked at each other, but they didn't think too much about it and just continued to enjoy their breakfast.

After cleaning up, Xia Mingyue and Lu started to get busy.

First, all kinds of cakes to be sold today are made, and then the items and ingredients needed for setting up the stall today are pulled to the stall.

The food we are going to sell at the stall today is wontons.

The filling of scallion pork is made and sold freshly, the soup is made of pork bones and chicken racks, with a few river shrimps, and garnished with a little scallion oil...

When the first bowl of wontons was cooked, the aroma drifted far away with the spring breeze.

"What smells so good?"

"It seems like there's a new wonton stand over there."

"Wontons this fragrant must taste delicious. I have to try them."

"Hey, hey, hey, just because it smells good doesn't mean it will taste good. A small bowl of wontons costs twelve cents, and a large bowl costs fifteen cents. It's too expensive!" "You don't know this, right? This wonton stall is run by Madam Xia. There must be a reason why it's so expensive."

"Which Lady Xia?"

"And that Miss Xia? She's the one who sold meat pies and vegetarian pies before!"

"Oh, if she makes wontons, they must be delicious. I have to try a bowl no matter what."

"..."

So, there were old customers who used to buy cakes, new customers attracted by the aroma of wontons, and even shopkeeper Qian and neighbors who came to show their support because Xia Mingyue opened on the first day...

In short, the wonton stall was soon filled with people.

Xia Mingyue was in charge of making and boiling wontons, Lu greeted guests and cleared the dishes, and Zhao Dahu and Zhao Erhu were in charge of selling cakes...

Lu Qiyan and Zhao Youcai were also there.

The two were originally going to help light the fire and clean up the dishes, but after all, they were two grown men who had been in the army for many years. They only knew how to drill and kill the enemies, and had never done such work, so they seemed a little clumsy.

Mrs. Lu was an impatient person and couldn't stand their clumsy behavior, so she simply kicked them out of the stall and asked them to sell cakes instead. She replaced them with Zhao Dahu and Zhao Erhu to light the fire and clean up the dishes.

For Lu Qiyan and Zhao Youcai, hawking was like a first time.

The two looked at each other, and after a long while, Zhao Youcai managed to say two words, "Sell cakes!"

Lu Qiyan was better than Zhao Youcai. He shouted three words, "Selling meat patties."

If this way of hawking were used in an ordinary business, no one would pay attention. However, the cakes made by Xia Mingyue are well-known in the area, and she told her regular customers about the change in the sales location early on, so there was basically no need for Lu Qiyan and Zhao Youcai to shout, as customers were already coming to buy.

The two people mainly need to collect money and serve cakes to the guests.

But the two of them were not familiar with these businesses, and their speed was much slower than Xia Mingyue and Lu usually were.

A square-faced, tall and thin man named Sun Gousheng saw this, rolled his eyes, and walked over, "I want two meat patties."

"Do you want scallion meat patties or black vegetable meat patties?" Zhao Youcai asked.

"It smells like onions." Sun Gousheng said without hesitation.

Black vegetables, it sounds like they are not good things, he doesn't want to eat them.

"Sixteen cents." Lu Qi Yan said as he took the oil paper to wrap the meat pie.

Sun Gousheng handed over a small piece of silver.

A piece of broken silver weighs one qian, and if it is exchanged for copper coins, it can be exchanged for one hundred wen.

A lot of meat patties had been sold, and there were enough copper coins in the purse for change.

Zhao Youcai carefully counted the number of copper coins that should be returned and handed them over with both hands.

Sun Gousheng took it and put it all back into his purse, then said with a smile, "Forget it, I have copper coins here, so let's use them. I still need to save the silver for the betrothal gift."

As he spoke, he handed over sixteen copper coins and said, "Please return the silver to me."

"Okay." Zhao Youcai took the copper coin and was about to hand over the silver as well.

Sun Gousheng couldn't help but curl up the corners of his mouth.

Tsk, he is indeed someone who doesn’t do business often. He is so easy to fool. Today’s lunch is settled!

But before he could be happy for too long, before he even touched the silver, Lu Qiyan stretched out his hand to block it, "Wait a minute."

Sun Gousheng was stunned and subconsciously reached out to grab the silver.

Lu Qiyan was quick to grab Sun Gousheng's wrist.

The force was so strong that Sun Gousheng grimaced in pain and shouted at Lu Qiyan, "My wrist is going to break, let go!"

　Warm reminder: The background setting of this story is a semi-turbulent era, and the prices will be much higher than those in a peaceful and prosperous era. In addition, the prices in ancient times were different in each dynasty, and the prices in the same dynasty were also very unstable due to the good or bad harvests of the year. So don't pay too much attention to the prices. The author tried his best to make the settings reasonable, but it will mainly serve the plot~
　　Thanks to miya2022 and lainela for the tip~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)