Do all these belong to Meng Yu?
As she watched Meng Yu slowly pick out the tools she needed from the cupboard, Tang Doudou felt strong envy. From beginning to end, she followed Meng Yu around as she moved, really itching to test them out as well.
Her desire was so obvious that Meng Yu naturally knew what she wanted. “Aiyah, Alliance Head Li, stop circling around me. The main business is pressing. After today, you can come to my place to slowly study these things, alright?”
The reason she didn’t let Tang Doudou touch the tools was also because of this. Right now, they were tight on time and it also wasn’t easy to familiarise oneself with these tools. If they ended up causing the lunch banquet to be delayed, that would be troublesome.
Not to mention, she still had to prepare the competition dish.
“Really? I can really go over to your place to look at them?” The moment Tang Doudou heard that her eyes lit up and she hurriedly asked to confirm.
Meng Yu nodded. She then pulled her to the long tables, ignoring Tang Doudou’s joy. “These ingredients are all prepared. In a bit, I’ll get you a menu and you can start making the dishes based on the menu.”
“Then what about you?” Once cooking was mentioned, Tang Doudou got even more enthusiastic. She felt that the clothes she was wearing was too restrictive and decided to just take them off and throw them on the floor. As she rolled up her sleeves, she questioned Meng Yu who was organizing things to her side.
“I have to prepare the dishes for the cooking competition.” Meng Yu said.
Tang Doudou asked curiously, “What cooking competition?”
Meng Yu explained, “It’s a competition between several kitchen maids in the Chamber of Commerce. It’s one of the more impressive and popular competitions of the Plum Garden Gathering.”
As she spoke, she beckoned a couple of the missus that had come in to help as assistants. After organizing everything one by one, she nimbly started picking out the ingredients she needed, before heading to the stove to light the fire.
Tang Doudou couldn’t sit still anymore either after seeing Meng Yu start to work. She picked up the menu Meng Yu gave her, skimmed over it, roughly memorized all the dishes she had to make and started to work.
Tang Doudou first had the female assistants cut all the ingredients she needed, before also heading to the stove. Meng Yu had already started the fire and called two male servants to fan the flames. In just a moment, the originally nice and cool wooden house immediately became so hot that the heat rose to the skies.
The first dish Tang Doudou was planning to make was a common family dish: minced pork with eggplant.
Putting the seasoning she had just finished mixing to the side of the stove, she lifted the oil nearby and poured it into the pot. This dish was rather simple, so she was also rather casual with it. Still hung up on the Plum Garden Gathering, she asked, “Competition? What exactly is the Plum Garden Gathering for? Meng Yu, hurry and tell me.”
Meng Yu was skilled at cooking and had already gone through countless cooking competitions. She had long since lost her initial nervousness. Since the cooking would take a while, she decided to just start chatting with Tang Doudou.
“The Plum Garden Gathering that takes place once every three years is a world famous gathering. All the people that come are young masters and misses from famous schools and clans. Other than coming to view the plum sea, a lot of young masters and misses would also come up with many new and fun activities. This cooking competition was also started that way.”
“The past Plum Garden Gatherings have never been as grand as this one. When I came over here earlier, I asked Bodyguard Ye about it. He said that there were already over three thousand people, just counting the young masters and misses. If the menservants and maids that were brought along were also counted, the number would be over ten thousand…”
When she heard this, Tang Doudou was astonished. “There’s that many people?”
As she looked around the ingredients in the kitchen, she became even more puzzled. “Is there enough for everyone?”
“Hehe, our Plum Garden’s dishes aren’t things anybody can eat. These are all being prepared for the guests Master had invited to eat.” Meng Yu said as she pulled out the small silver knife she picked out from the cupboard earlier. She then grabbed a leaping and frisking fish from the basin. “Aunt An, was this fish fished up from the river earlier?”
The missus that gave Tang Doudou directions earlier, who was Aunt An, hastily nodded. “It was just fished up from the river, it’s still lively.”
Tang Doudou recalled that small river in front of the wood house. When she was walking over, she was too rushed and didn’t notice that there were fish inside. Right now, seeing how energetic the fish was, she could tell it was definitely extremely fresh. Thinking that it seemed to have been a long time since she ate fish, she asked, “Aunt An, are there still fish in that river?”
Aunt An didn’t know his status, but she had heard Meng Yu called him Alliance Head something. Due to the fact that his bearing also seemed to be out of the ordinary, she guessed that this person probably wasn’t anyone simple. Upon hearing him ask a question, she hurriedly replied, “There are, does this gongzi also want some?”
“En, but that’ll be later. It’s not pressing.” Tang Doudou thought for a bit as she continued tossing her minced pork with eggplants. These were all dishes that Baili Yu’s invited guests were going to eat so she didn’t dare to mess around. If it turned out that it wasn’t tasty and caused Baili Yu to lose face, there’s no way she would let Meng Yu take the blame, so the one doomed at that time would be herself.
Not to mention, Baili Yu saved her this time. She hadn’t thanked him yet, so she decided to just make something for him to eat.
He said the spicy strips she made last time were tasty, so her culinary arts skills were probably still passable.
Once she got serious, Tang Doudou’s movements became especially fast. Time slowly passed. As she continuously moved back and forth, the ingredients on the long table had slowly all turned into plate after plate of fragrant dishes.
A lot of maids had appeared from somewhere and carried these plates out one after another.
When they got to the wood house, they also became pretty curious. Who was this man in the kitchen?
How could Meng Yu let him cook? Wasn’t she afraid that she’ll be punished by Master if it wasn’t tasty?
But on second look, his familiar hand movements seemed even more skilled than Meng Yu’s by a large margin. Even Meng Yu that was watching as she stood opposite Tang Doudou became a bit stunned. She didn’t think that Tang Doudou’s speed would be this high. It had only been a while, yet he was already almost done with all the dishes on the menu. In the past, she had only heard him talk about his opinions regarding aspects of culinary arts, but had never seen him actually cook before.
When Ye Chuan talked about how delicious those spicy strips were and the rich aftertaste it left, she couldn’t help but look down on it, thinking that the deliciousness was probably due to the fact it was new and uncommon. After all, the people of Huai City didn’t eat chili peppers much at all. So when they ate it occasionally, it would naturally be a hard to forget experience.
Moreover, those spicy strips almost infuriated Master to the point that he almost tore down the Wind Building. In the end, she didn’t know how Master calmed his anger. But in any case, she always thought that Tang Doudou would at most have a little culinary skill, but it wouldn’t be anything great.
Unexpectedly, his culinary skill looked to be even higher than hers by a great deal.
She couldn’t help but wonder again. He’s the grand head of the martial arts alliance, so where did he learn such skills from? Not to mention, a lot of his hand movements and ways of frying the dishes were greatly different from normal people.
He even changed a lot of the recipes on the menu.
Meng Yu had finished preparing almost all the things for the cooking competition. Taking advantage of the time when Tang Doudou wasn’t paying attention, she pinched a bit of finished minced pork with eggplant and speedily shoved it into her mouth. An unusually great flavor exploded in her taste buds. The fragrances of the eggplant and the meat were perfectly harmonized and there were even some tastes she couldn’t quite distinguish. In any case, it was way too delicious!
How did he do it? Meng Yu looked towards Tang Doudou. She had been watching when he made this dish earlier. All those steps were not much different than usual, so why was the difference in taste this great?
“Meng Yu, after I make a couple more dishes, I’ll be leaving first!” Tang Doudou had estimated the time and also saw that pretty much all the dishes on the menu was finished. She then glanced at Meng Yu and saw that she was dazing out and staring at the dishes she finished, so she immediately went to give Meng Yu a pat.
Meng Yu was still thinking about the taste of that minced pork and eggplant. When she was suddenly patted by Tang Doudou, she almost jumped straight up in shock. She thought she had been caught sneaking food and hurriedly explained, “I’m just looking.”
“Looking at what?” Tang Doudou wiped her hands on a cleaning rag nearby. “Did you hear what I said earlier?”
“What did you say?”
“En, all the dishes are pretty much ready. It’s already pretty late in the day, so I wanted to leave the rest to you.” It had been too long since she had cooked and this time and she also made so much at one go, so Tang Doudou couldn’t quite hold up either. Not to mention, she was still thinking of making a special dish for Baili Yu. Due to that, since there weren’t that much left, she decided to just leave them for Meng Yu to handle.
When she heard this, Meng Yu immediately felt a little embarrassed. In reality, she hadn’t planned to have him help that much when she dragged Tang Doudou over. It was just that she was worried she wouldn’t make it in time, so she wanted to let the dishes Tang Doudou cooked make up for the shortage. In any case, if the flavor wasn’t good enough, she just wouldn’t carry it to Master’s table. As long as Master didn’t eat it, there’d be no problems.
But she never expected that Tang Doudou had already finished pretty much everything after she dazed out a couple times.
And the taste was even better than the dishes she made!
Meng Yu felt so much respect that she prostrated herself in admiration in her heart. She noticed that Tang Doudou’s forehead was also covered with sweat, so she said, “Alright then, Alliance Head Li should go rest first. Once I finish the rest, I’ll head to the Gathering with you. At that time, I’ll go participate in the cooking competition and you can go look for Qing Yin.”
Tang Doudou nodded and then left the wood house.
She stood in the entrance for a while, before heading directly towards the river, planning on entering the water and catching the fish herself.
She only recalled that she couldn’t swim once she got to the riverside. The river water was clear and didn’t look very deep. However, the frightening experience of falling into the water the second day after she transmigrated was still fresh in her mind, so she still felt a bit scared as she faced this water.
Fudge! Why is it so difficult to want to do things yourself!?
She was a bit unwilling to accept it, so she picked up a rock nearby and threw it into the river. When it entered the water, it made a muffled plop. You could tell that the river was pretty deep just from the sound of it.
She sighed and could only turn back to find someone to help her.
But unexpectedly, the moment she turned, she bumped into someone again.
Da fudge! She immediately got pissed. Why did the people here love to stand behind others like this silently without making a sound!? People that didn’t know would mistake them for ghosts!
Tang Doudou opened her mouth, about to sprout a stream of curses. But when she got a clear view of the person in front of her, she immediately froze. The anger that had filled her chest instantly vanished.
“What did you come here for?”
In midst of the dancing plum blossom petals, Baili Yu was wearing a gorgeous faint purple robe, his hair half pinned up using a faint green jade hairpin. His attire was conspicuously simple and elegant. That pair of peach flower eyes carried that trace of a smile as always, but was also slightly glazed. A plum blossom petal had drifted down and landed on his long eyelash. He smiled as he lightly lifted his hand and brushed it off in an extremely graceful motion, before saying, “Long time no see, has Alliance Head Li been well? Were you planning to catch fish?”
His voice was, as always, languid and magnetic, carrying a hint of seductiveness. As it lightly sounded, it swept across one’s heart like a feather, tickling it so that one’s heart itches.
For some unknown reason, Tang Doudou felt that today’s Baili Yu wasn’t quite right. Whether it was his simple and elegant style of dressing or the way he was speaking, they all seemed off.
And because the two were standing too close, his breath seemed to hit her face as he spoke. She actually felt her heart speeding up.
It caused her to be a bit flustered. Both her ears turned hot and she hurriedly turned her head away. F***, why is this seductive yao dressed so reservedly today? Was it on purpose to seduce her?
Only afterwards did she realize that the breath Baili Yu exhaled earlier seemed to carry a hint of wine.
He drank? Did he get drunk?
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