It wasn't until the next day's banquet at Lichuntai that I really felt what Ah Huan meant by yesterday's sentence "You should be glad that you still have a chance to please Your Majesty".

Although it was a banquet set up by me in the name of Ah Huan's birthday, once it was heard by my mother, this banquet was completely different. First of all, the mother said that there was nothing to do recently, but by the way, I could invite one or two relatives, so Princess Anding's family and several people who were closer to the Wu family, such as Wu Chenghei, Wu Xiansi, Wu Zaisi, Wu Sansi and the female relatives in the family were invited, and then Princess Anding said that she was only called a nephew, as if she was eccentric, and called her mother's aunts, cousins, and cousins to the princess, these princesses all brought their husbands and children, and then the mother seemed to be embarrassed, saying that Li Dan and Li De were difficult to come out, and Li De and the brothers, Li Wei and his younger brother Li Xin and Shouli were all called. Among these people, Li De and others have already married wives, and their wives are naturally included. In the end, I don't know who was talkative, and mentioned a few more of the Yang family, so seven or eight relatives from my mother's family came, and then there were princesses and princesses who were slightly close to each other and a few who were quite favored, and Ah Huan and I were coquettish, and brought a few county lords of the Wu family in. In the end, there were sixty or seventy people attending the "small" banquet, and there were more than 100 people in the palace, Shangfu and royal relatives brought by the entourage and mother. I had to divide into three groups: Mother, the Four Kings of the Wu Clan and Princess Anding, Ah Huan, Li Dan and I were in the pavilion, and the rest of the people sat together in the courtyard, and then sat in the outer hall - this was only the beginning of the banquet and the beginning of the mother's future.

As soon as the mother arrived, these people in Lichuntai were like sparrows that had blown up their nests, and they offered their courtesy to their mothers one by one: as soon as Princess Anding saw her mother, she took her hand and looked at her face carefully, praising her for "excellent color, is it a new powder", Wu Sansi said, "Reciting and practicing "Chen's Track" at home, I deeply feel the virtue of the sage, and a casual sentence is beyond the reach of the minister's life, the so-called 'Gou Rixin, Ri Ri Xin', is the meaning of the saint's virtue" , and memorized two of them on the spot, in order to prove that his words were true, Wu Chengsi gave many gifts, each of which could be involved by him on the "holy virtue", and said that his mother's martial arts and martial arts were unheard of, please take a souvenir with a stone inscription, Li Dan was young and tender, and he couldn't say a big sentence, but he couldn't stop praising his mother's goodness, Li De didn't speak, but his princess went straight to his mother... My master and Ah Huan, the birthday star, were squeezed on one side by them, and there was almost no interface.

My mother saw me at a glance and beckoned, "Come here." "Fang opened a way for me from the crowd, and took me into the pavilion to sit down, when I sat down, Ah Huan was arranged on her side, and the kings of the Wu clan were on the other side, but my mother didn't care about the order I set first, and ordered Li Dan and Zhu Wu to sit on one side, Princess Anding, Princess Wu and I on the other side, Ah Huan sat outside with the emperors and the kings of the county - this is not the most disturbing to me.

What disturbed me the most was that I seemed to have lost my sense of presence at the banquet. It's not that I have lost my mother's attention, not that she took my hand from among the sons and nephews as soon as she came, nor that she mentioned me several times during the conversation, and looked at me several times when I didn't speak, and occasionally asked a few words, "What does Taiping think?" and "What is Taiping laughing at?", but that my mother used to be in front of us, more or less always had the appearance of a mother, even in a solemn place such as the Yuan Day banquet, there was always a feeling of "family" in the conversation, no matter what I was doing, At the back of the queue, I know that I am different from those in front of me, they are not my mother's family, only me.

But today, I don't feel that special. The people of the Wu family call their mother "big song", and the more intimate one is called "song song", which is the name of the uncle's father, in the past, Li Rui only dared to call one or two sentences like this when his father was in a very good mood; Princess Anding called her mother "Ah Niang", and her daughter called her mother "Ah Mu", and she would be coquettish when she stepped forward to speak; and her mother also enjoyed the closeness of these people very much, and treated Zhu Wu as close as a family, and to Wu Chengsi and Wu Sansi were a little like the former father treated his son, but more kind.

All of this reminds me all the time that this is my mother's world. There is only one mother in the center of the world, only her surname is the clan surname, her relatives are royalty, and her words and deeds are the holy decree of Deyin, which she could not get when she was the queen of heaven and the queen mother, and it is also an experience that I could not have when she was the queen of heaven and the queen mother - power is such a thing, and just one of its names is enough to subvert the world of many people.

Because I only thought about it the day before, there were more people than expected, and I couldn't eat meat, so it took a lot of work to eat the dishes. My idea is to first put up forty dishes of dim sum and side dishes that are always prepared in the palace as a scene to watch the plate, and then set up a few large ovens in the courtyard, and set up a large case by the stove, which is full of flowers, pickles, dried and fresh fruits, and all kinds of flour, which are made by people, sweet and salty; These things, whether they taste good or not are secondary, the first is to be good-looking, so the chef chooses the great husband, each of whom wears a green or black embroidered robe, with a headscarf on his head, black leather boots under his feet, and an embroidered belt around his waist, not all of them are found from the kitchen, many of them are forbidden soldiers and close attendants.

In addition to the grill and grill, we also prepared a hot pot. At the banquet of the people, there was already a small stove like a hot pot in the previous life, with metal utensils set up two layers, on the top of the soup, vegetables and other things, and set up a fire below, which can not only avoid the cold weather, but also make some low-heat slow stewed food, but not much while eating while adding vegetables to the inside. Today, because there are so many people who have come temporarily, I will change these stoves into hot pots, and after the forty dishes have been served, the first dish will make people enter the hot pot.

When my mother saw those ovens and grills, she thought it was interesting, and she was still talking with people, and she didn't care much about the new small stove, and when she saw a lot of plates, and when she wanted to move the grills, she saw that the dishes were all raw, but there was nothing in the soup, and she couldn't help but be stunned, and she lifted the spoon and fished it inward a few times, and saw that there was nothing to do, so she raised her eyes and smiled: "Your sister-in-law's birthday, this is how you celebrate her?

I stepped forward with a smile, personally selected a few handfuls of dishes and put them in the hot pot, turned around and took all kinds of ingredients from the small table I carried up, and made a bowl of sauce for my mother: "I think that the weather is cold, I must serve some hot soup." But it's pure soup and it's boring, and you can't put a lot of dishes on the case, if you want to eat it for a while, you have to ask someone to ask for it again, why don't you simply come to a pot, what do you want to eat, cook it yourself, so it's also more casual - A-Niang try?"

The mother picked up a piece of winter melon, took a bite and put it down: "It's salty." ”

I heard her say, so I turned around and prepared another bowl of sauce, and asked her to try again, and my mother smiled and said, "It's really random", so I took advantage of the situation and put in courgette, eggplant, shallot, weed, lotus root and other things for her, my mother tasted a chopstick each, and pointed to the oven and said, "What is that?"

Listen to me say "to order and bake", Rao Youxing fatal people go to the oven that "all kinds are the same", from the pavilion to see the embroidered clothes in the next Zhang Luo, has nodded first, I took advantage of her good mood, to the fairy to make a look, she went to the grill to order, and into the roasted eggplant, roasted pineapple, baked steamed cakes, baked milk cakes and other things, full of imperial cases, the color is very bright.

After the self-demonstration on the left and right, I understood, there were those who did it themselves, and there were those who ordered people to do it, and after tasting each, they re-watched the plate, this time it was forty snacks, there were fried taro, radish slices, courgette, pepper, honey, cumin, five-spiced melon seeds, cherries, lychees, pears, grape cheese made of dried fruits—these are not easy to obtain, the people in the outer hall do not have them, and the people in the courtyard have melon seeds. Cheese and fried vegetables have the same taste, and there are only 12 kinds of cheese and fried vegetables for each person, except for the mother, who have all kinds of sweet or salty snacks baked in flour and oil, all kinds of dried fruits roasted on skewers, honey taro paste, preserved fruit soup, roasted tofu with pepper, stewed pears in wine, stewed lotus root slices with cress, and sweet, salty and spicy soup cakes.

There are also a lot of snacks that have never existed in this era, mainly to be fresh, with milk, cheese and other things are actually somewhat prohibited, but now the ban on slaughter is really in name only, and even the mother is under the persuasion of the imperial doctor to eat chicken, The fish is coming, so it is not a big deal, the next time to look at the plate and Fang Cai is different, just now it is more for people to see, not to eat, this time it is reserved for the mother to chat when making snacks, all ordered the imperial kitchen to cook carefully, taste the taste before coming in, the mother is very fond of it, while eating, while watching people in the open space of the courtyard to perform a hundred operas, and listen to the flattery of the nephew, a feast is joyful, until the evening rest.

Before leaving, I took my mother's hand and sent it out of the temple gate, and when I was waiting for the public opinion to come, my mother suddenly shook my hand and asked, "Yesterday's hair bun was very beautiful, why don't you comb it today?"

I reacted for a while and realized that she was talking about the "hanging bun" that Ah Huan combed for me, and said: "At such an old age, I still have a boy's hairstyle, wouldn't it be a joke for people to see it." ”

She stared at me and smiled softly: "Don't say that you are only twenty, you are fifty, sixty, seventy, in the eyes of your mother, aren't you still a child?" let go of my hand, helped Wan'er, swayed to the throne, and turned his head to look at me when he started, I unconsciously lowered my head, my mind was full of knots, and I was stunned. 166 Reading Network