Today is the day when someone from Cao Mansion comes to pick up the hot pot base, and Zhong Nan gets up early in the morning to start preparing.

The stir-frying of the hot pot base is very cumbersome, first put a large amount of clear oil into the pot, stop the fire for a few minutes when it is heated to nine minutes, re-fire it after the oil temperature is properly cooled, and add the white section of the green onion and the garlic head to fry it until golden, take it out and use it, then add an appropriate amount of good butter, wait until the butter is all melted, add an appropriate amount of rock sugar (no rock sugar can also be used white sugar), fry the rock sugar over low heat until it melts, and then fry the glutinous pepper prepared yesterday (the method of glutinous pepper is: boil the dried chili pepper with water for half an hour, Scoop it up and drain the water and dry it naturally) and add an appropriate amount of bean paste to the pot, at this time do not need to turn on the fire, so as not to paste the sea pepper, just use the residual temperature of the oil to dry the water of the glutinous pepper (when the temperature is too low, you can use a slight heat to heat it slightly), wait for an hour or two and then add tempeh, star anise, cloves, tangerine peel, ginger, cardamom, bay leaves, grass fruit, cumin, dried lemongrass and other spices, fry for half an hour over low heat, and then put in an appropriate amount of dried peppercorns (peppercorns are best washed with warm water in advance), Continue to fry over low heat for 20 minutes, finally add an appropriate amount of tofu milk, mash grains, and white wine, turn off the heat after stir-frying evenly, and cover with a lid, and the authentic Sichuan Shu hot pot base is ready. When you want to eat hot pot, you only need to scoop an appropriate amount of base material in advance, and then add stock and salt, monosodium glutamate, shallots, pepper and other seasonings, and the remaining base material is sealed and preserved. In fact, the fried base tastes better after being placed for five or six days, but Zhong Nan doesn't have so much preparation time this time, so he can only fry and eat it.

Just after lunch, the Caofu servant who came to invite Zhong Nan last time arrived at the store, Zhong Nan wrapped the cut hot pot base in oiled paper, and explained the eating method before watching the little guy go away. He took a total of three packets of the base ingredients, except for the one used tonight, and the other two packets were told by the little maid to tell the young lady to eat them in five or six days. As for the silver, the little maid didn't give it, and Zhong Nan didn't ask, in his opinion, it was better not to give the silver, so that it could be regarded as a gift for himself, although the base material was not worth a few dollars, but for the young lady, it was a light courtesy.

After that, Zhong Nan asked Qiu Xiang to send hometown-style pastries and lo-mei to the young lady twice, and the young lady happily accepted them. Zhong Nan is always a man, it is not appropriate to go often, Qiu Xiang is a woman, and it doesn't hurt if there is more contact between the two sides. When she went to Cao's Mansion for the third time, the young lady also left Qiu Xiang to have dinner in the house, and the two chatted for a while after the meal. Since then, the two sides have gradually moved around, and Zhong Nan can be regarded as having a real relationship with the young lady Zhou Bing'er.

Sometimes Zhong Nan feels strange, to put it bluntly, he is a small self-employed person, and he has frequent contacts with a mayor-level official's family, not to mention in ancient times, even in the 21st century, this situation is rare. Zhong Nan is not that kind of snobbish person, although at first he wanted to use the name of the young lady to deter those lustful people, but later he had no such thoughts in his relationship with the prefect's family, he just purely felt that the young lady was bold, and never disliked the identity of the two, and was a friend who could make friends.

In fact, if you really want to talk about it, Zhou Bing'er's background is not noble, Lord Cao's wives and concubines have never looked down on her, but they know that she is favored in front of Lord Cao, so they don't embarrass her, everyone only maintains a superficial relationship, so Zhou Bing'er's days in Cao's mansion are not very comfortable. At this time, Zhong Nan, who was really her friend, appeared, filling Zhou Bing'er's desire for friendship, and naturally the relationship between the two parties became stronger and stronger, so much so that later Zhou Bing'er and Qiu Xiang actually became sisters with different surnames. At this point, those ruffians and hooligans in the neighborhood have all reined in, and they no longer dare to go to Zhongnan's restaurant to make trouble or harass Qiu Xiang.

The prefect's name is Cao Yunjin, his family background was very ordinary when he was young, and he turned over by studying hard for ten years, although his status is not low now, but he does not object to his concubine and Zhong Nan's husband and wife, and he has entertained the two with Zhou Bing'er a few times. Zhou Bing'er took the maid to visit Zhong Nan's small restaurant a few times in his spare time, which was regarded as advertising, and then the business of the small restaurant was better, and sometimes there were dignitaries from Suzhou Mansion who came here to eat, Zhong Nan thought, wait for a few months to expand the scale of the small restaurant, and then decorate it well, and take the middle and high-end route, so that the profit level will be higher.

Time passed quickly with the smoke of the small restaurant, and in a blink of an eye came to the autumn of 1591, that is, the nineteenth year of Wanli, and Zhong Nan had lived in this time and space for two whole years. Nowadays, the business of the small restaurant is booming, with an average net income of seventy or eighty taels of silver per month; Qiu Xiang is also almost three months pregnant, but her belly has not yet been revealed, and the relationship between the two is also happy.

For Zhong Nan's family and life, it is getting better and better; However, for the Ming Dynasty, it was full of gloom. Although Lord Shoufu Zhang Juzheng is still in power, I heard that Lord Zhang has Shen Ke and is already sick in bed, so I don't know how long I can last. In the battle of Ningxia last year, although the imperial court won the final victory, it was greatly damaged, and the treasury was also consumed innumerable. These events are not the same as the historical process in Zhong Nan's original time and space, Zhang Juzheng, who should have died in the tenth year of Wanli, still supported the Ming Dynasty; The Battle of Ningxia, which took place only in the twentieth year of Wanli, broke out two years ahead of schedule, and the first round of the Battle of Korea, which was supposed to take place in the same year as the Battle of Ningxia, was not heard from.

Combing through these things, Zhong Nan thought to himself: Could it be caused by his own crossing, although the flapping of the wings of a small butterfly in the Amazon River will cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later, but now he is an ordinary person, how can he have such a big change in the history of the Ming Dynasty? Zhong Nan was puzzled, so he stopped worrying about himself.

……

Today, Zhong Nan is going to Sun Xiangfu's shopkeeper's house for a banquet, and Sun's shopkeeper's reason is to thank him for taking care of his family's seasoning business. Zhong Nan originally planned to take Qiu Xiang with him, but his wife said that it was not okay for the restaurant to be taken care of, and she was pregnant, so it was better to stay at home, Zhong Nan felt that it made sense, so she went alone. Fortunately, Li Sanduo, who has been an apprentice for more than half a year, has been able to independently make a few simple Sichuan dishes such as mapo tofu and back-pot pork, although the taste is obviously not as good as his, but it is also so-so to deal with undemanding diners. The newcomer Miao Cuihua and the old buddy Wang Taili are now able to keep the lobby in order, and Qiu Xiang only needs to sit at the counter, so Zhong Nan has been able to go out occasionally to socialize recently, and the rest of the people in the store can barely support a business meal without any major mistakes.

Sun Xiangfu borrowed thirty taels of silver when Zhong Nan was repairing the house, although it had been paid off a few months ago, Zhong Nan never forgot this love. Now Zhong Nan's business is very good, there are a lot of seasonings needed every month, there are several other seasoning shops hope that he can purchase, and the price given is also very attractive, but he remembered that people borrowed money to save the emergency, and did not change places, and all the seasonings needed for the small restaurant were purchased from Sun's shopkeeper's shop.

Sun Xiangfu may have heard the wind and was worried that Zhong Nan, a big customer, would be snatched away by fellow competitors, so the dishes prepared today were very sumptuous, and the wine was also the best Jian Nanchun. Zhong Nan promised Shopkeeper Sun that as long as the quality of his seasonings was fine, he would not easily change to purchase them from other companies. Sun Xiangfu, who had eaten the reassuring pill, frequently persuaded the wine and vegetables, and the meal lasted for two hours before it ended, and then Zhong Nan refused the sedan chair called by the shopkeeper Sun, and walked back slowly. There was a half-hour journey home, and Zhong Nan walked neither fast nor slow, one was to sober up, and the other was to exercise.

As soon as he walked to the entrance of the overpass, Zhong Nan saw several people around the door of his small restaurant from a distance, he thought something was wrong, and he was afraid that his wife would be angry, so he hurried over. Before entering the door, I saw a boy in brocade clothes and jade clothes teasing Qiu Xiang's chin with his hand, and his mouth was not idle, "Such a handsome little lady, this son wants to taste it today." ”

Brother Gongzi's face looks like a thin monkey, and he looks like a standard bad guy in film and television dramas, and the mouths of several family members next to him are not clean, and a group of people surround Qiu Xiang, * endlessly. Qiu Xiang brushed aside the boy's hand, took two steps back, trembling with anger, pointing at the other party and speechless, suddenly she covered her stomach with one hand, and her face turned pale, probably because she was angry. Seeing this scene, Zhong Nan only felt that the blood was rushing up to his head all of a sudden, and he stepped in front of the boy in three or two steps, and his anger turned into an iron fist, all of which were greeted on the face of the "thin monkey", and the last punch even knocked the person directly to the ground. Several family members saw that their master had suffered a loss, one went to help people, and the others all surrounded Zhong Nan and shouted: "Where did you come from, do you know who our master is?" ”

It's just that the people are afraid of Zhong Nan's force value, and they don't dare to step forward to make a move, and they have a fierce face. At this moment, the helper's family shouted: "The master has been killed!" ”

The screams pierced the afternoon sky, Zhong Nan and the others looked over, only to see the "thin monkey" paralyzed on the ground, a large piece of blood quickly oozing out under the head, Zhong Nan stepped forward and poked under his nostrils with his index finger, only the incoming air did not come out. He was in a cold sweat on his back, and the wine was completely awake, and he sat on the ground with a blank mind, not knowing what to do.