The inner eunuch Zhu retreated under the eaves with a smile, and before he spoke, Mrs. Wei and her entourage held an oil-paper umbrella, but he was drenched alive, and now he narrowed his eyes and stopped looking at Mrs. Wei.

Gu Jin and Wei Yuchuan's mother and daughter exchanged a few glances, and their hearts were not clear.

Today, the queen didn't say that she couldn't see Mrs. Wei, so the matter didn't get too bad, but if the courtiers asked the women to see, the queen could order them to wait for a while, and they could go to the side hall and the flower hall.

Now Zhu Neijian did not invite a few people into the palace gate, only let the three of them wait at the palace gate with an umbrella with a maid, if it is a sunny day, it will be fine, but the autumn rain will be continuous, and the clothes and skirts of people will be drenched inadvertently, and there are passing palace maids whispering, it seems inappropriate.

The queen of the first palace would not make such an omission because the king of Xian was dining inside, and the only explanation is that it was not an omission, but the queen did it with heart.

From this point of view, the royal family may really have a prejudice against the Wei family, and only if the saint reproached the minister Wei in the previous dynasty, the queen dared to embarrass Mrs. Wei in the harem.

Gu Jin's previous speculation and worries were not groundless.

Mrs. Wei was born in the family of an official eunuch, and became a high-ranking official and courtier, so naturally she has been in and out of Ninghua Palace more than once, and now that things are so troublesome, she naturally has a plan in her heart.

Gu Jin is now thinking deeply, and he does not lose Mrs. Wei's experience, so he naturally understands these things clearly.

The only one who couldn't figure out the meaning of the queen's move was Wei Yuchuan, but after all, she had been in and out of the deep palace with her mother, and now she saw that her mother and Gu Jin's faces were not very good-looking, and she gradually had a guess in her heart.

But the three of them didn't dare to say the words in their hearts, there were guards around them, and there were internal prisons in front of them, and even a word would be a big crime to offend the queen.

So the three of them did one thing together in this blue sky and rain curtain - waiting.

Wait for the queen to summon her.

In the past, the emperor had to serve sixty-four dishes for one person, and these sixty-four dishes alone would take half of the minds of the cooks in the imperial dining room, not to mention whether these sixty-four dishes could be tasted by the saints, and it would take a lot of hours to make these delicacies. Pushing forward two dynasties, the current Holy Emperor Ancestor is a thrifty person, and he feels that the sixty-four dishes are too wasteful, so he changed the rules: only thirty-six dishes are used for ordinary meals, and only when the palace banquet is held, the regulation of sixty-four dishes is used, although in the eyes of ordinary people still feel extravagant and wasteful, but in the eyes of the cooks in the imperial dining room, it seems that it is already a great grace.

But this is only the rule of the Holy Meal, and there is another saying in the Queen's Palace.

Naturally, the number of meals could not exceed the emperor's thirty-six courses, and only twenty-four dishes were made. If it weren't for the queen's special instructions, such as eating fasting and chanting Buddha and not eating meat, being sick or having a difficult taste and not eating spicy, then these twenty-four meals should have meat, vegetarian, poultry and beasts, sweet and salty, soup and stir-fried, all of which are indispensable.

Gu Jin knew the exquisiteness of it, so he also knew that the meal of the queen and the king of Xian would not be eaten too quickly.

The queen wants to be kind to Lu Guitang, let him taste all the twenty-four meals one by one, and wait until the meal is finished according to the rule of eating without saying a word, and then talk to Lu Guitang for a while, I'm afraid it will take another hour.

As everyone knows, Gu Jin calculated everything accurately, but he miscalculated Lu Guitang's temperament.

Now in the main hall of the Ninghua Palace, the palace people are going in and out like fish and dragons, looking panicked, or holding bowls and cups, or serving cups and saucers, only listening to the instructions of the man in front of the Nahua wood carved table.

On the side of the main hall, behind the screen of peony flowers, Lu Guitang was holding a spoon to scoop soup to drink, a jade robe lined with the man's slender handsome face, but a pair of eyes quietly scattered glass amber light, behind the flowing water of the dishes, lazy like nature.

The little palace maid who was withdrawing a black chicken soup and walking out was named Chi Xing, a teenage girl, and she just stepped out of the threshold with her front foot, and then heard the voice of His Royal Highness King Xian coming again: "This lettuce is not fried well, let's withdraw it together." ”

Chi Xing stumbled and almost dropped the black chicken soup in her hand, she quickly stabilized her figure, and turned her head back to get the lettuce.

Empress Li didn't care about the queen's majesty, and was holding her cheeks to look at Lu Guitang.

There were twenty-four dishes on the table today, and only their mother and son used them, but they didn't know that Lu Guitang ordered someone to withdraw one after taking a bite, and now seven or eight dishes have been withdrawn.

She frowned and said, "Why, can't you eat a single piece?" ”

Lu Guitang put down the chopsticks and spoon, lazily wiped his mouth with a silk handkerchief, he smiled, more stubborn than usual: "Two years earlier, I said that the queen mother should open a small kitchen in the palace, and my uncle said that the dishes of the chef in Dingzhou were really good, but the queen mother was unwilling." ”

The queen looked at the sixteen dishes left on the table now, and glanced at Lu Guitang with disdain, but she didn't blame: "Your father is diligent and thrifty, and he has never liked extravagance and waste, and now your father still uses the food in the imperial dining room, but I opened a small stove more than usual, what kind of system is that." ”