At the beginning of April in the fifteenth year of Wude, the weather was getting warmer day by day, and the people smoked by the warm south wind were soft and lazy.

What is strange is that the invading barbarians did not attack the city and plunder the land, but only burned and looted the supplies, picked the border of the state capital and the remote places to walk, avoided the large troops blocking along the road, and sometimes deliberately went around in circles, leading the huge Northern Zhou pursuers around. The barbarians are so familiar with unfamiliar roads, I don't know if they sent spies to reconnoiter the terrain earlier, or if there were traitors to lead the way.

The troops are few and penetrate deep into the territory of the other side, and if they are not careful, the whole army will be wiped out, and they don't know what to pay attention to the barbarians.

Although Shi Keqi worshipped Yan Zhenbei as a teacher, Yan Zhenbei was also exempted from his restraints.

But if you don't have to apprentice, you have all the foundation for martial arts, you can concentrate on boiling your muscles and bones every day, and you don't have to run for life at all. The master also smiled and said that you would eat, drink and Lazar for ten or eight years, without blinking your eyes, which is the right of orphans or rich children raised by the master since childhood.

He has no other choice for the time being, and he still works as a handyman in Xiangya Pavilion for his livelihood, but he finally doesn't have to squat in the morning, and he can go to the inner courtyard to receive Yan Zhenbei's teachings.

At the beginning of the year, the new chef of Xiangya Pavilion used his own secret recipe to add it to the soup to make the braised lion's head more charred and tender on the outside, crispy and delicious, and the guests who have eaten it are all praised.

In the morning, Scoki was busy in the back kitchen as usual. A few people came to charter the entire second floor of Xiang Yage, the cattle shopkeeper disagreed, and a regular guest booked two private rooms on the second floor, and the other party showed a delicate and atmospheric waist card in front of his eyes, and he immediately bowed down and agreed after seeing it.

Not long after, another group of people walked into Xiangyage, led by the person who had shown the waist card to the cattle shopkeeper, and behind them were several women dressed up. The cattle shopkeeper followed and accompanied him, and took a few people to the second floor to check the hygiene.

There was a woman in a blue gauze suit who fell last, she used her hands to pull away a few hairs that covered her eyes, and chose to go to the back kitchen instead of following everyone.

The woman in blue knocked on the open door of the back kitchen.

Shi Keqi, who was washing his head and washing the dishes, thinking about swordsmanship and spells, raised his head when he heard this. The whole back kitchen suddenly lit up, and I saw that the woman in blue had small lips, crescent-like eyes, and a slightly baby-fat face, which looked very beautiful and cute. Wearing a samurai tunic inside, covered with blue light gauze, and his dark hair tied up with a purple streamer, he was flowing and beautiful. With a green sheath long sword around his waist, it adds some martial style to the whole person, which is even more charming.

The back kitchen was a little messy as usual, the dishes were crooked, the oil bottles were crooked, some side dishes were scattered on the table, and there was a layer of oil splashing on the warm water of the sink. The woman in blue looked at it for a while, her brows furrowed slightly, and she didn't say anything. In a middle-to-lower-sized restaurant, the hygiene is probably like this, and it's okay, she secretly thought.

After a while, the shopkeeper led in a woman in green with a sword like a frosty face. She said to the woman in blue, "Zi Dinglin, how is the hygiene of the back kitchen?"

"It's ok, it's cleaner than my kitchen. ”

The woman in green looked around left and right, opened the wooden door for the dishes, glanced at it, and said very quickly: "Can these plates hold vegetables, the stoneware firing print is ugly, and it looks clean, but the door is not closed tightly, and there must be cockroaches crawling through at night." ”

The shopkeeper nodded and said, "Please rest assured, there will be no cockroaches and rats in the kitchen, and these dishes will be scalded and rewashed with boiling water immediately." As soon as he finished speaking, a rat stuck out a few whiskers in the sewer gutter, but fortunately no one saw it.

"Is this a dish that people eat, there is a hair on it, and it is poured out and fed to the pigs. The woman in green pointed to a plate of side dishes and shredded green peppers and said, and the cattle shopkeeper told the kitchen to do so quickly.

"Spread out your hands" The woman in green said to a cook, after a glance, Liu Mei instantly raised her eyebrows, and said angrily: "I, there is actually a piece of black mud between your fingernails, hurry up and clean it for me, wash your hands a hundred times, and wait for the dishes that the nobles want to eat, you must not touch them." ”

"The one who washes the vegetables, the one who washes the vegetables, come here, look at your hands. Shi Keqi answered, stretching out his palms facing up.

"How did you get the calluses on your hands, carrying heavy objects or blasphemy? It's disgusting, this person is not allowed to wash the dishes that the nobles eat. "A big girl didn't blush when she said such a fierce thing. She called two handmaidens with delicate appearances, pointed here and dotted there, and explained that the two of them specially washed and cut the ingredients, and did not let a few people from the back kitchen of Xiangya Pavilion handle it.

Shi Keqi looked at Zi Dinglin, and she smiled bitterly.

The woman in green is still destroying all kinds of things, in her opinion, this kitchen is worse than the stable thatched house, and the waist of the cow shopkeeper has never been straightened.

After a burst of anger, the woman in green gently patted Zi Dingning's shoulder, and said in a slow tone: "Zi Dinglin, I know that you have a good heart and have always been tolerant, but this is a meal for nobles, and she must not be allowed to eat anything unclean." If it's our sisters, forget it, I'll come next time I patrol the kitchen. ”

"Can you say a word? Shi Keqi said.

"Say, washer, what do you think?" said the woman in green sarcastically.

"The calluses on my hands are for martial arts, not friction. Scoch protested.

"Ha" The woman in green actually raised the corners of her mouth when she heard this, smiled, and said: "Oh, you know martial arts, not bad, not bad, can you do sow tree boxing or leper dog rolling skills." ”

"Yes, I can be a rolling leper dog, but I'm a male, and if I want to punch a sow up a tree, someone has a gender advantage. ”

"Say what you say, say it again. As soon as the green-clothed woman's eyes froze, she was about to have a seizure, but Zi Dinglin grabbed her and said, "Forget it, I don't know this kind of person in general." Turning his head and scolding Shi Keqi, he said: "Please pay attention to proportion, if you dare to say anything to us again, you will be sent to the government for punishment." ”

Shi Keqi saw that the cow shopkeeper was like a pug, didn't he know that these women were very powerful, and he knew that he had no good fruit to eat, so he ran away.

The woman in green refused to take a break, Zi Dinglin leaned into her ear and said in a very small voice: "Today, the nobles went to a small place to have a meal on a whim, and they don't want to see trivial things, go up and get busy, I will definitely be optimistic about them." The woman in green changed her expression, patted Zi Dinglin's head and said, "You, you love to be a good person." ”

Waiting for the woman in green to go upstairs, Shi Keqi slipped into the kitchen, and the thief said to Zi Dinglin with a smile: "Who is this evil woman, so fierce." ”

Zi Dinglin's face sank and said, "Shut your mouth, if you dare to talk nonsense, you will really be unkind." Shi Keqi touched a nail in the boss and walked away very boringly.

More than an hour later, a group of women wearing tunic short clothes, surrounded two women wearing veils in palace clothes to the second floor, someone guarded the stairs, and the food and tea were all blocked at the staircase, and their own maids took all kinds of things.

The maid opened several lacquered gold food boxes, took out a lot of silver utensils, scalded them three times with boiling water one by one, and divided the dishes and chopsticks and placed them on the table of the palace woman. The dishes that were handed down in the store were also poured on these bowls and plates, instead of the plates in the store.

These two palace women, one is the emperor's daughter Princess Yuwenmeng, and the other is the second daughter of the king of Xiangzhou, Yuwenjing, the county lord, a certain county lord ate a dish of braised lion's head, right appetite, but felt that there was a big difference with the cooking in the house, called the chief steward in charge of the meal, and asked clearly that it was made by Xiangyage, and he remembered this name.

The princess nominally came to Xiangzhou to play, and also had the meaning of appeasing the vassal king for Emperor Yu Wenjian. She lived in Xiangzhou Palace, and she praised this dish after eating it, but this dish was sent to the palace from Xiangya Pavilion, put it in the food box to keep warm and start again, half an hour has passed, and it seems to have less taste. Then I had the idea of eating in Xiangya Pavilion, and after eating, I wandered outside to appreciate the customs of Xiangzhou.

The two noble ladies ate very little, and after eating the braised lion's head, they didn't touch the other dishes on the table, and chatted slowly with their hands.

Since there were still six fierce men standing at the gate of Xiangya Pavilion to block the guests, after the task of washing and cutting vegetables was handed over to the two little girls by the woman in green, except for the chef who was carefully cooking the lion's head, the other few people in the kitchen had nothing to do to herd the sheep.

After bragging and farting in the backyard for a while, talking about the appearance of the guests on the second floor, Shi Keqi volunteered to take a look, he took a rag and installed a wiping table in the hall on the first floor, and probed his brain to see the appearance of the nobleman, but only saw the airtight female guard wall outside the box, even if the wall was scattered, it was useless, and the box door was closed.

On the second floor of Xiang Ya Ge is a row of boxes that go straight to the end, and on the first floor, you can see a little scene of the unclosed box when you look up from the position near the door. The shopkeeper kept glancing at Shi Keqi at the counter and asked him to go back to the kitchen, but he pretended not to see it, and let the shopkeeper squeeze his eyes into cross-eyed, until the big man guarding the stairs grabbed his hand and politely asked him to leave.

Suddenly, a few gongs sounded in the street outside, and a voice similar to the sound of gongs shouted: "The whole city is under martial law, no wandering is allowed during the day, shops are half-open, and there is a curfew at night." ”

The streets and alleys of the city reverberated with the sound of gongs over and over again, shouting one after another. The people were stunned and at a loss, the vendors were scrambling to pack their things, and the pedestrians were hurrying home. The ban came suddenly, and people couldn't react, so why was martial law and curfew, and they were all speculating about whether there were big people patrolling or searching for spies.

It wasn't until the exact news came half an hour later that everyone was shocked, and the panicked atmosphere pressed on Xiangzhou Mansion like a huge black cloud, and the black cloud overwhelmed the city and wanted to destroy it.

"Gotta got" hooves sounded sharply, and a ride rushed to the door of Xiangya Pavilion at high speed, and the rider rolled over the horse and rushed into the inside and went straight to the second floor.

"What, what, what?" exclaimed someone in the box.

The nobleman who was eating at Xiangya Pavilion asked three times in a row, confirmed that it was true, and left with a group of guards.

"Oh my God, the princess has come to eat at my restaurant. When the group of people walked away, the long-suppressed cattle shopkeeper let out a wolf's howl.