Eighty-Two: The Final Farewell Banquet

Ming Tian put off his visit to the leader of the resistance.

It was never anything urgent to begin with. There was no need to make a special trip for it, and besides, he had no real ties to the man. Such trivial matters could wait until he had the time.

What mattered far more to him was Yin Chan. She was one of his own people, and her decision to leave the team was a serious matter in Ming Tian’s eyes.

Yin Chan had a mind of her own. She was determined to carry out her grand ambition, and Ming Tian could not keep her at his side. But as a friend, he still owed her a proper farewell drink.

Well, even if borrowing the kitchen meant spending his future wife’s money.

Ming Tian felt a pang of pain in his heart. Why did it always feel, whenever he spent Xiao Xinzhu’s money, as if he were some kept pretty boy living off a woman?

The innkeeper, after all, was a businessman. Pay enough, and the kitchen was yours to use as you pleased.

But the dishes Ming Tian turned out in that busy kitchen truly opened the eyes of the cooks who normally served the inn.

“Hey, look at this kid...”

“Can pork really be turned into something this fragrant?”

“What if he’s actually a master chef from the Imperial Kitchen Bureau? Though he doesn’t look the right age, does he?”

Three or five of the inn’s chefs gathered around the dishes Ming Tian had prepared, marveling in astonishment, each of them forgetting their own trade.

A single appetizer had already made them question their very lives.

Ming Tian’s appetizer was shumai.

Shumai was a classic Southern delicacy, available in both meat and vegetarian varieties. Historical records first mention it appearing in the Yuan Dynasty, though it had certainly been invented earlier than that. After all, the method itself was not complicated. But in this age of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, it did not yet exist.

The dozen or so shumai Ming Tian made were something he had once happened to see in a short video, called Fortune, Prosperity, Longevity, and Wealth Shumai. They were simple to make, yet the flavor was outstanding.

He kneaded the dough with egg instead of water, which made the wrapper more elastic. He rolled the wrapper out a little larger, then placed pork in the center, first deodorized with rice wine, minced ginger, and scallions.

With two fingers, he pinched the wrapper from all four sides so it sealed in the middle, leaving four raised openings.

Then he stuffed those four openings with four kinds of minced vegetables. The choice of vegetables was flexible; Ming Tian picked napa cabbage, yellow chives, bean sprouts, and water bamboo, four ingredients that cut richness and refreshed the palate.

After that came the part even a fool could do: steam them. A simple process, yet out came a truly delicious plate of shumai.

And such a simple dish left the kitchen staff wide-eyed with wonder. They crowded around the shumai, discussing it endlessly, saying that even imperial fare would amount to no more than this.

Ming Tian was exhausted and had little interest in chatting with them. He only wanted to finish quickly, send Yin Chan off properly, and then return to his room for a good sleep.

He had tried to make every dish as modern as possible, not to show off, but simply so that Yin Chan could enjoy the meal as much as possible.

After all, once that girl no longer followed him, he had no idea when he would get to eat such food again.

The main dish was Heaven and Earth Roast Duck, a roast duck hollowed out and stuffed with richly filled eight-treasure rice.

The soup was fish head soup.

When he had left the palace, he had lost his wallet, but Ming Tian had managed to sneak out a jar of pepper. It was perfect for this dish.

The fish head was first fried with rice wine and ginger, then water was added until it covered the head. Tofu and bean-thread sheets went in after that, and even without heavy seasoning, once the broth turned milky white it was still incomparably savory.

The salad was a self-made mayonnaise, tossed with salted greens, citrus, and seaweed. Though the mayonnaise made with lard carried a slight fishiness, it still tasted rather good in the end.

For dessert, Ming Tian chose a famous sweet: glutinous rolled cake.

But then Ming Tian gave up.

No matter which version one looked at, it was a palace dessert invented only in the Qing Dynasty, though the method itself was surprisingly simple.

There was only one reason Ming Tian was willing to abandon it in this age: it required milk.

Whenever he watched period dramas in which time travelers ran to some ethnic minority group, drank the freshly milked goat or horse milk, and then cried out over how delicious it was, he wanted to curse them to their faces.

Nonsense.

In ancient times, Central Plains people simply did not drink that stuff. Moreover, freshly drawn milk had a strong, raw stink, like diluted semen. It was not sweet. Those who were used to it might find it tasty, but those who were not would spit it out in one mouthful. Ming Tian would even bet ten dollars that nine out of ten modern people would do exactly that.

Milk sold in modern supermarkets had all been processed. What conditions in ancient times could possibly allow for such processing?

So Ming Tian chose another similar dessert, a traditional delicacy from an island called Chongming on the outskirts of modern Shanghai.

Its name was Chongming Cake.

This was a food rarely used in novels, films, or television dramas. Ming Tian knew how to make it only because his former boss had been from Chongming, and it was an essential dish every Spring Festival.

In this era, not even Chongming Island had yet risen from the water. How could there possibly be Chongming Cake?

He soaked the glutinous rice in water for an hour, then spread it on cheesecloth to drain. Since few people ate it, Ming Tian simply used the same steamer he used for steamed buns, and the quantity needed was not large.

He ground the soaked rice into powder on a stone mill and mixed in sugarcane sugar and chopped dates.

Since there was no plastic wrap in this age, he could only use the traditional steaming method, layering it into the steamer bit by bit. Each layer was several inches thick, and once one layer was cooked, he added another, until the steamer was full.

When it came out, a sweet fragrance flooded the entire kitchen.

The five chefs were stunned by that overwhelming aroma.

The head chef’s eyes bulged like ox bells the moment the dessert came out of the steamer.

A sweetness that could even outdo malt sugar.

The small basket of Chongming Cake slapped onto the table looked like nothing more than a thick, cylindrical lump of dough, about the size of a basketball, yet it weighed a full six or seven jin. Its density was in no way inferior to cut sugar cake.

The fragrance made even the chefs standing nearby marvel in admiration.

“Little brother... no, Master, do you take disciples?”

Thud.

The inn’s head chef dropped to his knees before Ming Tian on the spot. The fat man in his forties actually bore a bit of resemblance to Qian Shanduo, though he was far more honest and simple.

What Ming Tian had cooked here was already enough to conquer every chef in the inn.

The other cooks behind him did not kneel, but their expressions showed not reluctance, rather the feeling that they were unworthy to bow and ask for instruction.

Take disciples?

Ming Tian shook his head.

Forget it. He really was not cut out to be a master.

“If you want to learn, come to my room before bed tonight, and I’ll give you the formulas and methods. As for taking apprentices...” Ming Tian did not finish. He only smiled at the man in a friendly way and shook his head.

But that alone was enough to shock them.

At those words, the four or five chefs all lit up, especially the one who had knelt. He even wondered whether he had misheard and hurriedly confirmed it once more.

“The formulas? You mean the formulas for these dishes?”

His tone made it sound as though he feared Ming Tian might change his mind.

For a chef, a recipe was his lifeblood. For certain famous dishes, ancient cooks would even spend years of their youth working under a master chef just to learn them.

Ming Tian’s generosity toward people he did not even know truly astonished the cooks here.

“If you want them, come get them from my room tonight.”

To Ming Tian, the recipes for these dishes were no treasure. There was no need to be stingy.

With that, he picked up the dishes and turned to leave, leaving behind only a kitchen full of chefs, who erupted into a frenzy as though they had taken some kind of stimulant.

When he reached the main hall and came to the table in the center, Anluo, Xiao Xinzhu, Zhaoyu, and Yin Chan had already been waiting for quite some time.

Especially Yin Chan. Even her eternally expressionless face now wore a smile as lovely as peach blossoms.

Yin Chan, your farewell banquet is ready.

Ming Tian smiled and walked toward the table.

At the same time, on the streets of Yangzhou, three or five burly men nearly two meters tall, each carrying a bloodstained battle blade, were striding fiercely in the direction of Ming Tian’s inn.