lcionline Chapter 167 The Conflict Among the Employees Begins
Chapter 167 The Conflict Among the Employees Begins
The conflict between the employees began
The morning mist was evaporated by the sun into fine gold leaf, and Su Yunlan stepped into the alleyway, stepping on sandalwood shavings seeping from the cracks in the bluestone slabs.
Beneath the newly painted vermilion plaque of the inn, waiter Zhang was leaning against the door frame picking his teeth. He didn't move when he saw the visitor, and the bamboo skewer made a smacking sound as he stirred it between his teeth.
"The Fourth Madam is quite willing to send silver to the money shop." He spat a mouthful of tea foam on the ground, and a coin-sized sunspot landed on his faded linen shirt. "Yesterday, the Eight Immortals Table in the front hall was dismantled, and today she wants to change the stove in the back kitchen."
Our impoverished family can't withstand this kind of turmoil.
Young Master Xiao, carrying account books, leaned out from the second floor, the newly worn jade abacus at his waist clattering against the railing: "Uncle Zhang, we agreed yesterday to try making lotus leaf steamed pork..."
"Twenty-first Master, you seem to have forgotten that the gold-threaded soft armor your Fourth Master wore before his exile was glued together with deer tendon glue stewed in the old stove." Zhang, the waiter, deliberately flicked a bamboo skewer into the lotus pot in the courtyard, startling the koi carp and causing it to splash water. "We roughnecks can't possibly please the palates of noblemen."
Su Yunlan, her skirt embroidered with intertwined branches, swept across the threshold and suddenly turned to press down on the accounting counter.
The ebony abacus rattled as it was pushed, and all twenty-eight jade beads came to rest on the central beam: "On the eighth day of last month, Uncle Zhang secretly mixed three coins' worth of osmanthus wine while on duty."
On the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, two pounds of sugar frosting went missing from the stove—would you like the new contract or the old account book?
Suddenly, the copper bell on the eaves jingled, and Chef Sun emerged from the back kitchen, clutching her greasy apron. The silver hairpin in her hair trembled and swayed in the light. "Fourth Madam, please be wise. The old stove was built twenty years ago. Two years ago, during the great drought, we even baked Guanyin clay cakes to relieve hunger..." Her withered fingers scratched at the door frame, leaving several white streaks on the freshly applied tung oil.
“Look, Aunt Sun.” Su Yunlan shook out an oil paper package from her sleeve. A piece of amber-colored paste was wrapped in a bright green lotus leaf. “This is a Poria cocos cake baked in a newly built cobblestone stove, with pine needles underneath.” She tapped it lightly with her fingertips, and the cake spread out like clouds, revealing the osmanthus honey inside.
Cook Sun's nostrils flared, and she suddenly grabbed Su Yunlan's wrist: "The heat control..." She scraped her flour-covered fingernails across the cross-section of the cake, "Smoked with pine needles for three quarters of an hour, scalded with pebbles for half an hour, and finally steamed with the residual heat?"
The men watching the commotion in the courtyard suddenly became agitated.
Young Master Xiao had set up a bamboo table at some point, with diamond-shaped pieces of Poria cocos cake arranged on a celadon plate.
Just as Zhang was about to speak, a scalding hot sweet cake was stuffed into his mouth. The aroma of osmanthus mixed with pine smoke exploded on his tongue, choking him up and preventing him from uttering any harsh words.
"Do you all know why the crab roe soup dumplings at Fuchun Teahouse in Yangzhou are made using a nine-eyed honeycomb stove?" Su Yunlan suddenly raised her voice, and the silver bell wrapped around her wrist made a clear and melodious sound.
She pulled a roll of yellowed blueprints from her sleeve, showing twenty-eight stove holes scattered throughout: "The newly built Seven-Star Stove can save thirty percent of firewood, and the steamer can make eight kinds of pastries at the same time—Aunt Sun, do you think it's worth demolishing the old stove?"
Cook Sun's hand, clutching the blueprints, trembled slightly. Suddenly, she turned and pulled a dark brick from the stove: "This is the old stove's fire-suppressing brick. If Fourth Madam wants to modify the stove, she must first invoke the Fire God..."
“No need.” A cold glint flashed at Su Yunlan’s fingertips as a silver needle pierced a crack in the brick, drawing out a wisp of smoke. “The brick was mixed with sodium sulfate, which causes it to clump when heated—was this the brick that caused the stove to explode during the drought two years ago, injuring three workers?”
The copper bells on the eaves were suddenly struck by a gust of wind and rang loudly.
Zhang, his face flushed, tried to snatch the brick, but was grabbed and held by Young Master Xiao around the waist.
The young man swung his jade abacus with a clattering sound: "Uncle Zhang spent two qian of silver last month to buy liniment, was it for this?"
As dusk seeped through the window paper, ten glass lamps were already set up in the front hall.
Su Yunlan rubbed her sore wrists and pushed open the accounting room door, suddenly seeing a dark figure reflected in the bronze mirror.
Xiao Yuhan's sword hung from the beam, the ink scent from the sword hilt and hairband mingling with the pine smoke from his sleeves, lingering on the hair ornament in her hair.
(Continued from above)
The black hem of Su Yunlan's robe fluttered without wind in the bronze mirror. Before Su Yunlan could even turn around, a celadon teacup was already being offered to her ear.
The aroma of cloud and mist tea mixed with the bitter scent of ginger rose in the air. Xiao Yuhan's fingertips, calloused from the heat, tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
"The pine soot ink is mixed with a calming incense." He gently pressed his palm against Su Yunlan's shoulder blade, the black iron wrist guards radiating a burning heat through the light gauze. "Old Zhang's contract is held at the Liangzhou bank; have Twenty-First Brother go to the escort agency tomorrow."
Su Yunlan's back stiffened slightly, and the tea swirled in her throat three times before she swallowed it.
The shouts of the workers carrying new stove bricks came from outside the window, and the glass lamp cast Xiao Yuhan's shadow on the ledger like a drawn sword.
"You once presented the Emperor with a formula for pain-relieving pine soot ink?" She suddenly grabbed his wrist, her fingertips tracing the old arrow wound between his thumb and forefinger. "Uncle Zhang always mentions the gold-threaded soft armor, could it be...?"
Before he could finish speaking, a crisp sound of a ceramic urn shattering suddenly came from downstairs.
Cook Sun rushed in carrying freshly steamed Poria cocos cake, a fire poker tucked into her hair: "Fourth Madam!"
The old stove bricks were ground into powder and mixed into the dough, and the steamed cakes had a wonderful pine fragrance! "The silver flakes of Glauber's salt on her cuffs shimmered under the lamp, like a handful of stars."
Xiao Yuhan's Adam's apple bobbed in the shadows, and he suddenly untied the black iron token from his waist.
The back of the token was engraved with the Twenty-Eight Mansions in cinnabar, which landed right on the two characters "Saltpeter" in red ink on a certain page of the ledger: "Tomorrow, have the Twenty-First Brother take some men to the West Market and tell them..." He tapped his finger heavily on the three characters "Deer Tendon Glue," "...the Xiao family wants to reopen the escort agency."
As the night deepened and the dew grew heavy, Su Yunlan spread the new contract out on the Seven Star Stove.
The jade paperweight pressed down on the document signed by Zhang, the ink mixed with cinnabar, which looked like congealed blood under the flickering stove fire.
Twenty-eight jade beads jingled in the glass cup as she suddenly dipped half a piece of Poria cocos cake into osmanthus honey.
"Do you all know why the imperial chefs of the previous dynasty buried jade discs in the stove?" She lightly flicked her fingertips across the cup, leaving a coin-sized spot of honey on the contract. "To light a new stove, one must offer sacrifices to the White Tiger Star Lord—Uncle Zhang, tell me, is it better to offer pig iron or mirabilite?"
Zhang, the shop assistant, suddenly straightened his hunched back, revealing a faint gold thread beneath his faded linen shirt.
Suddenly, Young Master Xiao Twenty-One lifted the curtain of the accounting room, revealing a charred lotus leaf stuck to the jade abacus: "Fourth Brother!"
The manager of the West Market Money Exchange said that the receipts for the gold-threaded soft armor pawned back then...
The last words were swept away by the night wind and rushed into the stove, where sparks crackled and exploded.
The silver bells on Su Yunlan's wrist suddenly vibrated in unison. She watched as the powdered Glauber's salt that had fallen from Zhang's sleeve condensed into a white tiger pattern on the stove. Suddenly, she threw the contract into the fire.
The moment the smoke rose, a muffled creak of machinery turning came from the beams and pillars of the inn.
The cook, Sun, stood frozen at the doorway, holding a copper spoon. She clearly saw half a tiger tally mark emerging from the ashes of the burning contract.