The donkey was a necessity for Su Yu to set up his stall every day. Without the donkey, he had to pull fish himself. Su Yu couldn't help but stop when he heard this.
Eldest Aunt thought she had him in her grasp and was very pleased. She continued to nag: "The family almost doesn't have enough food to eat and you still use this extravagant donkey cart … …"
"Auntie," Su Yu looked at the woman who was beside herself with joy and sneered, "You're right. Why don't we sell the donkey tomorrow and I'll push the cart to sell in front of the Department of Ancestral Decrees to save us the time of walking."
Eldest Aunt heard this and her face immediately became ugly. The Department of Ancestral Decrees was the place that managed the affairs of the nobility. The abolition of the heir, the succession of titles, and the separation of large clans all had to go through the Department of Ancestral Decrees. If Su Yu went there to sell fish, wouldn't that be telling the Department of Ancestral Decrees that his uncle mistreated his nephew? They hadn't gathered enough money to send a gift and their titles hadn't been set yet. They couldn't make a mistake.
Ignoring the choked eldest aunt, Su Yu threw down the donkey cart and turned to leave.
The streets of the eastern part of the city were clearly cleaner than the western part of the city. The things sold were also of a completely different level. Su Yu didn't stop in front of the various shops and headed straight for a spice shop. This spice shop often sold spices from the western regions and was very popular with the noblewomen of the capital. However, a strange spice had been brought in a few days ago. The smell was very strange and no one was interested in it.
"Shopkeeper, this is the price we agreed on yesterday." Su Yu took out two hundred and eighty copper coins and pointed to a box of spices in the corner.
The shopkeeper looked at the box of yellow powder and then looked at the copper coins in Su Yu's hand. He sighed: "Fine, fine, I'll sell it all to you."
At the beginning, he had seen the western region merchant exaggerate the spices and say how much the people of the western region loved them. He had been possessed and bought it. Who knew that he couldn't sell it at all in the central plains. However, he didn't want to lower the price too much. In the end, he settled on two hundred and eighty copper coins per catty with Su Yu.
Su Yu took the oil paper wrapped spice and held it in his arms. He couldn't help but smile a little. This thing was the key to his squid business. Yesterday, when he accidentally found this, he decisively gave up selling squid and prepared to change his profession. Because this thing called Tianshan Fragrance had another name — cumin!
As a seafood chef, Su Yu was good at cooking Sichuan cuisine. Although the Da An dynasty wasn't any dynasty in history, it didn't have anything that should have existed, such as chili peppers! Without chili, how could a Sichuan-style chef endure! After searching all over the capital, he still couldn't find any trace of chili. Instead, he found cumin powder by chance. It was better than nothing. At least he could do something with it.
Using the remaining money, Su Yu bought several hundred bamboo sticks from Papa Chen, who was selling tanghulu. She was in a good mood because she was about to make a fortune. She prepared to pass through the small alley next to the prince's mansion and return home.
The difference between the magnificent Prince Zhao's mansion and his own dilapidated house was like the difference between an old rich man and a poor farmer. This prince's mansion was the emperor's younger brother, Prince Zhao's mansion. It was built to be very magnificent. Su Yu looked at the gilded plaque at the main entrance and sighed inwardly. Then, he entered the small alley.
"Go away, you beast." At the side door, Yu Laosi, who had an impatient face, was scolding as he moved the fish bucket to the donkey cart.
Rich people would buy fish every day. If it wasn't fresh on the second day, the master wouldn't eat it anymore. It would be counted as thrown away in the account. If the kitchen servants couldn't finish the fish, they would sell the fish. Naturally, the price was very cheap. Many fish sellers would do this kind of business, including Yu Laosi, who was enemies with Su Yu on a narrow road.
This kind of thing wasn't something to be proud of. Everyone was well aware of it. But if it was spread out, it would ruin his reputation. Yu Laosi was annoyed. When he saw Su Yu, he became even angrier. He kicked the person who was blocking his way and scolded: "You beast, you didn't walk on the sunny road, but you bumped into laozi's feet!"
Su Yu didn't have time to pay attention to Yu Laosi's scolding. He saw that the person he kicked was a palm-sized golden kitten. He immediately frowned, stepped forward, and caught the small ball in his hand.
"Meow — —" The small kitten was very strong. When it was caught by Su Yu, it still bared its fangs and brandished its claws at Yu Laosi.
Seeing that he was so spirited, he shouldn't be injured. Su Yu was secretly relieved. Then, he looked at Yu Laosi coldly and said: "Bullying the weak, aren't you afraid of retribution?"
"Hey, gigolo, you dare to talk back to me, your grandpa! Where's your cowardice this morning? There's no shrew here to support you! "Yu Laosi said as he rolled up his sleeves and was about to hit him.
Su Yu coldly snorted. He hung the kitten that was brandishing its claws on his clothes. Then, with lightning speed, he punched Yu Laosi on the bridge of his nose. With a "ow" sound, Yu Laosi was beaten until tears and snot flowed down his face. He reflexively bent down.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Su Yu, who succeeded in his attack, held the cumin powder in one hand and the kitten that was hanging on his clothes with the other. Then, he turned around and ran. His attack caught Yu Laosi off guard. If he really fought with the fishseller, with this small noble young master's body, even if there were two more of him, he still wouldn't be able to defeat him.
After running all the way back to the Su Family, Su Yu threw the cumin powder on the table and panted. After working for three months, his body was a lot stronger, but it still wasn't very good.
The kitten in his arms crawled out from the crook of his arm. It shook its messy fur and paced back and forth on the table as if it was an emperor inspecting its territory. Looking at Su Yu who was already lying on the table, its amber eyes showed a bit of disdain. After sitting for a moment, seeing that the person didn't have any intention of getting up, it turned its head in boredom and used its claws to poke at the paper bag next to it.
The finely ground cumin powder was pressed by the cat's claws and immediately floated out from the gap. It went into the cat's sensitive nose and the kitten couldn't help but sneeze.
"Hahaha …" The kitten turned its head and saw that Su Yu had unknowingly raised his head and was looking at it with a smile. It couldn't help but feel a bit annoyed. It slowly turned around and sat down again. It stared at him with a serious face.
God knows how to tell if a cat's face was serious or not. Anyway, Su Yu couldn't tell. He only felt that the furry kitten's posture of sitting upright with its chin slightly raised was very funny. He couldn't help but reach out and rub the cumin powder on its little head. He liked cats since he was a child. When he was a chef in a restaurant, he raised a group of wild cats in the alley behind the kitchen door. Every day, he would send them fish to eat at a fixed time. He also couldn't bear to see people mistreating these little fellows.
The kitten squinted its eyes slightly when its head was rubbed. Then, it fiercely scratched him with its claws.
"Hiss —" Su Yu quickly retracted his scratched hand. Fortunately, he was experienced. The moment the cat scratched him, he retracted his hand and wasn't scratched too hard. Even so, there were still three red marks left on his hand. "Little bastard, I risked my life to save you. You don't even let me touch your head …"
He reached out and poked the kitten that was looking at him with contempt. The kitten looked as if it was saying, "My head is not something you mortals can touch." Seeing this, Su Yu's heart itched and he couldn't help but want to rub it again.
"Do you have a home? If you don't have a home, then stay with me. " Su Yu got up and began to rummage through the things in his cupboard. As he tidied up, he talked endlessly, not caring whether the cat could understand him or not.
There was a long iron box with three openings, a small bag of charcoal, and a seasoning brush made of wool. Su Yu counted these things that he had painstakingly collected one by one. He couldn't help but grin. When he first came here and realized that he was poor, Su Yu planned to do small business like teppanyaki squid. However, reality was too cruel. It took him three months to even find cumin powder. And he didn't know how long it would take to gather enough money to build a cart that could hold the teppanyaki squid. He could only settle for the next best thing, which was grilled squid skewers.
Looking at the sky, it was already past dinner time. The ancients were particular about eating less at night, but it didn't mean that they didn't eat. Su Yu didn't eat dinner, and no one at home cared about him. He didn't care about this at all. He moved the wooden bucket containing the squid to the middle of the yard, took the tools used to kill the squid, and began to process these fat big guys.
He was very skilled in skinning, removing the internal organs, and pinching the head. He gently made two cuts on the squid's body, grabbed the triangular head, and neatly removed the skin and pinched the head. The cat sulked for a while. Seeing that Su Yu was no longer talking endlessly, but was cutting something quickly with his fingers, it couldn't help but curiously go over to take a look.
After removing the cartilage, the squid was processed. Su Yu turned his head and saw that the cat was staring at the squid in his hand without blinking. He guessed that the cat was hungry, so he cut off a squid tentacle and handed it to the cat.
The cat came over and sniffed it, then turned its head away with a look of disgust. It had no intention of eating it at all.
Su Yu raised his eyebrows, but didn't care. Some cats were picky and didn't eat all kinds of seafood. He threw the processed squid in his hand into a small basin and continued to process the other squid. When all the squid was cleaned up, he cut most of them into squid rings and squid tentacles, leaving about ten whole squid. Then he took out a bamboo skewer and neatly stacked them in a bucket with a lid, and used the well water to cool them.
"Let's go. I'll take you to eat something delicious." After doing all this, Su Yu sighed and raised his hand to rub the cat's head. Unsurprisingly, he was hit by the cat's paw again.
There were very few servants in the Su family. At this time, the sky was completely dark, and there was no one in the kitchen. Su Yu went in and looked around. The pots and pans were all empty, and there was no leftover food left for him.
After searching for a long time, he only found some small fish and shrimps, a few small clams, and a handful of wilted vegetables.
He scooped out a ladle of noodles, mixed it with water, kneaded it repeatedly, and put it in a basin to stir the dough. Su Yu calmly washed the small fish, shrimps, and clams. He threw the small fish and shrimps into the pot to cook, and put the clams on the stove to roast. The firewood fire was slow, so it needed to cook for a while. During this free time, Su Yu took out a white porcelain soup bowl and began to put a lot of seasonings in it.
Soy sauce, salt, pepper powder, sesame oil, these simple seasonings were abundant. He mixed them together according to a certain ratio and added an appropriate amount of cumin powder. The seasonings for roasted squid were all ready. He left a small dish out and put the rest of the seasonings into a small clay pot. The noodles were ready.
Not in a hurry to make the noodles, Su Yu first pulled out a few clams. The small clams were already roasted with their mouths open, and steam was coming out of them. There was very little meat, but it was delicious. Su Yu picked a clam with a thin bamboo stick and handed it to the kitten squatting by the chopping board. The kitten tilted its head and looked at it for a while. It slowly opened its mouth and bit it, and then chewed it slowly. Strangely, the kitten didn't lower its head when it was eating, and still maintained a high and mighty expression.
Su Yu found it funny. He picked a clam and dipped it in the seasonings on the plate to taste. The seasonings tasted just right, so he couldn't help but pick another one. Who knew that just as he dipped it in the seasonings, the kitten next to him snatched it away with a howl.
"Hey, you can't eat it!" Su Yu couldn't stop it in time, and the clam meat dipped in sauce was swallowed by the kitten.
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