Perhaps due to being chased after a day of labor, sweating profusely, and then being chilled by the night breeze, Zhenzhen felt unwell the next day, her head splitting with pain. Lying listlessly in bed, she had no appetite for food or drink. The breakfast and lunch prepared for her by Fengxian and others remained untouched, sitting in her room for most of the day.
In the afternoon, after handling the shop’s affairs, Qiu Niang came to see Zhenzhen. Seeing that she hadn’t eaten, Qiu Niang felt heartbroken. Stroking Zhenzhen’s feverish forehead, she asked what she wanted to eat. “Even if it’s dragon meat or phoenix liver, I’ll find it for you.”
Zhenzhen thought for a moment and said, “Mother, I want to eat the white rice porridge you cook, with your pickled Buddha’s hand, citron, and pears.”
Qiu Niang cooked the porridge, took the pickled side dishes from the jar, sliced them, and quickly brought them to Zhenzhen.
Under her mother’s watchful gaze, Zhenzhen finished the meal and sighed, “Mother’s cooking is still the best. Even simple foods—your porridge is always thicker and softer than others’, and the pickles are perfectly salty and fragrant. Others’ pickles are either too salty or too bland, or they have a strange taste. During those few days in Lin’an, I ate at their grand restaurants. At first, it felt novel, but after a few days, I missed the taste of your cooking so much. No matter how many delicacies I had, they all seemed tasteless. I wished I could fly back to you—even a simple bowl of wonton soup would have been delicious.”
Qiu Niang smiled and said, “That’s because you’re used to the taste of my cooking. The tongue has a memory. Whatever you eat from a young age, that flavor is imprinted on your tongue and is hard to erase. When you don’t know what to eat, the taste your tongue remembers will come to mind, making you long for it.”
Zhenzhen nodded. “What the tongue remembers from childhood is the flavor most suited to me… There’s no fixed standard for food; what suits the palate is precious.”
Her thoughts drifted, and she suddenly recalled the phrase Song Ai had mentioned, saying it aloud without thinking.
Qiu Niang paused, then immediately asked, “What did you just say?”
Zhenzhen repeated it and explained, “This phrase was told to me by a young master I met yesterday.” She then recounted how she met Song Ai and the anecdote about Su Yijian he had shared, before asking her mother, “So, the name of our Suitable Treasure Tower comes from this story, right? Did you choose this name, Mother? It seems you’re quite learned as well.”
“No,” Qiu Niang unexpectedly denied. “I’m just a cook—how would I know such literary allusions? I named it ‘Suitable Treasure’ because I see you as my treasure. When I started cooking, my aim was to suit your taste, so I chose this name.”
“Oh,” Zhenzhen felt inexplicably disappointed. “Then if I see Song Ai again, I’ll tell him.”
“No need.” Qiu Niang seemed to have no fondness for Song Ai. “That young master refused to tell you his background in detail, which shows he’s just toying with you and doesn’t take you seriously. Besides, your mother is a cook, looked down upon by the world—her status is even lower than that of seamstresses, actors, or laundresses. You shouldn’t harbor thoughts of climbing the social ladder to a wealthy family. If Song Ai comes looking for you in the future, don’t see him again, lest you end up hurting yourself.”
Zhenzhen hastily waved her hands. “I only met him by chance. I found him interesting and talked a bit more, but that’s all. I have no other thoughts. Mentioning seeing him again was just an offhand remark—I’m not actually expecting to reunite with him.”Qiu Niang nodded, signaling her to say no more and rest well. Zhenzhen obediently lay back down, pulling the quilt over her entire body except for her head. Her eyes darted around as she looked at her mother and added, "Mother, may I ask you to promise me one thing?"
Qiu Niang asked what it was. Zhenzhen replied, "Teach me how to cook after I recover. I've thought it through—the Village banquet, the Village banquet, refers to the feasts of one's hometown. No delicacies from the mountains or seas are important; the key lies in the taste of home. I want to present a banquet that represents the flavors of Pujiang cuisine."
Over the years, Qiu Niang had meticulously trained her female disciples but had never allowed Zhenzhen into the kitchen, not wanting her to grow up to be a cook. When preparing for the Village banquet, she had also instructed Zhenzhen to simply direct her senior sisters and not do the work herself. However, Zhenzhen volunteered to take charge of preparing the Village banquet, saying she needed to understand the cooking process thoroughly so she could explain its essence to the diners. And there was no better way to understand than to do it herself.
Zhenzhen showed unprecedented determination in this matter. After recovering, she followed Qiu Niang everywhere. When Qiu Niang pickled vegetables, Zhenzhen guarded the pickling jar and handed her the vegetables. When Qiu Niang marinated shrimp, Zhenzhen held the jar, waiting to seal it. When Qiu Niang wanted to hang fish to dry, Zhenzhen rushed to wash the herring and carp. At first, Qiu Niang remained silent, letting Zhenzhen watch with eager eyes without teaching her. Finally, seeing Zhenzhen struggle to hold onto the slippery fish while washing them, she couldn't help but sigh. "Add a few drops of raw oil while washing, and the fish won't be slimy."
Zhenzhen followed her advice, and it worked perfectly. Overjoyed, she thanked her mother repeatedly.
Qiu Niang then began teaching her some techniques: use flour to wash pork tripe, sugar to wash pork offal; add a few cherry leaves to the water when boiling goose to make the meat more tender; if the wine for marinating drunken crab turns sour, fry a liter of small beans until charred, put them in a cloth bag, and place it in the wine jar to restore the flavor...
In the evening, Qiu Niang steamed Reeves' shad. Zhenzhen noticed that she removed the intestines but not the scales, wiped away the blood with a cloth, ground Sichuan pepper and cardamom, added sauce, water, wine, and scallions, mixed them with the shad in a soup pot, and steamed it with the scales still on. She asked Qiu Niang why she didn't remove the scales. Qiu Niang explained, "The fat of the Reeves' shad is concentrated in its scales. If you remove the scales before steaming, the oil will be lost, affecting the taste. Steaming it with the scales allows the oil to seep into the meat. Before eating, remove the scales, and you'll find the fish tender, rich, and exceptionally delicious."
Zhenzhen marveled and said, "Mother, your skills are exquisite. You know so many tricks—you must have studied cooking from a young age, right?"
Qiu Niang shook her head. "I only started learning to cook after I met your father. He had a keen sense of taste and could detect the slightest changes in food—not easy to fool... After having you, I worried all day about what to cook that you both would like..."
As she spoke, she drifted into memories of those days, unconsciously revealing a gentle, faint smile.
She rarely mentioned Zhenzhen's father on her own. Zhenzhen, greatly curious, followed up, "What kind of person was my father? What did he do for a living? Was he handsome?"
Qiu Niang snapped back to reality, her smile fading as she regained her usual calm and composed demeanor. Her gaze shifted to the steamer as she changed the subject. "The fish is almost done. Let me check on it."
Zhenzhen watched her mother's busy figure by the stove, thinking that even though she spent her days in the kitchen, the surrounding smoke and fire could not diminish her astonishing beauty.Qiu Niang was over forty, yet she had a slender figure, a long and graceful neck, and a narrow waist. From behind, she still looked like a young girl. Even now, her beauty was rarely matched in Pujiang. She was also skilled at grooming herself; even when cooking at the stove, she dressed neatly, wore elegant makeup, and kept her hair meticulously styled, carefully tied with a silk scarf and fastened with an exquisite knot. Unlike the stout, broad-shouldered middle-aged cooks, she carried herself with an air of refinement, moving with grace and composure, like an elegant crane.
Zhenzhen glanced at her reflection in the water vat and sighed, feeling disheartened by the difference between her appearance and her mother’s. Though she was considered a beauty among the young women of Pujiang, under the radiance of her mother’s beauty, she felt as if she were nothing more than a bunch of scallops her mother had received as a gift from a vegetable farmer when buying a hundred catties of onions.
So she was particularly curious about her father’s appearance. Hmph, my looks must have been dragged down by Father, she thought, pouting inwardly.
Zhenzhen’s father was said to have died of illness when she was three. After his death, Qiu Niang brought Zhenzhen to Pujiang, so no one in the area knew her father. Her impression of him was nothing more than a vague figure—someone who could write with a brush and carried the scent of medicine. As for his face, Zhenzhen couldn’t recall it at all. And the kind of paternal love she longed for, she found in Pu Bo.
Pu Bo was six or seven years older than Qiu Niang and had originally been a teacher in Pujiang. He had been widowed for many years and had never remarried. After Qiu Niang arrived in Pujiang and opened her small shop, she became neighbors with Pu Bo, who often looked after the mother and daughter. Seeing that Qiu Niang struggled with managing accounts, he offered to help her, and this assistance continued for over a decade. He was steady, honest, and not unattractive in appearance, so some people tried to match him with Qiu Niang. However, Qiu Niang claimed she was determined to remain a widow and politely declined. She didn’t just reject Pu Bo; she also turned down many suitors in Pujiang, including wealthy merchants who wanted to take her as a concubine.
Though rejected, Pu Bo remained kind to Qiu Niang and genuinely cared for Zhenzhen, treating her as his own daughter. Qiu Niang initially suspected he had ulterior motives, but seeing him care for them selflessly year after year, she gradually let her guard down and began consulting him on everything. The two interacted like siblings. Though some gossiped about them, their upright conduct and transparent interactions eventually silenced the rumors.
“But I think Pu Bo still loves our teacher,” Xiangye said, stirring the soybeans that had been soaking in a mixture of saltwater and Jinhua sweet wine for forty-nine days as she made fermented black beans in the courtyard, sharing her analysis with her sisters. “Over the past decade, how many times has Teacher tried to raise his wages, and he always refused, saying he didn’t need that much for himself? When Teacher bought him a big house, he reluctantly accepted it but secretly had the deed changed to Zhenzhen’s name. If he isn’t hoping to become Zhenzhen’s father, what else could he be after?”
Fuqu, sorting through a mix of star anise, fennel, cardamom, cinnamon, dried tangerine peel, Sichuan peppercorns, dried ginger shreds, and almonds, asked Xiangye, “Do you think Teacher will be moved by him?”"If he could be moved, he would have been moved ten years ago." Xiangye took the spices Fuqu had selected from Chuying's hands, adding them one by one into the vat while continuing to stir. "They are both good people, but they just don't match. Shiniang is like a silvery-white Reeves' shad, best steamed in clear well water, while Pu Bo is like fermented black beans aged for a year in a cellar. Though they smell pungent but taste savory, and pair well with vegetables, pork, and mutton, they simply don't go with Reeves' shad."
Upon hearing this, all the sisters burst into laughter.
"You, you, you—you're the fermented black beans!" Pu Bo, who had overheard from somewhere, suddenly appeared, his trembling finger pointing at Xiangye. He wanted to scold her, but his anger left him tongue-tied.
Seeing this, Chuying, Yuzan, and the others couldn't help but laugh even harder.
"You, all of you—you're all fermented black beans!" Pu Bo gave a heavy flick of his sleeve, turned away in a huff, and stormed off, his other hand still tightly clutching the calligraphy copybook he had prepared for Zhenzhen.
(To be continued)
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