Shen Shaoguang carefully removed a multi-layered osmanthus cake from its mold and placed it on a large platter. She adorned it with walnuts, hazelnut kernels, pine nuts, dried red dates, and other dried fruits before drizzling a layer of osmanthus honey over it. The aroma was sweet, and the presentation was beautiful.
This was an order for tonight's Kitchen God worship ceremony.
A Yuan circled the worktable, exclaiming, "This cake must weigh at least ten catties!"
While drizzling the honey, Shen Shaoguang teased her, "This is nothing. There are cakes as heavy as eight hundred catties."
A Yuan widened her round eyes, her face clearly saying, "The young mistress is pulling my leg again."
"During the previous dynasty, there was an old empress dowager celebrating her birthday. A flower cake shop in the capital wanted to please her by presenting a unique longevity cake. But in the imperial palace, what kind of cake hadn't been seen before? How could they make theirs stand out?"
Both A Chang and A Yuan tilted their heads, listening intently. Yu San glanced at them while continuing his work, though his ears were perked up too.
"The cake shop thought, since they couldn't innovate in design, they'd go big! A massive cake would be spectacular and showcase our dynasty's grandeur, right?"
"So they made an eight-hundred-catties flower cake longevity peach. The problem was, getting such a thing before the empress dowager wasn't easy. By the time they'd navigated palace protocols and presented it, the cake had grown mold."
A Yuan pressed, "And then?"
"Then they threw it away," Shen Shaoguang said matter-of-factly.
A Yuan stomped her foot in frustration.
Laughing, Shen Shaoguang called A Yuan to help her place the decorated osmanthus cake into a large food box.
After securing the lid, Shen Shaoguang concluded the story, "And so a saying spread: 'An eight-hundred-catties longevity peach—nothing but useless pastry.'"
A Yuan burst into laughter. "Young mistress, you're too mischievous!" A Chang chuckled too, and even Yu San's lips twitched upward.
Shen Shaoguang smiled faintly. The moral of the story was clear: don't indulge in overly ambitious dreams like that cake shop owner—such as buying back the old family estate.
After returning from the Lin residence that day, Shen Shaoguang had several nights of nostalgic dreams, mostly about the original owner's childhood—catching butterflies, fishing, swinging, practicing calligraphy, painting, and eating cakes. Her parents appeared young, and her elder brother was an adorable boy. Waking from these dreams always left her melancholic.
In her previous life, Shen Shaoguang had slept soundly. These vivid dreams might be a symptom of transmigration syndrome.
Amusingly, she'd even had more absurd dreams. In one, she appeared as her current adult self while her parents remained youthful.
A Ye looked sorrowful.
When A Ye asked why, he replied, "A Qi is getting married. I can't bear to part with her."
A Ye sighed helplessly. "The groom is beyond reproach—a noble-born scholar who passed the imperial exams, handsome with a steady temperament. What more could you want? Besides, they'll live in the capital. You can visit anytime."
Her brother, still in his youthful form, shook his head in agreement with A Ye. "Still, once married, it's not the same as having her at home."
Yet in the dream, she herself smiled contentedly, catching a glimpse of a tall, slender figure through the flower shadows.
...Ah, so it had been a spring dream.
Remembering this, single-dog Shen Shaoguang gazed at the kitchen filled with pots, pans, and pastries, her melancholy deepening. What a pity the foliage had been too dense—she hadn't gotten a clear look at her dream fiancé. Maybe he resembled young Louis Koo?
A voice called from outside, "Shopkeeper?"Shen Shaoguang acknowledged and stepped out of the kitchen. It was the customer who had ordered the large osmanthus cake coming to collect it.
She lifted the lid of the food box to let him inspect it, then placed the other pastries and flower cakes he had ordered into another box, reminding him to handle it carefully so they wouldn’t crumble.
The steward-like guest left the payment, thanked Shen Shaoguang with a smile, and said he would send someone to return the food box later. Then, with the pastries carried by his servant, he took his leave.
Customers who had ordered flower cakes and honey offerings came one after another to collect their goods. By the time the first evening drum sounded, all the pre-ordered cakes had been picked up.
Shen Shaoguang instructed A Yuan to put up the "Closed for the Day" sign, then she and Yu San began preparing for their family’s Kitchen God ritual and dinner.
The Kitchen God worship at this time was far more elaborate than in later generations. It required chicken, duck, fish, meat, and pastries—especially wine and sticky toffee. The imperial court even had a special tradition of slaughtering yellow sheep and roasting their meat.
The sticky toffee came in blocks or strips, different from the "sugar melon candy" Shen Shaoguang had eaten in her childhood.
She always thought the sugar melon candy tasted better—about the size of a small egg, shaped like a melon, with a thin shell and hollow inside. The shell was decorated with green or orange-red patterns. The first bite was crisp, then it turned chewy and sweet.
The current sticky toffee lacked that satisfying crispness.
Regardless of the type, the sweets were meant to sweeten the Kitchen God’s mouth—same with the wine. The most bizarre part was that, during the ritual, people would smear wine and candy on the Kitchen God’s mouth, almost like a child’s make-believe game.
Since the Kitchen God was male, A Yuan couldn’t perform the task of feeding him wine with bamboo chopsticks, so A Chang took over instead.
Once the offerings were set, Shen Shaoguang cheerfully prayed, wishing the Kitchen God a well-fed journey to the heavens, hoping he would speak kindly of their household and return with blessings of prosperity...
Traditionally, this ritual was performed by men—"Men don’t worship the moon, women don’t sacrifice to the Kitchen God"—but with no other family members left, Shen Shaoguang had to do it herself.
She then burned paper money and paper horses, while Yu San, A Yuan, and A Chang kowtowed to send the Kitchen God, the master of the kitchen, on his celestial journey. With that, the ceremony concluded.
Next was the Little New Year’s Eve dinner. At this time, there was no term like "Little New Year," nor were there set dishes for the occasion—people mostly ate what was offered to the Kitchen God.
Shen Shaoguang prepared a hot pot, closed the shop, and the four of them enjoyed a lively meal of boiled meats.
She fished out tofu from the pot, dipped it in a three-ingredient sauce of sesame paste, shrimp oil, and leek flowers, then added napa cabbage, radish, and taro to the broth. She ate little meat, only a few fresh meatballs.
A Yuan and A Chang, however, were carnivores. They couldn’t resist the plates of sliced meat, meatballs, tripe, pork blood, duck blood tofu, and more, enthusiastically adding them to their pots.
Yu San was more reserved, only dipping mutton and napa cabbage into her milky soup hot pot.
Seeing Shen Shaoguang stop after a few small soup-filled meatballs, Yu San stood up. "I’ll make some broad noodles. Anyone want some?"
A Yuan and A Chang both shook their heads—they were too busy enjoying the feast. Who would want noodles now? Why was hot pot so endlessly satisfying? Could it really be, as their young mistress said, that they were hot pot spirits in a past life?
Shen Shaoguang raised her hand. "I’ll have a little. Make them thin, so they cook fast and are easy to digest."
Yu San frowned, giving her a "why so picky?" look, then went to knead the dough for the broad noodles.
Shen Shaoguang, long accustomed to Princess Yu San’s disdain, smiled without a trace of masterly dignity.Before long, Yu San came out carrying a small bamboo tray with some noodle slices—some were the flower petal Bo Tuo noodles with delicate pleats, while others were ordinary chive leaf noodles.
Shen Shaoguang cheerfully took some of the flower petal noodles and dropped them into her own pot, while Yu San took the rest and tossed them into his.
After eating their fill, Shen Shaoguang and Yu San sipped on fruit drinks while watching the two younger ones eat.
Shen Shaoguang remembered how in her previous life, at sixteen or seventeen, she could eat an entire roast chicken by herself, plus a baked pancake. Now, in this life, she was only nineteen, yet her appetite wasn’t nearly as strong. Could it be that appetite carries over and accumulates across lifetimes? Watching the two enthusiastic eaters, Shen Shaoguang could only feel envy.
The two youngsters filled up on meat and vegetables, sparing Yu San the trouble of making another batch of noodles.
After the meal, Yu San led A Yuan and A Chang to clean the kitchen and tidy up, while Shen Shaoguang slowly made her way back to the rear residence, carrying the lantern A Yuan had lit for her.
Lao Bai once wrote a poem describing a small banquet: "After the feast, music returns to the courtyard, lanterns descend from the towers."
Yan Shu considered this "the language of true wealth." In contrast, Kou Laoxi's lines—"Old age makes the golden belt heavy, laziness finds the jade pillow cool"—were deemed vulgar, utterly lacking the essence of wealth.
Later, Lu Xun also praised Bai Juyi as the true master of depicting wealth, never relying on gaudy words like gold or jade, yet effortlessly conveying opulence.
Shen Shaoguang agreed that Bai’s poetry exuded wealth and humorously mused that she had achieved half of what the poet described—no "music," but she had a "courtyard"; no "towers," but she had "lanterns"... The thought amused her. Ah, my irrepressible sense of humor!
Meanwhile, the one who truly had "towers" lacked the "music." Lin Yan was instructing the maids and servants attending his grandmother for the night: "The charcoal fire makes the room dry, so keep some warm water on the tea stove. When the Lady wakes, let her take a sip or two." The maids bowed and acknowledged his orders. After a few more instructions, Lin Yan left his grandmother’s courtyard.
Behind him, the servants closed the gate. A young attendant led the way with a lantern as Lin Yan walked toward his study, his mind occupied with refining the security arrangements for the New Year’s grand court assembly in the capital.
The north wind shook the dry branches in the courtyard, slipped through the carved lattice of the corridor, and brushed against Lin Yan’s stern face, tousling the ties of his cloak and flapping the hem of his robe. The distant sound of night drums, paired with the footsteps of master and servant, echoed through the cold, silent winter night.
Author’s Note:
① The saying "An 800-jin longevity peach—useless pastry" is said to be related to Empress Dowager Cixi. I recall reading the story as a child, either in Story Collection or some other reading material, possibly a primary school extracurricular book...
② Adapted from a poem by Fan Chengda of the Song Dynasty.
OpenNovel