Chapter 153 - The Birthday of Old Madam Zhou

Lu Chen grabbed Qiao Jinniang’s chin and said, “You yearn for it?” “No, no, all those men added up are not one ten-thousandth as good as you,” Qiao Jinniang said.

Only then did Lu Chen let go of Qiao Jinniang. “Those gigolos have no heart. They just like the princess’ money.”

Qiao Jinniang said, “But didn’t you marry into my family for money too back then?”

Lu Chen took Qiao Jinniang back to her home and said, “What are you talking about? At that time, I accepted you because I heard you crying so miserably.

“It was not so much about the money as it was about your beauty.”

Qiao Jinniang clutched her coat strips. “Stop it. I still have hundreds of chickens and ducks to marinate. I just started to sell them yesterday, but three hundred of them have been sold by today.

“You can imagine how busy I have been recently.” Lu Chen said, “I came right for this. You can still marinate the chickens and ducks yourself for now, but what about next year? After marrying into the East Palace, are you going to do it in the East Palace?

“Why not give the secret recipe to a person you trust so that you don’t have to do it yourself.” Qiao Jinniang said, “Secret recipes can’t be leaked.”

Lu Chen said, “Do you really want to kill ducks and chickens in the East Palace every day and make the whole East Palace smell bad after you become the crown princess?”

Qiao Jinniang sighed heavily. “Smell bad? But you never complained about the smell when you ate it.” “I don’t want to think about next year right now. I can still marinate them myself this year anyway.”

Unable to persuade Qiao Jinniang, Lu Chen could only help her marinate the chickens and ducks together, which he was quite familiar with.

The twelfth lunar month was the busiest time for restaurants. They always had to work until late at night.

Marinating chickens and ducks was an important task.

Qiao Jinniang sighed and said, “Many of our neighbors in the South had been eating the preserved chickens and ducks I made for more than ten years. Now Myriad Taste has been closed in the South, they can’t eat them anymore.

“I want to make more, deliver them to the South and sell them in Myriad Taste in the South.”

Compared with Jewelry Pavilion, preserved chickens and ducks were indeed not that profitable.

But preserved chickens and ducks were Myriad Taste’s signature dishes.

Qiao Jinniang dared to say that the preserved chickens and ducks she made were the most delicious in the world.

When she was a child, she could eat two preserved duck legs every day.

Sometimes before dinner, she would cooperate with Nuomi to climb up to the stove, steal the preserved duck legs, and eat them.

After catching her, her adoptive parents would always scare her with sticks, but they would never actually beat her.

Now when she recalled it, she felt like it was a lifetime away.

Duke Anyuan heard that the Crown Prince came to the Qiao Mansion.

He hurriedly came to the Crown Prince with his colleagues, only to see the Crown Prince who was wearing a python robe had his cuffs rolled up and was brushing sauce on the plucked chickens with his daughter.

Seeing this, the officials rubbed their eyes in shock, unable to believe that this person was their Crown Prince.

After seeing them, Lu Chen wiped his hands with a handkerchief and said to Qiao Jinniang, “I have something to discuss with His Excellency, and I will come back to help you later.”

Qiao Jinniang hummed and continued to marinate the chickens and ducks.

Then she said to the officials, “Lords, if you want to have a taste, you can go to Tasty Pavilion. These are not done yet.”

The officials: “…”

They weren’t so gluttonous. They were just curious why the daughter of Duke Anyuan could skin a duck so neatly. They watched Qiao Jinniang run a stick straight through a duck, rubbing and dressing it as if not smelling the bad smell at all.

Why did Duke Anyuan allow his daughter to do this?!

Wasn’t he afraid that others would laugh at his daughter for doing this menial job?

Which noble lady in Chang’an would marinate ducks like this, and marinate a whole yard of them at that?!

Even Duke Anyuan’s study would smell like sauce. When they were talking about business, all they could smell was sauce.

This caused many of the officials to go straight to Tasty Pavilion as soon as they left the Duke Mansion. They couldn’t wait to taste the preserved ducks they smelled the whole afternoon.

Sadly, they were already sold out when they arrived, but they quickly rushed to Myriad Taste, and fortunately, there were still a few left. They ate the preserved ducks and drank yellow rice wine. The preserved duck flesh was red in color, aromatic, tender and juicy, and they couldn’t get enough of it. Even the duck bones were so delicious that they almost swallowed them.

In Myriad Taste, there were also uncooked preserved ducks for sale. The customers could bring them home and cook them themselves with the seasonings provided by the restaurant.

As preserved foods became popular in Chang’an, the Spring Festival was approaching, and Qiao Jinniang received more and more invitations.

Some invitations could be shied away, but some couldn’t.

With no choice, she had to tell the recipe to Huixiang and Bajiao and ask them to make the preserved ducks as Lu Chen suggested. After two days, when Qiao Jinniang found that they handled this job quite well, she was relieved.

The 60th birthday banquet of the Old Madam of the Duke Wu Mansion was a banquet she had to attend.

This was the birthday banquet of the Queen’s mother, so even the Emperor would go to the Duke Wu Mansion with the Queen to celebrate the Old Madam’s birthday.

There was no precedent for this. Although there were Queens who returned to her natal family to visit her family, it was very rare.

Most women who had married into the imperial palace were not allowed to leave the imperial palace except for major festivals or hunts.

This time, the Emperor insisted on taking the Queen to visit the Duke Wu Mansion, and many imperial censors submitted memorials, trying to stop the Emperor from doing this, but failed.

It had only been half a month since the Duke Wu Mansion received this news, but as one of the most powerful families, the people in the Duke Wu Mansion were quite calm.

Qiao Jinniang and Qiao Ruoyi followed Zheng Xiao on the carriage, and Qiao Ruoyi sighed. “His Majesty really dotes on Her Majesty. For over 20 years, His Majesty only loved Her Majesty. This time, he even ignored the opinions of those imperial censors and brought Her Majesty back to the Duke Wu Mansion.” “His Majesty has devoted his life to becoming a wise emperor, but I’m afraid what he did today will be recorded in history, and future generations might say His Majesty put a woman before his country.” Zheng Xiao glared at Qiao Ruoyi. “Don’t learn from your sister! How dare you say this?”

Qiao Jinniang said, “Isn’t it great that the Emperor and the Queen love each other?”

Zheng Xiao said, “Do you know why Duke Wu is a marshal, but military power is in your father’s hands?”

Qiao Jinniang could guess why. “If a Queen’s family is given too much power, it will threaten the Emperor, right?” “Yes, the more a queen is favored by an emperor, the more difficult it will be for her family, and the more they will be suppressed.”

Qiao Jinniang said, “Then if I marry into the East Palace, will it affect the career of Father and Brother?”

Zheng Xiao shook her head and said, “The difference between the Qiao family and their Zhou family is that the Qiao family was one of the founders of this dynasty. Almost all men of our family died on the battlefield and everyone knows how loyal the Qiao family is to the Emperor.

“When your father was young, he led the army to fight the barbarians back and his fame spread far and wide, so we are different from the Zhou family.”

Zheng Xiao continued, “The Zhou family got the nobility title of a duke because of the late emperor’s Imperial Concubine Zhou, Queen Zhou’s aunt, who was very favored by the late emperor.

“The late emperor conferred Imperial Concubine Zhou’s father the title of Duke Wu. Imperial Concubine Zhou then manipulated power for personal use and almost ruined the country. Only after His Majesty ascended the throne did he suppress Imperial Concubine Zhou.

“But under the protection of the powerful Zhou family, Imperial Concubine Zhou survived and died until she was terminally ill.

“After Imperial Concubine Zhou died, His Majesty suddenly wanted to make her niece the queen. At that time, many ministers desperately tried to stop His Majesty from doing it.

“Facing the rejection, the Queen’s brother decided to hand over the military power in his hands in exchange for his sister to become the queen.”