Palace Full of Delicacies Chapter 10   31 May 27, 2019

Now that the family feud's over, MC's entrepreneur dreams are getting closer to becoming reality, yus!

(friendly hint: An Hongyi's name, and his title, "Arch Prince Zhao", will be used very interchangeably. Heads-up for readers who get confused easily!)

C10. His Highness

The next day, Su Yu woke up because he'd been feeling too warm. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw the golden furball tightly curled around his neck, the long tail extending beneath his inner shirt. Maybe it had dreamed of something nice, for the tip of its furry tail was still swatting about.

"Good morning, Saucey." Su Yu pulled out the long tail, rubbing his chin against the furry little head.

An Hongche put out a paw to stop Su Yu's chin from moving about, giving a big yawn.

Today they wouldn't be setting up the stall, since Su Yu was planning to solve his funding issues. He lay in bed for a little longer, hugging the little furball.

"Ay, when will we be able to sleep in until the sun's high in the sky, that would be great."

Crouched at Su Yu's chest, the kitten scratched behind his ear with a hind paw. If you serve your emperor well, you can have anything you want.

Or so he said, but for the ever-busy Su Yu, sleeping in so late would mean he and the cat would go hungry. After fooling around for a bit, he got up, went to the kitchen, and made a small pot of seafood porridge with fresh shrimp, squid tentacles, and two small crabs. Pieces of pinkish shrimp and white crabmeat were interspersed between the rice, boiled till soft; with a sprinkling of chopped green onion and a drizzle of sesame oil, a fragrant smell wafted from the porridge at once.

After the man and kitten had their delicious meal, they were off to serious business.

Back then, it had been strange that Arch Prince Zhao left this jade tablet behind, but at this point, Su Yu didn't have any other ways. He could only brace himself and try to rope in An Hongyi as an investor, but he also had to make preparations before going.

During his previous life, when the restaurant was going to be expanded, Su Yu had gone with his boss to score investors. Back then, his boss had someone prepare an elaborate proposal and a table full of high-end seafood dishes personally prepared by Su Yu. To get someone to invest in his business, he had to show them something. Su Yu couldn't write a proposal, but he'd at least be able to write up a menu board.

Though Su Yu specialised in Sichuan cuisine, he wouldn't be able to cook those dishes without obtaining some chillies. Luckily, he had his family heirloom, the Su Family Recipe Book, and he had completely figured out the first few dishes in the book.

For example, the first three dishes in the Su Family Recipe Book were Silk-Covered White Jade Scallops, Taiji Yin-Yang Shrimp, and Scallop Tofu Custard[1]. The names seemed deep and meaningful, but really, they were just 'steamed scallops with glass noodles and chopped garlic", "prawns served two ways", and 'steamed tofu with dried scallops and shrimp". These dishes were all extremely easy for Su Yu to prepare, and all he needed was to have the ingredients on hand. He knew these few dishes, several types of fish soup, seafood porridge, and seafood noodles, and he could add in some grilled dishes if he had to. That would be enough to make a menu.

Just that…Su Yu scratched his head, looked at the kitten who was licking its paws after having its fill, and grimaced, "Saucey, can you write with a brush?"

An Hongche extended his claws, giving Su Yu a look of disdain. How can the emperor's treasured writing implements be used to write a menu, this foolish slave is becoming bolder.

The traditional-style characters he managed to write were too horrible to look at, so Su Yu tossed the brush and went out to prepare soy sauce. As a chef, he should probably just give up on writing and focus on cooking.

The An dynasty already had soy sauce, but there was little variety, unlike the various different types of soy sauce available in modern times. Soy sauce was important to many seafood dishes, especially in the simpler ones, where soy sauce was the soul of the dish.

The good thing about soy sauce in ancient times was that it had been made with all-natural ingredients, giving it a pure flavour that hadn't been affected by industrial processing. The bad thing was that its flavour was too simple, having only saltiness and the taste of fermented soy, and it lacked a savoury taste. The key to making it savoury was sugar.

Place a bowl of prawns into water and simmer until the resulting stock changed colour, remove the prawns, and add several large spoonfuls of soy sauce and white sugar. Originally, the making of this soy sauce required brown sugar, but the ancient style of soy sauce made with soybeans already had a dark colour, and adding brown sugar would give a poor appearance, so Su Yu chose white sugar. Soon after, a bottle of seafood soy sauce was now ready, and this would be his secret weapon.

The arch prince's manor was as lavish as ever. Arch Prince Zhao, An Hongyi, was the only brother born to the same mother as His Majesty, and thus was trusted deeply by His Majesty. Every day, dozens of people came here to get closer to him, but today there seemed to be more people at the gates than there normally were.

"His Highness has said he shall not be receiving guests." The guards shooed the crowds impatiently.

"This official has business with His Highness, would you please pass on the message to him," a person dressed in court official's robes said to the guards, looking distressed.

"Lord Zhang, you should stop wasting effort, His Highness won't let us go see him," sighed a white-bearded official. His Majesty hadn't held court for more than a month, worrying everyone in the imperial court. There were even rumours that His Majesty wouldn't live for much longer, and they were coming here to try their luck out of desperation.

A furry head poked out from the front of Su Yu's clothes, its amber eyes slightly narrowed. This bunch of morons, what use was there in coming to An Hongyi at this time? Being the one who was most likely to inherit the throne, Arch Prince Zhao would naturally avoid making risky moves during critical times like these. He pawed at Su Yu to urge him to hurry up and go in, lest he be infected by these people and become even more of a fool.

Su Yu pushed the kitten's head back resignedly. Seeing so many people being turned away, he was a little nervous as well. He repeatedly confirmed the words he had prepared, grasped the jade tablet firmly in his hand, and squeezed his way into the crowds.

"Who might you be?" The guards came up to stop him.

"I am Su Yu, an old friend of His Highness, and I carry a token of his. May this serve as a notice of arrival." Carrying his soy sauce behind his back with one hand, Su Yu lifted his chin slightly, showing them the green jade tablet in his other hand.

The guards' expressions became solemn when they saw the jade tablet. Raising their hands, they said to him, "You may enter, sir."

Everyone was astounded, turning to look at the plainly dressed Su Yu.

Su Yu hadn't expected the green jade tablet to be so useful. Under the stressful gazes of the crowds, he pretended to be calm and entered.

The place was full of gazebos and platforms and meandering streams; there was a sight to see with every five steps, a building with every ten steps. The arch prince's manor was elaborately and grandly decorated, showing just how much the emperor trusted and cared for this brother.

"I said I would not be receiving any guests." Arch Prince Zhao, clad in his sapphire-blue robes and seated in the gazebo, waved his hand impatiently.

"Your Highness, it is someone with a jade tablet," a guard reported in a low voice.

An Hongyi, who was eating small fish crackers, nearly choked. He looked towards Su Yu with wide eyes, studied him from head to toe, and spotted half a furry ear poking out at his chest. He immediately dismissed everyone from the place.

When everyone had left, the golden kitten leaped out of his clothes, jumping onto the stone table.

"Saucey, show some respect!" Su Yu got a shock, reaching out to catch him but failing.

"What did you call him?" Hearing the strange name, Arch Prince Zhao's eyeballs nearly popped out of his head as he pointed to the kitten on the table. "Hahahaha…aiyoo!" An Hongyi laughed so hard that the flabs on his face shook, but he had only laughed for a bit before he got scratched.

Seeing that the arch prince had been scratched, Su Yu was so terrified that he broke out in a cold sweat and immediately bowed, "My humble pet has been without manners, may Your Highness forgive him!"

An Hongyi was about to put on airs when he got a glare from the golden kitten. He quickly moved to pull Su Yu up.

"No matter, no matter, I already knew him to begin with, I…get uncomfortable if I don't get scratched by him for a day, hehehaha…"

The corner of Su Yu's mouth twitched. He finally understood why His Majesty trusted Arch Prince Zhao so much. With this unreliable, untrustworthy appearance, he definitely wouldn't plot to take over the throne.

"Ey, to tell you the truth, I have some relations with this cat. I gave you the jade tablet because of him, too," An Hongyi explained to Su Yu as he fed the kitten some of the fish crackers.

Su Yu frowned. "He…"

An Hongyi waved it off. "In future you will naturally find out more. First, would you tell me why you have come to see me?"

Arch Prince Zhao was about sixteen or seventeen, and he had two little dimples on his slightly chubby face. When he smiled, he looked humble and approachable; rather than an arch prince, he seemed more like the neighbours' son, and it was hard to develop a sense of reverence towards him.

After hearing Su Yu's ideas about the restaurant, An Hongyi didn't agree immediately. After a brief silence, he said, "There are countless seafood restaurants in the capital. It may be difficult to keep up the restaurant with the grilled squids alone."

Su Yu made no further attempt to explain, only requesting to borrow the kitchen.

"Ay, ay, don't bite…" As soon as Su Yu left, Arch Prince Zhao was bitten by the kitten on the table. He rubbed his ear ruefully. "You've been eating so well in your time with the descendant of the Su family, but I haven't had even a bite of it. If I am to provide funds, I should at least get something good in return."

An Hongche cast his useless younger brother a look. He really didn't want to admit that they were from the same mother.

ML shows lil' bro some 'love', and poor Hongyi's stuck keeping the big secret for his older bro. How peaceful. :3c

Another single-footnote chapter o/:

[1]: Su Family Recipe Book actually calls the dish a 豆腐羹. Now, from what I know, geng 羹 as a dish can refer to two things: a thick soup which gains its thickness from starch (this is the original meaning), or a steamed-egg-custard-type dish (this meaning doesn't seem to be common outside of China). Since MC describes the dish as 'steamed tofu', then it probably resembles a steamed egg custard, not a thick soup (since when are soups steamed?!).

Hm, there's only one footnote anyway so I'll share some more with you readers.

Why did I write 'tofu custard', well, my thought process was something like: it's like a steamed egg custard -> but it's tofu (from scratch??) instead of egg! -> so uh -> egg custard but tofu -> tofu…tofu custard? -> bah that sounds good I'm using it

(Also, I rewrote that single footnote 3 times and now I'm hungry. At 10:30pm. GDI)

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