Wen Mingtang seemed to be unaware that the sauce in the house was stolen. She neither searched for it in a big way nor did she go around shouting about the thief.

Everything was as if nothing happened.

Master Wang, who stole the sauce and sold it to a restaurant in the city, studied the recipe and waited for a long time without any news. He couldn’t help but be surprised: Was this girl named Wen so easy to talk to?

Wen Mingtang, who was said to be “easy to talk to”, was preparing the evening meal with Ah Bing and Tangyuan.

It rained twice in Zhuangzi today and the roads were flooded, so there was no time to deliver the vegetables.

Seeing that Zhuangzi had not sent any food today, Master Sun, who was making lunch, immediately used all the leftover pork meat from yesterday for lunch without hesitation.

When it was Wen Mingtang’s turn to cook the evening meal, there was no meat dish to cook.

Ji Caimai, who had been dealing with Zhuangzi all day today, returned to Dali Temple after lunch. He saw that the stingy bastard Master Sun started to play tricks on everyone again while everyone was busy. He immediately called Master Sun out and scolded him.

Master Sun, who was reprimanded, obeyed in front of Ji Caimai. When he turned around and saw Wen Mingtang, he sneered and muttered in a voice that Wen Mingtang could hear, “”Wait and see!”

This “wait and see” meant that she had no meat to cook tonight.

Ah Bing and Tangyuan jumped up and down angrily and cursed Master Sun and his family several times in succession. However, no matter how much they cursed them, there was nothing they could do as the evening mealtime was approaching.

After scolding Master Sun together, the two of them looked at Wen Mingtang helplessly: “Master Wen, what should we do now?”

Wen Mingtang glanced at the basket full of eggs and said, “Nothing! Let’s just cook!”

It was still time to wash rice, cook, and prepare vegetables as usual.

Several vegetarian dishes were quickly washed and prepped. Wen Mingtan had Ah Bing and Tangyuan by her side, and she put the stir-fried vegetables into the wok. She taught the two of them to pay attention to the timing and essentials of stir-frying vegetarian dishes, emphasizing not to turn them into something unappetizing, unlike the unfortunate outcome when prepared by Masters Sun and Wang.

After the plain vegetables were stir-fried, Ah Bing and Tangyuan looked at the steaming vegetables on the countertop. Frankly speaking, Chef Wen’s culinary skills were excellent, and these vegetables were naturally well-cooked. They had a clear and refreshing appearance, and the vibrant green color made them look refreshing. However, consuming only vegetarian dishes seemed a bit too light. Moreover, the officials who had been busy all afternoon were already starving, and a dinner without any meat might not be satisfying enough.

Just as they were thinking this, they heard the sound of eggs being cracked nearby.

Turning around, they saw Wen Mingtang cracking an egg and separating the yolk from the egg white.

What was she doing this for? Ah Bing and Tangyuan looked over curiously.

Wen Mingtang called the two of them over to help and then prepared the sauce with ginger, vinegar, salt, and sugar.

Ah Bing and Tangyuan were watching while cracking eggs. Seeing this, Ah Bing couldn’t help but ask Wen Mingtang: “Master Wen, what are you doing?”

Wen Mingtang put the prepared sauce aside, raised her head, and smiled at him, saying, “I am making sài pángxiè!”¹

What? Sai… pángxiè? Ah Bing and Tangyuan looked at each other when they heard this, then looked down at the separated egg yolks and whites in their hands.

This…use eggs to make crabs?

Wen Mingtang didn’t say much, only measured the ingredients. After they separated the egg yolks from the whites, she poured the pre-mixed sauce over them. Then, in the hot pan, vegetable oil was poured, and once it heated up, the large bowl of egg whites was promptly poured into the pan. She quickly used a spatula to stir and disperse the whites. Once they took shape, the mixture was promptly removed from the pan.

The two of them looked at Wen Mingtang’s movements and couldn’t help but exclaim: “Master Wen made the fried egg whites so fast!”

Wen Mingtang didn’t say anything and added the egg yolks. The same method was used, but it was faster than frying the egg whites. After the egg yolks were poured in, she immediately raised the pot aside and used the remaining heat to break up the egg yolks and fry them into shapes.

After the pot is finally lifted, the egg whites are placed at the bottom and the egg yolks are placed on top. Plates of yellow and white egg yolks and egg whites are arranged on the countertop.

Just…that was it?

The two of them looked at the egg white and yolk. To be honest, if you hadn’t seen Master Wen make it with your own eyes, it did look very similar to the plump crab meat and crab roe during the Mid-Autumn Festival held in the seventh Lunar month.

But this taste…

Wen Mingtang handed a plate over and said, “Let’s eat the evening food first!”

…

…

After working hard all afternoon, it was finally time for dinner. The case of the puppet show had just concluded, and Master Zhao took the initiative to take away the summary part of the case file. Liu Yuan and others rarely had time to spare, so they took a few storybooks to pass the time.

Probably because they had read too many cases, they were no longer interested in romance books. Instead, they were most interested in fairy tales.

After watching stories about spirits harming people and Taoist priests catching monsters all afternoon, as soon as the bell rang for the evening meal, the two of them hurriedly threw down their storybooks and ran to the kitchen.

For lunch, Master Sun’s braised pork was so tough that a colleague spent the whole afternoon picking the meat stuck in their teeth. It was quite uncomfortable, so they were thinking about Chef Wen’s dinner!

When they arrived at the public kitchen, they took a quick glance and saw several fried vegetable dishes that they had seen before. There was nothing much to say. Master Wen’s craftsmanship was displayed here, so it would not be unpalatable, but the yellow and white ones…

Bai Zhu was surprised when he saw it: “It’s not even the seventh lunar month yet, Zhuangzi has sent crabs?”

Ah Bing, who had finished his dinner at the side, licked the vegetable juice at the corner of his mouth and opened his mouth. When he saw Tangyuan secretly waving his hand towards him, he immediately closed his mouth and said nothing, only focusing on serving food for everyone.

Ah Bing, who usually talked a lot and couldn’t help but talk, actually remained silent? Liu Yuan glanced at him, took the plate, walked to the nearest food table with Bai Zhu, and sat down.

The first chopstick naturally turned towards the plate of yellow and white crabs.

The crab roe and crab meat entered the mouth, and the fresh flavor of the crab meat dipped in sauce immediately spread from the tip of the tongue. The crab meat was slightly firmer than the crab roe, and the sauce brought out the freshness and tenderness of the crab meat. It truly resembled the taste of crab meat eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival in the seventh lunar month. The crab roe even released some oil, enhancing its soft and tender texture, giving a rich and delightful sensation of crab fat and yellow.

With a single bite, Liu Yuan couldn’t help but nod in approval, praising, “What a plump crab! I’m afraid it would be challenging to finish this large bowl with fewer than four or five of them. If everyone were to consume four or five, I doubt there would be enough crabs in the Zhuangzi!”

To be honest, this crab meat and crab roe was so real that it looked like the real thing! But after staying in Dali Temple for many years, everyone knew how many things there are in Zhuangzi. Even when crabs were on the market during the seventh lunar month, one person couldn’t get so many crabs, let alone such thick and creamy crabs.

Although you couldn’t really taste any difference in your mouth, it was for sure not a real crab. Everyone in Dali Temple still could infer this.

Ah Bing, who had been holding back his words for a long time, finally got permission from Tangyuan and spoke out: “The name of this dish is sài pángxiè, and Master Wen made it with eggs!”

(End of this chapter)

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Footnote

1. The dish, translated means Imitated crab.