After eating some jianbing guozi, the heavy dark clouds dispersed and the sky became brighter. Ah Bing was waiting in the corridor for Wen Mingtang who had returned from doing something good.

“Master Wen!” A Bing stepped forward happily when he saw Wen Mingtang and asked, “Have you sent that lady home?”

Wen Mingtang smiled at him and pointed to the hands of two guards behind her. She said: “I didn’t send her home, but brought her to Dali Temple.”

Ha? Abing was stunned when he heard this. He looked over at Wen Mingtang’s direction, only to see that the face of the person being held in the custody of the officer was covered in pepper powder, and she was struggling to close her eyes and purse her mouth. Hearing Wen Mingtang speak, she seemed to want to say something, but when she opened her mouth, she choked on the pepper powder and started to sneeze.

Tsk tsk! The feeling of choking on pepper powder was not pleasant! It was a bit unbearable, let alone this one.

Ah Bing looked at Jing’an sympathetically and felt a little sorry for the pepper powder on her face: “Wasn’t this pepper powder grounded and taken for Lao Yuan?”

Wen Mingtan nodded and chuckled, “I sprayed the pepper powder, so just grind a bit more.”

Ah Bing nodded, looked at Jing’an being escorted towards the prison by the guards, paused, and then remembered: “Master Wen, didn’t that woman hurt her legs and feet? Yes, why are you taking her to prison? Did she commit something?”

Looking at the way the woman moved, her legs and feet were very agile, not at all like she had been yelling about being injured before.

Wen Mingtang looked at Jing’an’s back as he was being escorted away, and said, “She is the painted-skinned monster.”

At the mention of the words “painted skin monster,” Ah Bing jumped in surprise. He instinctively glanced in Jing’an’s direction, only to see her being escorted away, leaving behind only her back and the shadow beneath her feet.

“This…is this the monster? How could…” Ah Bing murmured, his eyes full of confusion.

Why did monsters and monsters appear in broad daylight? They all appear at night in the storybook!

Also…she looked like a human being, not some monster who could paint his skin!

“It’s not the monsters that harm people, it’s her who was pretending to be a ghost and harming people.” Wen Mingtang said, touching the soft sword that was buckled back on her waist, and asked Ah Bing, “Are Lin Shaoqing and the others back?”

Ah Bing shook his head and said: “He didn’t come back, but he called Wu Baico from behind and also took a lot of stretchers. I heard that a lot of corpses were found.”

Wen Mingtang said “Oh” when she heard this, nodded, and said: “That’s OK.! Although they failed to catch the monster, they found some corpses, so the trip was not in vain.”

After that, she took A Bing to the public kitchen to grind pepper.

Because of this delay, Wen Mingtang and Ah Bing simply finished lunch and went to see Tangyuan.

After waiting for them all morning, Tangyuan hurriedly drank some porridge. Then there was a sudden rainstorm. It was like a night in broad daylight. With nothing to do, Tangyuan fell asleep. When she woke up from a nap, it was already dark outside. She sat up from the bed and stretched. When she was about to call someone, she heard a familiar voice outside.

“Uncle Yuan, this is freshly ground pepper powder from us. Tangyuan said you like it, so we brought some over.”

It was Master Wen’s voice! Tangyuan’s eyes lit up when she heard this, and then she heard her father’s laughing voice.

“Great! Great! It’s not anything valuable, but I’ll gladly accept it!” Old Yuan said with a smile, gesturing towards the house. “The little girl just took a nap, I can see the heat has faded away! Since Master Wen started working in the kitchen, she’s been eating and sleeping well, and her body has gotten stronger. I reckon she’ll be back to work in the kitchen tomorrow.”

Wen Mingtang couldn’t help laughing when she heard this, while Ah Bing on the side shook the food box in his hand happily and said: “I originally came here in the morning, but halfway through, we met the painted-skinned monster who treated Master Wen as a dumpling. She wanted to kill people and silence them…”

Lao Yuan, who was smiling at first, suddenly became serious when he heard this. He looked at Wen Mingtang up and down, and when he saw that there were no wounds on her body, he breathed a sigh of relief and asked “Did you get hurt anywhere?”

A Bing shook his head and said: “No one was hurt! Master Wen is amazing! She managed to capture that fake ghost and brought it back to the Dali Temple. That’s a person, a living person, not a monster!”

“Really?” Tangyuan sitting on the bed couldn’t help but ask immediately after hearing this.

Hearing the questioning coming from inside, Ah Bing raised his voice and said, “It’s a person! There’s a shadow, Tangyuan. Master Wen and I brought Shuang Pei Nai to eat with you. Can we come in?”

Shuang Pei Nai? Was this another new snack made by Master Wen? In the morning, she only ate some porridge and side dishes. She couldn’t sit still anymore when she heard this, and hurriedly said: “Come in quickly! I want to eat the Shuang Pei Nai made by Master Wen!”

“Just by looking at how eager she is to eat, you can tell she is quite cured!” Old Yuan shook his head, said a few words, then left. Wen Mingtan and Abing entered carrying Shuang Pei Nai.

Without any nonsense, he took the Shuang Pei Nai out of the food box.

Wen Mingtang made two portions, one was ordinary Shuang Pei Nai, and the other was sprinkled with red beans.

In the pure white porcelain bowl, the milky white Shuang Pei Nai was covered with a thick layer of milk skin. When you brought it to your face, you could smell the rich milky smell.

“It smells so good, it looks like egg custard,” Tangyuan said, eagerly picking up the spoon and scooping a spoonful on the ordinary bowl of Shuang Pei Nai.

After scooping it out with a spoon, she realized that the Shuang Pei Nai not only looked like egg custard on the outside but also had some similarities inside. The lumps of milk brought up by the spoonful were trembling on the spoon like tofu, carrying with them a rich milky smell that hit your face.

Naturally, milk-loving Tangyuan couldn’t resist such temptation and quickly spooned the Shuang Pei Nai into her mouth. Compared to ordinary milk, it seemed richer, and the sweet and mellow aroma of the milk was irresistible to those who loved milk.

Tangyuan finished the bowl of Shuang Pei Nai spoon by spoon, then quickly picked up the other bowl of Shuang Pei Nai with red beans. The red beans on top had been cooked to a soft and creamy texture, fragrant and sweet with the aroma of the beans mingling with the rich milk fragrance from below, creating an even richer taste experience.

“This is the first time I discovered that milk and red beans taste so delicious when mixed together.” Tangyuan was a foodie. Like most foodies, she had a clever mouth and learned how to mix food without a teacher, “When summer comes, just mix it up and eat it, add some ice, and make it into a crispy dessert, which will be so delicious!”

“You’re really someone who knows how to enjoy food!” Wen Mingtan chuckled at the comment. “Once you’re feeling better when summer comes, I’ll make red bean milk custard hills for you to enjoy!”

After finishing the Shuang Pei Nai, she started talking about the painted-skinned monster.

“That painted skin monster is a person, a fake nun who resides in the temple,” Wen Mingtan explained, still not fully aware of the specifics of the case but sharing what was known so far with Tangyuan. “Although she’s a person, from what she said and did, it seems her actions are similar to those of the painted skin monster, luring those flirtatious scholars back and killing them directly, just like the monster.”

Semi-grown children like Tangyuan were more afraid of monsters and demons, especially those who had grown up in the Dali Temple. They had seen criminals committing crimes and were not easily frightened by people.

Therefore, when Tangyuan heard that the murderer was a human being, she breathed a sigh of relief, but did not forget to ask Wen Mingtang curiously, “Why did she kill someone?”

(End of Chapter)

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