The chance encounter in the palace ended on bad terms, but that didn’t stop Lin Fei from enjoying this bowl of pig’s trotter soup! The aroma of pepper was spicy and warming, and the more he ate, the more comfortable he felt! As for Du Lingmou… Lin Fei felt that with his stomach, he might be too angry to eat!

This suspicion was soon confirmed!

The next morning, upon returning from court, Zhao Mengzhuo summoned him without further ado and asked, “Did you offend Du Lingmou yesterday?”

Lin Fei, without even raising his eyelids, replied, “No!”

Looking at Lin Fei’s expression, which hadn’t even changed, and recalling Du Lingmou’s sullen expression at court, as if someone in his family had passed away, Zhao Mengzhuo replied, “…”

After a pause, he coughed softly, attempting to warn, “You must have inadvertently offended Lord Du. Did you know he repeatedly attacked me at court today?”

Zhao Mengzhuo and Du Lingmou, fellow examinees of the same year, had been longtime friends. He knew his friend’s character perfectly well, and he laid everything out in the open.

He must have been offended by him for no apparent reason! He hadn’t seen Old Du in recent times, and he was probably angry with him. Thinking about it, he realized that Lin Fei was probably the only one in the Dali Temple who could offend someone “without anyone noticing” and “quietly” and leave Old Du helpless.

Lin Fei didn’t even raise his eyelids at Zhao Mengzhuo’s words: “Lord Du has sensitive skin all over his body, and the slightest breeze would touch it. It has nothing to do with me!”

Zhao Mengzhuo: “…”

It was really helpless to deal with such an unyielding subordinate. Unable to get any information out of him, he had to give up!

But calling someone in just to question such a private matter made him seem a little too unkind as a superior! After a moment’s thought, he coughed lightly and inquired about the cases his subordinates were working on. “How’s the investigation into the recent kidnapping of that young lady going?”

Lin Fei nodded and said, “It’s going well! It’s probably the work of a criminal who disappeared a while ago. Because of his superb martial arts skills, his capture would be a real challenge. I’d like to ask Your Excellency to lend me some men.”

Lin Fei was the Shaoqing of the Dali Temple, and he could dispatch the officers within the yamen at will. The men he was talking about weren’t referring to those within the yamen; borrowing men from other yamen would naturally require Zhao Mengzhuo’s intervention.

Zhao Mengzhuo was somewhat surprised by this, but when he thought about Lin Fei’s mention of “the criminal’s superb martial arts skills,” he felt that there was some truth to it. After some thought, he said, “I have some connections with the people at the Wucheng Bingmasi. They haven’t been busy lately, so I could borrow one or two squads of soldiers!”

Lin Fei hummed and nodded, “Thank you, Your Excellency!”

This was exactly what he was asking for!

Breakfast had already ended, but Wen Mingtang, Ah Bing, Tangyuan, and a few other servants were still eating in the communal kitchen.

As cooks, they either started eating earlier or later than everyone else, always.

Today’s breakfast was shā guō sān xiān mǐ xiàn: a milky white broth with a hint of red oil floating on it. In the broth, white rice noodles, fresh green vegetables, a slightly browned fried egg, shredded pork, and a garnish of scallions were all piled in the clay pot.

At first glance, the filling was appetizing!

He slurped down the smooth rice noodles, absorbing the delicious and rich broth along with the slippery noodles. As he chewed the noodles, Ah Bing casually started a conversation: “Yesterday, I heard from the officers that Master Xun wouldn’t be coming for breakfast again. It turned out to be true!”

This morning, he hadn’t seen that startled Master Xun!

Upon hearing this, Tangyuan, sitting opposite him, rolled her eyes and said, “I heard he went to be Minister Huang’s son-in-law!” As she spoke, Tangyuan picked up the fried egg lying on the soup and, as if to vent her anger, took a big bite! The fried egg was broken, and the runny egg yolk gushed out, covering the tender white rice noodles nearby.

Lifting her chopsticks, she picked up the rice noodles covered in egg yolk and slurped them into her mouth. As she chewed, Tangyuan puffed out her cheeks and snorted coldly, “Men in this world are truly no good. That Xun Zhou was clamoring to avoid Minister Huang a while ago, and now he’s gone again.”

Seeing Xun Zhou so “going back on his word,” Tangyuan was very dissatisfied.

Everyone who was having breakfast understood what he said: not long ago, a neighboring widow kept borrowing things when Old Yuan was alone at home. Tangyuan thought the widow had bad intentions and asked her father, Old Yuan, to stop her from borrowing. In the end, Old Yuan agreed, but she still borrowed a broom! The little girl was so angry that she burned the broom in front of the neighbors!

Tangyuan’s burning of the broom completely calmed the widow down, and she went back to borrow things from other people, but she was still very dissatisfied with Old Yuan’s inconsistency.

Upon hearing this, Wen Mingtang was about to explain a few words on Xun Zhou’s behalf, but out of the corner of his eye, she caught sight of Ah Bing, whose face flashed with anxiety.

Ah Bing, who usually loved to tease Tang Yuan, coughed several times. When Tangyuan noticed him after hearing the coughs, he pursed his lips and pointed to her rice noodle soup.

What for? What was in her rice noodle soup? Tangyuan was confused. Ah Bing’s face flushed crimson, and he jumped anxiously at Tangyuan, who was usually clever and now had a stupid head.

Seeing the reactions of the two, everyone couldn’t help but want to laugh. After the stalemate lasted for quite a while, Tangyuan still didn’t react. It was Wen Mingtang who couldn’t stand it any longer; he pointed at her bowl of rice noodle soup and said, “Ah Bing is asking you to dig around and take a look!”

“Dig around? What’s there to dig around for?” Puzzled, Tangyuan put down the half-eaten fried egg, poked a few times in the broth with her chopsticks, and then let out an “Ahya!” as she lifted from beneath the heap of rice noodles, shredded pork, and other toppings a fried egg hidden at the bottom of the bowl.

Looking at the fried egg hidden at the bottom of the bowl in front of her, and then looking at A Bing’s rice noodles opposite without the fried egg, even the most stupid brain should understand by now! Tangyuan’s face “suddenly” turned red, and her usual cleverness disappeared. She just lowered his head and slurped the rice noodles. Ji Caimai, who came in from outside with wolfberry water, sighed at the right time when he saw this: “It seems that there are still good men in the world, right? Tangyuan? Ah Bing?”

Everyone laughed!

As they were laughing, Yu Jijiu came in from outside with a few Jiàoxué Bóshì. Seeing the crowd laughing, he casually asked, “What’s so funny?”

After listening to the earlier matter, he also shook his head and laughed a few times. With a sigh of emotion, he said, “Youthful friendship is the most precious and sincere.” Then he continued, “I came early to order some snacks. A few colleagues asked me to bring over some caramel milk tea, xiǎomǐ guōba, as well as lǔ yāhuò!”

So it was necessary to make an appointment in advance! No wonder they came so early! Ji Caimai suddenly realized, and just as Yu Jijiu finished telling him the number of orders, he was about to leave, but as if he suddenly remembered something, he hurriedly called Yu Jijiu: “By the way, Yu Jijiu, for which adults did you order snacks? When I met Lin Shaoqing outside just now, Lin Shaoqing said that in the future, when ordering snacks, we need to write down the diners’ names. After all, it is food that is eaten. If something goes wrong after eating, we can’t bear the consequences!”

(End of this chapter)

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Here is a similar recipe of the dish mentioned and the one below as well.

This video not only shows the recipe but also talks about the history of it