《The Aroma of Stir-Frying Drifted Behind the Dragon Throne》
Although the imperial procession had already gone far away, Dujiawa’s bustle still shot up with a loud whoosh like a stove fire splashed with scalding hot oil!
Overnight, this little village… so small that even a stray dog would hesitate for 3 seconds before passing through… suddenly transformed into an “Imperial Kitchen Branch.”
The villagers looked at Du Heng as if they had seen the Kitchen God descend to the mortal world… even the mutt from Lame Wang’s place at the village entrance, the one that bit anyone it saw, wagged its tail and sidled up to beg for food when it saw him!
“Young master Du is the reincarnation of the Wenqu Star, and Your Majesty personally granted him permission to build a Gezhi Institute, so our village is going to become a blessed feng shui land!”
Under the old locust tree, the village men bragged with spit flying, as if they had personally watched Du Heng drink and laugh with the emperor.
In truth, that day’s food was only cured meat stir-fried with shepherd’s purse with millet rice, but after it passed through their mouths, it turned into an “immortal elixir personally tasted by the Son of Heaven,” and people even secretly scraped away stove ash to use as protective talismans!
Du Heng squatted in the corner of the courtyard, drawing lines in the dirt as he calculated, and he paid those rumors no mind at all.
His fingertips traced a few lines across the mud, just like a strategist arranging troops on a battlefield: “The Imperial Kitchen’s cooks can’t even toss an iron wok, nobles think oil is only for lighting lamps, and common folk have to save copper coins for half a month just to buy meat… but…”
His eyes lit up. “They can taste the aroma first!”
The next day, “the Du family small stove” opened for business!
The sampler pack cost 5 cash per serving… a small half-bowl of bright green shepherd’s purse stir-fried with cured meat, paired with a fist-sized portion of millet rice.
The cured-meat gift box cost 10 cash… oil paper wrapped slices of meat as thin as cicada wings, tied with a red string like a bride’s veil.
Du Heng also put up a wooden sign with “Three Don’t Sell” written on it: no overnight dishes for sale (he would rather feed them to the chickens), no low-quality oil for sale (he would rather run out of stock), and no cheating children or elders for sale (no cheating children or elders).
The writing on the sign was neat yet stubborn, and beneath it he even drew a snarling little Stove God as a mascot for good luck.
On opening day, the villagers surrounded the stall three layers inside and three layers out, but nobody dared to be “the first to eat the crab.”
Not until that familiar “sizzle” suddenly burst out… hot oil roiled, minced garlic danced a golden dance in the wok, cured meat rendered out amber-colored glossy fat, and then the bright green shepherd’s purse was poured in, with the aroma surging toward the crowd as if it had grown wings.
“This smell!”
Uncle Wang, fresh back from the fields, sniffed hard, and a copper coin slapped onto the counter with a pop. “Give me a ‘Son of Heaven combo’!”
“5 cash to buy Imperial Kitchen food is more cost-effective than marrying a wife!”
Auntie Li squeezed forward. “Give my daughter-in-law a serving too, so she can bask in the Wenqu Star’s immortal aura!”
Before noon, 30 sampler packs and 20 cured-meat boxes sold out in a rush.
Du Heng’s little notebook filled up with feedback: “purslane is too bitter, change it to tofu salad,” “cured meat is too salty, use half a spoon less salt,” and “millet rice is too coarse, soak it longer before steaming”…
The handwriting was so tidy it looked like an accountant’s, and at the end he even drew a smiley face and wrote, “User experience first.”
Three days later, Du Heng’s “Small Stove 2.”0 edition” made a dazzling debut: he reduced the salt and added honey to the cured meat, giving it a lingering sweetness under the savory fragrance.
The stir-fries were divided into “mild” and “spicy,” with layers of flavor teased out using minced ginger and zhuyu.
The millet was soaked for a full stretch of time in advance, and the steamed grains came out distinct and separate, soft and sticky enough to cling to your teeth.
The newly made wooden menu board was even more eye-catching… “shepherd’s purse cured meat stir-fry (same as the Imperial Kitchen version),” “ginger-scented purslane (cooling and heat-clearing) (ginger-scented purslane (cooling and heat-clearing)),” and “bean sprouts dressed with vegetable oil (top pick for vegetarians) (bean sprouts dressed with vegetable oil (top pick for vegetarians)),” with handwriting that flowed like drifting clouds and running water.
The village schoolchildren squatted in front of the stall, using twigs to clumsily copy it on the ground, as if they had opened an open-air calligraphy class.
When business was booming, a vendor from the neighboring village came knocking: “Young master Du, I’ll wholesale 100 portions of cured meat from you and resell them in Chang’an, and I won’t even take a 1-cash markup from you!”
Du Heng smiled and shook his head, tapping the “Three Don’t Sell” on the wooden sign with his fingertip.
“Uncle Li, what you sell is cured meat, but what I sell is ‘the Du family flavor.’”
“If you swap in lard to save money and smash my signboard, then my stove will really turn into a ‘guillotine’!”
As he spoke, the sound of wheels came from the village entrance.
Du Heng looked up and saw a green-canopied carriage stop in front of the courtyard.
The curtain lifted, and a plainly dressed woman stepped down… her hair bun held only by a wooden hairpin, her skirt hem spotless… and she was none other than the Princess Changle in disguise.
The old servant accompanying her carried a bamboo basket, with fresh tea and candied fruits arranged neatly inside, and even the candy wrappers were folded into butterfly shapes.
“Du young master, have you been well since we last met?”
Her voice was like clear spring water striking stone, yet it made the iron ladle in Du Heng’s hand clang to the ground.
“This commoner did not know the princess had arrived…”
He hurriedly bowed, and he did not even bother to pat off the stove ash that got on his knees.
Princess Changle covered her lips and chuckled softly.
“After Father Emperor returned to the palace, he talked about you all day, especially that line of yours: ‘Offices can be changed, but craftsmanship must not be abandoned,’ and he even refused to wash the vegetable juice off his dragon robe’s cuffs.”
She strolled around to look things over: the vegetable beds followed the five crop rotation; the compost barrels were stacked into honeycomb shapes; and the oil-bottle labels were written more neatly than a minister’s memorial.
In the end she stopped in front of the stove and lightly touched the iron wok with her fingertips. “I heard you even split stir-frying into ‘science’ and ‘art’?”
Warmth surged in Du Heng’s chest, and he immediately rolled up his sleeves.
“If Your Highness doesn’t mind, would you like to taste today’s newly improved ‘Dragons and Phoenixes Bring Auspiciousness’?”… he had deliberately picked an auspicious name, but it was really shepherd’s purse stir-fried with cured meat.
The iron wok heated until it reddened, flaxseed oil went in, and minced garlic burst into fragrance in the heat waves.
Sliced cured meat as thin as cicada wings flipped and fluttered like golden butterflies, and in the end the emerald-tipped shepherd’s purse went in.
With a flick of his wrist, wok hei rose, and the aroma wrapped around the tip of the nose like tangible silk.
Even the stray cat peeking from outside the courtyard wall let out a “meow” and refused to leave, paws hooked into the cracks in the wall.
Princess Changle took a bite, and her eyes instantly lit up.
“This freshness… it’s popping outward from the heart of the greens!”
She caught sight of a small red-glossy clay jar by the stove corner and asked curiously, “What treasure is that?”
“‘princess chili sauce.’”
Du Heng scratched his head and smiled. “It’s made with ginger, garlic, and zhuyu, and I wanted to wait for you to come and name it…”
“Oh?”
The Princess Changle grew interested. “Bring it over for me to taste.”
“Your Highness, this chili sauce is really fierce…”
Du Heng had barely tried to stop her when she had already scooped a small spoonful and mixed it into the dish.
It tasted fresh and fragrant at first, but after 3 seconds the heat hit.
“Cough, cough!”
Princess Changle had tears swimming in her eyes and a rosy flush on her cheeks, yet she stubbornly swallowed it down. “Such a fierce temperament… just like you: you look gentle, but there’s fire hidden inside.”
Du Heng fumbled as he handed her water and picked mint, and his fingertips accidentally brushed the back of her hand, making both of them draw back as if scalded by the stove fire.
Princess Changle held a mint leaf in her mouth, her gaze rippling. “Du young master, I want to invest in your Xiaoyao Tower. I put up the capital, you put up the craft, and we split profits 30–70.”
“Your Highness, you are of a noble body…”
“Rules are made by people.”
She took out a sheet of paper from her sleeve, bearing Li Shimin’s vermilion endorsement: “Changle and Du Heng jointly operate Xiaoyao Tower, with a three-year tax exemption, and the Ministry of Works as a co-organizer.。”
The characters had strength that pierced through the paper, and at the end there was even a crooked little stove drawn… Zi’er must have secretly added it!
Du Heng dropped to both knees, his throat tight.
“This commoner swears by the stove fire that he will let the light of gewu illuminate the cooking smoke of every household in Great Tang!”
As the carriage departed, the Princess Changle lifted the curtain and looked back, softly saying to the old servant, “There is no lust for power in this man’s eyes, only the stars and the sea. If I could have him as my husband…”
Before she finished speaking, the tips of her ears had already taken on a rouge shade.
Du Heng stood in the courtyard and watched the sunset stretch the stove’s shadow long and thin.
He scooped a spoonful of chili sauce and used it to draw the “Xiaoyao Tower” blueprint on the dirt: the 1st floor would be a hall packed with diners, the 2nd floor would set up a “gewu corner,” a gewu corner, to display oil-pressing and composting, and the 3rd floor would open a “children’s learning section,” a children’s learning section, to teach kids how to distinguish the five grains.
Each dish would come with a small note… “This shepherd’s purse was grown with earthworm compost and contains 3 times the iron content”; and every month there would be a “stir-frying lecture hall,” a stir-frying lecture hall, where even the old minister from the Imperial Kitchen would have to come to listen!
The embers in the stove chamber had not yet gone out, and the fragrance hung in the air like mist.
Du Heng knew that this wisp of cooking smoke rising from the foot of Zhongnan Mountain would eventually become the warmest undertone of Great Tang’s prosperous age.
And his little stove was quietly stir-frying the future of an entire era.