After wolfing down an entire Cloud Flaky Bun, Yun Feng still felt like he hadn’t had enough. Unfortunately, he had duties to attend to and was forced to make his way back to his post.
That Little Lady Xue was truly a woman of rare talent and kind heart. Before he left, she not only refused to take his money for the bun but also thoughtfully filled a bamboo tube with perilla drink for him to cut through any greasiness on his journey.
With this in mind, Yun Feng clutched the bamboo tube, feeling increasingly ashamed of himself. He had actually used the excuse of “fainting from weakness” to garner a young lady’s pity—it was truly a lapse in the proper conduct of a gentleman!
He secretly resolved that he must go to Little Lady Xue’s stall earlier tomorrow and honestly spend his silver to buy food as a way to repay her kindness.
Yun Feng walked toward the Marquis’s Manor, his mind spinning as his feet kept moving. Halfway there, feeling a bit thirsty, he pulled out the wooden cork and tilted his head back to take a large gulp.
The cool perilla drink slid down his throat. Upon the first sip, the spicy aroma carried a slight bitterness that instantly washed away the residual greasiness from his teeth. Immediately following that, a hint of sweetness quietly emerged, mellow and rich, making one unable to resist savoring it carefully.
Yun Feng raised his eyebrows slightly, looking at the bamboo tube in his hand with considerable surprise, turning it over and over for a good while.
This drink was indeed as Little Lady Xue had claimed—made from her exclusive secret recipe. It actually possessed a few more layers of charm than the drinks sold in other tea houses.
Perilla is pungent and warm; it removes the gaminess of meat without making the mouth feel astringent. Instead, within that lingering sweet aftertaste, there was a perfectly balanced touch of sweetness. Truly wonderful!
In reality, Yun Feng did not know that Xue Li had simply added over forty percent fermented rice wine to the perilla drink. The aroma of the wine was slightly sweet, while the perilla was astringent and pungent; the two neutralized each other, making it somewhat similar to… fermented rice milk tea?
He smacked his lips with satisfaction. Just as he was about to praise it in his heart, he suddenly remembered that he had to continue tasting the “Living Lamb Prepared Three Ways” in the afternoon. An ominous premonition immediately welled up in his stomach.
He had better save this perilla drink. It might just be the “miracle medicine” that saves his life from that pile of gamy mutton!
When the magnificent lanterns first began to glow in Bianjing, it was the liveliest time of the day.
Under the night sky, the lights on both banks of the Zhou Bridge were woven together like silk. The waters of the Bian River reflected the swaying points of light; when a breeze blew, it looked as if the entire river was filled with floating, broken gold. Outside the Vermilion Bird Gate, the night market vendors had already begun to set up their bamboo sheds one after another. Tables and benches were stacked higher than a man. Cooking smoke and lantern shadows interlaced, and the air was thick with the aroma of oil and the charred sweetness of roasted chestnuts, making one’s mouth water just from the scent.
Xue Li hummed a cheerful little tune, skillfully pushing her cart through the crowded streets. She dodged vendors carrying shoulder poles and leisurely strolling diners, finally finding a vacant spot in the heart of the Zhou Bridge area and briskly setting up her stall.
There were many rules for setting up a stall in the Bianjing night market; a spot didn’t simply belong to whoever arrived first. Every official night market vendor had to register with the government and obtain a city residency license, managed uniformly by the Office of City Command. Mobile vendors without a license were easily driven away by the xiangbing—the street-patrolling city guards. If a stall owner joined a guild, they also had to pay a fixed “exemption fee” in lieu of labor service. If it happened to be the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth, these stall owners would inevitably have to add twenty wen for lantern oil so the runners of the Office of City Command could use it for lighting and maintenance.
Although Xue Li was a new face, she had inquired about the inner workings beforehand.
She did not belong to any guild, so she only needed to pay some land tax to the Office of City Command according to the size of her stall.
This current “feng shui treasure of a spot” had been traded for thirty wen from a patrolling guard; directly opposite was a bustling tavern. If she had chosen a peripheral location like a bridgehead or an alley entrance, she would only have needed to pay a symbolic “incense fee” of seven or eight wen.
But if she wanted her business to be booming, she ultimately had to settle in a place with a dense flow of people.
As the saying goes, “He who has money but doesn’t earn it is a fool.” The night market earned even more than the morning market—how could Xue Li let such a good opportunity pass?
Her neighbor, Sister Liu, who sold steamed buns, was a kind-hearted soul. Seeing that Xue Li was a stranger with a sweet and well-behaved appearance, Sister Liu spoke to her while setting up her own shop sign: “It’s near the end of the month now, and those people from the Office of City Command are like hawks to boost their performance records; their eyes are sharp! Just yesterday, they fined Wang the Pockmarked fifty wen in ‘redemption copper’ for a minor infraction. This is your first time setting up a stall here, so you must be careful.”
Fined?
Xue Li, the little money-grubber, pricked up her ears. She put down the rag she was using to wipe the tables and stools, moved closer to Sister Liu to help her prop up her sign, and asked with a beaming smile, “Sister, what exactly did that Wang the Pockmarked do to be fined fifty wen?”
“You’ve asked the right person!” Sister Liu clapped her hands together, lowered her voice, and pulled her close to explain in detail.
“Setting up a stall here isn’t a matter of just paying money and being at peace; the rules in the night market are very strict. We vendors must clean our own stalls. If you dirty the street and get caught red-handed by the Office of City Command, you’ll be fined fifty wen at best, or a hundred wen at worst. It all depends on who is unlucky!”
Xue Li’s heart tightened as she listened. She would have to pay extra attention to that tonight.
For tonight’s night market, what she intended to sell was fried food. Once things hit the pot, not only would oil splatters fly everywhere, but the customers would mostly use bamboo skewers to eat. If someone tossed one aside carelessly, she would lose a hundred wen for nothing.
After a bit of thought, she decided to prepare several more baskets for collecting bamboo skewers. She also needed to prepare some fine sand and plant ash so she could sprinkle them on any spilled oil at any time, lest it be difficult to clean up when closing the stall and she be caught in a mistake by the Office of City Command.
Sister Liu discussed many more things with her. After listening, she had only one feeling: there were many rules for setting up a stall in ancient times, and the fees were certainly not small!
That being said, it was undeniable that the Office of City Command actually kept the entire night market in perfect order. Fire patrols were meticulous, with a “corner guard house” every hundred paces; even the streetlights along the night market street were maintained by dedicated personnel from the “Streetlight Department.” It was precisely because of this orderly management that Bianjing could become a prosperous “city that never sleeps,” where the lights of ten thousand homes intertwined with the smoke and fire of the human world!
The cries of the surrounding vendors rose and fell, exceptionally lively.
Xue Li was unhurried, her eyes showing a hint of confident boldness. What she wanted to make tonight were two kinds of late-night snacks that were hard to resist, whether in ancient or modern times.
The first was fried bananas.
The people of the Song Dynasty called bananas “Ganjiao.” The peels were green, the fruit was small, the texture was firm, and the sweetness was not high; therefore, they were mostly used for decoration or medicine, and very few people ate them raw. But Xue Li took a different path—deep-frying was their best destination.
The banana’s texture was hard, but frying could force it to soften. When the hot oil churned, the scalding temperature could force the moisture out of the fruit in a very short time, causing the originally firm pectin to gradually soften and become dense and sweet. Meanwhile, the outer skin was encased by the high heat, fried until golden and crispy, forming a layer of crust that was brittle but not broken.
Not sweet enough? Well, one could always add sugar! In the Song Dynasty, items like stone honey and frost sugar were precious and rarely tasted by commoners, but maltose was something every household could afford.
She had already used glutinous rice flour and yeast to ferment a batter. Once it had puffed up to twice its size, she wrapped it around the bananas and put them in the pot to fry. In this way, the outer layer of the fried bananas was crisp and fragrant, while the inside was soft. After they came out of the pot, she would pour a thin layer of maltose syrup over them while they were hot. Once the temperature dropped slightly, the syrup would solidify into a layer of caramel crust. A light tap would produce a crisp cracking sound, and the sweet aroma was fragrant—truly killing two birds with one stone.
She had already finished the preparations at home; now she only had to wait for the oil temperature to rise before they could go into the pot.
The diameter of the iron pot was limited, so she simply fried five bananas first. Taking advantage of the gap while flipping them, she began to prepare the other snack: fried chicken skins!
Xue Li took out a long bamboo basket, inside of which were rows of blanched chicken skins neatly arranged on skewers. The pale gold chicken skins shimmered with a thin layer of oil under the light, as if predicting the crispy texture they would have after frying.
Thinking of the origin of these chicken skins, Xue Li felt she had truly picked up a bargain.
At noon today, after she closed her stall, she had originally gone to the Li family butcher shop to buy pork for the next day’s Cloud Flaky Buns. Unexpectedly, she happened to run into Butcher Li slaughtering four large, fat chickens.
Those chickens must have eaten very well during their lives; the skins were thick and oily. Butcher Li thought they were too fatty and intended to chop them up to feed the pigs, but she, with eyes glowing, stopped him immediately.
The best part of chicken skin lies in the crispy texture after frying. With a little processing, it can become an excellent late-night snack.
Unknowingly, the bananas in the pot had already been fried to a golden brown. Xue Li was quick and nimble, flipping them one by one. Once they held their shape, she turned around to beat eggs and mix flour, coating the chicken skin skewers with a thin layer of batter before gently shaking them to remove the excess. The batter had to be coated just right to lock in the chicken skin’s own fat and fry into a light, crispy texture.
She carefully placed the chicken skins into the oil pot to fry slowly over a gentle flame.
The oil bubbles churned, the heat steamed, and under the night sky, the aroma became increasingly rich and tempting.
“Little Lady, what is that ship-like thing you are frying in the oil pot?”
A crisp voice sounded from in front of the stall. Xue Li looked up and saw a young girl dressed in a light pink, narrow-sleeved short tunic standing at the stall inquiring.
“My Little Master smelled the sweet scent from afar and insisted on buying some to taste. The Madam was worried, so she sent me to ask what exactly this fried food is and if it is suitable for the Little Master to eat?” After the girl finished speaking, she looked back behind her.
Xue Li followed her gaze and saw a carved blackwood carriage parked not far away. The window curtain was halfway lifted, and a dignified woman sat inside. She wore a moon-white straight-collar shirt with light blue brocade embroidery on the edges. Her hair was tied in a bun with a jade hairpin shaped like bamboo, and the pearl pendants hanging from her earlobes swayed gently. She was looking toward the stall tenderly through the window.
This appearance, this manner, and this aura could only belong to the mistress of a high-ranking household.
Suddenly, a fair little hand poked out from a corner of the carriage window. Immediately after, a little face like polished jade squeezed out.
It was a little young master of about four or five years old. A gold-thread crown was tied over the small bun on his head, and his black-and-white eyes darted around, staring straight at the fried food in Xue Li’s pot with eyes full of curiosity.
Seeing this, Xue Li’s eyes curved slightly, and she said warmly to the maid, “This item is called a ‘Honey Banana Cup.’ It is made by wrapping bananas in glutinous flour and frying them over a gentle heat until golden brown. It is sweet and soft in the mouth, and children love it most.”
Upon hearing this, the maid appeared slightly surprised. “It’s actually a banana? I heard that this fruit only grows in the malarial lands of the south, and its nature is cold, astringent, and hard. How can it be made so sweet?”
Xue Li smiled without speaking. She nimbly fished out a caramel-colored Honey Banana Cup to drain the oil, sliced it into small pieces, poured a spoonful of bright syrup over it, and handed it to the maid. “Whether it is delicious or not, please let your Madam and Little Master have a taste to find out.”
The maid thanked her and quickly returned to the carriage to offer the sample of the Honey Banana Cup to the mistress and the little young master.
Xue Li watched the little young master in the corner of the carriage window. He first took a cautious bite. The next instant, that little face immediately burst into a sweet smile. He pulled on his mother’s sleeve and pleaded happily, his childish voice soft and sweet, making one’s heart melt just hearing it.