Chapter 43 – Give The Heart That You Had Given Me To Her And Let’S Part Ways (2)
Dong’s eldest daughter-in-law was surprised by this, so walked over and asked her, “Aunt Shen, what happy occasion is it for your family today, for you to be willing to spend a good deal of money on these expensive pastry?”
Old woman Meng replied, “As you know, only the nobles and rich families could afford to buy pastry from this shop, so how could I afford to buy it? However, the owner of this pastry shop is an honest man, the pastry are freshly made everyday and it’s never left overnight. Once 3-5pm passed, the surplus goods on that day would be sold for cheap, and there would be none leftover by the next day. It cost only one or two pieces of copper coin to a piece. My little grandson had been eating the pastry from this shop for several days. Today, I came here early to line up, so I can buy a few pieces for him. This way, it will satisfy his craving and prevent him from disturbing me all day.”
Dong’s eldest daughter-in-law thought to herself, since it was like this, then she should spend a few copper coins and have a taste. She also wanted to experience the pastry that only women of rich families could afford. So, she shamelessly cut the line and stood behind Madam Meng.
As soon as it passed 5pm, one of the shop assistants from the shop took out a large red sign with the word “special offer” on it. He put the sign in front of the shop and the people that were in line became excited.
Dong’s eldest daughter-in-law stretched her neck to look around, but she could only see the shop assistant. The shop assistant had an apron tied around his waist, his sleeves rolled back, and wearing a pair snow-white gloves on his hands. He was talking and laughing with the customers, and it seemed as if he didn’t care if the customers had only buy one to two pieces of bread or two to three slices of cake. They were all neatly wrapped with oil paper, then it would be stamped with the shop’s name “December Pastry Shop” in red and gold.
When Dong’s eldest daughter-in-law saw the bundles of pastry that people were holding as they left the shop, she became anxious. She tugged on Madam Meng’s sleeve and said, “Aunt, seeing that there aren’t many pieces of pastry left, please don’t just leave me with crumbs when it’s your turn.”
Madam Meng burst out laughing with her clamoring, “You should wait patiently, there will definitely be some left when it’s your turn.”
Not long after, two of the shop assistants brought a deep fryer outside, they also brought out a fat white coil of circular dough. They appeared to be deep frying the dough.
Madam Meng said, “Look at that, that is called deep fried bread. I have no idea where this originated from, but it is crunchy, fragrant, and soft. Even an old lady without teeth wouldn’t be able to resist herself from eating this. The inside of the dough is filled with salted vegetables, bamboo shoots, dried diced meat, and half an egg. The dough will be fried in the deep fryer until crispy. The fresh deep fried bread would be hot in your hands when you hold it, but the moment you take a bite of it, the flavor is delicious. Tsk tsk. It really makes people crave it.”
Dong’s eldest daughter-in-law swallowed her salvia and asked, “How much does a deep fried bread cost?”
“It cost five copper coins for a piece of deep fried bread. It is delicious and filling. They had specially made this a few days ago when they saw that many people were unable to buy the cheap pastry even after lining for a long time. They didn’t make this to earn money.”
Dong Family’s eldest daughter-in-law nodded her head in agreement and said, “The store owner is a really honest person.”
At this moment, Zhou Xiaoxiao was sitting in the attic, and was watching the lively scene from the small crack in the window above the pastry shop.
She looked at the scene for awhile before she turned around and said to the person in front of her, “Who told you to come here?”
A man who was neatly dressed in a shop assistant uniform stood in front of her.
The man cupped his hands in front of him and bent his back to greet her, then he smiled and responded, “Responding to young lady’s question, my name is Zhou Tong. I was Lord Wu’s companion since he was young. Lord Wu had asked me to deliver something to young lady.”
He held up a red sandalwood box that was decorated with gems and opened it. The box was filled with rare treasures.
Zhou Xiaoxiao recalled that when she had sneaked into Lin Bingren’s room, she had stolen many items from a similar box. At that time, she had coincidentally saved Yu Xingzhi.
On their journey, those items were either all pawned away or lost.
Did Yu Xingzhi asked someone to deliver this to her, was it to compensate her? As Zhou Xiaoxiao stared at the box full of treasures in front of her, she suddenly felt pain coming from her chest. It was like a hand had abruptly grabbed and twisted her heart, making her unable to breathe and unable to cry out in pain.
It turned out that I still care for him.
Comment