Be Modest,My Master of Imperial Guards

Chapter 31 Punished the Cooks

Seeing Xiao Xiaoshen staring at the sugar cake in the plate and keeping swallowing, Gu Yunxi smiled and patted him on the shoulder,

"Wash your hands there. I will give you one to eat first."

"What? Why do I need to my hands?" Xiao Xiaoshen was impatient, "My dear sister, I am just a rough man. Hungry to eat, tired to sleep. It's just a piece of cake. Give it to me now!"

He held her arm and fawned her by shaking her arm.

Gu Yunxi shook him off, lifted her ankle boots, and assumed the posture of kicking, "Go away! How can you be so unhygienic! You can wash your hands ten times when you plead me!"

Xiao Xiaoshen felt helpless. He had to go to the big bowl and ladle some water into the basin, washing his hands while murmuring.

Gu Yunxi stood behind him to supervise him. She felt him rather interesting. She then found a dish and a pair of bamboo chopsticks, picked up a piece of sticky rice and sugar cake into the dish, and gave it to Xiao Xiaoshen.

"Brother Xiaoshen, thank you for helping me the whole morning. Here's the first Double Ninth Cake for you!"

After entering the Eastern Depot, she had followed the Master for some days. Listening to how he said and did things, Gu Yunxi became more and more eloquent.

She had been asking him, the rank-fourth sword-bearing guard, to do things for the four hours. Now as she gave him a sticky rice cake in person, he didn't feel tired but turned a little embarrassed, even showing some resentment on his face,

"Sister Yunxi, why do you estrange me like this? You know how close our friendship is! I like doing you a favor!"

"Okay, you are the kindest!" Gu Yunxi coaxed him sweetly and laughed secretly in heart, "Just stop talking. Taste the cake made by me and see if it suits you!"

After saying that, she handed the plate with the sugar cake, together with the chopsticks to him.

"Ah! I am eating!"

Xiao Xiaoshen took them, picked the cake up and put it in his mouth.

"Hmm! Delicious! Really delicious..." Xiao Xiaoshen kept nodding his head while eating. He lingered in the aftertaste, "My dear sister, please give me one more cake!"

"Sure!"

Gu Yunxi answered quickly. She picked up another cake to him with chopsticks and put a sugar cake with Chinese rose patterns into the plate.

"Here you are! You can eat as many as you want!"

Xiao Xiaoshen ate up all the cakes in the plate with two or three mouthfuls. He patted his stomach and said in satisfaction,

"Aha! I'm really full now! Yunxi, your cooking skills are so good. If someone can marry you as his wife..."

He looked at her, giggling.

"Go away! No sooner had I fed you than you began to talk nonsense!"

Gu Yunxi glanced at him unhappily. She took up a plate, picked up three pieces of sugar cake and three pieces of flower cake, and took up a piece of water-soaked wet handkerchief.

"Brother Xiaoshen, please wait for me here. I will distribute the cakes to the captains after I come back. You can then take them to the squads."

"What are you going to do now?" Xiao Xiaoshen took a look at the plate in her hands, asking in confusion.

Gu Yunxi chuckled, shook her head towards the yard and said casually, "I'm going to meet the three cooks."

Gu Yunxi ran to the corridor in the yard directly. The three cooks were sitting in the corridor leisurely. They saw Gu Yunxi walking towards them with a plate at a brisk pace. There was a handkerchief on her bare forearm, with sleeves rolled up.

"Three seniors, I have just finished making the Double Ninth Cake. Now they are cooled rightly. So I bring them to you to taste. Hope you can give me some suggestions for improvement."

Walking to the three cooks, Gu Yunxi held the plate respectfully, showing the things inside.

The three cooks looked at one another, and finally looked at the plate without touching the cakes.

"Seniors, I don't often cook these things. Today is the Double Ninth Festival, and I made some Double Ninth Cakes to honor you elders. This is a little token of my affection."

Gu Yunxi kept smiling. Her smile was like the spring wind in March, making others feel unspeakably comfortable. Her eyes were blinking brightly, sending out rays of sheen.

At this time, Cook An couldn't help but step forward, and he took the handkerchief from Gu Yunxi's arm, wiped his hands, and picked up a piece of sugar cake.

To be honest, when the cake just came out of the pot, the aroma of the fruit and rice had spread to the yard. Cook An had already wanted to have a taste at that time.

Years of experience of making cakes told him that if one had steamed out such an attractive aroma, the man's cooking skills would have deserved to be called excellent!

His inner feelings were rather rich, but he only showed a careless expression on his face.

Biting half of the sugar cake, Cook An felt shocked.

When his teeth cut off the glutinous rice layer, the feeling was wonderful. The sugar cake was soft, elastic and sweet, but not greasy. After he swallowed up all the sugar cake, the unique sweet aroma still remained at the tip of the tongue and teeth.

The contempt on Cook An's face utterly disappeared. Instead, shock and surprise emerged on his face.

He surveyed Gu Yunxi, who was just fifteen years old, in doubt. He couldn't believe such a little kid was so talented and skillful.

His strange expression caught the attention of the other two cooks. Both of them picked up a piece of flower cake and a piece of sugar cake and began to taste them. Then they showed the same facial expressions of shock as Cook An did. They all felt unbelievable.

Gu Yunxi looked at their incredible expressions and asked with a slight smile,

"If you feel anything wrong about the cake, please do not hesitate to give me some advice, masters. I will bear all of your suggestions in mind and try again when I have the opportunity."

"Eh...You are too modest."

Cook An then tasted a piece of rose cake with pink and sweet color, completely convinced at this time. With more than a decade of experience in pastry making, he can tell 90% of the cake's ingredients, procedures and the degree of heating just from a few bites.

In the past, the fillings of Double Ninth Cakes were made of red bean paste, mung bean paste or pea paste, but Yun Guaner came up with some new ideas. She chose some sweet-scented Osmanthus paste and mixed it with a small amount of honey and dried fruit powder. In this way, she perfectly blended the sweet taste of honey and flower paste with the mellowness of fruit paste.

Her unquestionable skills of kneading dough could be perceived just by having a look at the color of the flower cake.

Traditional Double Ninth Cakes belonged to a kind of dough with fillings made from glutinous rice flour. They needed steaming in food steamers.

Cook An deliberately boiled the small amount of glutinous rice flour with boiling water to trouble her so that she couldn't succeed in making cakes. Unexpectedly, she used local materials. The flower cakes, made of cooked bean flour instead of glutinous rice flour, were beautiful in appearance. Moreover, she saved the complex procedure of steaming them in food steamers.

At such a young age, she was not only skillful but also innovative. How rare she was!

In the face of Gu Yunxi's modest words, Cook An waved his hands to her hastily,

"Yun Guaner. Don't be so humble. If you say something more like this, we three will feel embarrassed."

As you withdrew, it was time for me to step forward.

Gu Yunxi smiled, talking effusively,

"Uncle An, I sincerely want to ask you three for advice. In terms of seniority, you are all my elders, and you are the chefs who have been formally taught by professional teachers. In the Eastern Depot, my main task is to serve the Master. Cooking is just my hobby. I just cook to kill my leisure time, never thinking of making a living by it, to say nothing of relying on it for tufthunting and belittling the inferiors, or even taking the bread out of other people's mouths."

Gu Yunxi paused on purpose, looked away a little, and secretly caught sight of the gloomy look on their faces. She only felt extremely ridiculous.

Then she continued to speak like a cork,

"I don't take the Southern Residence as my home, so there is something I shouldn't ask. But this morning I found a basin of glutinous rice flour unable to use. I had to pour it out. So sorry for that. That basin of flour was at least 1.5 kilograms. If in famine years, 1.5 kilograms of rice flour could provide over ten people with food for a whole day!"

Her tone gradually turned incisive. The light in her eyes mercilessly projected onto the three cooks, making them unable to hide.

"Well, buddy, please, let's talk kindly, kindly..."

The imposing manner of Cook An diminished greatly. He looked like a frosted eggplant, bowing to Gu Yunxi on and on. The other two cooks beside him also made a bow to her with hands folded in front.

"I am old and muddled. I had intended to help you knead dough this morning, but I was too hurry-scurry that I put the boiling water on the fire into the basin. If you hadn't mentioned that, I almost couldn't recall it..."

Cook An smiled embarrassedly. He made an excuse for his base behavior under the penetrating light in Gu Yunxi's eyes.

"You can be regarded as one of those chefs taught by famous masters. Anyhow, you should cherish grain more than me, a nobody. Understanding the preciousness of ingredients is the essence of making food, isn't it?" Gu Yunxi finshed her words, and then staring at him with sharp eyes.

"Yes. You are right..." Cook An consented, bowing his back and wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. At this point, he really admitted defeat.

"I am sure you have made an honest mistake, but my Master, though he is the seal keeper of Imperial Ceremony Office in the Palace and does not like extravagance and waste in daily life. If he knows that someone in his yard breaks his regulations, I don't believe the punishment will be light..."

"We know it! Buddy, don't, don't..."

The three cooks were in a panic. They hastily folded their hands to apologize.

Gu Yunxi smiled. Her sharp eyes skimmed lightly over their funny faces like dragonflies touching upon the water.

"Good! It's all right this time..."

Hearing this, the cooks sighed with relief.

"But..."

Gu Yunxi proudly raised her head and cracked a cunning smile.

But?

The three cooks, who had just relaxed down, began to be anxious again at this moment. They all looked at Gu Yunxi, putting on a helpless face.

"But when I am free, each of you must teach me to cook a dish!"

The cooks were surprised. Then they nodded their heads,

"Okay! Okay! We will try our best to teach you!"

"Okay! Okay! As long as we know, we will teach you whatever you want to learn, buddy!"

All three cooks were deferential at the moment.

They originally thought Yun Guaner looked short, weak and submissive, but they hadn't expected his inner calculation. Within one hour, smiling and talking, she managed to bring the three of them, who were accustomed to entrapping others, into the pitfalls she had set, with only one plate of sugar cake.

Don't judge a book by its cover! From now on, they could never put him off.

"Deal! Please enjoy the flower cakes, seniors. I am leaving to do other things!"

Gu Yunxi smiled lightly, put the plate on the corridor, and turned back to the kitchen.

She kept smiling all the time, neither servile nor supercilious. Her tone was rather moderate, and she softened or strengthened it when needed.

Xiao Xiaoshen sat in the kitchen, laughing his head off.

"Oh my sister, I had an eye-opener today. You do live up to Master's expectations as he has personally taught you for more than two months. Now you are really articulate, speaking gently yet incisively."

"I just can't think of other ideas. As you saw, when we came in this morning, there was nothing we could do with only a cold stove. Thank you for your help. If you hadn't been here, we would have been laughed at by those three for being unable to make good food! Thank you, brother Xiaoshen. You are so nice!"

Her heartfelt praise and sweet smile made Xiao Xiaoshen suddenly spiritually distracted. He was emboldened to get close to her ear and whispered,

"Tomorrow, after I respond to Master Cheng, I will take you home to be my wife. How about that?"

Gu Yunxi was putting the flower cake decorated with Osmanthus into the plate. Hearing what he said, she blushed immediately. She threw the chopsticks and said to him,

"Who wants to marry you! Take your snacks. Go away quickly."

Gu Yunxi emphatically gave to Xiao Xiaoshen the large rectangle plate, where two rows of flower cake and sugar cake were put, and asked him to leave at once.

"Hey! Why don't you marry as you are old enough? You want to live and freeload in the Eastern Depot all your life?"

Xiao Xiaoshen held the plate and stood still, teasing her deliberately.

"The East Depot doesn't belong to you. You don't need to care whom I rely on. Anyway, I won't count on you! Go away."

Turning to the back of Xiao Xiaoshen, Gu Yunxi pushed him out of the kitchen with her hands.

"Wait! I want the sugar cake with Osmanthus!"

Xiao Xiaoshen pointed to the three pieces of sugar cake decorated with Osmanthus, which were put in a round dish with cracked-ice and lotus patterns separately.

"Those three pieces are not for you!"

"You are partial! You think I don't know who those are for?"

His words made Gu Yunxi more embarrassed. After pushing mouthy Xiao Xiaoshen out of the kitchen directly, she kicked on his buttocks, pouting and uttering two words,

"Go away!"