Chapter 104: High Spirited
Author: White Pear Flower
Raws: https://book.qidian.com/info/2386994/
Translated by Gumihou
Proofread by Pill Bug
Gumihou: This chapter may also be known as the ‘F*ck Accuracy’ chapter. It started with over 400 words of careful butt polishing from AR Qiuning. Lovely.
[1] Now that this man had suddenly decided that she was the best venting ground for his deepest darkest secrets, Fu Qiuning found herself having to do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting and doing her best to reassure him, even though there was really nothing she could do about his situation. Moreover, she had to soothe him over a situation of his own making. Who asked him to be so competent before the emperor? [1a] He talked big about wanting to retreat from the limelight, but when he found out about my opera skills, who was it that was so eager to go back on his word and all but forced me to perform in public?
[1] Whatever, perhaps she could make use of this sudden clinginess and win some goodwill points and have some kind of emotional hold, tenacious though it was, over this flighty man. Also, who is to say this sudden bout of vulnerability was not manufactured?
Thus, after some thought, she slowly opened her mouth and said, “Should the emperor truly care for His Highness Prince Rong, he should also know about your ability after so many years of service to the throne. The emperor of all people should understand your worth. If you have not given His Majesty reason to believe that you plotted to usurp the throne, he should not have any reason to do anything to you.
All these years, Prince Rong had abstained from both civil and military affairs, with very few supporters. Lord Husband could be said to be Prince Rong’s most powerful supporter. When the time comes, perhaps this dynasty would need Lord Husband to provide some checks and balances. Certainly, it is possible that His Majesty’s blessings and attention for Lord Husband may indeed be a way to pave Prince Rong’s future to the throne.
Even, so. His Majesty has always discouraged ministers from forming factions for personal gain, therefore, why the excessive support? If His Majesty truly cares for Prince Rong, His Majesty would maintain a split court, with no obvious factions. Instead, he had shown Lord Husband great favour, thereby granting Lord Husband weapons to suppress forces that opposed Prince Rong’s ascension to the throne.
On the surface, he suppressed the prince because he did not wish to appear to openly favour him. However, he has instead tempered Lord Husband to be the sword for Prince Rong. It is likely that this is His Majesty’s secret plan. He has spent much time and effort tempering this sword, and so long as Lord Husband is loyal to Prince Rong, there is no reason for His Majesty to easily break the sword that he been tempering for so long.”
When she first started speaking, Jin Fengju had been smiling at her. However, the longer her monologue went on, the more serious his face became. In the end, he jumped off the kang and began pacing back and forth. When Fu Qiuning was done speaking, his brows were also tightly knitted together.
After a while, it loosened again and the expression on his face relaxed. Under the warm firelight, a smile spread slowly across his face.
Fu Qiuning [2] blinked. Really, the man was just too pretty for his own good. It would be hilarious if the reason behind the emperor’s favour was because he wanted this beauty in his own harem, thought Fu Qiuning.
“Qiuning, you really are my lucky star.”
[2a] While she was busy looking down on this male beauty, Jin Fengju suddenly rushed over and grabbed her hand. He looked very moved as he said, “In the past, I did hear that you are a talented lady. I shall not hide the truth but confess and say that I believed those talents to be average, but after hearing you now, I finally understand just how much I have underestimated you. I really, really, did not know how I had overlooked such precious gold and jade under my eyes.”
[3] “… …” what is this weird exaggeration? Do you really want to get into my pants so badly? She coughed and said, “Lord Husband, please understand that it is all pure speculation on this humble woman’s part… there is no way for this humble woman to truly speak of the matters of court, as this woman is unable to understand the very complicated political infighting…” [3a]
In response, Jin Fengju held her hands even closer and declared, “Indeed, your words are very shallow and your conjecture childish. However, that is only because your understanding of the political situation is too inferior. Even so, your words are like Buddha’s perfect enlightenment to me. I can now understand many things which were once dark to me. The deepest fears in my heart have been banished and I feel like I can now speak and behave more freely from now on.
Qiuning, ah, Qiuning, because of your words, I finally understand that the Jin Fengju of the past was undeserving of his claims as a talented scholar. However, I have now shed my bones and am now reborn! Perhaps, I could even dare to claim myself as a true scholar!”
Enlightenment? Reborn? [b] What the f*ck are you talking about now? Is this some kind of new performance? Also, don’t think I did not notice the ‘words are very shallow’ or the ‘childish conjecture’. [c]
“Don’t look at me like that. These things are too complicated. I also fear scaring you. I just wish to tell you one thing, I used to be confused in the past, but fortunately, you have broken through my confusion and allowed me to see farther…” Jin Fengju looked fondly at Fu Qiuning and could not resist pinching her face.
After pinching it, he laughed cheerfully and said, “I’m starving, why are Feng’er and Jiao’er taking so long in the kitchen? Do they intend to starve their father to death?”
[4] Fu Qiuning clenched her hands under her sleeves, resisting the urge to rub her cheeks. Starving? Starve to death? Does this man even understand what it meant to not know where his next meal would come from? She had to look away and not say anything to spoil this entitled man’s high spirits.
[4] Seriously, him being so high-spirited was advantageous for her continued well-being. She just had to keep reminding herself of that.
“Since Lord Husband is here, shall we have hotpot? I shall go to the kitchen to see if we have enough ingredients.”
“A hotpot? That’s good too, I have had hotpot at Brother-in-law’s place, but haven’t had any yet at the marquisate since winter arrived.” He paused, the smile on Fu Qiuning’s lips looked a little odd [4a]. However, before he could ask her about it, she had already left.
In the kitchen, she found that in addition to her maids, there was also Jin Ming. This fellow must have rushed over here to grab something to eat when Jin Fengju made it clear that he wanted to speak with her. Indeed, there were crumbs around this fellow’s mouth.
Aunt Yu and Yu Jie immediately stood up when they saw Fu Qiuning, “Everything is ready. Shall we bring it over now? Jin Ming did say that the Lord wishes to speak with Madam and we dare not disturb. We could only wait here.”
“It’s fine, bring it in. Lord Husband is ‘starving’,” said Fu Qiuning with [4a] a forced smile.
Thus, the servants carried in hotpot, as well as plate after plate of vegetables, vermicelli, meat slices, [5] cold jellied soybeans, sweet potato slices as well as other miscellaneous ingredients.
“Hm? Aren’t we eating hotpot? Where are the pickled vegetables?”
When Jin Fengju came in, he immediately noticed the lush greens on the tables and no pickled vegetables. Even more surprised, he said, “Have you been saving the fresh vegetables allocated to you? But, why do they look so fresh? I had some at Clear Soft Pavilion last time, but even so, those were a little shrivelled. Yi? They looked like they have been freshly picked.”
“They were freshly picked. Night Breeze Pavilion has a large garden and a hothouse that must have been used to grow exotic flowers once. I have since used it to grow vegetables. It has been very useful to us,” said Fu Qiuning with a smile as she beckoned the twins to come up on the kang. She also had the maids place two stoves near the low table, “Zhuan’er and Lu Hua are still young, be careful not to catch a chill.”
“There is heating under this floor, so it is not cold at all,” said Aunt Yu with a smile. When she noticed Jin Fengju studying the plates of vegetables and sauces on the table, she smiled and said, “I’m afraid My Lord shall experience something new today. To be honest, if Madam had not taught us this way of eating hotpot, we would still be ignorant about it.”
Jin Fengju nodded and smiled, “Indeed, I perceive that this hotpot is a little unusual, how should we eat this?”
As he spoke Yu Jie came forward to add charcoal to the brazier. There were dried dates, wolfberry and dried longan berry flesh floating in the broth. Those were all medicinal supplements and it was unheard of to have them in hotpots. Therefore, he could not help but become even more interested.
A short while later, a distinct aroma reached his nose and he could see that the water within the pot was bubbling. Fu Qiuning said, “The base for this hotpot is soup stock with water and various herbs. We can place the ingredients in now.”
At that, Jin Changfeng and Jin Changjiao picked up some vegetables with their chopsticks and placed them in the pot. As they added the ingredients, they did not forget to solemnly instruct their father, “Father, [a] we only place the meat inside once the vegetables are done cooking. The meat is very thinly sliced, if we put it in too early, it will harden and not be tasty anymore.”
“Does your father needs you to instruct him? Who knows how many many swish pots [b] your father has eaten. He must understand this more than anyone else.” Fu Qiuning scolded with a laugh.
[b] “Swish pots?” Jin Fengjiu looked at the hotpot in amusement. “Is this somehow different from other types of hotpot?”
[b] “Ah, ah! We call them swish pots because…” Fu Qiuning blinked, silently cursing this man in her mind. She had slipped up and called it a ‘swish pot’ instead of hotpot! She can’t say that this was a Japanese-inspired food right? Who knows what this Great Ning’s relationship with the Japanese was like there? Were they still calling them pirates or worse? “Ahem, see, the meat is so finely that there’s no need to leave them in the pot to cook. All we have to do is ‘swish’ the meat in the hot broth a few times and it can be eaten.”
[c] “Oh? These meats are indeed very finely sliced…”
[c] “Yes, meat cooks faster this way,” she reiterated.
[c] Neither of them touched on the fact that this place had once been so poor that meat was probably something they rarely tasted.
“Lord Husband, try eating the meat and vegetables with this sauce, it is a special dipping sauce we like to use with this kind of… [b] hotpot, see if it is to Lord Husband’s taste.”
“This is certainly a very unique way of eating a… [b] swish pot?” said Jin Fengju. He picked up the little plate of sauce and took a sniff, “This smells different too, what is it made of?”
[c] Since nobody brought up the real reason behind the very finely sliced meat, Fu Qiuning followed Jin Fengju’s lead and focussed on the sauce instead. “Why don’t you give it a try first? See if you can figure it out?” Fu Qiuning fished out the vegetables from the hotpot and placed them in the children’s little bowls. “Try not to dip too much at once, it’s a little salty.” With that, she also placed some vegetables into Jin Fengju’s bowl.
“The colour is such a crisp green. To think that I would be able to eat a meal made up of vegetables in winter, moreover, such fresh and green vegetables too.” Jin Fengju smeared some sauce on the vegetable and placed it carefully into his mouth. After chewing over the flavour for a moment, his eyes lit up and he said admiringly, “Delicious. The flavour of the vegetables came from the broth, right? The most wonderful thing about this dish is how the sauce elevates the taste of the vegetables. Fresh and elegant, tasty and unique.”
Fu Qiuning nearly snorted with laughter [d]. She thought: back in modern times, this was an ordinary household dish. To think that it would be considered a high-class and elegant dish once it is reproduced in ancient times, to the point that it garners so much praise.
While she was thinking thus, she picked out two more chopsticks’ worth of vegetables into Jin Fengju’s bowl. Then, she picked up a few pieces of meat and let them swirl around in the broth before giving it to him. She smiled, “These are very excellent, without Aunt Yu’s knife skills, it would be difficult to have such fine thin meats [e]. Since it is winter, it is much easier to slice a block of half-frozen meat into such nicely proportion cuts. Fresh meat can’t be sliced as thin.”
In fact, Aunt Yu’s skill naturally couldn’t be compared to meat-slicing machines. Still, since they were in ancient times, there is no need to be so exact. It was good enough that they could achieve such thin meats. Neither Fu Qiuning nor Yu Jie could even achieve that much.
Jin Fengju liked eating meat. It was likely that there was no man in the world who disliked meat. While he had tried all kinds of hotpot before, this was his first time trying a [a] ‘swish pot’. However, he never had this kind of sauce before. After trying it, praises never stopped dropping from his lips.
Fu Qiuning thought about the origin of mutton swish pots. According to historical reports, this kind of eating method was invented by Genghis Khan while on the march. [f] Just… was the sauce not invented at the same time?
As far as she knew, she had not transmigrated into her own world’s past. Even so, there were some poems in this world that also existed in her own world. She could only conclude that in this world, it was possible that no one thought to combine sesame seed paste with [g] hoisin sauce and garlic chives. Otherwise, why would this cheap and delicious sauce not become popular?
Gumihou: The words ‘shabu-shabu’ aka ‘swish pot’ and ‘hotpot’ had been used fairly interchangeably, but I think the author does not understand the fundamental difference between these two types of hotpot. Also, shabu-shabu doesn’t exist back then and FQN just suddenly use the word and JFJ doesn’t blink an eye at the change and everyone started yapping about this yummy sauce when shabu-shabu’s key feature is finely sliced meat.
Whatever, I don’t know anymore. This chapter exists only to sell ‘meng’, f*ck accuracy.
[a] Way of eating shabu-shabu confirmed in https://www.wandercooks.com/shabu-shabu/
However, this way of eating hotpot is distinctively Japanese with its love for finely sliced meats and only started in the 1950s. It’s hilarious to me that this sentence exists.
‘Jin Fengju had had plenty of swish pots before’
Like dude, timeline. 900 AD (mutton hotpot) > other kinds of hotpot > 1950 (Shabu-shabu)
[b] Might as well poke fun at the interchangeable ‘swish pot’ and ‘hotpot’ that the author is using.
[c] Might as well create a reason as to why the meat is sooo finely sliced aside from ‘freshness’. How about ‘lack of resource’? It makes JFJ look bad? Perfect.
[d] Gumi actually snorted out loud, but not for the reasons given by Fu Qiuning. Both of them are so pretentious, one (FQN) assuming that swish pot is a Chinese invention while the other is praising an ordinary dish to high heavens because it was made by his crush. Really, in a way, these two deserves each other.
Especially considering that hotpot is created around the 900 AD and the emperor is reported to have fancy hotpot dishes all the time. Both of them are so uncultured.
Tch.
[e] Fine thin meat? Knife skills? I’m sorry? Are you looking down on ancient time chef’s knife skills? Skills that could finely slice a block of soft tofu into a flower?
Uncouth! Uncultured! Ignorant!
[f] Why did they not invent the sauce at the same time?
Because references of tahini (sesame seed paste), could only be found as far back as 13th century. Nearly 400 years after Genghis Khan’s march. As for why it became part of the Shabu-shabu culture, in 1940s, Tahini appeared in the United States in health food stores. 1950s was also the time when Japan starts to imitate a lot of US culture, including the short hair and short skirts. So why not this Asian (Tahini is Arabic for ‘ground sesame seeds’) paste too?
EDIT: The sauce is later revealed to be not sesame paste based, even though they yapped on and on about sesame paste in the original. Gumi took out the scene and leave it vague instead.
[g] Hoisin sauce – even if this sauce exist in the past, it should not have this name. It’s like writing a medieval novel and telling the readers that MC served up fried fish with tomato ketchup.
Dude, no.
https://www.insidehook.com/article/food-and-drink/what-are-the-origins-of-hoisin-sauce
EDIT: The ‘sauce’ was said to be made from sesame paste, hoisin sauce and etc, but yeah, see previous note’s edit
[1] Reduce butt polishing impression by applying more calculative indifference. Reduce the ‘oh noes oh noes’
Change the oh noes: After some careful thought, she slowly opened her mouth and said, “
[a] Remind everyone that despite JFJ saying that he wanted to get out of the limelight, he immediately pounced onto FQN’s skill and wanted her to perform in front of others. Have we forgotten this? Oh, you did? Never mind, Gumi is here to remind you~
[2] AR Qiuning sighed over the male beauty. However, since it’s just AR Qiuning, we can ignore her.
Deleted: F*ck, who said that a woman’s beauty is calamity? Look, even males could be just as charming. F*ck your mom, even I, a modern woman, is nearly charmed by this evildoer.
Gumihou: … this kind of cursing is like tiger moms saying, ‘Aiya, my child is too good at studying, now I have to work hard to find money for further studies. Ah, luckily the second child manages to win a scholarship, but even so, they have so many activities that I really don’t know what to do. I’m already running out of places to store their trophies. I might need to get a second house soon just for their medals’
Yeah, no.
[a] Matched reaction to [2]
[3] Replace ‘kyaa’ with ‘ =_=;;’ reaction to JFJ’s dramatic praise.
[a] Deleted: Fu Qiuning quickly and humbly replied
Since her reaction is supposed to be =_=;;
[b] More =_=;;; reaction. Add curse word because [2]. It’s canon
[c] Deleted goodwill inducing: Why…why does it have the impression of ‘listening to your words is better then 10 years of study’
[4] ‘High Spirited’ is used here to described JFJ’s mood and Fu Qiuning was supposed to be happy too, since she’s dumb, don’t know politics and is caught up with JFJ’s good mood.
AR Qiuning: Yay~! I has great support. Man so handsome, I like~~~
Yeah. Nope.
Very nope. Guess what Gumi latched on instead?
Know you the meaning of starvation? O, privileged and spoilt young master?
[a] It was supposed to be a secret smile of ‘ooh, we’ll have something unique today~’ but matched it with [4].
[5] Cold Jellied Soybeans – This one is kind of weird, since it’s basically boiled soybeans with duck feet that is thickened with starch and meant to be eaten cold…
https://www.douguo.com/cookbook/1479088.html
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