Feng Shuo paused his writing, raising an eyebrow at her. “What are you laughing at?”

Jiang Yanyi, seated by the window, shifted her position while holding the book. “Oh, nothing. I just found something amusing in this book.”

Feng Shuo regarded her with a hint of suspicion but didn’t press further.

There was a warmth in his gaze that hadn’t been there before.

He used to think she was timid, but now that she had grown bolder, he found it oddly interesting.

After a while, Jiang Yanyi glanced at the time and realized it was getting late, so she decided to head home.

Just as she stepped out, she ran into Xing Yao.

“Miss Jiang,” Xing Yao said, cupping his fist in salute.

Jiang Yanyi nodded in acknowledgment.

As Xing Yao hurried inside, Jiang Yanyi couldn’t help but turn her head to take a look.

He seemed troubled, likely dealing with some pressing matter.

Since they were discussing important issues, she didn’t linger at the door and made her way out of the estate.

Once inside, Xing Yao cupped his fist and reported, “My lord, we’ve used all the available methods of torture, but we still can’t get Fan Yao-nian to speak.”

Feng Shuo’s warm expression vanished in an instant, his gaze sharp as a knife. “I will personally interrogate him.”

---

Jiang Yanyi had planned to reopen her hotpot restaurant the next day, but that afternoon, Chu Changping sent a trusted associate with news that there were still lingering rebels in Xizhou City.

To avoid any unforeseen incidents, she should delay the reopening for a couple more days.

With her safety in mind, Jiang Yanyi understood the situation was likely related to the assassination attempt they faced on their way back with Feng Shuo.

She didn’t want to take any chances, so she decided to keep the restaurant closed for a few more days.

However, since she would soon have kittens, she could focus on smoking some meat in the meantime!

The next morning, after breakfast, Jiang Yanyi packed the cat food and Feng Shuo’s medicinal food before heading to the Feng residence.

To her delight, she discovered that the mother cat had returned, comfortably lying in the cat nest with the meat broth cleaned out from the dish nearby.

However, the mother cat was still quite wary.

As soon as Jiang Yanyi approached, it leaped up and dashed away, climbing onto a nearby wall to watch her with a low, threatening growl.

Not wanting to disturb the warm, furry kittens nestled in the nest, Jiang Yanyi left the cat food and stepped back.

After delivering the medicinal food to Feng Shuo, she went outside again and saw that the mother cat had come down from the wall and was now eating the meat broth.

Though the mother cat wasn’t affectionate yet, Jiang Yanyi still felt a sense of satisfaction from successfully feeding it.

Building trust with a cat takes time!

Once back at her own residence, she took Yang Xiu and Bing Shao to the butcher to buy a plump pig and had two sheep slaughtered, preparing to smoke some meat and make sausages.

The butcher, grinning, asked, “Miss Jiang, are you buying so much meat because your restaurant is reopening?”

“Not yet. I’m postponing it for a few days,” Jiang Yanyi replied as she selected casings for the sausages.

The butcher hesitated for a moment before asking, “Do you know that the Laifu Restaurant has opened a new antique soup shop today? It’s modeled entirely after your place, with custom bowls, plates, spoons, and chopsticks. They sell pots and grilled meat too, and they even serve flower cakes and tea!”

Jiang Yanyi paused, her hand gripping the casing tightly.

After returning home, Jiang Yanyi asked Yang Xiu to buy a pot from the antique soup shop at Laifu Restaurant.

Yang Xiu and Bing Shao were assigned to Jiang Yanyi after she closed the shop.

Few people had seen them, so no one would raise any suspicion.

While waiting for Yang Xiu to return, Jiang Yanyi, along with Qui Kui and Bing Shao, started processing the meat they had bought.

During the New Year, families in the countryside usually slaughter a fat pig, and making cured meat is a common skill for every household.

However, the methods of curing vary slightly from place to place.

Jiang Yanyi used an old method her father had for making cured meat in her past life: she poked small holes in the meat with bamboo skewers to help the smoke penetrate and flavor the meat.

She heated up some fresh Sichuan peppercorns in a pan, added coarse salt, and continued to stir-fry.

When the salt was heated, the fragrance of the peppercorns infused into the salt.

Using this flavored salt to rub on the meat would make the cured meat even more aromatic.

Rubbing the salt onto the meat was a technical task; if too much salt was added, the cured meat would be too salty to eat, and if too little salt was used, the meat would spoil.

In the cold weather, the coarse salt could be a bit harsh on the hands, so Bing Shao took on the task of rubbing the salt himself, allowing Jiang Yanyi to supervise the amount of salt being used.

The salted meat pieces, skin side down, were placed in a large stone jar.

They would be turned every few days, and after marinating for about ten days, they would be smoked with fruitwood charcoal and pine branches to become cured meat.

After Bing Shao had salted a few pieces of pork shoulder, he slowly started to gauge the right amount of salt.

Jiang Yanyi then went to chop the meat for the sausages.

She and Qui Kui each had a cutting board, wielding two knives each, chopping away and preparing a bowl of minced meat without taking too much time.

Jiang Yanyi planned to make three flavors of sausages: five-spice, spicy, and sweet.

The five-spice sausage had just a bit less powdered cloves compared to the spicy version.

In an era without a blender, spices like star anise, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, dill, and Sichuan pepper had to be ground into powder using a stone mortar.

Jiang Yanyi had just finished dividing the minced meat into three bowls and mixing in the spices when Yang Xiu returned.

He placed the pot he bought on the table outside.

The soup in the copper pot was still bubbling, and the fresh meat and vegetables were packed in food boxes, ready to be cooked.

Despite the cold weather, carrying the food boxes and the copper pot for this distance made Yang Xiu break a sweat.

He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and said, “The new shop under Laifu Restaurant is called Laifu Antique Soup. They had quite a grand opening today, even inviting people to perform a lion dance outside the store. There were a lot of people wanting to eat hot pot, and I had to wait a long time for the pot I ordered to be ready.”

Jiang Yanyi thought to herself that the owner of Laifu Restaurant was indeed clever.

She had worked hard to establish a reputation for the antique soup in Xizhou, and now that her shop had not yet opened, many people wanted to eat hot pot.

The other party opened a shop solely for hot pot, which would surely draw away her customers.

Since Yang Xiu took the food away in takeout containers, naturally, the various food items were served in Laifu Antique Soup’s dishes.

After eating, people would return the dishes and pot, which was an unspoken but understood rule among everyone.

Jiang Yanyi glanced at the dishes and couldn’t help but feel a mix of anger and amusement.

The molds for the dishes in her shop were made by her; there were none like them on the market.

Laifu Restaurant, on the other hand, directly copied the molds from her shop but, relying on their wealth, added floral and bird glaze to the outside of the bowls and gilded the edges, making them appear far more exquisite than those in her shop.

The “Jiang Ji” imprint was also changed to “Laifu.”

This was practically like someone coloring in the dishes directly from her shop!

Even Qui Kui pointed at the dishes in the Laifu Antique Soup shop and said, “Look, these bowls and plates look just like ours.”

Jiang Yanyi could only sigh, “Those without shame are invincible in the world.”

She didn’t mind that the other party copied her marketing tactics, but it left her with very mixed feelings that they even replicated the style of the dishes in her shop.

Taking a deep breath, she asked Yang Xiu, “How was the layout of their shop? Did you see it?”