Pei Liang was temporarily settled down.
After telling Uncle Sui everything that had happened in the capital, Uncle Sui flew into a rage. "That bitch from the Wei Family is so shameless. Back then when that happened, my fellow apprentices and I advised the eldest brother to divorce that bitch. He felt pity for the child and couldn't bear to do it. Sure enough, the daughter she raised is also a person who can't tell right from wrong."
"And Pei Fugui! All of Master's lifelong efforts were ruined in his hands. How can Master rest in peace under the Nine Springs?"
As he spoke, he was so angry that he shed tears.
Well, whether it was the competition for the successor back then or the fact that Pei Fugui opened his own restaurant with a name taken from Tianxiang Lou, it all showed Uncle Sui's longing and affection for Tianxiang Lou.
Because of Madam Wei and Pei Fugui, one a venomous woman and the other a stupid and useless scoundrel, Master's years of hard work collapsed overnight. How could he accept it?
However, after hearing that Pei Liang had managed to keep the imperial plaque of the Number One Restaurant in the World and exposed Madam Wei's scandal in public, making the Wei Family not benefit even though they got Tianxiang Lou, he felt a little better.
He sighed and said, "Your decision was right. Now that things have come to this, it doesn't make any sense to keep Tianxiang Lou by force. Back then, Master placed high hopes on you. It's a pity that he was old. He had to support Tianxiang Lou and teach you personally at the same time, which wore him out. You hadn't finished learning yet when you had to take on the heavy responsibility, and you didn't have the extra energy to continue refining your skills. You only learned three-tenths of Master's skills. Misfortune may be an actual blessing. Maybe this is also an opportunity for you."
"From now on, just stay here at ease and learn skills whole - heartedly. As long as you have real skills and the imperial plaque in hand, wherever you open your restaurant, that place will be the Number One Restaurant in the World."
There were a lot of things to do today. The hundreds of soldiers who had lunch had eaten up all the stock in the back kitchen. At that time, Uncle Sui had also borrowed a large quantity of ingredients from the surrounding restaurants in a hurry to barely cope.
Now there wasn't even a shred of meat in the kitchen, so the restaurant closed early.
After that, Pei Liang went back to the mansion that Uncle Sui had bought in this place with him.
Over the years, Chef Pei's scattered apprentices had all done well. Uncle Sui had managed to make his business quite well - known in the rich and extravagant Jiangnan area. The family property he had accumulated over the years was also quite large.
The Sui Family's mansion was a three - courtyard quadrangle. It wasn't as imposing as the Pei Family's mansion in the capital, but in modern times, it would be a luxurious Chinese - style villa worth tens of millions.
There weren't many people in the Sui Family. Chef Sui had been focused on starting his business in previous years and got married late. He had a child the year Chef Pei passed away. The child was only four or five years old this year, a lively little chubby boy.
Seeing that Pei Liang was beautiful, he drooled and called her sister as soon as she came. It made Madam Sui want to beat him.
Madam Sui had already heard what had happened at home. Some of the neighbors who had watched the excitement lived nearby.
Knowing that Fatty Wang's family had been arrested and hundreds of soldiers had eaten in Yixiang Lou, she didn't dare to go over and disturb them. She was waiting anxiously at home.
As soon as she saw Pei Liang, whether it was the kindness of the master - disciple relationship that her husband always talked about or Pei Liang's act of helping to solve the problem this time, and also because this niece of the master - disciple had a powerful backer, which would bring benefits to Yixiang Lou in the future, Madam Sui naturally regarded Pei Liang as the most important guest.
After getting along for a few days, she found that this girl had a funny and humorous personality, was very assertive, and was generous to her son. Every day, she followed her husband to Yixiang Lou early in the morning to learn skills and help in the kitchen. She never complained even about the hardships that ordinary men couldn't bear. Before long, they really developed a deep affection for each other.
On the first day when Pei Liang entered the back kitchen of Yixiang Lou, Chef Sui didn't let her cook. Instead, he led her to a corner near the chopping board.
He said to her, "I noticed when you butchered the pufferfish yesterday. Although your knife skills are neat and tidy, there are still some deviations. Moreover, your control of the force when using the knife and the overall control are not perfect."
"Of course, for an ordinary chef, it's already an excellent level, but it's still far from being the Number One Chef in the World."
"You competed with that girl from the Wei Family before. You should know clearly why you lost in that dish of stuffed bean sprouts. Why did you need to cut off a section of the bean sprout and make the sprout column completely straight before you could start cutting?"
Pei Liang nodded and said sincerely, "Uncle, please teach me."
Although Chef Sui lost in the competition for the successor back then, he had also received all of Grandpa Pei's teachings. In Pei Liang's opinion, although Uncle Sui was a little less talented than Chef Wei, when it came to teaching, she thought Chef Sui was more capable than Chef Pei.
Grandpa Pei's way of teaching skills was rather rigid. He could only impart half of his skills at most. However, Chef Sui could impart twelve - tenths of his skills. Even for things he couldn't do himself, as long as he knew the theory, he could try to guide others to achieve it.
He pointed to a block of tofu soaked in clear water and said, "Do you still remember how to make Wensi Tofu? Cut this whole block out. It should be like a fairy scattering flowers when put into the water, without a single break, and all the strands should be the same thickness and be able to pass through the eye of a needle."
The difficulty of cutting a whole block is much greater than cutting a small piece. It's not just a matter of volume. It's like asking someone to write numbers. It's easy to write correctly from one to ten, but few people can finish writing up to five hundred.
If it's that difficult to write numbers, for a delicate and concentrated task like cutting Wensi Tofu, besides testing the knife skills, the extra ten - plus times of time and concentration required to cut a whole block of tofu are also a great challenge.
But Pei Liang thought she should be able to do it within today. As she thought so, she saw the knife that Chef Sui handed to her.
"Cut with this."
Pei Liang took the knife and saw that the edge of the blade was dull. She said uncertainly, "Cut with a knife that isn't sharpened?"
Chef Sui nodded and then went to the other end of the back kitchen to do his own work.
Pei Liang stared at the knife until her eyes hurt. There was no other reason. Because the blade was probably thicker than the Wensi Tofu that could pass through a needle. How could she cut it?
She tried the knife. Sure enough, when the edge of the knife touched the tofu and she only applied a little force, the surface of the tofu was lifted up in chunks, and one cut ruined it.
However, Chef Sui wouldn't give her an impossible task to waste time. Pei Liang held the knife in her hand and observed it for a long time. Her eyes were almost popping out as she stared at the blade.
Then she understood what Chef Sui meant by the control of the force when using the knife and the overall force.
Sure enough, no matter how dull a knife is, even if its sharp angle is ground round, there is still a most perfect point to apply force. If one can always keep this point under control, one can completely control the knife.
Moreover, cutting vegetables is not just about the knife. The cooperation of the ingredients is also very important. These simple truths are known to everyone. Just like peeling an apple, everyone knows to turn the apple.
But a deeper - level observation and the flexible control of the ingredients as well as the use of the knife belong to a different level of difficulty.
Pei Liang reached out to take a piece of tofu and spread it out. The smooth and tender, fragile tofu swayed in her palm. Pei Liang closed her eyes and felt the swaying frequency and surface tension of the tofu.
Later on, Pei Liang even had an illusion that the tofu had become a part of her own body. The arc of her movements became larger and more "violent". The tofu seemed to be alive. Originally, it was so delicate that it would break at a touch, but now it could withstand any rough handling from Pei Liang. Finally, she even threw the tender tofu into the air and caught it steadily when it fell. Not only did it not break, but there wasn't even a single crack on its edges.
One day, apart from making that initial cut at the beginning, Pei Liang didn't use the knife anymore and spent the whole day playing with the tofu.
Finally, she said to Chef Sui, "Wei Yingshu's Mapo Tofu, which is made of tender tofu and combines both fragrance and tenderness, was practiced in this way, right?"
Chef Sui gave an approving smile and said, "That's right. This is the first step. First, master with your hands, then with the knife, and finally with the wok. When you can manipulate the tofu in the wok as skillfully as you do now, it will be easy to surpass that Mapo Tofu."
Although Pei Liang didn't use the knife on the first day, when Chef Sui went home, his whole family could clearly sense his happiness.
When he left the capital city before, Pei Liang was still very young. Now it seemed that, as the master had said, she was a natural talent born to hold a knife and cook.
Not to mention his few stupid apprentices, even they, the master's disciples back then, didn't know where to start at the beginning. And the master wasn't good at guiding. How could they compare with this young girl Pei Liang? Just with that first cut, she knew the problem. After some pondering, she understood the relationship.
To put it disrespectfully, with the master's rigid and direct teaching process, it was simply a waste of a child's talent.
On the second day, Pei Liang entered the kitchen. As usual, she played with the tofu for a while to get the feel, then found the core force point of the unsharpened knife and gently made a cut.
This time, it was a success. There was no crumbling around the cut, but it was obvious that the slices were too thick, about three times the required thickness. But what followed was continuous hard training; there was no shortcut.
It took Pei Liang a full half - month and she didn't know how many blocks of tofu she had ruined before she finally managed to cut out Wensi Tofu that satisfied Chef Sui.
She spent nearly two hours cutting that block of tofu with full concentration. When she finished, her highly - tense nerves relaxed, and she felt extremely dizzy.
At this time, Chef Sui handed her the sharp and good knife that had been passed down to her by Grandpa Pei and said, "Try with this one."
Quite easily, Pei Liang even closed her eyes from time to time and cut out a perfect block of tofu in less than the time it took to burn an incense stick.
She immediately did it again with her eyes closed. The result wasn't much different. Although there were still some minor flaws, after practicing a few more times, she should be able to do it effortlessly.
This improvement in her skills seemed to lead her into another world, something quite beyond common sense and perception. Looking back at the past, the deficiencies in her cooking skills as a young chef became clearly visible.
Before she could be happy, Chef Sui handed her a cabbage and said, "Now, peel off the outermost layer of the cabbage leaves, one layer on the top and one on the bottom. Don't take out any leaf flesh, and the membrane should be intact without any damage."
Pei Liang stiffened. This task was much more difficult than peeling the outer skin of a bean sprout.
At least a bean sprout had a simple structure, just like a straight tube, while a cabbage was full of veins, all intertwined and of different sizes. This was a task that would be difficult to accomplish even under a microscope, not to mention just relying on the naked eye and a large kitchen knife.
Fortunately, this time the kitchen knife wasn't replaced with an unsharpened blunt one.
The simple straight - line cutting of Wensi Tofu really couldn't meet all the requirements of knife skills.
According to Uncle Sui, the late emperor loved crucian carp meat. As is well - known, crucian carp has many bones, and there are even fine and hard - to - remove small bones in the meat.
Grandpa Pei could remove all the bones from a crucian carp within the time it took to burn an incense stick while keeping the whole fish intact in appearance, whether they were the fine bones that were hard to see with the naked eye or the complex bones in the fish's head.
When a fish was served on the table, it looked simple in appearance, but one could take a big bite directly and enjoy it to the fullest. The late emperor was so delighted that he shouted with excitement.
It took Pei Liang even longer to successfully peel the two outermost layers of the cabbage. The layers were like a thin film, transparent and fragile but with a perfect appearance. This was no ordinary cooking knife skill; it was simply a masterpiece of craftsmanship that left people in awe.
Then there were several more tests. For a whole half - year, Pei Liang didn't touch a single spark in the kitchen. Only after half a year did Chef Sui nod and say that she could start using the wok again.
On the first day of using the wok, the task was to throw a bunch of pebbles into the wok and let Pei Liang stir - fry egg liquid. The egg liquid had to evenly coat each pebble without sticking to the wok, and when the pebble - wrapped - in - egg was taken out, the subsequent omelette could maintain the shape of the pebbles, with the same thickness and taste.
This food world indeed had a higher upper limit than the real world, which made Pei Liang, a person with memories of her previous life, feel a bit like she was in a fantasy.
But at the same time, it was also an excellent opportunity to acquire these extraordinary skills.
When her knife skills and control of the cooking heat both met Chef Sui's requirements, the recipes passed down in the Pei family, including the dishes and cooking techniques later created and recorded by Grandpa Pei, which used to seem obscure and difficult to reproduce, became easy to handle.
Moreover, Chef Sui took Pei Liang to visit famous chefs in various places in the south of the Yangtze River to exchange ideas and cooking skills. Finally, they didn't just focus on famous chefs; they also explored the streets and alleys. As long as there was something unique and delicious,
they would either buy or exchange for the cooking method to find out the reason behind its deliciousness.
Once, they met the owner of a dumpling restaurant. The dumplings in his restaurant tasted ordinary, but his self - made chili oil was excellent. The owner was conservative and stubborn. He wasn't tempted by money and didn't want to exchange for another valuable recipe. Annoyed by their pestering, he chased them for three streets.
Later, Pei Liang blocked him for a long time and found a way to get his son into the best local government school, and only then did she achieve her goal.
Time flew by. Pei Liang not only had to study cooking skills hard but also start a business to make money. It seemed that in a blink of an eye, several years had passed.
At this time, the world was in great chaos. The rebel armies in various places had grown in strength, and several people had proclaimed themselves kings.
The emotional plot line of the male and female protagonists in the original story was just beginning.
