I was a queen in ancient times, no, a maid!

Everyone knows that Cheng Yu is now the favored maidservant of the eldest lady.

The favored maids receive many rewards, including gold, silver, materials and food. They are what they deserve. If you are not satisfied, you can also express yourself in front of the mistress.

Although Ziwei is decisive and efficient in her actions in private, she is not the type to be jealous and stir up discord among her subordinates.

Otherwise, the last time she made a mistake and lit incense for the Madam without permission, causing her to protect her pregnancy for such a long time, if she was an ordinary maid, she would have been dragged out and beaten to death with sticks.

"Yu'er deserves the reward. Don't be jealous. If anyone is jealous, he or she will do something that will make the lady look up to him or her."

Mother Wang was the second in command in the small kitchen, but she dared not say a word in front of the maids like Ziwei and Dingxiang who served the mistresses.

I was afraid that I would anger them and get harassed by them.

Mother Wang smiled and said, "Miss Ziwei, no one is jealous. Aren't we just joking?"

Ziwei didn't say anything.

The maidservant serving Mother Wang brought over the prepared food.

Ziwei held it in her hand, and Mother Wang personally took a plate of pickles and brought it to her.

The big pot of rice had just been cooked. Zhu'er served a bowl and also served some to Cheng Yu in advance. They ate quickly.

After eating a few more shrimps given by the lady, Cheng Yu was full and took the bowl and chopsticks to wash them.

She is still using the public dishes and chopsticks in the small kitchen.

Of course, the bowls, chopsticks and plates used by the lady and them were different.

The lady naturally needs to use good things, and different ingredients should use bowls, chopsticks, cups and plates made of different materials.

The ones their servants use are made of ordinary materials and are cheap.

Now that they eat from a big pot, Cheng Yu still wants a set of his own bowls and chopsticks, which are clean.

Cheng Yu and Zhu'er went downstairs first after finishing their meal.

The Madam told her to rest today, so after Cheng Yu went back, he didn't bother with what the Madam would eat in the evening. Madam Li and Mother Wang were in the small kitchen, so one of them had to be on duty.

She was used to sleeping on a dry and hard mattress, but after sleeping on a soft bed for a few days at the palace, this maid's body became attached to the bed.

Coming back to sleep on this hard bed, I started to feel uncomfortable.

She tossed and turned in bed unable to sleep.

Zhu'er, who was lying on the bed opposite, thought that she was secretly eating snacks in bed.

Cheng Yu rolled his eyes, pulled the quilt over him and continued to sleep.

Before falling asleep, she was still thinking that she had to buy two beds.

***

The lady told her to rest for two days, but Cheng Yu didn't really go to rest.

The next day she started cooking for the lady as usual in the small kitchen.

Knowing that the lady had not been eating or sleeping well these days, Cheng Yu cooked some yam porridge with yam, red dates, and the scallion pancakes made in the morning.

It was surprisingly light, but just right for Zhao Rulan to eat.

Dingxiang looked very happy.

"The master has eaten very little these days. I was so worried. I didn't expect that he would eat a bowl of porridge just after you came back."

"I cooked this yam porridge because I saw that the lady looked unwell."

"I'll ask the delivery man to bring some matsutake mushrooms tomorrow. I don't know if I can buy them, but they have to be fresh so I can make soup for my wife to nourish her body."

Dingxiang looked embarrassed.

"Matsutake mushrooms are very hard to find, and even if you can buy them, they are very rare."

Cheng Yu also knew that in ancient times, matsutake mushrooms were all wild and not artificially cultivated, so they were relatively rare, but matsutake mushrooms were indeed a good nourishing food.

Ding Xiang said, I will ask the people in the small kitchen to go out and buy some.

Knowing that Cheng Yu also wanted to go, two days later, Dingxiang asked Xiangling to take Cheng Yu with her when she went out to buy.

The purchases were few and they were not made by the kitchen, so no one called Mother Wang.

Cheng Yu and Xiang Ling went out together.

Cheng Yu had a lot of things to buy today, and she promised everyone to treat them to hot pot. As more and more people joined her for dinner, Cheng Yu also thought about changing the pot.

The little broken hot pot she had picked up from the small kitchen had a hole in it, and when she cooked too much, the food would flow out.

The streets of Kyoto are very lively, with goods everywhere, which makes people dazzled.

Cheng Yu was not in a hurry to buy meat and vegetables. She and Xiangling asked some vendors selling mushrooms, but they all said they didn't have Matsutake.

"Yu'er, what should I do if I can't buy Matsutake?"

"Let's look for it first. If we can't find it, we can ask the price outside so that it's not a wasted trip. You also want to buy some tooth powder and other things for your wife, so let's go and have a look first."

Not far ahead there is a rouge and powder shop.

In addition to rouge and powder, this shop also sells tooth powder, toothbrushes and other items, which are divided into three grades, and the higher quality ones are priced higher.

Xiangling bought them for her master, so she only took the best ones, while Cheng Yu chose a medium-sized one. After all, he has money now.

After buying the things, the store owner packed them and put them in the basket.

There is no beef in the market. It's not that it is not allowed to be sold, but that it is not allowed to be bought in the market. If you want to eat it, you have to make an order and have it delivered to your home. Therefore, you can't see beef in the market at all.

However, this mutton is the most sought after.

Pork comes second.

Cheng Yu bought a piece of mutton and two pieces of pork.

The mutton selected is the lamb's top brain, which is the meat at the back of the sheep's neck and the upper front end of the ribs. It is the most tender and delicious, and very suitable for hot pot.

For pork, I chose pork belly, and also bought a pig stomach, pig tongue, and pig brain.

Butcher Hu looked at the two delicate girls, Cheng Yu and Xiang Ling, and reached out for the pig's stomach, pig's tongue and pig's brain.

Curious but didn't ask.

Business people would rather customers buy more so that they won’t talk too much and ruin their business.

The pig brain was served in a bowl.

Cheng Yudao turned around and returned the bowl.

The butcher said, give it to the girl.

Cheng Yu smiled and said that the store was doing good business.

Then he put the ingredients he had bought in a bamboo basket, and went to the vegetable seller next door to buy a cabbage and a handful of spinach.

The smell of sesame oil attracted Cheng Yu, and she bought a bottle of sesame oil and a small jar of sesame paste.

These two oil-based dishes are indispensable when eating hot pot this winter.

They had bought almost everything they needed, so Cheng Yu gave the basket to Xiangling to carry. She went to the grocery store and took a look. Knowing that Cheng Yu wanted to buy cotton, Xiangling waited outside the door.

Cheng Yu went in quickly and asked the shopkeeper about the price.

A pound of cotton costs five cents, and this is poor quality. A pound of better quality cotton costs eight cents.

If she wanted to make a quilt weighing five kilograms, it would cost her four hundred coins, or half a tael of silver, to make a quilt.

No wonder this poor family seldom makes quilts and has to mend them for another three years.

Her brother Cheng Bin worked as a menial worker in the palace, earning 500 coins a month. The cotton for this quilt would cost him a month's salary.

The cotton alone costs so much, not to mention the need to cut the fabric.

This quilt would cost at least one or two taels of silver to sit on.

Cheng Yu originally wanted to make two beds, but now considering the price, he decided to just make one.

She went back to ask Ziwei if she had any old bedding to give her.

She can modify it herself and use it as a mattress.

Cheng Yu bought five kilograms of cotton. Fortunately, she brought a lot of money with her this time, otherwise she would not have been able to buy it.