Song Sanniang's Journey to Wealth

Chapter 199 Daily Life on the Ship

After leaving Xiantao Prefecture, everyone started to add more clothes. Originally, everyone only needed to wear a half-thick cotton jacket, but now everyone wore thick cotton jackets and thick cotton shoes.

The temperature gets lower as the night progresses, especially on the river. If we arrived in Beijing now, the ice on the river would probably not have melted yet.

Because it was the first night, we all sat down and had dinner together, even though we were on the boat.

But it was still very rich. For seven people, there were five meat dishes, three vegetable dishes and one soup. The dishes and taste were different from the home-cooked meals that Song Sanniang ate every day.

Diet reflects a family's situation to a certain extent. For example, the characteristic of the Jin family's dishes is that they use almost all precious ingredients.

The Tan family mainly focuses on light and healthy dishes. Since there are many women in the family, the dishes they arrange are mainly for maintaining body shape.

The dishes of the He family clearly have the characteristics of imperial court cuisine, such as the cherry meat, white jade shrimp balls, lotus chicken slices, sweet-scented osmanthus shark fin, jade hairtail fish rolls, yellow robe tofu, and spring white snow, etc.

These are daily routines for the He family, but they are confusing to Song Sanniang and her friends. So Chunmei introduced the dishes to everyone before they ate so that everyone could match the names with the dishes.

After dinner, it was completely dark. Everyone drank some tea to digest the food and then went back to their rooms to wash up and go to bed.

Song Sanniang originally had her own room, but Miss He pulled her to her room because she wanted to sleep with Song Sanniang. Song Sanniang first went back to her room to take a shower and change clothes before going to Miss He.

Arriving at Miss He's room, the space inside was similar to that of a lady from a wealthy family. It was still cold when she entered.

Chunmei immediately handed her a hand warmer to warm her hands. She put on the cloak given by Song. Her face, which had just been bathed, was white, tender and pink, and the cloak made her look like a lotus flower emerging from water.

Miss He's room must have been filled with incense, emitting a faint fragrance. Miss He asked Song Sanniang to quickly climb onto the bed.

She brought all her bedding and quilts with her, not the ones on the ship. As soon as Song Sanniang climbed onto the bed, she could smell the sweet fragrance. The bed was soft and warm.

She sighed, "In winter, I should stay in such a warm bed and not go anywhere." Miss He laughed beside her.

The two of them chatted there until they were so sleepy that they fell asleep. It was Xia He's turn to keep watch tonight, so she lay down on the small couch beside them as the night grew deeper.

The next day, they both slept until they woke up naturally. Song Sanniang was reluctant to leave the warm bed and stayed in it. Miss He also stayed with her until their stomachs growled and they got up to wash and eat breakfast.

The others had already gotten up. Uncle Liu and his wife were chatting with Master He San, while Qin Haodong was playing with Brother He.

Seeing the two of them coming out, He Xiaodi stuck out his tongue mischievously, "Sister, you are a lazy bum."

Miss He held the heater in her hand and smiled, "I don't know who stayed in bed every day and didn't want to get up to go to school, so he was punished by grandfather."

Hearing this, Brother He blushed and ran over to pull Miss He's sleeve, "Sister, stop talking." Everyone found it funny.

It would take about a month to get from Xiantao Prefecture to Kyoto if nothing unexpected happened, and you would have to replenish supplies and buy fresh food and fruits and vegetables along the way.

I heard that when we arrived at the first stop to make up for the shortage, we had to wait for other boats from the Jin family to catch up.

As his two nephews were getting married, Jin Qishan and his men had to go to Beijing as well. However, they had a batch of goods to be delivered to Beijing, so they had to wait for this batch.

The time on the boat was actually quite boring. It was too cold to go out and see the scenery, but there seemed to be nothing to do in the cabin either.

At first, Song Sanniang read the books she brought to Beijing, and from time to time she asked Miss He for advice. Miss He also brought books to kill time, so the two of them read to kill time.

But reading for too long would make your eyes uncomfortable, so Miss He took out a chessboard and wanted to play chess with Song Sanniang.

Song Sanniang had learned a little from Master Hu, but she was completely crushed by Miss He, who had learned it from elementary school.

So she watched Miss He and Master He San play, and they were actually equally matched.

When the two of them were tired of playing, they saw He Xiaodi who was bored at the side. Song Sanniang thought of Gobang, so she called him over and taught him how to play Gobang.

Gobang was too easy, and He Xiaodi could learn it right away. However, Song Sanniang was more experienced than him, so she won a few games against him and then let him win.

Master He San found it interesting and played a few games with Song Sanniang. Song Sanniang's skill was only enough to bully children, and she was completely defeated in front of Master He San.

Song Sanniang shouted that she didn't want to play with him anymore, but he used his eyes to tell her that it was not okay. After losing a few more games, Song Sanniang begged for mercy.

"I admit defeat, Third Master. Tell me, what reward do you want to let me go?" Song Sanniang messed up the chess pieces and said,

Everyone watching the chess game started laughing. Master He San smiled smugly and said, "I'll owe you the money for now. I'll think about it later."

Qin Haodong was itching to play, so he also went down to play with Master He San. The two were evenly matched, and the game ended in a draw after several rounds.

Everyone was itching to try their luck, so they took turns playing a few games.

In the evening, we had porridge hotpot, which was suggested by Song Sanniang. In such chilly weather, it would be great to have a steaming hotpot with porridge.

So at night, a small charcoal stove was placed in front of everyone, and the porridge in the small earthenware pot on top was bubbling.

In the middle of the table were various fresh ingredients, plates of sliced ​​meat, crystal fish fillets, evenly sliced ​​chicken, tender lamb slices, beef slices that ordinary people couldn't buy, and fresh pork offal. This was what Song Sanniang ordered.

There are also various meatballs, fish balls, beef balls, cuttlefish balls, and tripe that I couldn't eat before.

There were also all kinds of seafood, shrimp, scallops, mussels, squid, and she only mentioned a mouthful of oysters,

There are also a lot of vegetarian dishes, including watercress, spinach, lettuce, coriander, mushrooms, yam, tofu, yuba and so on.

No one had ever eaten porridge hotpot, so they just listened to what Song Sanniang said and cooked whatever they wanted in the porridge and ate it.

You don't have to make your own dipping sauce, the servants will prepare it according to your requirements and serve it to you.

Everyone ate by themselves, except He Xiaodi. Everyone was afraid that he might get burned by accident, so they asked his maid Xi Que to boil the food for him and pass it to him.

No one expected that the seemingly strange way of eating hot pot would be unexpectedly delicious, because all the ingredients were fresh and were bought by the leading ship upon receiving the order.

The fresh ingredients are boiled in the porridge to retain their original flavor. You can taste the freshness of the ingredients themselves, such as the tenderness of beef, the richness of mutton, the smoothness of fish, and the deliciousness of seafood.

The porridge base is boiled with rich ingredients, extracting the freshness of various foods. Drinking a bowl of hot porridge, you can taste the freshness of the sea and the fragrance of meat. The rice porridge is warm and thick, sliding into everyone's stomach.

On this cold winter night, everyone was sweating slightly from drinking, eating and chatting, feeling their bodies and minds immersed in warmth.