Laba Congee originated in the Song dynasty. On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the various temples in Dongjing cooked porridge from glutinous rice mixed with the Seven Treasures and Five Flavors, and ordinary households followed suit.
Rice, beans, walnuts, pine nuts, milk mushrooms, persimmons, and millet—these were the seven ingredients in the earliest version of Laba Congee, known as the Seven Treasures. The five fruits besides the rice and beans added the Five Flavors to the porridge.
Of course, the porridge Ma Zhaodi made was nowhere near as particular or luxurious.
Rice, millet, glutinous rice, corn, coix seed, milk-flavored kidney beans, mung beans, small red beans, red kidney beans, red dates, pitted lotus seeds, peanuts, and longans. He had even added a bag of dried fruit.
In short, the main feature was variety. He put in whatever he had.
At that moment, Ma Zhaodi silently thanked the system shop for being so considerate. It even had a food-processing function. For just a few Asset Points, it could process these bags of grains, beans, and fruit—peeling them, shelling them, air-drying them, and even shortening an entire night's soaking time to a few seconds.
Jason stared, dumbfounded, as Ma Zhaodi added one bizarre ingredient after another, some familiar and some completely unknown, to the pot. He subconsciously swallowed.
There was only one way to know whether it tasted good, but at the very least, the pot of porridge looked colorful and smelled incredibly fragrant.
As he added water and cooked the porridge, the big ladle stirring the pot, the chef's clothes, originally soaked by snowmelt, dried in the heat of the stove. He hummed a tune nobody could understand.
"Children, children, don't be greedy; after Laba comes the New Year.
"Laba Congee, drink it for a few days; on