At noon that day, Anqing County.
There was an inn beside the north city gate, easy enough to find. Across from it stood a meat-soup restaurant, one of the better eateries in Anqing County.
At a glossy old elmwood table with broad benches, the two sat facing each other.
Three Flower Cat sat at one end of Song You's bench. Since they were eating at a restaurant outside, it would not do for her to climb onto the table, but she did not run about either. Song You had brought her a deep plate and set it before her. It held a large piece of dragon bone and half a plate of soup, and she was crouched low, eating with earnest concentration.
On the table sat a huge basin of pork bone and radish soup.
The bones were mostly large marrow bones and dragon bones, with plenty of meat still clinging to them, stewed until soft and falling apart. The white radish had been cooked translucent, soaked full of meat broth, and tasted no worse than the meat itself. Scallions and white scallion stalks floated atop the clear broth, glistening with oil like jade, their colors enough to whet one's appetite.
"Slurp..."
Heroine Wu held a marrow bone in her left hand and brought it to her mouth. She did not even need to tear at it—a suck, and the meat came right off. After chewing twice, she promptly lowered her head and used her chopsticks in her right hand to shovel rice into her mouth.
The rice was plain white rice, known as "hat-top rice."
There was not much particular to it.
It was simply heaped high, white rice piled into a sharp peak. More conscientious shops would pack it down tightly, so one bowl held as much as