"Where's Anbi?"
"Taking a bath—freshening up!"
Tang Qi carried a plate piled high with food as he walked into Catherine's room.
It was a standard double room, with thick cotton-stuffed pads spread over the wooden boards. At a glance, it looked far more comfortable and softer than the straw beds at Golden Oak.
According to Chuck, a night's stay at Friendly Home cost eight silver coins, breakfast not included.
Compared to the few copper coins charged by Golden Oak, that was naturally an outrageous price.
But expensive and cheap were relative.
Compared with the Lower City's lodging fees, which started at a gold coin, Friendly Home truly lived up to its name—
"I've never seen a girl who could haggle like that. She nearly talked away half the lodging fee.
If it weren't for your sake, and for the fact that your whole party could fill the inn, my wife would never have agreed to rent out the rooms for five silver coins.
We even threw in dinner—
'Toto Kata,' this stew in your hands, translates into Common Tongue as Welcome Soup!
Don't think it's just a random chicken-and-vegetable stew. In truth, it uses simmered turkey stock, with mung beans, peas, sweet flint corn, red bell peppers, and shredded chicken—most importantly, carrots of no fewer than four different colors, all cooked together.
During the cooking process, the various ingredients have to be added one after another according to the timing, so the heat can be adjusted the moment the previous ingredient has cooked through.
Explaining it in detail would be too much trouble, but it's one of us halflings' signature dishes.
And only this can be cooked in one pot to feed all three hundred of you.
Of course, we're not losing out either.
After all, the payment is three