"How much for a dozen or so chickens?"
"Seven hundred copper coins."
Zhou Yi casually fished a piece of silver out from beneath the counter.
"Spend all the change on fried chicken. Remember to buy some different spices. Make a batch each of garlic and pepper flavors."
"Rest assured, sir. I spent five years learning at the Great Shun Restaurant. My cooking won't let you down."
Old Zhou took the silver and hefted it. It weighed at least a tael and another three to five mace.
A plate of fried chicken arrived, along with a pot of wine.
Drinking wine, eating fried chicken, and reading-truly one of life's great pleasures.
The crisp flour coating and succulent chicken sent enticing aromas wafting through the inn, setting the diners' mouths watering.
No one could escape fried chicken's law of irresistible deliciousness!
"That smells amazing!"
"Innkeeper, what are you eating?"
"Looks like something fried. That's not on the menu, is it?"
"Old Zhou, hurry up and make some, or we're never coming back."
"Same here!"
The diners clamored, leaving Old Zhou looking troubled.
Mr. Zhou had taught him to make fried chicken because, sharing a surname, they had been one family five hundred years ago. This was a livelihood-making skill, passed down to sons but not daughters.
Mr. Zhou had yet to eat his fill. How could Old Zhou go serve anyone else?
On one side was an employer who treated him well; on the other, a benefactor who had taught him a craft.
After eating a few pieces and satisfying his long-held craving, Zhou Yi waved a hand. "Go make some for them. Fried chicken isn't what I'm really eating."
The fried chicken smelled wonderful, but its flavor fell far short of Pear Blossom White or Drunken Spring Return.
Zhou Yi suddenly understood a little: what Zhang Cheng drank was not tea, but loneliness and remembrance.
Before long, the second batch was ready. A large basin of drumsticks and wings was brought out, its aroma drifting beyond the inn.
Old Zhou first picked out the best-looking drumsticks in several flavors and brought them to Zhou Yi to taste.
Zhou Yi tried them. They tasted much better than the first batch. "Not bad. Looks like you learned quite a bit working the chopping block at the Great Shun Restaurant."
"Of course... Heh, I picked up a little from watching."
Old Zhou boasted to everyone that he had trained at the Great Shun Restaurant. The inn's diners were all ordinary people, easily dazzled by his tales and unable to tell truth from fiction.
Zhou Yi smiled. "Don't tell anyone the coating recipe I gave you."
Great Qian had no patent laws. Send a cook to eat fried chicken a few times, and they would figure out how to make it.
Old Zhou nodded repeatedly. "Naturally. I sleep with one eye half open now. Even my wife won't get to hear me talking in my sleep!"
"You're a single dog. You don't have a wife."
Zhou Yi stressed the point.
Old Zhou had no idea what breed a single dog was. Still unmarried in his thirties, he could already be considered an unfilial son in this day and age.
"Old Zhou, this fried chicken smells incredible. How much for a whole chicken?"
"Do you have a wife?"
"Sure do."
"Two mace each. Take it or leave it!"
Zhou Yi had underestimated both the ancients' ability to learn and fried chicken's appeal.
In just three days, wave after wave of professional diners descended upon the Same Fortune Inn, eating fried chicken until they threw up.
Some wanted to reap without even eating, finding ways to sneak into the kitchen to watch the cooking process directly.
Following Zhou Yi's advice, Old Zhou always mixed the coating beforehand. Spy all you liked; it was still hard to discern its secrets.
Such petty tricks could not stop the Capital's master chefs. Once they understood fried chicken's basic principles, they could quickly devise a dozen different flavors, some surpassing Old Zhou's in appearance, aroma, and taste.
Old Zhou had no need to compete with them. As long as he kept his own flavor distinctive, he could attract enough customers.
Most things in the world worked that way. There was no need to be the best, nor to please everyone. Keeping your own distinctive character was enough.
In the space of a single month.
The aroma of fried chicken filled the city, giving Zhou Yi an early taste of streets reeking of gutter oil. Even the peanuts Zhang Cheng ate with his daily drinks were replaced by fried chicken.
Rumor had it that His Majesty had tried fried chicken and praised it: "Its fragrance lingers on the tongue. Once you start, you cannot stop!"
For a time, fried chicken swept the entire city.
It was late at night, beneath a bright moon and sparse stars.
A streak of light descended into Prince Huai's Residence, passing through halls and chambers as though no one were there.
Neither the residence's talisman formations, the demon-revealing mirrors hanging above its doorways, nor the immortal master stationed there detected it.
Following the aroma, the streak of light made its way to the kitchens of Prince Huai's Residence.
An imperial chef was preparing the palace's secret-recipe fried chicken, developed by several culinary masters. The process even required a special formation to refine the essences of eighteen precious medicinal ingredients, including cordyceps, velvet antler, ginseng, and reishi, into the chicken.
Its aroma was rich and pure, and it nourished yin, replenished yang, and strengthened the body. Emperor Jingtai ordered it with every meal.
Having heard that his grandnephew was unwell, His Majesty had specially sent the imperial chef to prepare it at Prince Huai's Residence.
"So this is human delicacy? It smells wonderful-even better than thousand-year vermilion fruit!"
The streak of light settled on a kitchen beam, revealing a little girl of seven or eight. She had a cherry-sized mouth and brows and eyes curved like crescent moons. Her two little pigtails bobbed as she sniffed this way and that.
When the imperial chef turned away, a flash of magical light flickered, and one chicken wing vanished from the plate.
"Mmm, mmm! So yummy, so yummy!"
The imperial chef looked back at the plate and counted carefully.
"Huh? There were clearly eight wings. Why is one missing?"
Repeated experiments with fried chicken had revealed that wings were the most delicious: their skin and flesh were firm, their meat carried the fragrance of bone, and their skin held the flavor of meat.
The imperial chef merely assumed that the late hour had left him tired and muddleheaded. He never suspected a thief had entered Prince Huai's Residence.
This was the residence of an imperial prince of Great Qian, only a step from the palace. Even setting aside the imperial guards patrolling day and night, the residence itself was layered with wards, as perilous as a dragon's pool or a tiger's den.
Experts had infiltrated the palace at night before, hoping to prove their strength and win fame throughout the world. But after Emperor Guangming hung the corpse of a martial grandmaster at the peak of the first rank outside the palace gates, no one dared court death again.
Great Qian's authority to appoint City Gods, earth gods, and deities of mountains and rivers rested not on some orthodox mandate of humanity, but on sheer military might.
"Odd numbers are unlucky. I'll make another pair of wings."
Well aware of the imperial family's many rules, the chef took another pair of wings, coated them, and fried them.
Up on the beam.
The little girl sucked her fingers, licking away even the last trace of oily flavor.
"It's too good! I can't hold back anymore! I can't! The job's simple anyway. I'll finish it in no time!"
With a wave of her hand, all the cooked wings, drumsticks, and chicken pieces flew up and disappeared into the enchanted jade bracelet on her wrist.
The imperial chef stared, dumbstruck, as the fried chicken he had labored over vanished in an instant. Even someone as slow as he was knew something uncanny had happened. He was about to call for the guards when pain struck the back of his head, and he collapsed unconscious.
"Mmm, mmm, it's so good. What a shame I can't take him back with me."
Gnawing on a drumstick, the little girl turned into a streak of light and vanished once more.
Following the sensation of a mark, she landed in an opulent courtyard. It was already deep into the night, and the maid on duty was nodding off.
A wisp of strange fragrance drifted through the air, sending the maid into a deep sleep.
"Hey, hey, hey. Wake up, wake up."
Princess Consort Huai felt someone pushing her and slowly woke from her deep sleep. Opening her eyes, she saw a little girl gnawing on a chicken bone, standing on her belly.
She wore emerald-green clothes with short sleeves and trouser legs, exposing her pale forearms and calves. Jade rings and silver bells adorned her wrists and ankles.
"Who are you!"
Princess Consort Huai instinctively tried to sit up, only to discover that her entire body was immobilized. All she could do was open her mouth and speak.
The little girl crunch-crunched even the bone fragments to pieces, chewing with a look of utter bliss.
"I'm Hu Jiuying of Green Mound. On Her Ladyship's orders, I've come to avenge Hu Yue."
With chicken bones in her mouth, Hu Jiuying's words came out muffled. Princess Consort Huai barely managed to understand her.
Revenge!
With a thought, Princess Consort Huai tried to activate the alarm artifact inside her. An immortal master would arrive in an instant; however powerful this fox demon was, she would not escape with her life.
Unfortunately, no matter how she tried to command it, the artifact inside her remained utterly still, as though dead.
Hu Jiuying licked her lips and actually took out another drumstick, as though eating fried chicken were her real business here.
"You gouged out one of Hu Yue's eyes. Let's start with your eyes, then..."
Before you continue