Rumor Has It That I'm Pregnant with His Highness' Child

281 Roast Fish on Paper

The next morning, Yu Niaoniao woke up early. She wanted to go to the Justice Department with Xiao Juan.

Recently, she had been bored at home and wanted to go out for some air, but Xiao Juan did not let her run around alone, so she could only follow him to the Justice Department.

It just so happened that she had not seen Pan Dafu for a long time. There was also her painting training class. She wondered how those students were doing now.

Before leaving, Yu Niaoniao did not forget to remind Chun Feng and Ye Yu.

“Don’t forget my tofu.”

The two of them replied in unison, “I won’t forget. Don’t worry.”

Xiao Juan thought that she was going to cook something delicious again, so he did not care.

The couple took a carriage to the Justice Department.

When the Eagle Guards guarding the door saw the county princess arrive, they immediately bowed to her enthusiastically.

Yu Niaoniao casually took out a handful of durian candy and shared it with them.

“Take it to sweeten your mouths.”

Xiao Juan glanced at the durian candy and his eyebrows twitched imperceptibly.

Why hadn’t she finished her durian candy?

He swore to himself that he would blacklist durians in the Langjun Imperial Palace in the future and ban such things from appearing in the Langjun Imperial Palace again!

She had not been here for a while. The Mirror House was the same as before. Nothing had changed.

The small table that belonged to Yu Niaoniao was still in place. The pen, ink, paper, and inkstone were neatly arranged. The tabletop was spotless. It was obvious that someone cleaned it up every day.

Yu Niaoniao sat behind the desk, crossed her legs, picked up a durian candy, and threw it into her mouth.

“Baby, what’s my mission today?”

Xiao Juan tried his best to keep a distance from her. “I have nothing to do with you today. Go and see your students.”

Yu Niaoniao stood up. “Then I’m leaving. See you later.”

After she left the Mirror House, Xiao Juan heaved a sigh of relief.

He opened the window and let the lingering durian smell in the house dissipate as quickly as possible.

Yu Niaoniao ran to Lo Pingsha to ask where the students of the painting training class were.

Lo Pingsha said, “Wait a moment. I’ll call them over.”

Soon, the four students were brought to Yu Niaoniao.

They bowed respectfully. “Teacher, long time no see. How have you been?”

Yu Niaoniao smiled and said, “I’m fine. Come, come. This is durian candy I made myself. I’ll let you try it too.”

She deftly distributed the candy.

Although Lo Pingsha had already eaten durian candy, he still extended his claws.

The students carefully put away the durian candy and took out their recent paintings for Yu Niaoniao to guide them.

With durian candy in her mouth and a paintbrush in her hand, Yu Niaoniao began to grade their homework.

The morning passed quickly.

At noon, Yu Niaoniao went to the dining hall as usual.

The moment Pan Dafu saw her, his eyes were filled with tears. He was so excited that he could not speak properly.

“Teacher! You’re finally back! I missed you so much!”

Yu Niaoniao could not help but shiver and rub the goosebumps on her arms. “Speak properly.”

Pan Dafu wiped his tears. “Annoying. I’m telling the truth.”

If it were a young lady, it would not be a big deal to say this, but he was a burly man. She would tremble after jumping twice on hearing it. Facing his wheedling, Yu Niaoniao really could not stand it.

She hurriedly comforted him. “I know you miss me and I miss you guys. I made this durian candy. Take it.”

Hearing that there was good food, Pan Dafu immediately stopped crying.

He reached out with two fan-sized palms and caught the durian candy and threw it into his mouth.

He was first shocked by the strange taste, then quickly tasted the deliciousness. He could not help but sigh.

“As expected of the candy made by Teacher. The flavor is very unique.”

With that, he looked at Yu Niaoniao with curiosity.

Yu Niaoniao said, “This is candy made from durian. Do you know about durian?”

Pan shook his head, indicating that he did not know.

Yu Niaoniao said, “That’s a fruit produced in the south. Usually, you can only see it in the south. Its shell is very hard and full of thorns, but the pulp inside is very soft and sweet. I made these candies from the pulp of the fruit. The process of making candy is very simple. There’s nothing special about it. It’s just that this fruit is very rare. If not for the emperor’s reward, I wouldn’t have been able to make candy from durians.”

In this age, traffic was tight, and transportation of goods relied on cargo ships and carriages. In addition, there were no perfect preservation measures. It required a lot of manpower and resources to transport fruits from the south to the Imperial Capital. The cost was extremely high.

Usually, only tributes to the emperor could enjoy this treatment.

Pan Dafu understood. “I see. We benefited from you and Duke Lang.”

Durian was rare. He could not bear to eat it again. He carefully put away the remaining durian candy, planning to bring it back for his family to try.

Yu Niaoniao strolled around the kitchen and realized that there were many fish raised in the water tank.

She asked curiously, “Where did you get so many fish in winter?”

Pan puffed out his chest and explained proudly.

...

“These are all fish my father and a few of my uncles fished out of the ice lake. They caught a lot of fish and couldn’t finish them at home, so they asked me to bring them to the Justice Department to give everyone more food.”

Yu Niaoniao asked, “What are you going to do with these fish?”

Pan Dafu scratched his head. “I haven’t thought about it yet. I plan to stew them into fish soup, but the Eagle Guards don’t seem to like fish soup very much.”

“I have an idea. Let’s cook grilled fish today.”

Pan Dafu said, “Are you talking about roasting the fish on the fire? You have to roast them one by one. It’s too troublesome. Moreover, the grilled fish will be dry. I’m afraid they won’t like it.”

Yu Niaoniao smiled slyly. “Believe me, they’ll like it.”

Out of trust in her, Pan Dafu decided to listen to her arrangements and change the fish stew to grilled fish.

Under Yu Niaoniao’s command, Pan Dafu led his disciples to disembowel all the fish and clean them. They then applied onions, ginger water, and cooking wine, before marinating them for a period of time.

Taking advantage of this time, they prepared some other side dishes, such as potato, lettuce, corn, cabbage, and noodles.

She washed them all and sliced them for backup. At the same time, she prepared the soup base.

The fish was placed on the barbed wire, brushed with oil, and roasted with charcoal until it was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

...

Yu Niaoniao spread a large piece of oil paper in the iron pot and a layer of side dishes.

“Put the fish on this.”

Pan Dafu was puzzled. “What are you doing?”

Yu Niaoniao said, “You’ll know later.”

Pan Dafu was filled with curiosity.

He followed Yu Niaoniao’s guidance and carefully placed the grilled fish on the oil paper.

Yu Niaoniao poured the soup on it, sprinkled onions and fragrant vegetables, and wrapped them all in oil paper.

The same was done to the other grilled fish.

There were many small stoves in the dining hall. In the past, they were used to make mutton pot. Today, they were used to make grilled fish.

The kitchen helpers moved the small stove out and placed a small stove on each table. They lit the charcoal and placed the iron pot containing the grilled fish on it.

The Eagle Guards were confused. They did not understand what was going on.

They looked at the ball of oil paper in the pot in confusion.

Could this be their lunch today?

Was the Justice Department so poor that they had to eat paper?