Volume 3: Dragon and Snake Movement Chapter 451: Deception and Spoiling the Scenery
After marrying a nagging old man like Old Liu, and following the orders of Duke Zhao, she followed Old Liu to serve Wu and Zhang Shou and their son in the countryside outside the capital. After living there for so many years, Aunt Liu originally thought that her whole life would be just watching the unchanging scenery in the fields and then slowly growing old. She never dreamed that in addition to returning to the capital, her life would be so glorious!
Even though there was no young handsome boy among the cooks who were asking her questions and were so attentive that they were afraid that she would get impatient, the meaning of worshipping her was the same. And after tasting the dishes she cooked, these people either exclaimed, sighed, praised, or shouted, in short, each one was more excited than the other.
At that moment, Aunt Liu, who often had to compete with Aunt Xu for the power of the kitchen in Zhang Garden—even though one was responsible for the outside and the other for the inside—felt a bit intoxicated as a chef, and she could no longer see the old Liu in the corner with a tangled and wary face. That old, wrinkled old man who couldn't please her deserved to be anxious!
Among all the chefs, Chef Fang, who was the star of the show because he had been selected to be in the imperial kitchen, tasted the dishes one by one and was more amazed than anyone else. In his opinion, Aunt Liu's cooking skills were barely above average, far from the top, but the problem was that those dishes were unheard of by him, not to mention the ingredients, but the people cooked them very well.
So, after finally eating the crispy spicy and sour potato shreds, he was finally moved. Looking at the chefs behind him, some of them were sticking out their tongues and breathing heavily because of the spiciness. He couldn't help but give Aunt Liu a thumbs up.
"If it weren't for Dr. Zhang's insight, we wouldn't know there are such delicious ingredients in the world; if it weren't for Madam Liu's excellent cooking skills, we wouldn't know how to cook these things! With your demonstration, although we can't say we know everything, at least we are not completely in the dark, and we can complete this extra question for Dr. Zhang."
Aunt Liu's eyes narrowed up due to the compliment from Chef Fang, and her mouth couldn't close. The person opposite her was the future imperial chef. She didn't expect that the future imperial chef would also praise her cooking skills... With such good taste, no wonder the emperor chose her to be the imperial chef!
"Chef Fang, you are too kind. My cooking skills are just ordinary. How can they compare to the chefs who have been cooking for many years and have superb cooking skills?" Aunt Liu was carried by many people in the flowery sedan chair. Even if she was proud, she did not get carried away. She immediately flattered everyone with a smile. Seeing that even those who looked bitter at first finally looked better, she reminded them mysteriously.
"I don't know about the other judges upstairs, but my young master is a very picky person. You have to show your true abilities. Although he alone can't overshadow the other judges, if he says it's not good, no one else will say it, and Miss will definitely not say it either."
Aunt Liu imparted her ambiguous experience. Seeing that everyone nodded repeatedly, she did not even look at Old Liu who was desperately winking and gesturing at her, and even jumping up and down and rubbing his neck, and said with a smile: "So, I will tell you a trick. The young master loves spicy food and cannot live without it. For dishes made with chili peppers, if they are cooked well, the young master can eat an extra bowl of rice in one meal..."
Hearing Aunt Liu giving instructions to a group of chefs, and those people nodding their heads as if they had found a treasure, Old Liu felt veins bulging on his forehead and wanted to knock them out and drag them back.
How come he didn't know before that his wife was such a good at deceiving people?
With that said, wouldn't all the chefs be desperate to make a dish seasoned with chili peppers for this extra question? Is that dish that easy to make?
Even though his wife was taught by her own young master, it still took her a lot of effort to master the key to seasoning!
In order to avoid Aunt Liu being too ruthless, Old Liu finally had to cough heavily and then said, "All chefs just need to perform steadily and don't compromise for the sake of my young master's taste. For example, a chef who is good at Huaiyang cuisine and Suzhou cuisine, instead of racking his brains to figure out what kind of chili to cook, he might as well think about how to make light foods like potatoes and pumpkins delicious."
Seeing Aunt Liu glaring at him angrily, he rolled his eyes in response and said sincerely, "Because the seeds have just been sown in the capital, it is impossible to grow them in a short period of time. The ingredients we have now are brought from Cangzhou and are extremely limited. Each chef can only pick one. But for this one, everyone can cut off a portion and boil it to taste."
"My master said that boiling food can bring out its original flavor, and then we can figure out how to cook it."
Although all the chefs present were older than Zhang Shou, the words relayed by Old Liu still drew a chorus of approval - compared to before, at this moment many people felt that Zhang Shou was indeed worthy of the title of foodie that he claimed to be.
Because boiling food can really bring out its most original flavor!
Finding that his suggestion was obviously accepted, Old Liu smiled and said, "Of course, you can only choose one kind of ingredients such as pumpkin, potato, and peanut, but chili and ketchup don't count, they are condiments, so everyone will get roughly a plate of chili oil and a plate of ketchup, but only one, please be frugal, these are very precious."
Aunt Liu finally saw an opportunity and quickly said, "That's right. Chili peppers are rare nowadays, so they are more expensive than those Southeast Asian spices. An ordinary vendor selling rice noodles with a cart at the Cangzhou Canal Wharf has been doing several times better business since he added chili peppers to his rice noodles. There are even people who love spicy food so much that they are willing to pay a tael of silver for just this small dish!"
Wife, you will feel uncomfortable if I don’t fool you today, right?
Old Liu was almost pissed off by Aunt Liu's mouth, which was even more powerful than his own. He immediately stepped forward and pulled everyone out, "Alright, alright, the wife at home is also preparing for the young master's birthday. You should go back to Zhang Garden to prepare! If you don't speak, no one will think you are dumb. Go away!"
Although Old Liu quickly coaxed Aunt Liu away, the dishes Aunt Liu prepared just now did leave a deep impression on everyone - especially dishes with strong sauce flavor such as Kung Pao Chicken and Eight Treasure Chili Sauce, which made many chefs feel that they had figured out Zhang Shou's taste.
Of course, there are also many people who think that what Old Liu said makes sense and that they should not follow Zhang Shou's taste completely - after all, it is not Zhang Shou who is selecting the chef alone, and there are so many judges there, and you can't be too curious just to please one person.
So, after thinking carefully and seriously, a large group of people started to come forward to choose the ingredients they wanted to use.
However, when Xiao Huasheng and Xiao Cheng, who were in charge of reviewing and distributing the ingredients, registered them, Old Liu discovered that although the chefs had different preferences for other ingredients, only the chili peppers... everyone took a plate!
Ketchup isn't even that popular!
Zhang Shou was totally unaware of the little stories that happened. As the birthday boy, even though Duke of Qin Zhang Chuan and Earl of Weinan Zhang Kang joked that he, Zhu Ying and Princess Yongping should sit at the head of the table together, he was not willing to do so. Even if he didn't care about the taboo of men and women sitting at different tables, he could have let it go with Zhu Ying, as he was not familiar with Princess Yongping!
Therefore, despite his refusal, Zhu Jing called Zhu Ying over and gave her some detailed instructions, asking her to accompany Princess Yongping who was sitting alone at the table. Only then did they finally arrange the seating.
There is no doubt that Zhang Shou had to accompany Ge Yong, Chu Ying and Qi Jingshan, three grandfather-level teachers, while Zhu Jing, Zhang Chuan and Zhang Kang sat at the same table. Zhu Ying reluctantly accompanied Princess Yongping. The three monks and one child and Lao Xianyu also shared a table. In such a large place, only four tables by the window were opened. Several eunuchs who followed Princess Yongping out of the palace served as waiters, and Chu Kuan stood behind Princess Yongping and served her personally.
Princess Yongping felt very uncomfortable about this - she just didn't understand, today was not the Yuehua Tower literary gathering, if the emperor wanted to know the situation, he could just send a eunuch to accompany her, why did he let Chu Kuan, the first eunuch, follow her. However, when she saw Zhu Ying eating without paying attention to others, she suddenly felt that she was too sensitive and was far inferior to the heartless Zhu Ying.
Sure enough, she stared at Zhu Ying for a while, and Zhu Ying raised her head and asked in confusion: "Why are you looking at me? Did I eat something on my face?"
Seeing the three nobles who had served Emperor Ruizong chatting and laughing over there - although Zhang Chuan was younger and did not seem to be of the same generation as Zhu Jing and Zhang Kang, he also grew up during Emperor Ruizong's reign - and Ge Yong and the other two were holding Zhang Shou and seemed to be discussing some math problems, Princess Yongping could not help but snorted at Zhu Ying: "You are always the same, never having a sense of crisis!"
"In the past, I had my grandmother, my parents, and my elder brother. In the future, I will have Shou and Aunt Wu. The Emperor and the Empress Dowager will also look after me. Why should I have a sense of crisis? With your personality, to put it nicely, you are meticulous and thoughtful. To put it bluntly, you are just too idle and daydreaming!"
Before Princess Yongping could get angry, Zhu Ying said with a wicked smile: "You know, thinking too much will make you old!"
Princess Yongping was immediately mocked and her eyebrows were raised. At this moment, she heard a bang from the side. When she turned around, she saw that Ge Yong had stood up. She thought that the old master and Zhang Shou, the last disciple, were unhappy about something and slammed the table. When she looked more carefully, she saw that it was the old master who slammed two thin books on the table.
"The Auditing Essentials and Longmen Accounting Essentials you asked for were written for you by me, Old Man Chu, and Old Man Qi after racking our brains. Now, shouldn't you explain the questions you gave in the second round of the Jiuzhang Hall exam? Why is the last question so weird?"
Ge Yong didn't notice at all how the people at the other two tables were looking at him. He was only concerned about his own anger.
"In the volume of analytic geometry you gave me in Cangzhou, the two old men and I have almost figured out the plane rectangular coordinate system, but this time you drew a coordinate system and a function curve on that question, and then said that you were looking for the area of a specific interval. Old Man Chu and Old Man Qi and I have spent a long time calculating this. Do you expect those little guys who haven't been exposed to mathematics systematically to figure it out?"
Zhang Shou had no choice but to stand up and push his teacher to sit down on the chair. He then smiled apologetically at Princess Yongping and Zhu Ying who were paying attention to him, and then bowed and greeted Zhu Jing and the other two apologetically. Then he returned to his seat and whispered, "Teacher, don't you think it's a bit of a bummer to discuss such academic issues at this time?"
"Anyway, the three of us ate three meals with you last time, so it doesn't matter if we don't eat this time! You've been doing nothing all day, and you want to get off the track today? No way! If you don't explain clearly, you can't celebrate your birthday today!"
Seeing Ge Yong looking angry, Chu Ying and Qi Jingshan were watching the fun from the side. Zhang Shou knew that the teacher must have been holding back for a long time. So he could only move the plate in front of him to the side, then poured some tea on the corner of the table, and then dipped the tea into the table to draw an x-axis and a y-axis, and drew a curve through the origin.
"Let's assume a function f(x) = x^3. In the domain (1, 6), find the area of the figure enclosed by the function graph and this horizontal coordinate... I remember that the last question in my entrance exam was asked in this way. The teacher said that the calculation took a long time, so he must have used the method of exhaustion. In fact, this is the same as the method we usually use to solve the ratio of diameter to circle..."
"Of course, the exhaustion method is actually very difficult for ordinary people, so I also noted it in the question. I only hope that students can come up with ideas, and do not need a clear answer. There is a very convenient, but very confusing solution to this problem..."
Ah Liu, who was carrying a teapot upstairs, heard this series of words and immediately tiptoed to Zhu Ying's table. At this time, it's better for him to stay away! As expected, he saw Zhu Ying, who was eavesdropping, rubbing her eyebrows in pain. Even Princess Yongping, who was always known as a talented woman, had a dull look in her eyes.
Zhang Shou thought as he spoke, trying to explain it in simple terms. After all, when he first came into contact with advanced mathematics, it took him... well, about a week in the summer vacation to completely accept this idea. So he was definitely not a genius.
"In the domain (1, 6 ), divide the curve f(x) = x^3 into n equal parts, with a spacing of △x between each part. Then draw a vertical line perpendicular to the x-axis that intersects the curve. Then connect these vertical lines one by one to get a series of rectangles. As n increases, the sum of the areas of these rectangles will tend to be closer to the area of the figure enclosed by the curve f(x) and the x-axis in the domain (1, 6)."
"And if n tends to infinity, these rectangles will approach a straight line infinitely. Then, can we understand that the sum of the areas of these rectangles approaching countless straight lines is the area of this figure?"
When he was explaining geometry, Zhang Shou used the term "rectangle" instead of "rectangle" because it was easy to understand. At this time, he also tried to keep it simple, but he gradually went off topic, from limit to sum, and from sum to definite integral... Anyway, after he finally finished explaining a "simple" idea, he saw that the three mathematics masters in front of him all turned green.
He was not surprised at all by the expressions of the three elders who were considered masters of mathematics these days. He really had no choice. It was okay to roughly compile a mathematics textbook for elementary, middle and high schools, but to compile a textbook that systematically taught calculus, he had to prove the fundamental theorem of calculus first, right? To be honest, he already felt that he had an extraordinary memory, but this system was still fooled by these three big guys to build with him!
