“She...isn't she your little wife?” Qigong asked Guo Jing with a smile while watching her leave. The young man reddened, not daring to agree nor to disagree. Qigong burst out laughing, and then began to drowse in a chair. More than one and a half hours later, Huang Rong finally returned and settled in the kitchen. Guo Jing wanted to help her but the girl laughingly closed the door. Another half an hour passed.
Qigong yawned, stretched, and inhaled deeply. “That smells very good,” he said. “But what could that be? It's odd...” He stretched his neck, trying to look through the door of the kitchen. Looking at him, both impatient and longing, Guo Jing could not stop himself from secretly laughing. Delicate aromas emerged from the kitchen, but Huang Rong remained invisible.
Qigong could not hold still any longer; he scratched his head, rubbed his cheeks, rose, and sat down, again and again as if he were on burning coals. “I am like that,” he confided to Guo Jing, “I have this unpleasant vice of gluttony; when I think of eating, I forget everything else!” He opened his right hand and showed its four fingers. The man said, “The ancients said: ‘index finger moves’.*
That’s completely true! Each time I see or smell a dish that is original or exquisite, the index finger of my right hand cannot prevent itself from quivering. Once, because of it, I messed up an extremely important matter. Then, I got so angry with myself that, with a stroke of a knife, I sliced 334
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off my index finger!” [*The Chinese word for the index finger, ‘shi zhi’, literally translates as ‘food finger’.] Guo Jing started as Qigong sighed, “But I cut off my finger in vain, because my gluttony remained.”
At this moment Huang Rong entered, smiling, carrying a large wooden tray which she placed on the table. On the tray, were three bowls of white rice, a wine cup and two large bowls containing the main dishes. Guo Jing smelled a delicious, extremely appetizing aroma. In one of the large bowls were laid out roasted beef sticks which, apart from their scent, did not seem exceptional. The other contained a clear soup the colour of jade, in which floated many red cherries and ten pink petals. At the bottom lay young fresh bamboo shoots. The association of the three colors - red, white and green, formed a multi-coloured whole that was extremely pleasant to the eye. The sense of smell was also engaged because the soup emitted the delicate scent of lotus. Huang Rong poured wine in a cup which she placed in front of Qigong while smiling. “Qigong, taste my dishes and tell me what you think of them!”
Hong didn't need to be told twice! Without even drinking the wine, he brandished his chopsticks and seized two meat sticks that he consumed voraciously. An exquisite taste filled his mouth; this was not mere beef! As he chewed, different flavor sensations struck him; sometimes oily and juicy, sometimes a succulent freshness. Flavors succeeded themselves in complex and unpredictable variations, like the blows of a martial arts expert. Startled and delighted, Qigong examined the sticks more closely and saw that each of them was formed by four small intertwined sticks. He shut his eyes to savor the taste better. “Hmm,” he said, “there is mutton thigh on one stick, another of pig ears in milk, a third one of calf kidney, and the last one...the last one...”
“If you guess,” Huang Rong said with a grin, “you're really fantastic...”
She had barely finished her sentence before Qigong cried, “Deer thigh mixed with rabbit!”
“Bravo!” applauded the girl. “Well guessed!”
Guo Jing was completely stunned. “These meat sticks needed so much work!” he said to himself.
“Qigong is truly astonishing to have been able to distinguish the five different meats!”
“There are only five meat types,” Qigong went on, “but the blend of pork and mutton gives a certain taste, the deer with beef another... how many variations there are, that, I can’t say?”
“If one does not count the order of the variations,” Huang Rong said with a smile, “there are twenty-five, corresponding to the five times five petals of the plum flower. Just as the meat stick resembles a flute, this dish has a name …it is called ‘Plum Flowers Fall to the Jade Flute's Song’
The ‘variations’ mentioned in your question means that there is a placement sort to the test. Qigong, you passed the test, you are the master of all gourmets!”
“Bravo!” the beggar said to himself. No one knew whether he applauded the name of the dish or his own skillfulness in discerning the tastes. Then he placed two cherries in a spoon and said, laughing,
“This bowl of lotus-leaf soup, with those bamboo shoots and cherries, is so pretty to look at, one almost regrets to have to eat it!” He swallowed and cried, “Ah!” Then he said to himself, astonished, “Eh?”. He took two more and exclaimed again, “Ah! The freshness of the lotus leaf, the taste of the bamboo sprouts, the sweetness of the cherries, all that leaps to the taste buds; but what's more, the cherries, after having been pitted, have been filled something...”
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“In the cherries,” Qigong said while hesitating, “what's there?” He closed his eyes again, trying to recognize the taste. “This is lark's meat!” he mumbled to himself. “No...if this is not partridge, then it’s turtledove! Yes, that's it, it’s turtledove!”
He opened his eyes, saw that Huang Rong raised her thumb and couldn’t help feeling very pleased with himself. “So what's the complex name of this soup with lotus leaves, bamboo sprouts, cherries and turtledove?” he asked.
“Elder Hong,” Huang Rong said, “you haven't mentioned one more ingredient.”
“Ah yes?” Hong said, astonished. He regarded the soup again. “Yes,” he agreed, “there are these flower petals...”
“Exactly!” confirmed Huang Rong. “Can you figure out the name of this soup from these five ingredients?”
“If this is a riddle, I declare I've lost. Tell me quickly...”
“I'll give you a clue,” Huang Rong said, “You just need to think about the ‘Book of the Odes’!”
Note: The Book of Odes is also known as the Book of Songs (Shi Jing in Chinese), one of the Five Classics. The Four Books and Five Classics were the standard texts that all scholars studied back in the day. The other four Classics are the Book of Changes (Yi Jing) - this one features a lot in the wuxia genre, Book of History (Shu Jing), Book of Rites (Li Ji) and the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chun Qiu). The Four Books are the Great Learning (Da Xue), the Doctrine of Mean (Zhong Yong), the Analects of Confucius (Lun Yu) and Minces (Meng Zi).
“Ah no!” Qigong protested, “I know nothing in the books!”
“The flower hints at a beauty's complexion,” explained Huang Rong, “the cherries to her small mouth, isn't that right?”
“Ah, this is therefore the ‘Beauty's Soup’?”
“No,” Huang Rong said, shaking her head, “The bamboo is a symbol of modesty so it characterizes a gentleman, just as the lotus is the most eminent of the flowers. Thus, bamboo and lotus relate to a gentleman.”
“Oh,” Qigong said, “this is therefore the ‘Gentleman and Beauty's Soup’?"
“What about the turtledove?” Huang Rong said. “Indeed, all these elements meet again in the first poem in the ‘Book of the Odes’ that finishes thus, ‘The gentleman is in good company’. Thus, this soup is called the ‘Soup of Good Company’!”
Qigong burst out laughing. “Since there is such a complex and strange soup, it's good that it has such a complex and strange name. Very well! Very well! You're a complex and strange little one yourself and I would like to know which complex and strange father sired you...In any case, this soup is truly exquisite and much better tasting than the soup with cherries that I ate, approximately ten years ago, in the kitchen of the Imperial Palace.”
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“You have a pass to the imperial kitchen?” asked Huang Rong. “Tell me of a dish and I'll try to prepare something that will please you just as well."
Qigong devoured the soup and didn't have time to reply. He stopped when he had reached the bottom of the bowls. “In the Imperial Kitchen,” he explained, “there are lots of good things of course, but nothing compares to the two dishes here... Ah, if there was it would be the ‘Five-flavored slices of Mandarin Duck’. That was delicious, but I don't know how it was prepared.”
“And it was the Emperor that invited you?” asked Guo Jing.
“Absolutely,” Qigong said while laughing, “the Emperor treated me, but he didn't know it! I lived hidden on a big beam of the Imperial Kitchen for three months and tasted each of the dishes intended for the Emperor. If I found it to my taste, I kept it for myself; otherwise, I left it to him!
The cooks believed that there were ghosts about!”
“This person really is excessively gluttonous,” thought Guo Jing and Huang Rong to themselves,
“but he is also insanely audacious!”
“Young lad,” Qigong said, laughing, “your little girlfriend is the best cook in the world; your happiness is assured! Goodness! Why didn't I meet such a woman when I was young?” He seemed sincerely sorry. Huang Rong, with a hint of a smile, prepared the remainder for Guo Jing and herself. One bowl of rice was more than enough for her, while the young man put away four big bowls. As for the exquisite arrangement, it did not seem to make a difference to him.