Chapter 29: Beggar’s Chicken: Dripping with Savory Juices, Rich Without Being Greasy!

“Is this… done?” Li Lizhi panted, slumping onto a nearby low stool without a shred of decorum, staring at her ruined hands in utter dismay.

“Just wait,” Su Mu said, fetching a bucket of water from who knows where. “Wash your hands first. Anyone seeing you would think I hired two child coal miners.”

The two of them gathered by the bucket to wash their hands.

The clear water instantly turned into a murky yellow soup.

Looking at the reflection in the water, Xiao Sizi pointed at Li Lizhi and burst out laughing. “Elder Sister turned into a calico cat!”

Seeing her younger sister’s comical look, Li Lizhi couldn’t help laughing either. “Look who’s talking! Look at your eyebrows, you’ve turned into the Yellow-Browed King^[1]!”

Pointing at each other, the two doubled over with laughter.

Such unrestrained laughter had never once occurred in the strict, rigid depths of the palace.

Time slipped by, bit by bit.

The sky gradually darkened, and the fire in the courtyard slowly died down.

The three mud balls buried in the embers gave off no aroma. The thick yellow clay locked in every trace of scent, releasing only the scorched smell unique to dry, baked earth.

“Can we eat yet?” Xiao Sizi squatted beside the fire, holding a small twig and endlessly poking at the ground, the cravings in her belly throwing a full-blown rebellion.

“Just about.”

Su Mu took an iron hook and brushed aside the charcoal ashes on top.

Three hard earthen lumps, baked chalky-white with lightly charred surfaces, were revealed. They looked no different from ordinary rocks, far from anything edible.

Su Mu fetched a small hammer.

“Step back a bit so flying chips don’t hit your teeth.”

He carried one of the clay lumps over to the stone millstone.

He raised the hammer and brought it down.

“Crack!”

A crisp sound rang out.

The rock-hard clay shell split open, revealing a hairline crack.

At the very instant that seam cracked open,

an intense aroma, so rich it felt almost tangible, erupted like a long-dormant volcano!

It was no simple fragrance of roasted meat.

It was the fresh, subtle bitterness of lotus leaves mingling with the mellow warmth of yellow wine, the savory saltiness of seasoning, and the mouthwatering richness of the chicken’s own rendered fat.

Sealed within the high-heat environment, these aromas had thoroughly permeated and blended into one another, and now they burst forth without reservation.

“Whoa!”

Xiao Sizi gasped, breathing in deeply through her nose as she leaned all the way forward, wishing she could dive straight into the crack.

Li Lizhi was also left completely dazed by the sudden wave of fragrance.

Just moments ago, she had despised how dirty the mud was; now, she felt that clay was the most wonderful vessel in the world.

Unbothered by the heat, Su Mu swung the hammer repeatedly, shattering the outer clay shell to pieces.

The lotus leaves inside had baked to a deep brown, clinging tightly to the chicken and glistening with rich oil.

There was no need for knives or forks, nor bowls or chopsticks.

Su Mu reached out, pinched a corner of the lotus leaf, and gently peeled it back.

Steam billowed forth!

Golden, glistening chicken skin was revealed. Baked until nearly translucent, the fat beneath it was still sizzling and bubbling.

“Tear right in with your bare hands. Eating this with chopsticks has no soul.”

Su Mu tore off a large chicken thigh and handed it to Xiao Sizi, who had long been waiting eagerly with wide eyes.

“Hot! Careful!”

Xiao Sizi couldn’t care less as she cupped the chicken leg with both dirty little hands.

The bones were already tender.

With a gentle pull of her small hands, the meat slipped effortlessly from the bone.

The meat was ridiculously tender, juices running down along the grain of the chicken, dripping onto Xiao Sizi’s hands and falling to the ground.

“Chomp!”

The little girl took a big bite.

There was none of the tough, tooth-catching dryness typical of dishes from the Imperial Kitchen. This chicken barely required chewing, melting across her tongue with the gentlest press.

The refreshing fragrance of the lotus leaves had soaked deep into the meat, cutting through all the grease and leaving behind only a mouth full of savory perfection.

“Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!”

Xiao Sizi couldn’t even speak. Puffing out hot steam, she nodded frantically, stomping her little feet joyfully on the ground.

So yummy!

Was this the delicious reward for playing in the mud?

If so, she would gladly play in the mud every single day!

Li Lizhi cast aside all her reservations as well, taking the other chicken leg Su Mu handed to her.

The chicken leg felt soft and yielding in her hand, as if the bone inside had practically melted away.

She took a bite.

The chicken skin was soft and springy, while the meat was silky, tender, and juicy.

The flavor above all was extraordinary. Because it had been sealed tight in mud, all the moisture and aroma had circulated within, making it more fragrant than a stew and far more tender than a roast.

That profound sense of satisfaction instantly filled the emptiness left by her earlier physical labor.

“This… this is way too delicious.”

With grease smeared around her lips, Li Lizhi didn’t even bother wiping it away. In just a few bites, she stripped the chicken leg clean and even sucked the bone dry.

Su Mu snapped off a chicken wing for himself and squatted on the threshold, happily gnawing away.

“That’s the essence of beggar’s chicken,” he said, spitting out a bone. “Mud locks in the moisture, lotus leaves enhance the fragrance, and a gentle fire simmers it slow. Looks rustic on the outside, tastes exquisite on the inside.”

The contents of the three mud balls were swept clean by the three of them like a whirlwind clearing away clouds.

In the end, even the diced shiitake mushrooms stuffed inside the chicken were scraped out by Xiao Sizi’s little fingers and eaten down to the last scrap.

They ate and drank their fill.

The sky had turned completely dark.

All that remained in the courtyard was the fire still radiating leftover warmth and a ground littered with shattered yellow clay shells.

Li Lizhi let out a burp and finally snapped back to reality, looking down at herself.

How could this possibly be a princess?

Her skirt hem was speckled with mud, her cuffs were blackened, and her shoes had completely lost their original color. Though she had washed her hands earlier, eating the chicken had coated them in grease once again.

Xiao Sizi was even worse off, the spitting image of a little wild pig that had just rolled around in a mud pit, her mouth glistening with oil and her face a streaky mess of dried mud and sweat.

“This…”

Li Lizhi said in despair, “How are we supposed to go back to the palace like this?”

“Just walk back, obviously.”

Su Mu kicked the pile of chicken bones into a corner. “It’s pitch-black anyway, so no one will see you clearly. Remember to take that food container with you. The unopened one inside is for your dad. Let him crack it open himself.”

Resigned to her fate, Li Lizhi could only carry the heavy food container and lead Xiao Sizi, who was still smacking her lips and licking her fingers, stealthily slipping out of the Imperial Kitchen’s backyard under the cover of night.

…

Lizheng Hall.

Empress Zhangsun was feeling much better today. Sitting beneath the lamp, she worked on her needlework while waiting for her two daughters to return.

“It’s getting late, why aren’t they back yet?” She looked toward the doorway with a touch of worry. “I hope they didn’t get carried away playing somewhere and take a fall.”

Just as she was fretting to herself, a sound came from the doorway of the hall.

“Mother…”

The voice was faint, carrying a guilty undertone.

Empress Zhangsun looked up, and the needle in her hand nearly pricked her finger.

Her two daughters stood at the doorway, looking for all the world as if they had just escaped from a refugee camp.

Princess Changle, usually so dignified and elegant, had messy, disheveled hair, and her favorite Shu Brocade dress was a crumpled mess covered in yellow dirt stains, with a few strands of withered grass clinging to the hem.

As for Xiao Sizi, who was normally the most fastidious about staying clean, she was an even more unbearable sight. The girl was practically a mud ball come to life, her face streaked with black and yellow blotches, revealing only a set of white teeth and two bright, sparkling eyes.

The air froze for a moment.

Empress Zhangsun set down her needlework, rose slowly to her feet, and looked the two troublemakers up and down in utter disbelief.

“You two…”

Empress Zhangsun pointed at the mud covering them, her voice cracking in shock.

“Where did you go?”

“Are the palace drains clogged? Did you two… go dredge the ditches?”