An Youyou still wanted to persuade Jiang Weiguo to return to begging, a more stable job, but Jiang Weiguo himself didn’t want to hear it.
He chose to start cooking.
The cookware beggars use for cooking is very simple: two fire pits, two clay pots, and three wooden spoons.
Since An Youyou was excellent at begging, besides supporting thirteen of her underlings, she could still buy some things to improve her quality of life.
Under An Youyou’s management, there was no financial need to protect the dilapidated temple; things like clay pots were stuffed into straw and hidden. Usually, the temple didn’t need anyone watching over it. The thirteen underlings had to work, begging every day, the outskirts had plenty of dry grass, leaving flames could easily start a fire, so they used matches to ignite fire.
From the cautious way the underlings used matches, Qin Huai could see that this begging team probably only had a single box of matches.
There was one pot new and one old; the newer one belonged to An Youyou, exclusive to the boss. Jiang Weiguo poured the beans An Youyou begged for, the rice bought by the little runner, and the salted fish into the new clay pot, started a fire and boiled them all in one pot.
The old clay pot was a hodgepodge; whatever food the group begged for went in as long as it wasn’t moldy or spoiled. Black beans, wild vegetables, rice husks, cornmeal mush, black flour mush, sweet potatoes, potatoes, meat from the broth, rotten cabbage leaves, and even a finger-long little fish that a little underling scooped up from the river, making a barely passable hearty stew.
When the stew was halfway done, Jiang Weiguo dug out a small packet of coarse salt from the straw mound and sprinkled a bit in, which led to An Youyou’s strong dissatisfaction.
"Why isn’t there salt in my share?" An Youyou questioned.
"Your porridge already has salted fish, the salted fish is preserved with salt, lacking no salt. This is the cheapest coarse salt, both bitter and salty; the salt on your salted fish is much better than this packet." Jiang Weiguo explained helplessly.
Only then was An Youyou satisfied: "Of course, my salted fish is a high-end piece worth a copper coin each, much better than those two for a copper coin!"
Jiang Weiguo silently continued cooking, saying no more. An Youyou squatted beside the two clay pots waiting, while the other underlings didn’t dare to squat so close to the boss, only squatting afar, occasionally eating a bean from what they had equally divided in their hands, eyes fixed on the pots, silently swallowing.
As time passed, the fragrance of the food cooking in the two pots grew richer. Qin Huai found Jiang Weiguo’s cooking skills indeed not bad; being able to work as a menial worker in a restaurant showed some skill.
The pot belonging to An Youyou was essentially a salted fish bean porridge, with large wooden sticks under the clay pot’s fire, boiling water that rolls porridge, cooking the salted fish to separate, with the usually offensive fishy smell completely enveloped by the rice porridge. Whether beans or white rice, they were cooked until very soft, almost every grain of rice blossomed, rich rice fragrance mixed with bean aroma, plus the mild salted fish smell, surprisingly made it feel a little like seafood porridge.
This level of fire control was quite impressive.
At least much better than Qin Huai.
The other pot of hodgepodge didn’t look as appealing as the salted fish porridge, with too many varied ingredients, none of which were any good. The rotten cabbage leaves the beggars picked up were truly rotten in the literal sense, stuff that couldn’t even enter the market’s doors, plus unrefined coarse salt, making the hodgepodge something modern people would struggle to swallow.
Of course, being picky is a trait of modern folks. Everyone present, including An Youyou, was already drooling over the pots.
An Youyou restrained her drooling; after all, she was the boss, couldn’t be as unprofessional as her underlings.
"Thirteen, are you really planning to enter that ’Fu Ji’ as a menial worker in the future?" An Youyou eyed her salted fish porridge, eager to scoop a few bowls to taste the saltiness, "Seriously not joining me to beg?"
"Of all the people I gather, you’re the smartest. The others don’t cooperate well with me, just holding me back. The two of us working together, if lucky, might even beg our way into the concession."
Speaking of the concession, An Youyou pulled out a cloth pack from her bosom, taking out a white British Pound to show Jiang Weiguo: "Today some gentleman gave me this thing, looks like money, but I don’t understand the writing on it, could you help me see?"
Jiang Weiguo glanced at the British Pound but didn’t take it, saying: "This is a British Pound."
"British Pound? British money?" An Youyou held up the British Pound, examining it under the firelight several times, "Then it should be quite valuable, should’ve cried even more pathetically and got more from that gentleman."
"How much is this worth?"
"Two pounds, on the black market it should be worth over twenty Da yang." Jiang Weiguo replied.
An Youyou gasped, looking at the British Pound as if seeing a fortune deity, almost ready to worship it: "Twenty plus Da yang, wouldn’t that mean I’m gonna be rich!"
"How to exchange money? Where’s the black market? How to get there?"
"I told you begging has prospects, you barely earn one Da yang a month, while I beg for a day equivalent to your two years’ work!"
Jiang Weiguo calmly stirred the salted fish porridge with the wooden spoon, completely ignoring An Youyou, pulled back two sticks of wood to let the fire turn to a simmer before unhurriedly stating: "Since you’re rich, shouldn’t you consider renting a place?"
"Summer heat is bearable sleeping in the broken temple, at worst bitten by bugs, unluckily bitten by snakes. Now it’s autumn, not too cold, can barely get by covering with straw at night."