Steward Zhou knocked on the door of the small food shop.

Shen Shaoguang looked up to see an elderly man around fifty with a kindly face, followed by two young servants. Shen Shaoguang smiled, “Please come in, Elder. Are you here for a meal or to make a purchase?”

Steward Zhou smiled, “Young Miss, my master wishes to order some Mid-Autumn Festival pastries.”

Busy with introducing new dishes and renovations these days, Shen Shaoguang hadn’t noticed how quickly time had passed—the Mid-Autumn Festival was approaching. Having earned considerable money selling flower cakes during the Qixi Festival, Shen Shaoguang naturally wouldn’t miss the opportunity to sell mooncakes.

Though called “mooncakes,” this term didn’t exist in the current dynasty. While people gathered with family, climbed heights to appreciate the moon, drank wine, and composed poetry on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the Mid-Autumn Festival hadn’t yet evolved into a mooncake festival. As for when mooncakes got their name and when they became a household tradition, Shen Shaoguang didn’t know.

Feeling nostalgic, Shen Shaoguang made both baked and snow-skin mooncakes according to future styles, with fillings including red bean paste, date paste, osmanthus, black sesame, salted egg yolk, and the infamous five-kernel filling that would be universally criticized by future netizens.

Since childhood, Shen Shaoguang had been a “five-kernel hater,” particularly despising five-kernel mooncakes containing green and red candied strips, believing the ancestors created this just to ruin children’s festivals—truly a dark culinary creation darker than pre-dawn.

That changed in junior high school after tasting a classmate’s homemade five-kernel mooncake. Heavens! It wasn’t that five-kernel was bad—she just hadn’t tasted good ones! Moderately sweet, with fragrant pine nuts, walnuts, and peanuts, not choking or cloying, no rancid taste, and crucially, no green and red candied strips.

Later, reading “Dream of the Red Chamber,” seeing the “palace-made melon kernel and pine nut mooncakes,” he figured there must have been five-kernel mooncakes made according to imperial kitchen recipes. If Lady Jia, who’d lived in luxury her whole life, didn’t dislike them, they must have been delicious—and probably didn’t contain green and red candied strips.

Even later, reading the food lists of the great gourmand Yuan Mei, Shen Shaoguang completely abandoned his disdain for five-kernel mooncakes, only wishing he could taste a couple.

Having never had the chance to make them in his previous life, he certainly wanted to try now.

Actually, making five-kernel filling was simple. Shen Shaoguang analyzed that the poor taste of future five-kernel mooncakes mainly came from inferior or stale ingredients, especially those left sitting for sale for days—how could they not be unappetizing?

Shen Shaoguang paid particular attention to ingredient selection, choosing the finest pine nuts, walnuts, almonds, sesame seeds, and chestnuts from the Western Market’s dried goods shops, and having them ground into fine powder. The rest was simple: add sugar and lard, wrap in dough, press in molds, and bake. After baking, he tried one piece and found it—not bad, but not revolutionary.

Then he tried using snow-skin wrapping, and surprisingly, the same filling tasted several levels better! This must be what Yuan Zicai meant by “sweet without being greasy, loose without being sticky”? Surely this was it?

Satisfied with both the five-kernel and other fillings, Shen Shaoguang planned to make another fortune from mooncakes. Thanks to the previous success with Qixi flower cakes, many returning customers placed orders before Shen Shaoguang even advertised.

Not knowing which household Steward Zhou served, Shen Shaoguang simply smiled and asked, “Elder, how many would you like to order? What kind?” Then pointed to samples while introducing various flavors and patterns, which seemed even more numerous due to different imprints.

Steward Zhou, long removed from such minor purchasing duties, was surprised that such a small shop offered so many varieties. But being experienced, he pondered briefly before saying, “Apart from those for our consumption, we’ll take these ‘Prosperous Reunion Boxes’ for others. The baked ones, as they’ll be gifts and shouldn’t fall apart. For our household…”

Steward Zhou contemplated, “We’ll take the tender snow-skin ones, one box of each filling. The Old Madam has sensitive teeth and prefers soft textures. The patterns don’t matter—our master doesn’t care about such things.”

Shen Shaoguang nodded, seeing that this master was filial and agreeable, as the old servant considered only the elderly lady’s preferences. But for a festival… Shen Shaoguang suggested, “Our shop has just released a set of fortune mooncakes, specially made for noble households’ Mid-Autumn banquets. Perhaps your master and mistress would enjoy them?”

“Each pastry has an ancient poem on top and a fortune explanation on the back, just for entertainment at banquets to amuse everyone.” Shen Shaoguang showed him one.

Being a well-read servant from an established family, Steward Zhou asked several questions, and finding all the messages auspicious, smiled, “This is interesting, we’ll take a box.” His young master was usually so bland, unlike other young people, and could use some entertainment.

Shen Shaoguang smiled and added it to the order, asking while writing the customer’s name, “May I ask Elder, how should I address your master?”

“It’s for Assistant Magistrate Lin’s household in this ward.”

Shen Shaoguang raised an eyebrow, smiled, and lowered his head to write, “Very well.”

Steward Zhou didn’t know why his young master had specifically requested pastries from this shop, assuming the taste must be good—their jade-tip noodles were particularly favored by the Old Madam, even after that bout of stomach upset.

Returning to the mansion, Steward Zhou reported to his master in the study.

Lin Yan nodded, said “Thank you for your trouble,” and said nothing more.

After Steward Zhou left, Liu Chang, the attendant standing behind Lin Yan, became thoughtful.

Liu Chang regularly accompanied his master on outings. He felt his young master treated this Miss Shen unusually. Not to mention earlier when he was sent to buy pancakes at the ward gate—the master bought them but didn’t eat them…

Then two days ago, passing by Shen’s shop, he was sent to buy orchid beans and lion’s head meatballs. His master rarely ate outside food—how did he know what this shop sold?

And when he reported witnessing the young miss “outsmarting the troublemakers,” his master immediately ordered him to find the ward constables, and rather than leaving, waited by the roadside. Why such concern over a small matter?

After investigating those two troublemakers, they learned of connections to the Yunlai Tavern, which was Prince Zhao’s business. Then the master had Steward Zhou make a prominent show of ordering Mid-Autumn Festival pastries…

Liu Chang felt something was going on here! Something going on!