By the water well.

Watching the well water swiftly flow through the stone column's pipes, Xu Yun's expression grew increasingly grave.

As an engineer, how could he not know what this phenomenon implied?

It was obvious.

Somewhere in the middle or at the other end of the pipe, there must be some mechanism generating suction.

However, given that the maid Yue Lian was supervising the site, Xu Yun could only temporarily shelve the many thoughts swirling in his mind and start drawing water with Zhang San.

The East Wing of the Su Mansion was a guest room, currently unoccupied.

Thus, their task was relatively laid-back; they only needed to fill the water for the main house and the West Wing.

After about a quarter of an hour.

All twenty buckets of water were poured completely.

Yue Lian replaced the cover on the stone column and locked it securely before saying to Xiaosan and Xu Yun:

"All right, Third Brother, Wang Lin, you can go have your breakfast now."

"Yay!"

Happily clapping his hands, Xiaosan turned to Xu Yun and said:

"Wang Mazi, let's go, let's go, time to eat!"

Seeing this, Xu Yun could only follow along.

Then, led by Xiaosan, the two of them passed through several courtyards and arrived at a small shed beside the South Wing.

The small shed was approximately two hundred square meters in size, with several wooden tables and chairs inside, and the roof had some rainproof and windproof measures.

When Xu Yun and Xiaosan arrived, there were already quite a few servants having breakfast inside the shed.

Breakfast, also known as morning meal.

It's what later generations refer to as breakfast.

As is widely known.

From the Shang Dynasty up until before the Tang and Song, most ancients only ate two meals a day:

A 'big meal' from 7 to 9 in the morning, and a 'small meal' from 3 to 5 in the afternoon.

By the Tang and Song Dynasties—especially after the Song Dynasty— the habit of three meals a day gradually appeared.

Some factors were economic, while others were due to the Song Dynasty lifting curfews and the rise of night market culture.

In large households like the Su Mansion, the family's breakfast was generally purchased by the servants from restaurants—as Xu Yun had seen before, the Old Chief Steward was allocating the breakfast shopping tasks before Xu Yun's arrival yesterday.

If family members who enjoyed surprises liked to explore, they could walk down the street, and the bustling Bianjing streets were evident in "Along the River During the Qingming Festival".

Only servants like Xiaosan, Yongzhu, and Xu Yun, living in the South Wing, would see the kitchen light up early to prepare food as breakfast to fill their stomachs.

In Xu Yun's impression, the term servant implies many restrictions.

The term is usually associated with descriptions like numbness, forced by life, or hopelessness.

More strictly speaking, it might even be linked to human rights.

Masters would beat and scold at will; if killed, they would pay some money to settle it, or even pay nothing, and dump the body in unmarked graves outside the city.

A human life thus silently vanishes in the long river of history.

But inside this shed, the servants Xu Yun saw were not necessarily full of joy, but at least not with empty eyes or knitted brows.

The overall spirit was lively with a self-initiated positive vibe.

This spirit wasn't forced laughter but joy from the heart.

Then Xu Yun followed Zhang San to the other side of the shed, where a food counter composed of several tables awaited them.

Main foods included steamed buns—currently called steamed cakes, stuffed buns, wheat cakes, rice porridge, and so forth.

The side dishes included pickles, minced chicken, salted meat paste, and jujube tower, among others.

Xu Yunhai was quite surprised to find that in both the rice porridge and side dishes, there were quite a few meat bits visible.

Seeing him unable to take his eyes off the food, Zhang San added:

"Wang Mazi, the servants in the mansion are divided into four categories: Qing, Dai, Li, and Yi, each with different monthly wages and meals.

For example, I am a Substitute Servant, and can choose three types of staple foods and two side dishes for breakfast.

You, without any wages, can only be considered a Cyan Servant, and according to the rules can only take two staple foods and one side dish, understand?"

Xu Yun glanced at the staple foods, noticing they were quite big; two wheat cakes were enough to fill his stomach:

"Got it."

Zhang San nodded, skillfully picked up a small bamboo basket, and began choosing food:

"Aunt Lin, get me a wheat cake, a steamed cake, and a bowl of rice porridge, plus some pickles... and that fish ball...."

Aunt Lin, the serving lady, was a woman in her fifties, short, with a slightly dark face and an apron around her waist.

She served up a basket of food according to Zhang San's request and then looked at Xu Yun:

"Are you new here? What would you like?"

Xu Yun picked up a basket and said:

"A steamed cake and a bowl of rice porridge, and also a serving of minced chicken."

Aunt Lin quickly prepared the meal, and her gaze lingered on Xu Yun for a moment.

After a few seconds, her eyes lit up as if recognizing something, shook her head, and added a stuffed bun to Xu Yun's basket.

Xu Yun: "....."

Sighing resignedly, he followed Zhang San's guiding to find a spot to sit down.

As soon as he sat down.

Zhang San, as if a starving ghost had been reincarnated, grabbed the wheat cake and took a big bite, his mouth stuffed full:

"Delicious!"

Picking water for nearly half an hour earlier had left Xu Yun a bit hungry, so he also took a bite of the bun.

Huh?

It was meat-stuffed?

He chewed more carefully, yes, pork.

The Song Dynasty was an era that loved meat, but during this period, the mainstream meat for the upper class was lamb.

During Emperor Zhenzong's reign, 350 sheep were slaughtered daily by the imperial kitchen, 280 during Emperor Renzong's, and 434,463 jin and 4 liang of lamb were used yearly during Emperor Shen Zong's.

According to the "Records of the Splendor of Tokyo", the peak population of Bianjing City, including the outer ten districts, approached a million, requiring over 3,000 sheep daily. (The most popular online version suggests over 20,000 a day, but I couldn't find the source, and it seems unreasonable to me.)

The source of these sheep was simple:

After signing the "Tan Yuan Alliance", the number of sheep consumed annually by the Song Dynasty reached alarming quantities.

Due to pricing, ordinary people found it difficult to eat lamb.

For servants like Zhang San, eating some lamb during holidays wasn't hard, but having lamb daily...

Do you really think Su Song is some delusional benevolent figure on the internet?

Thus, the meat servants commonly had in their meals during this era was usually pork.

This era's pork, due to the lack of castration, tasted somewhat gamey.

Coupled with generally poor living conditions, pork was considered inferior meat.

But despite being cheap, there was never a shortage of it in the market.

For instance, in Shi Nai'an's "Water Margin", Zhen Guanxi, killed by Lu Tixia with three punches, was a standard pork butcher.

However, being edible is one thing; being delicious is another—while Su Song shared the surname Su, his household's cook obviously lacked the culinary skills of the great Su Shi.

The meat in the stuffed bun was nauseatingly gamey, with congealed fat, making it difficult for Xu Yun to swallow even with closed eyes.

Thus, helpless, he quietly apologized, using chopsticks to scrape out the meat from the bun.

Zhang San, seeing this from across, couldn't help but ask curiously:

"Wang Mazi, why aren't you eating the pork?"

Xu Yun shook his head slightly:

"Stomach ailment, can't eat pork."

"Stomach ailment?"

Zhang San was momentarily stunned, then seemed to realize something:

"That must be a gastrointestinal issue... indeed, you people are prone to such problems in the gut."

Xu Yun: "?????"

Before he could speak, Zhang San licked his lips and with shining eyes said:

"Wang Mazi, if you're not eating the pork, shall we trade it for half a wheat cake?"

......

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