Page 46 of Markets & Mooncakes

"All right. Then I will keep drinking the tea."

"And I will be glad that I'm still a servant so I'm not really expected to look the Queen in the eyes," he responds.

Confusion fills me in response. "What does Mama have to do with anything?"

He laughs. "Well now I've been in bed with her daughter."

"I wouldn't worry about that. Mama thinks we've been having sex for years."

"Yes, but I know we haven't."

"Oh, it's changed for you. I understand now." I nod along with my words. "Is there something I can do to make it less difficult for you?"

"No. It's something I simply have to get used to. The only way to avoid it is to give up on us, and I don't want to do that."

"I would rather you didn't."

"Then it is what it is," he says. "We'll continue to do things our way."

"Including baking," I say firmly.

"Yes."

"So, mooncakes?"

"Mooncakes," he echoes. "You'll be glad to know that I've done the bits that you would need to be patient for."

"I would have been fine."

"I know, but the lotus paste was particularly tedious," he admits, sliding over a bowl with a thick paste in it.

"Can I try it when it's like this?"

He nods.

I pinch a little bit of the mixture off. "It feels a little like marzipan."

"It does. I would definitely say that it felt similar when I was cooking it, though I don't know if it's used the same way outside of mooncakes, that might be a question for Lady Sun Jinglan."

"I'll ask if I remember. How did you make it?" I ask Nate as I swallow the sweet and nutty lotus paste.

"With patience," he half-jokes. "Clean the lotus seeds, simmer them, make them into a paste, then put it in a pan and add some peanut oil, then honey and a pinch of salt."

I grimace. "That's a lot."

"Yes, but I think it came out well. It's a shame that I have no idea if it's right or not."

"I suppose we'll find out when I have tea with Lady Sun Jinglan," I say.

"I look forward to hearing what she has to say. Especially because we have to wait to eat the mooncakes for a day after they've baked."

"A day? That is going to test my patience," I half-joke.

"It's in the recipe." He waves towards his journal, which is out on the side. I head over to it and read through the recipe to remind myself of everything that's been done.

"So you've made the lotus paste and the mooncake skins?" I ask.

"Yes. They both needed resting, so I thought it was better to have them done in advance. And you did the egg yolks." He puts his hand on a bowl of beautifully orange salted egg yolks that have been removed from the salt already. They look a bit like the preserved apricots that we keep in jars. "And now we need to weigh everything."