During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, there was a businessperson named Bai Qingxi in Yangzhou Fu who ran the "Shiquan Medicinal Congee House" handed down by his ancestors. The Shiquan Medicinal Congee House of the Bai family is famous for its unique taste of cooling and nourishing according to the ancestral secret recipe. But since Bai Qingxi's father died in a foreign land, business has gone from bad to worse since Bai Qingxi took over the porridge house.

That day, Bai Qingxi was looking at the empty shop and worried. A middle-aged customer came in and shouted for porridge, but when the porridge was served, he put the bowl in one sip and shook his head.

Bai Qingxi hurriedly asked, "Guest Officer Zhou is not to your taste?"

The middle-aged man sneered: "This is also a time-honored Shiquan medicated porridge?"

Bai Qingxi heard that the middle-aged man had something to say, and hurriedly bowed and said, "Please give me more advice, sir." The middle-aged man looked at Bai Qingxi and said, "Boss Bai, if you really want to know the reason, just come with me!"

Although Bai Qingxi was suspicious, he still left with the middle-aged man for the future business of the porridge house. He walked to a nunnery on the outskirts of the city. The middle-aged man took Bai Qingxi into Anli and pushed open a door, saying, "The secret recipe is here.

Bai Qingxi walked in suspiciously and saw that there was nothing good in the room, only a soil bed, and a white-haired old lady lay on the bed. Bai Qingxi had already looked at the old lady's face, first startled, then knelt down with a "plop" sound.

At this time, the middle-aged man also came into the house and asked Bai Qingxi, "You know her."

Bai Qingxi nodded and said, "This is my stepmother, Bai Yang, who is usually a little stupid. After my father died, unfortunately, he was very stimulated and ran away from home. I have sent people to look for her for many days, and you are really a great benefactor of my Bai family to help me find her!" Say it, kowtow and bow.

The middle-aged man said, "My surname is Chen, I travel south and north to do a small business, you can call me Boss Chen. God, when I saw the old lady on the ancient road outside the city, he was already dying, so I must have sent him to Anli for foster care. Later, the old lady woke up and told me something about your hundred families, and I found out that he was a person from your house. The old lady also said that the secret recipe you used is not authentic, and the authentic secret recipe is on him. Take him back and support him."

Boss Chen said and left. Bai Qingxi then hired two bullock carts to pull the old lady home and told the servants to take care of her. He also kowtowed the old lady every day and asked her to take care of her meticulously.

In a flash, half a year had passed, and Bai Qingxi had asked about the secret recipe many times. The old lady was sometimes sober and sometimes confused, but she never mentioned the word "secret recipe". Bai Qingxi saw that the business of her porridge was getting worse and worse, and it was almost impossible to support it. One day, she returned home worriedly and went straight to the old lady's room.

The old lady seemed to understand Bai Qingxi's words, she nodded and reached out to take out a small cloth bag from her arms and handed it to Bai Qingxi.

Bai Qingxi never expected that the secret recipe would be so easy to get, and took the cloth bag without being overjoyed. But when she opened the cloth bag layer by layer with trembling hands, she was dumbfounded: "Inside the cloth bag is a half-hard stone-like wowotou."

Bai Qingxi felt that he was being teased, so angry that he threw Wowotou to the ground and yelled at the old lady: "What I want is a secret recipe, not something that pigs and dogs don't smell." But as soon as he said that, Bai Qingxi realized that he had lost his temper, and hurriedly bent down and said, "What I want is a secret recipe, not Wowotou."

But the old lady was confused by his yell just now, and looked at Bai Qingxi blankly, as if she didn't understand what he was talking about at all. Bai Qingxi confirmed that the old lady was pretending to be stupid, so he grabbed the old lady's collar and said, "You old bastard, I have served you good food for half a year, and you actually come with me to pretend to be stupid? Hand over the secret recipe!"

The old lady struggled desperately, and her long nails cut through Bai Qingxi's face. Bai Qingxi pushed the old lady hard in pain, and the old lady immediately passed out when she hit her head on the head of the bed. Bai Qingxi then rushed to search the old lady's body and found no secret recipe. Bai Qingxi, who was extremely disappointed, had completely lost her mind at this time, and she put her hands in the old lady's neck like the wind and choked her to death.

It was not until this time that Bai Qingxi seemed to have just woken up. When he thought that he had committed a murder, and because he couldnot find the secret recipe, the Bai family's ancestral industry would be defeated by him.

Just at this moment, Boss Chen came and was shocked to hear that the old lady was dead. Then he was so sad that he immediately bent down to salute the old lady's body. When he bent down, Boss Chen picked it up when he saw half the nest on the ground and looked at it thoughtfully.

Bai Qingxi hurriedly explained, "My stepmother was born into poverty and loves to eat some coarse grains. This half of the nest head was left by him. He told me to throw it away just now, but who knows."

As soon as Bai Qingxi said this, Boss Chen suddenly turned around and stared at Bai Qingxi, "You're lying! That day, the old lady told me that this wowotou had been kicked in her arms for 20 years. I've been reluctant to throw it away, why would I ask you to throw it away now?Boss Chen stared at Bai Qingxi, "Why are you hurt in your face?"

Without waiting for Bai Qingxi to answer, Boss Chen suddenly shouted, "Come and inspect the old lady's body." A few people immediately rushed in from outside the door.

Seeing this, Bai Qingxi hurriedly stepped forward to stop, "Who are you?"

The visitor shouted at him, "Do you know who he is? He is the new prefect of Yangzhou, Lord Chen Jichen, and we are the police officers handling the case under him."

Bai Qingxi was stunned when he heard that.

Before Bai Qingxi could come over, the few soldiers had already completed the inspection and came to report to Chen Zhifu: "When I returned to the mansion, my lord, the old lady had a bruise on her mouth and nose, and there were pinch marks on her neck. She was strangled to death."

Chen Zhifu glared at Bai Qingxi and said, "Boss Bai, you are so vicious! Come and take him away for me!"

Bai Qingxi had already collapsed on the ground. When the yamen put the shackles on him, he suddenly struggled and pointed to the prefect's mansion and scolded, "Yes, I killed someone, but you cheated my family's ancestral secret recipe, and you are not a good official.!"

Prefect Chen looked at the half-wowotou in his hand and said, "Boss Bai, you keep saying that the secret recipe, do you know that your Bai family's ancestral secret recipe is actually this wowotou!"

"You are talking nonsense!Bai Qingxi's lips trembled, "How can our Bai family's secret recipe be this wowotou? You can't get me."

When Prefect Chen heard that, he couldn't help but sigh: "Well, I'll tell you about your father's past so that you can understand."

It turned out that twenty years ago, Bai Qingxi's father, Bai Xianming, ran a porridge farm with a secret recipe from his ancestors, but he always felt that there was something missing in the taste of the porridge, so he often went to the mountains alone to dig for medicinal materials, hoping to improve the taste of the medicinal porridge. Unexpectedly, he was trapped in a snowstorm on the mountain, cold and hungry, and finally fell ill. Fortunately, the village girl who was picking herbs on the mountain found out that the village girl took off her leather jacket to keep him warm, and mixed the nest head she carried with her into a paste to feed him. After the snow stopped, she carried her home to recuperate.

Unexpectedly, the village girl herself suffered from the cold and developed a high fever after going down the mountain. At this time, Bai Xianming had recovered, so he made soup and decoction to serve the village girl. Later, although the village girl recovered, she suffered lifelong sequelae, sometimes sober and sometimes confused. At that time, Bai Xianming had been widowed for several years, so he married the village girl and decided to take good care of her for the rest of his life.

In the days of taking care of Bai Yang's family, Bai Xianming once again accidentally discovered that cooking wowotou that villagers used as dry food into medicinal porridge would produce a strange fragrance, because wowotou was made of wild cassava from the mountain. This cassava can be used as medicine and complements other medicinal materials in medicinal porridge.

Bai Xianming was overjoyed by the secret recipe he accidentally got, so he dealt with the half of the wowotou that he and Bai Yang's family ate on the mountain, and Bai Yang's family carried it on his body as a token of their love...

When his father brought Bai Yang's family home, he blamed his father for betraying his mother and hated Bai Yang's family deeply. After his father died, he lied to the outside world that Bai Yang's family was too painful due to his father's death and lost consciousness. He secretly left Bai Yang's family in the wild.

Chen Zhifu let out a long sigh and said to Bai Qingxi, "You must be wondering how I know this, right? Let me tell you, back then I was just a cowherder in the Bai Yang family's neighborhood. At that time, your father cooked porridge and decoction for the Bai Yang family day and night, and I was his assistant, so it can be said that he and the Bai family were witnesses to this relationship. I have to thank your father for his support back then. It is because of your father's kindness and kindness that Bai family porridge has won people's hearts and the business will become more and more prosperous. Although Bai Yang family is stupid, he has the kindness to raise you. Last time I asked you to take her back, I actually wanted to give you a chance to reform, but I didn't expect you to be so cruel to her. Since you have long forgotten the roots of your ancestors, what is the secret recipe for you? "

Bai Qingxi froze there, speechless for a long time…