In the Ming Dynasty 1498, my restaurant connects two worlds.

"Go back and find out who those people are," Song Xiaoyi said, patting Zhu Ding's pale face affectionately. "Young Master Zhu, here's a suggestion: investigate the butler's background. You probably can't keep that butler anymore."

"Understood! Understood!" Zhu Ding wasn't stupid; upon reflection, he realized something was indeed amiss.

"Get lost! If you want to come eat again, grandpa welcomes you, but you'll still have to pay up. If you want to eat knives, grandpa welcomes you too, but I have knives that are even faster than these."

Just as he finished speaking, Mu Bin hurriedly squeezed out of the crowd of onlookers, his face showing a mixture of anxiety and apology. "Brother Xiao Yi, this..."

"Commander Mu, it's nothing. Young Master Zhu and I were just joking around. This is a small matter, no need for the Embroidered Uniform Guard to get involved. Just register it and write that Prince Ning wants the imperial family's secret recipe, and ask if you can give it to him."

"Brother... Brother Yi, Commander Mou, we were just joking, so please don't register, okay?"

"How dare you call me 'Brother Xiao Yi'? You'd better watch your behavior while working for that Uncle Ning Prince. Get lost! Just looking at your crotch brings bad luck!"

Having gotten rid of Zhu Ding and his thugs, Song Xiaoyi easily used their strength against them, temporarily defusing the crisis. Mu Bin then stepped forward, looking somewhat embarrassed, "Brother Xiaoyi, we were delayed on the way..."

"It's nothing, just a minor incident. I only borrowed the name of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Please don't take it to heart, Commander Mou."

Zhu Zhishan and the others witnessed Song Xiaoyi toying with Zhu Ding and instantly eliminating six thugs. They were amazed, thinking he was truly a celestial being.

On the other side, Mu Bin was in an awkward situation. Song Xiaoyi used to call him "Brother Mu," but now he was addressing him by his title. Mu Bin wasn't stupid.

It's really not his fault; it was Liu Kexi's idea to test Song Xiaoyi's adaptability or try to force Song Xiaoyi to reveal his true intentions.

Liu Kexi searched the Qinhuai River for more than ten days but could not find a boat that delivered "fast food boxes" and "bicycles" to the back gate of the Song residence.

The more unknown something is, the more mysterious it becomes; and the more mysterious something is, the more frightening it becomes.

Song Xiaoyi dismissed Mu Bin and sent Zhu Zhishan and the others back to the Song Mansion of the Ming Dynasty. He then turned around and went upstairs back to the kitchen. Miaolan and Song Yunqiu looked at him with amazement in their eyes.

"Feed? Sister? Miaolan? What are you spacing out for?"

Miao Lan and Song Yunqiu exclaimed in unison, "Brother Yi/Little Brother Yi, you're so impressive!"

"Look at what you're saying! Do you think immortals would let a few mortals bully them?"

"Come on, I'll take this opportunity to tell you something. I might be going on a long trip in a few days. You two take Song Hao and the others and run the shop as usual. If any bullies come looking for trouble again, remember to run into the kitchen as fast as you can. This is the Immortal Realm; no mortals can enter without permission."

"What should we do about Shifu?"

"Let him stay with Brother Zhishan and study at the Song residence for the next few days, and don't let him go out."

"The number of passes to the Immortal Realm is limited, and we can't open them to Shifu for the time being. But as long as you work hard, when more passes become available, Xiao Yi will definitely give them to Shifu first. After all, he calls me uncle, so don't worry, sister."

"Um."

After arranging the follow-up work for the two women, Song Xiaoyi returned to her own happy little nest on the second floor of the small restaurant.

Today's minor conflict not only revealed the characteristics of this era to Song Xiaoyi, but also made him realize his own inadequacy and the ambiguous attitude of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

During the Hongzhi reign of the Ming Dynasty, although there was no foreign invasion, the survival crisis in Yingtian Prefecture was not small. It had too many "cash cows" and would be difficult to protect without sufficient strength.

The connection with the Embroidered Uniform Guard cannot be relied upon solely through business.

Only by firmly grasping military power in our own hands can we establish ourselves; the plans of the Ming Dynasty need to be changed.

First, you need to increase your self-defense capabilities. If firearms aren't enough, then melee weapons are still an option.

We need to prepare sharpened long and short knives, Zhuge crossbows, and a large quantity of crossbow bolts, as well as compound bows and a large quantity of bows and arrows. We can't buy them online, but we can order them on-site. It's a bit more troublesome and we just need to visit a few more places.

Storage requires sufficient space. Selling an antique only adds one cubic meter of space, but donating one adds five cubic meters, which is a great deal.

Just then, there was no news from the museum for more than ten days. Director Teng had spoken to them, saying that several small museums were short of funds and it was difficult to get government funding. Song Xiaoyi decided to donate all three sets: ninety pieces of blue and white porcelain and thirty-two small green celadon plates, totaling one hundred and twenty-two pieces!

The call connected, and Dean Teng answered, his tone slightly apologetic, "Hey~, Xiao Yi, um..."

But when he heard Song Xiaoyi say he wanted to donate all three sets of porcelain free of charge, his voice instantly filled with astonishment and disbelief: "What? What did you say? Say it again! It's too noisy here, I didn't hear you!"

"Are you sure? You'll donate it all?! Not a single penny? That's hundreds of millions!"

"I'm sure. Please report this to your superiors. I'll sign off on the donation once the paperwork is complete. I promise I won't back out."

"Xiao Yi, I believe you now! On behalf of the China National Museum, thank you!"

[Ding! Detected that the host has legally donated 122 pieces of Ming Dynasty artwork. The auxiliary space of the dining hall will be expanded by 610 cubic meters.]

As soon as the call ended, the auxiliary space expanded dozens of times in volume.

With the space issue resolved, Song Xiaoyi immediately thought of the next step: he needed to provide Song Yunqiu with a mobile phone, or rather, provide a mobile phone for the second floor of the small restaurant, so that they could contact him in critical moments.

The next day, Song Xiaoyi took the high-speed train to Wenzhou. At the train station, he hired a taxi and inquired about any old Ming Dynasty houses for sale in Wenzhou or the surrounding counties. He also paid the taxi driver to ask other drivers on their internal communication channel.

Taxi drivers are the most well-informed group. Although most of the old houses from the Ming Dynasty in Wenzhou have been included in cultural protection, there is always strength in numbers. After two days of running around, Song Xiaoyi finally found an old house built during the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty on the edge of Yongjia County, by the Nanxi River!

Although this place is a bit far from Wenzhou city, it is much more convenient than coming from Nanjing.

A dilapidated, uninhabited old house was priced at over three million yuan. Song Xiaoyi had no time to argue with the homeowner, so he paid the full amount, completed the formalities, and obtained the property rights.

The original homeowner happily took the money and went to Hangzhou to start a business.

Song Xiaoyi spent over a thousand yuan hiring a housekeeping company to thoroughly clean and tidy the house, and also bought some furniture and daily necessities to fill it. After a complete inspection of the old house, which covered over two hundred square meters and was once overgrown with weeds but was now completely renovated, he silently thought:

"Old Song, why is there a two-way passageway in this house?"

[The basic requirement for setting up a two-way passage is to choose a room that will not be directly observed from the outside, similar to the host's kitchen in Jinling. After selecting the room, the host can simply call out and say "Set up a two-way passage."]