As the lunch peak passed, Mother Wen’s expression remained dimmed.
She wouldn’t have minded a slow day or a hard life, but being forced to stare directly into the darkness of human nature made her heart ache.
Wen Fan brought out a pot of Sesame Leaf Tofu Soup and served a bowl to her mother. The rich aroma of sesame finally sparked Mother Wen’s appetite, making her realize she had been so busy she hadn’t even noticed she was hungry.
Wen Fan said softly, “Lunch is simple today—just some soup and the Roujiamo I made.”
The Roujiamo featured fatty pork belly from the master stock, tied up to prevent it from falling apart and simmered until tender. It was then fished out and finely minced with diced green peppers. Since it was for the family, she stuffed the buns until they were bulging, the savory juices nearly dripping from the bottom.
With one loud crunch, the crispness of the bun and the rich fragrance of the meat melded together, making all their troubles seem insignificant. A sip of the hot Sesame Leaf Tofu Soup followed, its piping-hot fragrance surging all the way down to the stomach.
Yang Tao’s eyes widened. He had never had this soup before!
“My dad suggested it; I just made it,” Wen Fan explained.
Father Wen knew Mother Wen was in a bad mood. He remembered how, when they first worked in the city, he would often make this soup for her in their rented room after a long day. He had described it to his daughter, and she had easily produced a version a hundred times more fragrant than his.
She had used two bundles of dried sesame leaves from the fridge. After soaking them and adding seasoning, she toasted flour in a wok until it turned slightly golden. Water was added to create a paste. In a separate pot, she heated oil and sautéed onions, ginger, garlic, and five-spice powder. Once the water boiled, she added the sesame leaves, diced tofu, and the toasted flour paste. Finally, she seasoned it and added a touch of sesame paste and crushed peanuts, finishing it off with a handful of sesame seeds.
The soup looked ordinary—a bit thick and messy—but the moment it hit the tongue, the intense aroma of sesame exploded like fireworks. The sesame flavor was bold and aggressive, warming the soul all the way to the stomach. The refreshing sesame leaves, the charred fragrance of the peanuts, the silky tofu, and the thick, savory broth were a perfect combination.
By the time she finished her bowl, Mother Wen was fully revitalized.
“I’ve thought about it,” she said while eating. “We aren’t lowering our prices.”
If she lowered her prices just because someone else started a price war, wouldn’t she be letting them lead her by the nose? Besides, Mother Wen felt that fifteen yuan was a perfectly fair price for what they offered.
Father Wen slapped the table. “I agree!”
“Not lowering the price is one thing,” Mother Wen continued, “but we can’t just sit here and wait. We need to think about what to do next.”
“I agree with that too!” Father Wen added.
Mother Wen turned to the younger ones. “Xiao Fan, Xiao Tao, Xiaoyu—any ideas?”
Wen Fan said lazily, “Just let them be. It won’t affect us anyway.”
With her skills, she didn’t believe anyone who had tasted her food would be able to stomach the competition’s. It was only one summer break; in less than half a month, that shop would collapse.
Yang Tao, however, was in favor of a direct confrontation. “I’ve got to do something to ‘promote’ them. This is ridiculous!” He made up his mind to have a talk with his mother, Song Hui. Although they weren’t particularly close with the neighbors, stealing business so blatantly on the same street was truly underhanded of Sun Mengyun and her husband.
Qu Xiaoyu also silently expressed that he could help hand out flyers during deliveries. If the others were doing it, the Wen family should too.
Wen Fan’s eyes flashed. “They’re ‘picking up a sesame seed only to lose a watermelon.’ It’s easy for her to change her business now, but it’ll be hard to change it back later.”
Mother Wen: “…”
Yang Tao suddenly got excited. “Exactly! She’s selling set meals, so we’ll sell Rice Noodles! Our sister’s noodles will definitely taste better than theirs!”
Mother Wen hesitated. What she found most incomprehensible was that Sun Mengyun had come over to pry for information but hadn’t bothered to actually buy a meal to taste. If she had, she would have known that trying to compete with them on the same street was a dead end! If Sun abandoned her rice noodles now to do something else, it wouldn’t be so easy to go back to them later.
“Is that okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? If she can do it on the first, we can do it on the fifteenth! I don’t think she even wants to sell noodles anymore, so we will!”
Mother Wen felt a bit of hesitation. They were all small business owners; if they did this, they would essentially be cutting off the neighbors’ retreat.
Father Wen spoke up. “Let’s not do that.”
“Uncle, don’t be a pushover now!” Yang Tao cried out.
Father Wen said helplessly, “It’s not about being a pushover. I just think that if we make rice noodles just to pick a fight with them, we’re giving them too much credit.”
“Making rice noodles means modifying the stove. Xiao Fan would have to worry about the recipe, and we’d have to prepare separate takeout boxes. We’ve finally stabilized things, and we’re already so busy. Adding another item would increase our workload tremendously, and for what? Just to drive them off the street?”
Father Wen shook his head. “They won’t last long anyway. Why waste our energy dealing with them?”
Qu Xiaoyu, silent for a long time, suddenly spoke up: “Uncle is right. Our goal is to cross the river, not fight the crocodile.”
The others stared at Qu Xiaoyu in stunned silence. His face turned bright red instantly. “I… I just saw that online…”
Yang Tao patted Qu Xiaoyu’s shoulder. “I almost crowned you a philosopher king.”
Qu Xiaoyu’s words had indeed calmed everyone down. Only Wen Fan stood there dazed.
In her entire life, no one had ever told her that the goal of life was to live well for oneself, rather than to fight with the wicked.
It was a wake-up call. In the palace, fighting had become a survival instinct; everyone was desperate to step on others to climb higher. Even she had had moments where she resorted to any means necessary. That was why her first instinct had been to retaliate against Sun Mengyun. In that “man-eating” place, if you didn’t eat others, others would eat you.
Ultimately, she had died in that very struggle. She once thought her culinary skills would allow her to avoid it, or that if she climbed high enough, no one could oppress her. But in the end, it was all in vain.
Crossing a millennium, she finally understood a truth: the problem wasn’t the people, but the environment that put a group of people in a jar and forced them to fight.
Mother Wen made the final call: “Then let’s forget it. Let them do as they please.”
Yang Tao smacked his lips. “I’m just afraid that even if we don’t care, others will have ideas.”
Sun Mengyun’s rice noodle shop had done well on this street; they wouldn’t have lasted three years otherwise. Now that they were abandoning their own business, someone else would surely step in to fill the gap.
Yang Tao grinned at Wen Fan. “Sister, let’s have rice noodles tonight.”
He wanted to scare the couple a bit and give them a reminder.
They did indeed have rice noodles that evening.
Yang Tao even took the initiative to order a bowl of chicken rice noodles from a nearby chain to let Wen Fan taste the competition. A layer of red oil floated over the thin noodles, with a single spoonful of tiny chicken pieces. It was marketed as chicken soup, but Wen Fan spat it out after one sip.
“It’s not fresh.”
Yang Tao was unfazed. “Of course not. Shops like this use chicken soup powder. You just stir it in and call it soup. Add some ‘tech’ rice noodles, and voilà! I used to crave this if I didn’t have it for a month.”
Wen Fan couldn’t understand it but showed respect by pushing the “tech” noodles back to Yang Tao.
“Dad, go buy a chicken this afternoon.”
If they were going to do it, they were going to do it right. The noodles didn’t have to be handmade, but the chicken soup had to be fresh.
Sun Mengyun sat fanning herself, beaming at the constant notifications on her phone.
“I told you! This place really gets orders.”
A ten-yuan set meal was cheap enough—much cheaper than regular takeout. Many parents, lured by the price, had joined the group. There were also those studying for exams who were on a tight budget; a cheap set meal was very attractive to them.
By the time lunch was over, there were already over a hundred people in the group. Sun Mengyun collected the money with a wide grin. Seeing her husband’s grim face, she tossed her fan at him.
“Look at you, being so useless!”
Wu Daneng was restless. He kept peeking out toward the Wen family’s shop. A business rivalry like this usually ended with a fight or a shouting match between the women. He was waiting for Mother Wen to come over and start a row.
Sun Mengyun didn’t care about any of that. She rolled her eyes. “If she comes to scold me, I’ll scold her back! What? I can’t change my own business? If she’s capable, she shouldn’t be afraid of me squeezing her. If she isn’t, she deserves to be pushed out.”
Wu Daneng couldn’t find the words to argue. Sun Mengyun’s words sounded right, but he felt something was off. “I saw the Wens started selling cold dishes and braised meat yesterday.”
Sun Mengyun was confident. “No big deal. Let them sell for a few days. If it sells well, we’ll do it too! And we’ll still be cheaper than them!”
Cheap or not, there was still profit to be made. With the Wens testing the waters first, Sun Mengyun was determined to copy them to the end.
Wu Daneng looked miserable. “You’re all talk, but what are we making for tomorrow’s set meal?” He didn’t have any fancy tricks. Home-style cooking was fine, but the flyer said “no pre-packaged food” and “freshly made”—wasn’t that asking for trouble?
“It’s not that hard,” Sun Mengyun replied. “Just make whatever. For ten yuan, they can’t expect the moon. We won’t use top-quality rice; just buy some cheap stuff. As for the vegetables, go pick up the leftovers at the market in the morning. Tomorrow we’ll do ‘Yellow Braised Chicken.’ There’s plenty of frozen chicken at the market.”
Wu Daneng hesitated. “Will that work? People are picky these days.” One bite of the rice and they’d know if it was fresh.
Sun Mengyun looked at him like he was a fool and pulled something from her pocket, tossing it on the table. “You really think shops these days use new rice? They use this!”
Wu Daneng picked up the bottle. It was labeled “Rice Essence.” He unscrewed the cap, and a powerful scent of cooked rice wafted out. It was so strong it was almost nauseating.
“My sister-in-law uses this in her Yellow Braised Chicken shop. I’m telling you, just a few drops and the rice smells like it’s just been harvested. You can smell it the moment you walk in. My sister-in-law said everyone does this now. Why do bakeries smell so good? Most of them put essence on their mops; once they mop the floor, the whole room smells like cake. I also brought back some Yellow Braised Chicken seasoning; remember to add it tomorrow.”
Wu Daneng was amazed.
Sun Mengyun said proudly, “Just do it. Everyone else is!”
In this day and age, did people really think they could make money just by being honest and hard-working? Stop dreaming. If you don’t take a shortcut, how are you supposed to make the big bucks?
Sun Mengyun happily went off to prepare. At the same time, she posted tomorrow’s menu in the group: [Yellow Braised Chicken, Stir-fried Pork, Boiled Greens.]
She hummed a tune. Over a hundred orders a day… she’d be making thirty or forty thousand a month, wouldn’t she? As for the shop, she’d change it back once school started. She’d see which items from the Wen family sold best and add them to her own menu. A price war might be shameful, but it was effective.
However, by that evening, Sun Mengyun wasn’t smiling anymore.
Wen Fan had made a giant pot of Chicken Soup Rice Noodles.
Yang Tao’s mother, Song Hui, was chatting with the owner of the pancake stall next door, holding a bowl of the noodles. She seemed to be doing it on purpose.
“Oh, Xiao Fan’s skill is incredible. These rice noodles are so delicious!”
The aroma of the chicken soup wafted over, and Sun Mengyun’s face instantly soured. Yet Song Hui acted as if she hadn’t noticed, even serving a small bowl to the pancake stall owner.
“Try it. This soup was freshly simmered.”
In a large bowl of golden chicken soup, the thin rice noodles rested at the bottom. On top was a generous serving of stir-fried Diced Chicken with Shiitake Mushrooms. Wen Fan had been heavy-handed with the toppings. Beside the chicken floated specks of black scallion oil, along with bright green leeks and chopped onions. Roasted reddish-brown peanuts had been crushed with a rolling pin and sprinkled over the top, followed by a spoonful of sesame paste.
The fragrance of this Sesame Paste Diced Chicken Rice Noodles alone was enough to make one lose control.
“Some people,” Song Hui said, “try to steal others’ business, but they don’t realize that others are simply more skilled than them.”
“Stealing this and that… watch out, or you’ll end up with nothing.”