The bookstore owner was furious.
“Don’t you dare make things up! I make all of these by hand and fresh! Be careful, or I’ll sue you for defamation!”
The students who had been ripped off immediately shouted back, “Bullshit! You call this handmade and fresh? Even I could make something better than this!”
The bookstore owner stammered as he tried to defend himself. The students gathered in front of Xia Yongen’s stall all turned around to watch the drama, chattering among themselves.
“I bought some last week, and it tasted pretty good. Looks like I’ll just buy from this lady from now on.”
“I went to buy some last time and saw that the owner had black grime all over his fingernails. It completely killed my appetite.”
“Exactly. That guy looks like he doesn’t care about cleanliness at all. I wouldn’t want it even if it were free.”
…
Disdainful looks were directed at the bookstore owner.
He flew into a rage and yelled at the students, “What are you staring at?!”
After all that commotion, the few remaining students at his stall also left.
Half an hour passed, and the bookstore owner had made only one sale.
Not only that, but the students who had originally come to the bookstore to buy stationery, squishies, and cards also began going to the stationery shop instead.
The bookstore owner completely broke down.
Previously, he had always bought his pastries from the pastry shop at the market. But after the unpleasant incident last Friday, he had switched to a cheaper supplier.
Who could have known that now he couldn’t sell his snacks—and had even lost his original business?
Not far from the school, a bus pulled up to a stop. Lai Meizhen slowly stepped off.
She followed the flow of pedestrians and soon arrived at the entrance to the alley, where she spotted Xia Yongen busy at her stall.
Lai Meizhen carefully looked around and accidentally noticed that the man running the stall in front of the bookstore next door looked somewhat familiar.
After thinking about it for a moment, she realized—
Wasn’t he the man who had brought a bag of pastries last week and deliberately caused trouble?
Could it be… that the pastries he had bought were made by Xiao Xia?
Lai Meizhen recalled the pastries Xia Yongen had given her to taste yesterday. The more she thought about it, the more she felt that the flavors were indeed very similar.
Completely unaware that Lai Meizhen was secretly observing her from a distance, Xia Yongen was busy packing pastries together with Sister Feng.
By now, she had become quite familiar with Yao Xiaotong and Jiajia. When she saw the two girls coming again, she smiled and asked, “You’re here again! Two portions of white sugar cake and two portions of Malay cake?”
Yao Xiaotong shook her head and handed over twenty yuan.
“I want a lot today.”
Xia Yongen was surprised.
“Why are you buying so much today?”
Only after asking did she learn that the previous week, Zhao Yiping had made a bet with the students he was tutoring. If every student could correctly solve five physics problems, he would treat them to Xia Yongen’s pastries.
After two weeks of tutoring, Yao Xiaotong was no longer as afraid of physics as she used to be. Yesterday, during tutoring, she had even managed to correctly solve eight problems in a row, and she was feeling incredibly proud of herself.
Xia Yongen was happy for Yao Xiaotong as well and hurriedly handed over the pastries she was holding.
“Hold them carefully, okay? Don’t drop them on the ground.”
The moment Yao Xiaotong smelled the delicious pastries, she was suddenly filled with motivation to study.
After buying everything, she stood to the side and chatted with Xia Yongen. Her good friend Jiajia casually remarked, “It would be great if we could eat Sister’s pastries in the morning. Then I’d have plenty of energy for school.”
Yao Xiaotong nodded repeatedly.
“Exactly, exactly! Sister’s pastries taste even better than the ones from the teahouses outside.”
When Xia Yongen heard that, her heart stirred slightly, and an idea suddenly popped into her head.
However, she didn’t have time to think about it carefully at the moment, so she temporarily set the thought aside and continued taking care of business at her stall.
After the students had all dispersed, Lai Meizhen walked up to her.
Xia Yongen didn’t even have time to clean up the stall. She hurried over to greet her.
“Auntie Zhen, what brings you here?”
Lai Meizhen quickly waved her off.
“You go ahead and do your thing. I just wanted to come and take a look.”
Although she had made up her mind at the pastry shop earlier that day, as she made her way here, her heart had begun wavering again, and all sorts of thoughts had run through her mind.
But just now, when she stood at a distance and watched Xia Yongen busily working, all those noisy thoughts in her head had completely disappeared.
She began, “About what you discussed with me yesterday, I went home and thought about it—”
Before she could finish, Xia Yongen interrupted her.
“Auntie Zhen, I wrote an analysis report about Rongxing House last night. I wanted to show it to you.”
The two of them returned to Rongxing House, and Xia Yongen took out the report.
Originally, she had planned to show it to Auntie Zhen a few days later, so she had only written the first part last night. The rest of the contents were not yet complete.
“I analyzed some of the reasons behind Rongxing House’s poor business based on Auntie Fang’s business journal. The latter part is my plan for reopening Rongxing House based on the current situation, along with some general arrangements.”
Lai Meizhen merely glanced through it before setting down the dozen or so pages of analysis.
“I’m almost fifty years old. Even if you give me this stuff, I won’t understand it.”
Xia Yongen’s heart leaped.
“If you think there are too many words, I can explain it to you in simple terms.”
“We can talk about all that later. There’s no rush.”
“Later?”
Xia Yongen froze. A hint of confusion appeared on her face, along with a trace of disbelief.
“You mean…”
Lai Meizhen patted the back of her hand.
“I’ve agreed to what you asked. It’s just that I’ve been helping out at a pastry shop. I can’t simply leave without warning, so I’ve already spoken to the owner. I’ll work there for another half a month, and then I can come back and help you.”
Xia Yongen threw her arms around Auntie Zhen.
“That’s wonderful! Thank you for being willing to believe in me.”
“All right, all right. You don’t have to be so polite with me.”
Looking at Xia Yongen’s delighted expression, Lai Meizhen couldn’t help feeling a surge of happiness, along with another complicated emotion that she couldn’t quite put into words.
In this world, apart from herself, perhaps the only person who still cared about Rongxing House and Fang Ping was this young girl standing before her.
After Lai Meizhen agreed to return to Rongxing House, Xia Yongen finally breathed a sigh of relief.
“Auntie Zhen, have a seat. I’ll draft a contract for you. Take it home and have a look first. There’s no need to sign it right away.”
As soon as Lai Meizhen sat down, she caught sight of the bag of steamed buns on the table.
She suddenly remembered that the last time she had come here, there had also been a bag of steamed buns on this table.
“A-En, don’t tell me you eat nothing but these every day?”
Xia Yongen hadn’t expected her to bring this up and immediately froze, unable to get a word out.
Lai Meizhen put on a stern expression.
“You eat only this every day? How is that going to be enough?”
“That’s not exactly true. I also eat them with olive vegetable, and sometimes I steam some cured meats to go with them…”
Lai Meizhen was both exasperated and amused by her.
“Come on. You’re having dinner at my place tonight.”
Auntie Zhen’s home wasn’t very big, but since she usually lived alone, she was quite comfortable there. It was just that after being alone for so long, it was inevitable that she sometimes felt lonely. There wasn’t even anyone around when she wanted to have a conversation.
Now that there was an extra pair of chopsticks at the table, the house finally felt alive again.
Xia Yongen stood beside Auntie Zhen, helping her peel garlic, while the pot on the stove sizzled away.
Pieces of pork tenderloin coated in batter were deep-fried twice, turning into golden-brown chunks of meat.
The peeled garlic was minced and, together with green and red chilies and pineapple, tossed into the wok and stir-fried until fragrant. Then came the most crucial part—the sweet-and-sour sauce.
After the sauce had come to a slight boil, the freshly fried meat was added to the wok. Under the intense heat and oil, the sweet-and-sour sauce quickly clung to every piece of meat.
After several rounds of tossing and stir-frying, each piece of meat was covered in an almost transparent, amber-colored crispy shell. The pineapple chunks were coated in the sweet-and-sour sauce as well. The bright yellow pineapple, together with the green and red chilies, made the entire plate of sweet-and-sour pork look exceptionally vibrant and appetizing.
Alongside the pineapple sweet-and-sour pork, there was also a plate of lettuce in oyster sauce and a pot of carrot, corn, and pork rib soup.
The emerald-green lettuce, stir-fried with garlic and coated in a glossy oyster sauce gravy, looked incredibly tempting.
The soup in the pot was a very pale yellow, with a thin layer of oil floating on the surface. A quick scoop brought up golden chunks of corn, roughly cut pieces of carrot, and pork ribs with alternating layers of meat and fat.
Lai Meizhen pushed the plate of pineapple sweet-and-sour pork toward her.
“Eat this first, or it won’t taste as good once it gets cold.”
Xia Yongen picked up a piece of sweet-and-sour pork with her chopsticks and brought it to her mouth. The moment she took a gentle bite, the crispy outer shell cracked open, and steaming hot meat juices burst out, making her suck in a sharp breath from the heat.
Although it was scalding hot, a fruity tartness immediately spread across her tongue along with the tenderloin. After chewing a few more times, she could taste the refreshing sweetness unique to pineapple.
The tenderloin, with its perfect balance of lean meat and fat, had absorbed the sweet-and-sour sauce thoroughly, and it was not dry or tough in the slightest.
She quickly finished the entire piece of sweet-and-sour pork, then picked up a piece of crisp, juicy pineapple. She scooped up a spoonful of the sweet-and-sour sauce and hurriedly lowered her head to shovel a big mouthful of rice into her mouth.
Mmm, mmm, mmm! So delicious! It was absolutely perfect with rice!
After eating several pieces of sweet-and-sour pork, crispy on the outside and tender inside, she reached for the lettuce in oyster sauce.
The moment she bit into it, the lettuce stem was crisp and refreshing. The savory oyster sauce and intensely fragrant garlic clung smoothly to the lettuce as they entered her mouth, and with rice, she could easily finish half a bowl.
After she had eaten her fill, she finished with a bowl of carrot, corn, and pork rib soup.
The meat fell right off the bone with a single bite. The corn was sweet and refreshing, while the carrots had been stewed until soft without becoming mushy. One more sip of the soup, and her entire body felt warm and comforted.
As Xia Yongen ate, her eyes gradually began to sting, and she suddenly felt like crying.
Before the tears could fall, Auntie Zhen’s teasing voice reached her ears.
“What’s wrong? Is my cooking really that terrible? It’s so bad that I’ve made you cry?”
Xia Yongen blinked hard several times and smiled.
“Of course not!”
She went into the kitchen to help wash the dishes, quietly sniffing as she stared absentmindedly at the running faucet.
After finishing the dishes, she suddenly remembered what Yao Xiaotong had said that day. The idea she had temporarily pushed aside resurfaced once again.
Although business was very good every day now, she only sold for an hour each day, so there was a limit to how much money she could make. Now that she had Auntie Zhen to help her, she could finally let go and pursue more possibilities.
For example, opening a breakfast shop.
The people of Huacheng were famous for their love of morning tea. As a result, many breakfast shops actually sold the same kinds of dim sum found in teahouses—barbecue pork buns, shrimp dumplings, steamed dumplings, and all sorts of other delicacies. They simply didn’t offer as many varieties as teahouses, and naturally, their taste and presentation were also inferior.
With the dim sum recipes she had already unlocked, she had more than enough to open a breakfast shop of her own.
The idea of selling breakfast was certainly good, but if she only set up a stall at the school, her customers would still be limited to the students there.
Besides, students were always in a hurry in the morning. There probably wouldn’t be many who had the time or inclination to stop and buy breakfast.
It seemed she would have to find another prime location.
Xia Yongen turned off the faucet. Suddenly, she heard a familiar ding. The system, which had been silent for so long, finally appeared again:
【Congratulations, Host, on completing the special mission! Recipe for “Pan-Fried Corn Cakes” unlocked!】
【The Teahouse Rating Upgrade Mission has been activated! Please open a breakfast shop within thirty days!】
Xia Yongen encouraged herself silently.
A breakfast shop, here I come!
Since she was going to open a breakfast shop, choosing the location would be especially important. After all, breakfast shops focused on affordability and being accessible to ordinary people. If she chose a remote location, there was no way the business would take off.
So Xia Yongen opened the map on her phone again and began studying it.
Rongxing House was located in Lifang District, one of Huacheng’s three old urban districts. There were three older residential communities and two elementary schools near the teahouse.
Finding a good location within a short period of time wouldn’t be easy.
She briefly explained her idea to Lai Meizhen, who also felt that opening a breakfast shop was a good idea.
A breakfast shop could serve a much wider range of customers. On weekdays, its operating hours also wouldn’t be restricted by the school schedule like her current business was. However, rent was a major problem.
Lai Meizhen mentioned the pastry shop where she was currently working. The shop was located farther inside the market, and it was only thirty square meters, yet the monthly rent was 8,000 yuan. Including water, electricity, and gas, the monthly expenses came to more than 10,000 yuan.
Xia Yongen was astonished. She quickly did the math.
If the monthly cost of the shop was 10,000 yuan, she would have to sell at least a little over 300 yuan worth of food every day just to cover the expenses.
Although she could currently sell five or six hundred yuan worth of pastries every day, opening a breakfast shop meant moving to a new location and starting from scratch. There was no guarantee that business would be as good as it was now.
Moreover, if she was going to open a breakfast shop, she would need to prepare far more varieties of dim sum than she currently sold, which also meant higher ingredient costs.
The idea was certainly good, but after doing the math, Xia Yongen suddenly felt that opening a breakfast shop was far from easy.
Putting everything else aside, simply finding a suitable storefront was already a major challenge.
After leaving Auntie Zhen’s home, she walked along the street, studying the various shops while pondering the breakfast shop.
Before she knew it, she had arrived in front of Rongxing House.
Author’s Note:
None.