One morning at the end of July, the sun beat down on the streets, making the entire road scorching hot. The air was especially stifling, making it difficult to breathe.
Xu Meng yawned as she turned off her alarm and crawled out of bed. She randomly grabbed a shirt and a pair of pants, threw them on, and walked groggily toward the bathroom.
After washing up, she finally became a little more awake. She put on her black-rimmed glasses, picked up her bag, and left the house.
Her home wasn’t far from the subway station, just a little over five hundred meters away. Normally, walking that distance was nothing, but once the weather got hot, she didn’t even want to walk fifty meters, let alone five hundred.
Sometimes, when she overslept, she would have to jog all the way to the subway station. By the time she got onto the subway, she would be drenched in sweat as though someone had fished her out of a pool.
Still half-asleep, Xu Meng held up an umbrella and walked toward the subway station with her head lowered. She had covered almost half the distance when she suddenly remembered—
She had forgotten to buy breakfast today!
Normally, she bought breakfast at Chen Ji Morning and Evening and brought it to the office to eat. But she had been so sleepy today that she had walked right past the shop without noticing.
Xu Meng stopped dead in her tracks and smacked herself hard on the forehead. But in weather this hot, she couldn’t bring herself to turn around and go back for breakfast, only to walk all the way to the subway station again.
Forget it. She would just go hungry this morning and wait until lunchtime to eat.
She continued walking with her umbrella. After only a few steps, she noticed six congratulatory flower baskets arranged ahead of her. It looked like a shop had just opened.
Taking a closer look—
Huh? Was it selling breakfast?
Calling it a shop was actually a bit of a stretch. It was just a temporary stall set up in front of a teahouse.
Inside the glass display counter were all kinds of fresh dim sum. Six large steamers sat on the dining table, along with a frying pan. Six corn cakes were spread across the pan, sizzling and steaming.
There were only three or four customers scattered around in front of the stall. Xu Meng folded up her umbrella and walked over, wanting to see what delicious things they had.
The clean, gleaming glass display case had three levels. Various kinds of dim sum were arranged neatly on specially made large metal trays.
The first level held freshly fried corn cakes and freshly made Malay cakes. The second had white sugar cakes, crystal cakes, and coconut milk mille crepe cakes cut into small square blocks. The bottom level was filled with water chestnut cakes in different flavors.
She glanced at the frying pan again. A palm-sized meat patty was filled with corn kernels, green peas, and carrots. After being fried in oil, its outer surface had turned a tempting golden brown.
Xu Meng’s stomach betrayed her with a loud growl.
Then she looked at the prices.
Everything was around three yuan.
What a bargain!
“Hello! What would you like to have?”
Only then did Xu Meng notice the two people standing behind the counter. One was somewhat older, while the other looked to be around her age.
Both had short hair. Neither wore any jewelry around their necks or ears. Their sleeves were rolled up, and their fingernails were clean and neatly kept.
Seeing Xu Meng hesitate, Xia Yongen pointed at the food container on the dining table.
“We have samples here. You can try some before deciding whether you want to buy anything.”
The various kinds of dim sum had been cut into neat, dice-sized pieces and arranged in the food container.
Xu Meng stepped forward, picked up a toothpick from the side, and selected the corn cake she most wanted to try.
Although the sample was only a small bite, she could clearly taste its flavor. The fried corn cake was rich with the fragrant aroma of oil, while the meat filling was firm and pleasantly springy.
Because it contained corn, carrots, and green peas, however, it didn’t feel greasy at all. Instead, the more she chewed, the more delicious it seemed.
Xu Meng’s sleepiness vanished in an instant.
She put down the toothpick and glanced again at the dim sum in the sample box. She wanted another piece, but felt a little embarrassed to ask.
Xia Yongen smiled.
“Miss, would you like another piece?”
Xu Meng was tempted, but in the middle of summer, she still didn’t want to eat too much food that might make her feel overheated. So she shifted her gaze elsewhere.
As her eyes swept across the sign, she noticed another item:
Iced Water Chestnut Drink — 2 yuan per cup.
Xu Meng’s eyes lit up.
They actually sold water chestnut drinks here!
So she ordered a cup of iced water chestnut drink and one pan-fried corn cake.
Xia Yongen smiled and said, “Today is our opening day, and you’re our tenth customer. The water chestnut drink is on us.”
Xu Meng froze. Then she said incredulously, “Thank you! I’m so lucky!”
Today had been nothing more than an ordinary workday, but she had already received a pleasant surprise first thing in the morning. Her resentment toward having to go to work immediately dissipated quite a bit.
As soon as she turned around and left the breakfast shop, she eagerly stuck the straw into her cup and began drinking the water chestnut drink.
The water chestnut drink was ice-cold and easy to drink. On such a scorching hot day, taking a sip was simply heavenly!
She hadn’t even walked a hundred meters before Xu Meng had finished the entire cup.
Although she was still sweating, the heat and restlessness in her heart had eased considerably.
Holding her umbrella, she continued walking while taking the corn cake out of her pocket and eating it.
When she had tried the sample earlier, she had only gotten a rough taste of it. Now that she was holding an entire corn cake in her hands, she finally understood what it meant to eat to her heart’s content.
The outer layer of the corn cake had been fried until crisp, with a thin sheen of oil coating the surface.
The moment she bit into it, there was a crisp crunch.
The crispy shell broke open, revealing a generous amount of meat inside.
The corn and carrots, infused with the rich fragrance of pork lard, were sweet and delicious. The green peas added a slightly different texture, keeping every bite of the corn cake from becoming monotonous.
Was this… really the corn cake she knew?
She remembered that the corn cakes she had eaten in the past were coated in a thick layer of batter, with only a pitiful amount of meat filling inside.
But the pan-fried corn cake sold here was completely different.
It had plenty of meat and a thin crust, and it was unbelievably fragrant and delicious.
After finishing breakfast, Xu Meng, who had still been groggy and half-awake earlier, felt completely refreshed. She perked up all at once, and even her pace toward the subway station quickened.
If she could eat such delicious breakfast every morning, wouldn’t that be the happiest thing in the world?
After Xu Meng left, Li Minyao arrived at Rongxing House.
She was worried that there would be a particularly large crowd at the breakfast shop today, so she hurried downstairs as quickly as she could. To her surprise, however, there were only two or three people in front of the glass display counter, and they were all just sampling the food.
Xia Yongen had already been mentally prepared for this situation.
After all, it was only the first day of business. Many people didn’t even know there was a breakfast shop here yet. They had either bought breakfast somewhere else or had already eaten. That was precisely why she had specially prepared a container of samples.
She was still quite confident in the dim sum she made herself. Once those passersby tasted it today, it would naturally leave an impression on them. When they needed breakfast in the future, they would come knocking on their own.
Besides dim sum, Xia Yongen had also prepared sweet potatoes, corn, eggs, and soy milk—ordinary items that could be found at most breakfast shops.
However, compared with soy milk, it seemed that a cup of iced water chestnut drink was more popular with everyone.
After all, the weather in Huacheng was simply too hot. Eating dim sum first thing in the morning, before one was even fully awake, could be rather difficult without something to wash it down.
But soy milk, milk, and Eight-Treasure Congee were simply too commonplace. In order to make her breakfast shop stand out, Xia Yongen had thought of the water chestnut drink.
Water chestnut drink was easy to make and required only simple ingredients. The water chestnuts were finely chopped, so there was practically no need to chew them after drinking. It went perfectly with other dim sum.
By ten-thirty, there were already far fewer people coming to buy breakfast.
Xia Yongen and Lai Meizhen calculated the day’s sales. Sure enough, the water chestnut drink had sold the most, followed by white sugar cakes and corn cakes.
Overall, however, business on the first day wasn’t particularly good.
Xia Yongen wasn’t discouraged. There still weren’t enough varieties of dim sum at the breakfast shop, and the publicity wasn’t sufficient either. There was plenty of time ahead. Business would gradually improve.
After the two of them ate lunch, they began preparing the dim sum needed for the afternoon stall. Xia Yongen went to the school as usual to set up her stall, leaving Lai Meizhen alone to watch the shop.
By the time Xia Yongen returned to Rongxing House, it was already past seven in the evening.
Only then did she remember that she had been busy all day and hadn’t had the chance to check the system.
【Congratulations on opening the breakfast shop! The recipes for “Savory Water Chestnut Puffs” and “Savory Fried Cakes” have been unlocked.】
【The Teahouse Rating has been upgraded to Breakfast Shop.】
【The system panel has added an Asset Statistics module for the Host.】
She switched back to the system’s main page and discovered that the system panel had already been updated:
【Name: Xia Yongen】
【Age: 22】
【Identity: Heir to Rongxing House】
【Main Quest: Revitalize Rongxing House】
【Teahouse Rating: Lv.2 Breakfast Shop】
【Current Total Assets: -195,784.8 yuan】
【Stage Quest: Reach a weekly turnover of 2,000 yuan】
According to the new stage quest, she needed to achieve a turnover of 2,000 yuan within one week, which meant she had to sell at least 286 yuan a day.
After calculating the figures, Xia Yongen discovered that she had only made 221 yuan today.
Simply hoping that business would skyrocket over the next few days and make up for the shortfall from the first two days wasn’t a practical solution.
There were still far too few varieties of dim sum at the breakfast shop. If she had more options, business should improve. Unfortunately, the stingy system only unlocked one or two new dim sum items every time she completed a quest.
She then opened the Dim Sum Compendium to check the recipes for savory water chestnut puffs and savory fried cakes.
Savory water chestnut puffs were an extremely common teahouse dim sum. Many older people especially enjoyed them because the outer skin was soft, chewy, sweet, and fragrant, while the filling contained chives, dried shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, pork, and other ingredients. They were delicious, easy to chew, and perfectly suitable for people of all ages.
Savory fried cakes, on the other hand, were more popular among younger people. Although they were called “fried cakes,” they were actually deep-fried. They originated in the 1930s and were made by adding red fermented bean curd and white sugar to the dough before deep-frying it.
Red fermented bean curd was essentially fermented tofu, but compared with ordinary fermented tofu, the southern variety was made with the addition of red yeast rice during the fermentation process.
Savory fried cakes made with southern-style red fermented bean curd had more than just a salty, savory fragrance. They also had a subtle sweetness from the red yeast rice, a faint aroma of alcohol, and the sweetness of white sugar. The three flavors blended together, giving the savory fried cakes a remarkably distinctive taste.
Just reading the recipes made Xia Yongen feel a little hungry. Unable to resist, she entered the Boundless Space and began practicing.
However, before she had even finished kneading the dough, everything in front of her suddenly disappeared.
She froze for a moment, then heard a familiar voice coming from not far away.
“Ah En, how did you fall asleep right here?”
Lai Meizhen came out carrying the dishes and was startled to see Xia Yongen slumped directly over a chair. She hurried over to check on her, even testing her breathing before finally realizing that she was merely asleep and hadn’t actually collapsed from something being wrong.
Having been forcibly pulled out of the system, Xia Yongen could only pretend that she had just woken up. She rubbed her eyes.
“I… I’m just a little tired. Let’s go to bed early tonight.”
“Oh my, just look at you! You’ve been getting up at four in the morning to make dim sum, then after selling breakfast, you start preparing for the afternoon stall. Of course you’re exhausted!”
Lai Meizhen felt terribly sorry for her. She decided that over the next few days, she would go to the wet market to buy some good ingredients and make Xia Yongen some slow-simmered nourishing soup to help replenish her strength.
Xia Yongen could only awkwardly agree. She lowered her head and picked up her chopsticks, starting to eat.
Tonight, Auntie Zhen had prepared three dishes: steamed egg, steamed pork patty with shiitake mushrooms, and a plate of dace with black beans. There was also a bowl of fish ball soup.
Although they were all nothing more than ordinary home-style dishes, Xia Yongen ate an entire large bowl of rice with the pork patty alone. By the end of the meal, she couldn’t help letting out a satisfied burp.
Not long afterward, she began to feel woozy and light-headed. She had probably succumbed to a food coma.
This time, Xia Yongen really did fall asleep. Before drifting off, she was still thinking about how to improve the breakfast shop’s business.
Auntie Zhen looked at her with a deeply concerned expression.
This child really made her worry!