After returning to Rongxing House and having dinner, Xia Yongen lay down on the folding camp bed and had a good, long sleep. She had been getting up early every day for the past two days to prepare everything, so it would be a lie to say she wasn’t tired.
After waking up, she began thinking about the new mission issued by the system.
Tomorrow was Monday. She figured that there probably wouldn’t be much foot traffic at the food plaza except after people got off work in the evening. At other times, hardly anyone passed through the plaza.
So starting tomorrow, she would have to change locations.
She opened the map on her phone and began looking around. Soon, she settled on a familiar place.
Huacheng Railway No. 3 Middle School.
The school was a key middle school in Lifang District. Including the faculty and staff, there were more than a thousand people on campus. Most importantly, the school was only a little over five hundred meters from Rongxing House.
Over the past two days, whenever she went to the food plaza, she had deliberately taken a detour to check out the area around the school.
From what she had observed, there was an alley beside the school. Within a hundred meters of the entrance were a stationery shop, a bookstore, and a convenience store. At the far end of the alley, she had also seen several snack carts covered with cloth.
Setting up a stall here was definitely promising!
Through the school gates, Xia Yongen could practically see a sea of money.
Now that she had chosen her location, the next step was preparing the ingredients. She needed to sell at least 250 servings of put chai ko tomorrow. Since she had just unlocked the osmanthus and mango flavors today, preparing eighty servings of each flavor would be enough.
After finishing all that, she entered the Boundless Space.
The dessert rank of her put chai ko was already B rank, while reaching A rank required 500 proficiency points. After all her hard work over the past few days, she was now only fifty proficiency points away from reaching A rank.
Half an hour later, the system’s notification sounded:
【Congratulations, Host! The dessert rank of Put Chai Ko has been upgraded to A rank.】
After finally reaching the highest rank, Xia Yongen hurried out of the Boundless Space and immediately made a put chai ko for herself.
Compared with the put chai ko she had made yesterday, today’s version didn’t look noticeably different. But the moment she put it in her mouth, she could tell that it was indeed much more delicious than yesterday’s!
With put chai ko this delicious, there was no way business at the school could be bad.
The next day.
At 4:30 in the afternoon, Xia Yongen pushed her little cart to the entrance of Huacheng Railway No. 3 Middle School.
There were already quite a few snack vendors waiting in front of the school. She gave them a quick glance: grilled cold noodles, beef offal, jianbing guozi, grilled sausages, hand-pulled pancakes…
There really was quite a variety!
Seeing a newcomer, many of the vendors smiled at her. A few particularly friendly ones even came over to take a look.
“Oh, this is my first time seeing someone sell put chai ko! I feel like this stuff is going to sell pretty well!”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s so colorful and looks delicious just from looking at it.”
“Forget the kids. It’s so hot today that even I want one right now.”
Xia Yongen had initially thought she might be somewhat ostracized by the veteran vendors, but they were all surprisingly friendly, with smiles on their faces.
Moreover, her original spot was at the far end of the school gate on the right, almost next to the main road.
But the woman selling beef offal beside her and the man selling grilled sausages both shifted their stalls a little to the left, making her stall closer to the school entrance.
Xia Yongen was quite surprised and deeply grateful. After chatting briefly with the other vendors, she busied herself preparing her stall.
As soon as she set out the six-tiered tower of put chai ko, it naturally attracted plenty of attention. It wasn’t just the pedestrians—even the neighboring vendors couldn’t help taking a few extra looks.
At five o’clock, the school bell rang.
Half a minute later, a large crowd of middle school students carrying schoolbags streamed out through the school gates.
“Jianbing guozi, ten yuan each! Tasty and affordable!”
“Fried chicken cutlets, eight yuan a serving! Spicy or non-spicy!”
“Grilled sausages, three yuan each, five yuan for two!”
Inside the school, Yao Xiaotong hurried out of the teaching building with her little schoolbag on her back.
She hadn’t done very well on this month’s exam. Just moments ago, her homeroom teacher had called her to the office and given her a lengthy tutoring session.
After finally getting out of the office, she was feeling extremely gloomy. All she wanted was to quickly buy a serving of her favorite beef offal and use some good food to wash away her bad mood.
So, as usual, she headed toward the beef-offal stall.
But she soon noticed the conspicuous new stall beside it. Seven or eight students were already lined up in front of it.
Looking again, she realized that the person standing at the very end of the line was her good friend Jiajia.
Yao Xiaotong quickly went over.
“Jiajia, you’re not having grilled cold noodles today?”
Jiajia was holding a cup of mung bean smoothie.
“I’ve had grilled cold noodles before. This put chai ko is something I’ve never seen before.”
Put chai ko?
Yao Xiaotong shook her head. She had never been particularly interested in these kinds of pastries. But since Jiajia was waiting in line, she stood beside her and chatted to pass the time.
Jiajia tugged at her clothes and stretched up on tiptoe, trying to get a better look ahead.
“Wow, they all look so delicious… I’m going to have such a hard time choosing!”
“Tongtong, hurry and help me pick one.”
Yao Xiaotong followed her gaze toward the stall. She saw Xia Yongen take out a mango-flavored put chai ko.
Inside the small piece of rice cake were actually more than a dozen large chunks of diced mango.
Seeing the mango, Yao Xiaotong couldn’t help swallowing. Mangoes were her absolute favorite fruit.
Mango shaved ice, mango-flavored gummy candy, mango cake… There wasn’t a single mango-flavored thing she didn’t love!
She reached into her pocket and felt the precious five one-yuan bills inside.
That was her entire allowance for the day.
The fragrant aroma of braised beef offal drifted over on the breeze. Thinking of the radish soaked through with savory braising sauce and the crunchy beef cartilage that went crunch, crunch when she bit into it, she swallowed again.
This put chai ko cost 3.5 yuan. If she bought one, she wouldn’t be able to eat her beloved beef offal.
Although there were plenty of mango chunks in this put chai ko, the stall had only just arrived. What if… it didn’t taste good?
While she was hesitating, the line ahead had already shortened considerably. It was almost their turn.
After thinking for a long time, Jiajia finally ordered one mango-flavored and one red bean-flavored put chai ko.
After Jiajia paid, Xia Yongen smiled at Yao Xiaotong.
“Little girl, what flavor would you like?”
Yao Xiaotong stammered and waved her hand.
“Oh, I’m not buying one!”
With that, she hurried out of the line and went over to Jiajia, who was standing nearby eating her put chai ko.
Jiajia was eating the mango-flavored one. Yao Xiaotong leaned closer and asked,
“Well? Is it good?”
Jiajia’s mouth was stuffed full, so all she could manage was a muffled “Mmm, mmm, mmm.” She shook her head and nodded at the same time.
“Oh, come on, just tell me! Is it good or not?”
Jiajia lowered her head and took another huge bite of the put chai ko before shouting,
“It’s so delicious! The mango flavor is incredibly rich, and the mango chunks inside are so big and fresh!”
What?!
It was actually that delicious!
She could eat beef offal every day, but she had never even tried mango-flavored put chai ko before.
Yao Xiaotong had completely forgotten about the beef offal now. All she wanted was that mango-flavored put chai ko, so she hurried back to Xia Yongen’s stall and joined the line again.
But as more and more students came out of school, the line in front of the stall grew longer and longer.
To make matters worse, Jiajia had shouted so loudly just now that practically everyone ahead of Yao Xiaotong now wanted to buy a mango-flavored one.
Watching the mango-flavored stock dwindle, Yao Xiaotong had no choice but to start counting with her fingers.
Hmm… There were eighteen people ahead of her, and twenty mango-flavored put chai ko left.
As long as everyone bought only one, she’d still be able to get one.
But just as her turn was about to come, the student in front of her actually bought two mango-flavored ones in one go!
No! My put chai ko!
When Yao Xiaotong finally reached the stall again, she was practically on the verge of tears.
With no other choice, she bought an osmanthus-flavored put chai ko.
Even before taking a bite, she could already smell its faint osmanthus fragrance.
She gently bit into the put chai ko.
Her eyes immediately widened in amazement.
The put chai ko itself had a naturally cool sensation, and when paired with the fresh, delicate fragrance of osmanthus, even a light chew seemed to make her entire body automatically cool down. It was incredibly refreshing.
There were plenty of osmanthus petals inside, but their fragrance wasn’t overwhelmingly strong or cloying. The rice cake was soft and chewy, with just the right amount of bite. As she continued chewing, the fragrance of osmanthus blended wonderfully with the sweet aroma of rice.
Oh my gosh! If even the osmanthus flavor is this delicious, just how good must the mango flavor I’ve been longing for be?!
With a heart full of regret, Yao Xiaotong boarded the bus home.
Tomorrow, as soon as school ended, she was going to run out and buy put chai ko first thing!
At the same time, there was another person who was just as disappointed as Yao Xiaotong.
That person was Li Minyao, standing at the food plaza.
As an interior designer, Li Minyao had spent the entire day painstakingly working on drawings. She dragged her exhausted body home, and while she was on the subway, she suddenly remembered the put chai ko she’d eaten over the weekend.
A red bean put chai ko, accompanied by a cup of milk tea, then lying on the sofa at home while watching a drama…
Just thinking about it made her feel happy.
So she deliberately exited through the subway entrance across from her home and headed to the food plaza.
She had still been wondering which flavor she should get today when she reached the corner of the plaza.
But the little stall selling put chai ko was gone!
Li Minyao walked back into the food plaza, slowing her pace as she carefully looked up at the signs of every stall, trying to find that familiar little stall.
Could the vendor have gone somewhere else to set up?
But after walking around the entire food plaza, she still couldn’t find her.
She stood there blankly.
Could it be… that she’d gotten off work too late and everything had already sold out?
She hurried back to the original spot and asked the couple selling sauce-flavored flatbread next door.
The flatbread vendor said, “That girl didn’t come today. But that’s normal. There’s not much foot traffic here except on weekends. We only come set up in the evening, too. Maybe she’ll be back on the weekend.”
A glimmer of hope immediately rose in Li Minyao’s heart, but it was quickly extinguished by the grilled-skewer vendor beside them.
“Hmph! I knew she wouldn’t last long! Young people these days just don’t have any patience. I bet she found it too tiring and decided she didn’t want to do it anymore.”
The grilled-skewer vendor sounded so certain that Li Minyao’s heart sank.
She could only walk home dejectedly.
As she walked, she once again remembered the red bean put chai ko she’d eaten the previous weekend.
If I really have to wait until the weekend to eat it again, I’m going to crave it to death!
Wait, no… Where did that little stall of mine go?!
Author’s Note:
Honestly, while writing this, I really wanted to eat grilled squid. (Not that that’s relevant.)