When Tao Tao got home dejectedly with a bag of mangoes and Yu Luan in tow, neither of their parents had returned yet.
The house was dark. As soon as Yu Luan stepped inside, he quickly pressed himself against Tao Tao’s arm again as they walked.
Tao Tao turned on the lights, switched on the TV first, then sat Yu Luan down on a stool in front of it. She went into the kitchen, wiped the mangoes clean with a dry cloth, and dumped them into the rice bin. After that, she hurried upstairs, found her room, and dug out her red backpack with the Dalmatian print on it.
She unzipped it—and sure enough, inside lay a brand-new summer homework booklet. The cover practically flaunted the words “Happy Summer!” in bold letters.
As if that could make anyone happy!
She flipped through it. Just as she expected, her name wasn’t even written on it, and there wasn’t a single character written inside either.
Apart from the summer homework booklet, there was also a character writing notebook and a pinyin writing notebook. On the first page of each, a few characters and initials/finals had been demonstratively written—looked like she’d also been assigned calligraphy practice.
And her eight-year-old self hadn’t done that, either.
Tao Tao sat on the floor, on the verge of tears. What had Zhang Jiaming said earlier? Something about an illustrated poster?
Sigh. She’d go to Rao Lili’s house tomorrow to copy… I mean, do homework.
She flipped through the summer homework booklet again, taking a closer look at the questions: fill-in-the-blank pinyin, recognize characters from pictures, addition and subtraction within ten… Not too bad, not too bad. She tried to find some comfort in her misery. Thank goodness she’d been reborn into elementary school instead of having to face the final year of middle or high school right away. Otherwise, she might do even worse than in her previous life—she might have to repeat a year!
Oh well. She hadn’t been an early bloomer in her past life and hadn’t studied hard. This time, she’d give it her best shot and see if she could actually do well enough to beat Tao Guangzhi’s uric acid score.
Tao Tao was fairly easy to cheer up. Before long, she had comforted herself.
She dusted herself off, mustered her spirits, and headed back downstairs.
Yu Luan was still intently watching cartoons. By this hour, the news broadcast and weather forecast were over, but if you switched to Dragon TV, there was still “Legend of the Gods” to watch. Turn to Beijing TV, and you could catch “Seven Colors Light.” Local stations also aired “Popeye” and “The Little Dragon Club.”
Even though there wasn’t a dedicated children’s channel yet, there were still plenty of cartoon options—and every single one of them was top-tier, with superb animation and rich storytelling.
Yu Luan was watching “Popeye” without blinking.
Tao Tao didn’t call out to him. Once he started watching, he had to finish an entire episode, or he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
No rush. She’d find a chance to gradually correct that later.
She walked through the living room and, while Tao Guangzhi wasn’t home yet, started rummaging through the kitchen.
Tao Tao’s kitchen was quite large, divided into two sections by simple partitions. The smaller area on the left was for everyday home cooking. The other side had a long, oversized stainless steel counter, a four-tier gas oven bought secondhand from a food factory, a dough mixer, a large freezer, an ice water dispenser, and more. Under the counter, cabinets were stuffed with large bags of flour, cartons of eggs, condensed milk, white sugar, and big buckets of shortening—fully stocked.
After rummaging for a while, Tao Tao finally gathered all the ingredients.
The ingredients for Portuguese egg tarts.
Egg tarts are a traditional pastry in Cantonese and Hong Kong cuisine, and had long been a classic staple in teahouses.
But back then, there were no Portuguese-style egg tarts in mainland China. People only ate “Cantonese-style egg tarts” or “Hong Kong-style egg tarts.”
Whether Hong Kong or Cantonese style, traditional egg tarts were primarily about the egg flavor. The crust was a shortbread base—crumbly and dense when bitten into, quite substantial. The egg custard was smooth, with no milky taste, light on the palate, and not very sweet. It was like… sweetened egg custard in a cookie shell.
Completely different from Portuguese egg tarts.
Portuguese egg tarts first appeared at a bakery called Andrew’s on Coloane Island in Macau. Later, when the owner and his wife, Margaret, parted ways, Margaret opened her own bakery and brought Portuguese egg tarts to downtown Macau, where more and more people started eating them.
Come to think of it, this was exactly around these couple of years! After the handovers of Hong Kong and Macau, there was more movement between the three regions. Foods like Portuguese egg tarts and Hong Kong-style French toast quickly became trendy in the south. At first, they were only sold in places close to Macau, like Gongbei and Xiaolan. Then, somehow, KFC took notice.
KFC bought Margaret’s recipe at a high price and began rolling out Portuguese egg tarts nationwide.
After all, in the 1990s, KFC and McDonald’s were still considered fairly high-end Western fast food. Many young people thought eating there was very fashionable. Kids only got to go if they scored double perfect on their exams—their parents would reward them with a trip to the city for a meal. And that one meal was enough to brag about for ages.
So KFC’s reach was terrifying. Portuguese egg tarts became such a hit—to what extent? Every single bakery, pastry shop, and tea restaurant across the country immediately jumped on the bandwagon to make them.
The well-connected shops in town would send someone to Macau to invite a master chef to teach them—covering food, lodging, and travel expenses. Within six months, even Zhangxi Town, a small southern town, had Portuguese egg tarts. Back then, many pastries were sold by weight, but Portuguese egg tarts sold for two and a half or three and a half yuan each—yet people still lined up for them in droves.
From then on, Portuguese egg tarts largely replaced Cantonese-style ones in popularity, becoming the new aristocrat of Western pastries.
Why did she remember this so clearly?
Because… her family’s bakery gradually went out of business right after Portuguese egg tarts became all the rage!
One egg tart wasn’t inherently better than the other. They were just made differently and tasted different. Many people still loved the light, not-too-rich Cantonese-style tarts—Tao Tao loved them too. She thought both kinds were delicious.
But in that era, eating a Portuguese egg tart was fresh and fashionable. They showed up everywhere—as gifts, at afternoon tea, as teahouse dim sum. Eventually, even street stalls were selling them! But her dad, Tao Guangzhi, didn’t care about trends at all. He had zero sensitivity to market shifts and just unhurriedly stuck to his old standards.
If he wasn’t going to go out of business, who would?
Tao Tao rolled up her sleeves and planted her hands on her hips. She figured that since Portuguese egg tarts hadn’t spread yet—they probably only existed in big cities like Coastal City, Hong Kong, and Macau—most people in Zhangxi Town had never tasted one. But that would change soon. The craze sweeping the country was just a few years away.
So this time, her family had to be the first Portuguese egg tart trendsetter in town!
Later on, Portuguese egg tarts would become commonplace in households everywhere, even available as pre-made kits—pre-made egg wash, frozen tart shells. Forget bakeries; with all sorts of recipes and tutorials online, you could easily enjoy them using just an air fryer. No skill required whatsoever.
But it wasn’t so easy back then.
Otherwise, why would so many people go out of their way to invite master chefs from Macau to teach them?
Tao Tao didn’t need a Macau chef, though. She knew how to make egg tarts inside and out.
Ten or twenty years later, which bakery didn’t have egg tarts? Not only Portuguese-style ones, but also Oreo egg tarts, strawberry egg tarts, cheese egg tarts, durian egg tarts, and even Yangzhi Ganlu (chilled pomelo sago with mango) egg tarts… And it wasn’t just the flavors—there were also all kinds of styles: ruffled-edge tarts, tall tarts, thick-custard tarts, jumbo tarts, and even flattened tart pizzas.
The variety was so competitive that Tao Tao felt she could blow every up-and-coming pastry shop in town out of the water just by cycling through endless egg tart innovations.