Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 161

The Plum Rain Season is Coming Soon

Does this kind of thing even need to be said? The answer is always only one, and that is——yes.

Su Ruixi shyly went to her own room first to change into a set of pajamas, and only then did she go to Sun Miao’s room, burrowing directly into her embrace, planning to take a nap. But she had gotten up late this morning, so how could she fall asleep so easily at this time. She moved around in Sun Miao’s arms for a while, and Sun Miao opened her eyes, asking her if she was uncomfortable somewhere.

            

In fact, after such a long period of rest, Su Ruixi didn’t feel uncomfortable anywhere. When she first got up, she still felt a bit sore and weak, but now there was nothing abnormal.

But as soon as Sun Miao asked, she started to act coy and fussy, whimpering, “Mm, a little.”

“Is your back sore? Are your legs aching? Should I rub them for you?”

            

“Okay.”

Su Ruixi let go of Sun Miao and lay down beside her. Sun Miao’s hands gently pressed on her waist, abdomen, and legs. At this moment, Su Ruixi felt as if she were a ball of dough, being kneaded back and forth by Sun Miao, but it was undeniable that Sun Miao’s massage was indeed very comfortable. She really liked Sun Miao’s touch; every time, it made her feel pleasant in both body and mind.

After being massaged for a good while, Su Ruixi felt it was about enough. She told Sun Miao to also hurry up and rest, and not to keep massaging her. Sun Miao agreed, but said, “Actually, I’ve already slept for a good while. While Susu-jie was eating, I was sleeping.”

            

“I don’t care, sleep with me for a while longer.”

“Okay.”

The two of them held each other, but they didn’t actually fall asleep, just making some unsubstantive talk​¹. Sun Miao was saying that she was caught by the student crowd today, and she estimated that she would be getting off work earlier for the next few days. Su Ruixi chuckled, saying, “Isn’t that great.”

            

She couldn’t wait for Sun Miao to get off work early every day and then be greasy together​² with her. As long as it was time with Sun Miao, she could never have too much of it. But Su Ruixi also knew that Sun Miao had her own ambitions; she would not give up her little food cart.

When evening came, Sun Miao went to bed early. No matter how energetic she was, after pulling an all-nighter yesterday, it was time for her to sleep now. Su Ruixi was very well-behaved and went to sleep with her.

The next day, which was June 11th, the second day of the Dragon Boat Festival, a Sunday, Sun Miao got up early to continue cooking zongzi. When she set up her stall at the entrance of the pedestrian street, she experienced the same scene as yesterday. The Hip-hop Yabi duo and their little companions were also there, and the battle for zongzi entered a white-hot stage​³.

            

Hip-hop Mei grabbed Sun Miao and started to complain: “Yesterday, yesterday the zongzi I just bought, it was still warm in my hand, I was planning to eat it for lunch! But my sister! She saw it and immediately confiscated it from me! She definitely ate it! Ahhh, the zongzi I worked so hard to get up so early to buy, all gone! No way, I have to be vigilant and finish eating it before I go back.”

Her whole body was trembling as she spoke, as if she had suffered a great injustice. The content of her story was enough to make the listener sad and the hearer weep. After finishing, she even accused Sun Miao: “It’s also because you, Little Boss Sun, had to set some kind of limit. If there wasn’t a limit, I would have bought 20 or 30 in one go, and it wouldn’t have been snatched by my sister!”

Sun Miao looked at her, her tone faint: “You wouldn’t buy 20 or 30. If there were no limit, you’d probably buy all 200 in one go.”

            

“……” Having her thoughts exposed, Hip-hop Mei couldn’t speak anymore. She could only stand in line sheepishly with the Yabi Mei, waiting for her turn to buy zongzi again.

Seeing Hip-hop Mei’s appearance, the other customers who clearly wanted to say something also gave up the idea, obediently​⁴ buying their two zongzi for just 30 yuan. In reality, this 30 yuan wasn’t even enough to cover the gas money for them to drive over, but the zongzi were so delicious that they would rather drive for over half an hour just to rush over and buy them.

Luckily, it was early enough. If it were a little later, there would probably be traffic jams on the road.

            

By the next day, more shops on the pedestrian street were open, and there were more tourists coming and going. When the student crowd arrived to line up in front of Sun Miao’s small stall, many uninformed members of the public​⁵ followed behind them. Although they didn’t know what they were queuing for, since so many people were lining up here, there must be a reason for it.

It got to the point where some people only realized when they reached the front that it was zongzi being sold.

“Ah? Is it only zongzi? Aren’t you called a mobile food bar, you don’t sell anything else?”

            

“No, only zongzi are being sold during this period.”

There weren’t many customers who encountered this problem, but there weren’t few either. Many customers had asked the people in front of and behind them while queuing to clarify the situation, but there were still some who were clueless and only realized something was wrong when they got to Sun Miao. Of this group of customers, some would turn around and leave immediately. Even if they say you should save when you should and spend when you should while traveling, it’s impossible to just pull out money to buy a 15-yuan zongzi, that would be acting like a big sucker​⁶.

Of course, there were also those who were embarrassed, or thought “I’ve already queued for so long,” and just bought one to try.

            

In any case, as long as they had eaten it, it was hard not to say that what Sun Miao made was delicious. This also led to situations where even the student crowd couldn’t buy any.

Sun Miao had come over early in the morning again, and before it was even noon, she drove her three-wheeled cart back home to live a sweet and loving life with Su Ruixi. When evening came, Su Ruixi, however, had somewhat gotten a taste for it and knew its flavor​⁷, pulling on Sun Miao and saying: “Tomorrow, I’m still on break.” Indeed, it was a three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, and tomorrow, the 12th, Su Ruixi was still at home.

When Sun Miao heard this, if she didn’t show some indication​⁸, how could she still be Su Ruixi’s girlfriend. Even if it meant pulling another all-nighter, she was resigned to it.

            

That night, Su Ruixi got her wish and ate her fill.

With this kind of thing, one is a stranger the first time, and familiar the second​⁹. Su Ruixi, who was very clumsy the first time and relied entirely on Sun Miao to take the initiative, was already able to turn from passive to active. She lay comfortably on the bed, her pair of eyes holding autumn water​¹⁰, and with an open mouth, said just one phrase: “Come on.”

“……” What could Sun Miao, this little maidservant​¹¹ serving the young miss of a wealthy family​¹², do? She could only bear the labor and accept the appointment​¹³ and step forward to serve.

            

On the morning of the 12th, when Sun Miao got up, Su Ruixi was still sleeping so soundly she didn’t even open her eyes to look at Sun Miao. After getting up, she first put the zongzi on to cook, then went upstairs to tidy the room and get out the clothes Su Ruixi was to wear. After doing all this, she went downstairs to continue her work.

Sun Miao couldn’t help but feel her hands were a bit sore. She shook her wrists and called out the system she had blocked last night. The system’s emotionless voice sounded somewhat mournful: 【Only when you’re done being busy do you think of the system. Host, you are really too much.】

“Ahem, it can’t be helped. I can’t give you a live performance.” Sun Miao told the system to watch the pot for her, while she sat on a chair, holding her phone and starting to search for short dramas. The kind that were similar to her situation, where one could become a master chef with the help of a system.

            

However, there were relatively few of this kind of short drama, because describing culinary skills in a novel is very simple, but getting an actor to have genuine culinary skills is too difficult. Especially when novels casually describe “state banquet-level” master chefs, that kind of knife skill is simply not something that can be trained without ten or twenty years of practice.

For filming a short drama, how could they find such a formidable actor? If they really had those knife skills, they would also be quite old, so how could they be filmed?

This genre was rare, making it even more difficult to find. After searching for a long time, Sun Miao finally found a similar male-frequency​¹⁴ short drama. The content inside was very exaggerated, especially during the cooking scenes, where the protagonist basically just waved his knife in the air a couple of times, accompanied by the special effects of flashing blades and sword shadows, and the vegetables were cut.

            

As the saying goes, laymen watch the excitement, experts see the skill​¹⁵. Sun Miao could tell at a glance that the vegetables were not cut well; they were probably cut by the production crew using a vegetable slicer.

A vegetable slicer cuts very finely, often finer than a person can, and it’s also fast. But with just a closer look, you can tell it still can’t compare to a person’s work. A vegetable slicer can’t cut things that are too soft; trying to cut shredded tofu with a vegetable slicer is a fool’s talk of dreams​¹⁶. Moreover, it cannot be adjusted by oneself, so the cut pieces are of varying lengths, with only the thickness being consistent.

The most crucial thing is that it’s impossible to cut according to the texture, so the flavor is also slightly worse than what is cut by hand.

            

However, these points are only comparable at the highest end. Under normal conditions, a vegetable slicer would crush an average chef. So, using it to film a short drama, was not a problem at all. The most crucial thing was that the background was ancient times, so it was reasonable that the male protagonist’s knife skills would shock everyone.

The story was about a male protagonist who traveled back to ancient times with a God of Cookery system to become a master chef and embrace the beauty and return​¹⁷.

Mm, it was about 99% similar to her own situation, except the plot was a bit too boring, the acting was a bit too exaggerated, and the male protagonist looked too ugly. After criticizing it for a while, Sun Miao began to worry: If I pull Susu-jie to watch this short drama with me, will Susu-jie think there’s something wrong with me?

            

Sun Miao was very concerned about this question; after all, she really didn’t want to become some kind of weird person.

She scrolled for a long time, but still only found this one film. She could only save it for now, waiting to watch it with Su Ruixi in the future, to beat the drum from the side​¹⁸ to tell her that her situation was the same.

After a while, the zongzi were cooked, so Sun Miao packed up and went out to set up her stall. On the way, she ran into Grandma Li. She was out for her morning exercise at this time. Seeing Sun Miao, she stopped her and directly bought two zongzi. The system didn’t prompt a violation, so Sun Miao sold them to her directly.

            

While packing them for Grandma Li, Grandma Li also chatted a few sentences with Sun Miao: “Xiao Sun, you’re so diligent with your stall.”

“Yes, I have to earn money to support myself.” And my girlfriend.

Although Su Ruixi didn’t need Sun Miao to support her, she couldn’t be an iron rooster from which not a single feather can be plucked​¹⁹. She still had to buy delicious food and gifts for Su Ruixi. As Sun Miao was thinking this in her heart, Grandma Li suddenly said a sentence: “Today is already the 12th, the Plum Rain season​²⁰ is about to arrive, Xiao Sun, you shouldn’t set up your stall then, otherwise you’ll get soaked.”

            

Sun Miao was stunned for a moment. She wasn’t very clear about the Plum Rain season, so she asked: “When does the Plum Rain season arrive?”

“Probably around the 20th, it’s really soon now.”

Sun Miao didn’t answer, just nodded and thanked Grandma Li: “Thank you, I just came here so I didn’t know. I’ll see what happens then.”

            

She drove away on her electric scooter. While waiting at a red light, she still couldn’t help but ask the system: “So should I set up my stall during the Plum Rain season?”

【No, the Plum Rain season in this city lasts for more than ten days, with continuous, unending rain, and the water accumulation will be very deep. For the Host’s safety, you will not set up the stall during the Plum Rain season.】

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