Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 105

It’s her

So, all Sun Miao could do was follow her movement, turn around, lean in, and plant a kiss on her cheek.

Sun Miao’s kiss was very light, like a cloud gently landing on Su Ruixi’s cheek. Su Ruixi initially thought Sun Miao was going to kiss her lips and had even closed her eyes out of shyness. But as it turned out, the kiss landed on her cheek.

She subconsciously raised her hand to touch her cheek, then looked at Sun Miao in front of her.

She discovered that Sun Miao’s cheeks were also flushed red, and her eyes were exceptionally moist. In that moment, Su Ruixi realized: Sun Miao is shy too.

This discovery made the tiny bit of dissatisfaction that had just surfaced in her heart completely vanish like smoke into thin air. Although their interactions were overly innocent, it seemed that this thing called first love was meant to be paired with this kind of pure feeling.

Su Ruixi pressed her lips together, afraid that if she relaxed, a smile would spread across her entire face. She heard Sun Miao in front of her say softly, “Susu-jie, I’m going to sleep first. Good night.”

“Wait a moment.” At this instant, Su Ruixi was no longer feeling awkward. She took a step forward, cupped Sun Miao’s face, and pecked her on the cheek as well. After lowering her hands, she smiled, “The two of us acting like this, it’s as childish as elementary schoolers.”

“That’s… that’s not so bad, is it?”

Sun Miao was right; it wasn’t so bad. Su Ruixi nodded. “Good night.”

A tender sweetness spread through their hearts. Tonight, they would both have sweet dreams.

Early the next morning, Sun Miao was awakened by her alarm clock and the system. She yawned, got out of her soft bed, and went to the bathroom to wash up. She tied her hair into a ponytail, picked up a hairpin from the washstand, grabbed her small bag, and went downstairs.

When she reached the kitchen, she casually clipped her hair up, not a single strand falling from her temples. Sun Miao first reheated the chicken soup she had made the previous night. While it was heating, she took out the dried shiitake mushrooms that Su Ruixi already had at home and soaked them to rehydrate.

The dried shiitake mushrooms in Su Ruixi’s home weren’t the large kind, but rather smaller organic shiitake mushrooms. Fortunately, because of this, they only needed to be soaked for about twenty minutes. If the shiitake mushrooms were larger, the soaking time would have been even longer. While soaking the mushrooms, Sun Miao also prepared Su Ruixi’s breakfast.

Sun Miao herself woke up early, having to get up at three o’clock to get busy. Because there were many things to do yesterday, she hadn’t had time to prepare in advance. Plus, she had moved her schedule forward to six o’clock, so she had to get up early to work and also prepare Su Ruixi’s breakfast on the side.

Sun Miao had no complaints about this. How could she possibly complain about making breakfast for her girlfriend?

Anyway, since she was making noodles, she made some buns with shiitake mushroom and vegetable filling for Su Ruixi’s breakfast, fried an egg pancake, and then finished the shiitake mushroom chicken soup. With that, her breakfast preparations were all set. Next was to work on lunch for Su Ruixi and herself.

This was simpler. Su Ruixi had bought quite a few groceries yesterday, and there were leftovers. Meat dishes were troublesome to make and required a lot of time, so Sun Miao took a shortcut and let the rice cooker help her out. She washed the chopped ribs, added cooking wine to remove any gamey taste, and blanched them. Then, she poured them into the rice cooker, adding seasonings: ginger slices, rock sugar, oyster sauce, light soy sauce, salt, oil, and enough water to cover the ribs.

She didn’t add dark soy sauce for color because after the rice cooker finished, she planned to transfer the ribs to a wok to reduce the sauce over high heat, adding dark soy sauce at that point for final coloring and seasoning. Before serving, she would sprinkle chopped green onions and sesame seeds, and it would be all set.

With the meat dish taken care of, preparing the vegetable dishes was even simpler; it hardly took any effort at all. As for the soup, it was still chicken soup. She had already butchered two chickens and made a lot of soup, so it couldn’t go to waste. Of course, drinking chicken soup every day wasn’t realistic, so she turned the leftover chicken soup into soup stock cubes to use later when needed.

She also had to be careful not to mix it up with the chicken soup for the bubble wontons she sold.

While doing all this, Sun Miao didn’t forget to prepare the dough for the bubble wontons and crab shell yellow. Fortunately, the dough proofing and other steps were done together, so she didn’t need to do them separately. Sun Miao was quick and efficient, and her planning was excellent, so she even had time to sit down and eat her own breakfast first.

The egg pancake was well-fried, the egg fluffy and delicious; Su Ruixi would definitely like it. She placed the insulated lunch box and Su Ruixi’s breakfast on the table, not forgetting to put the breakfast on a warming plate. After finishing these tasks, she prepared to leave.

Before leaving, she thought for a moment, then tore a sheet from a sticky note pad and left a message for Su Ruixi: “Good luck with work today~ I’ll make dinner and wait for you to come back.”

Sun Miao wrote with a smile on her face, carefully sticking the note onto the insulated lunch box before truly heading out.

She quite liked this feeling; she had someone to think about, and someone was thinking about her.

But when she arrived at the spot where she had set up her stall yesterday, she couldn’t smile anymore: there seemed to be a few too many people thinking about her.

It turned out that the people in this city truly loved to eat bubble wontons. More than half of the people who had bought bubble wontons from her yesterday had returned. Even the Hip-hop Yabi Duo were squeezed out and had lost their usual assertiveness.

Hip-hop Mei was even tugging at Yabi Mei’s skirt, complaining to the point of almost whimpering, “I only knew Little Boss Sun was popular, but I didn’t expect her to be this popular. She shouldn’t have chosen this kind of place! These guys are practically inhuman, they wake up so early! They run over here first thing in the morning for a jog and then try to snatch food from me. How can I compete? Wuwuwu!”

“That first sentence of yours sounded a bit like something that diehard fan girl of the beef pancakes would say.”

Yabi Mei coolly retorted, “That also requires queuing. Hurry up and get in line.”

Their manners were quite good; they lined up in a long queue based on their arrival time that morning. The Hip-hop Yabi Duo could only manage to be in the middle of the line. Hip-hop Mei grew even more worried, “We won’t miss out on the crab shell yellow, will we?”

“We’ll get them. There aren’t that many people.”

From the moment Sun Miao drove her cart here, her hands hadn’t stopped moving. She was constantly making bubble wontons and packing crab shell yellow. Sun Miao was a bit puzzled; a group of people who came to exercise in the morning were actually buying food this early?

Sun Miao had this question, and so did Hip-hop Mei. Fortunately, Yabi Mei was more clear-sighted. This group of people wouldn’t wake up early to exercise every day. They probably lived nearby, tried Little Boss Sun’s bubble wontons yesterday while exercising and were captivated, so today they came to buy some to take with them before work.

Sure enough, the vast majority of people chose takeout. By the time it was the Hip-hop Yabi Duo’s turn, they could even choose to sit at a small dining table to eat. One serving of bubble wontons wasn’t filling enough, and today they could only buy one serving of crab shell yellow each, so the two of them, with great tacit understanding, each ordered two servings of bubble wontons.

Hip-hop Mei drank her bubble wontons without even needing a spoon. She directly lifted the bowl, blew on it a few times, and once it wasn’t so hot, she started drinking. Yabi Mei’s posture was much more elegant than hers, so she ate much slower than Hip-hop Mei.

While the two of them were eating, Sun Miao didn’t stop either. After all, they were in the middle of the line, and there were still many people behind them. Only after this batch of people had all left did Sun Miao have a moment to rest. She had sold a lot of bubble wontons; some people even bought for their families, taking four or five servings at once and leaving directly.

Once everyone was gone, the Hip-hop Yabi Duo had also finished eating. They even shared with Sun Miao, “Little Boss Sun, did you know? The students from the Education Park where you used to set up your stall are going crazy looking for you.”

“It’s not that serious, is it?”

“How is it not serious? Did you not check the group chat? They were all discussing it in the group yesterday.”

To be honest, Sun Miao really hadn’t checked.

She had been spending too much time with Su Ruixi lately, and she felt a bit lethargic, simply lacking the energy to look at group chats. What a sin, what a sin, to neglect her old customers for so long. Sun Miao’s gaze flickered, and even her tone carried a hint of guilt, “How could that be? Of course, I look at it. You guys must have been scrolling too fast, so I didn’t see it.”

“That’s true. Then I’ll forward the page to you.” Hip-hop Mei, without suspecting anything, directly found Sun Miao and sent it to her.

Yabi Mei, however, watched Sun Miao faintly from the side, seemingly having seen through her perfunctory reply. Today, Yabi Mei was wearing a dopamine-based subculture outfit¹. She wore a milk-tea colored wig adorned with many colorful plastic accessories, and even her eye makeup was specially coordinated, with lots of glitter.

Such a vibrant makeup look, paired with her overly calm eyes and an “I’ve already seen through you” expression, inexplicably made Sun Miao feel even more guilty.

Sun Miao could only lower her head and look at the page Hip-hop Mei had forwarded to her.

—Seriously, sorry! she swore to herself that she would never forget to check the group chat again, would not neglect her old customers, and would definitely maintain them diligently!

After looking at the page, Sun Miao finally understood what “going crazy looking for her” meant. They had actually formulated a detailed plan, searching for her as if scanning a map! The thought of this sent a chill down Sun Miao’s spine. She then remembered what the students had said on her last day of setting up the stall: “Just hide, let’s see how long you can hide and where you can hide”…

Hiss—

Sun Miao sucked in a cold breath. No way, no way, those students wouldn’t find her this quickly. She was practically begging them, please don’t look for her. What she sold was too expensive; twenty-one for a serving of bubble wontons, thirty-one for a crab shell yellow. She couldn’t bear to earn students’ money like that!

Hip-hop Mei had only one reason for sharing this post with her: “Little Boss Sun, you absolutely must hide well! Don’t get discovered, or I might not get to eat either!”

Yabi Mei, however, really wanted to watch the excitement.

Faced with their expressions, Sun Miao could only say, “Okay, haha, haha,” forcing a couple of dry laughs.

However, among her customer base, there were actually two ticking time bombs: the duo of Xiao Xiao and Man Man. Man Man liked to post on Little Red Book², while Xiao Xiao was very popular and had many friends. That day at noon, Man Man and Xiao Xiao brought their roommates, a group of four, to her little stall.

Seeing that there weren’t many people around Sun Miao’s stall, a roommate posed a sharp question: “Xiao Xiao, Man Man, is this little stall really that delicious? This is the street food stall you were willing to stay up all night for before?”

Faced with their roommate’s disbelief, both of them patted their chests and guaranteed, “It’s definitely delicious! Do you know about that changfen stall that was really popular in the city a couple of days ago?”

“Oh? It’s her?!”

For some reason, Sun Miao felt that the time until she was found was not far off.

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