Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 131

Crab Roe Noodles

Sun Miao’s stall-tending time was very short this time, so she went home early. After stopping by the wet market to buy the ingredients for tonight’s dinner, she rode her electric scooter home.

Truthfully, in the past, she found it hard to understand why some people would cook three meals a day. Before she transmigrated, she never had the mind to cook that many meals. The main reasons were a lack of time and energy. Every time she cooked, even a simple meal, the process of washing vegetables, chopping them, and cooking would take at least an hour. Three meals would be, at a minimum, two and a half hours.

To save money, Sun Miao worked hard every day. Where would she squeeze out the time to cook?

But things were different now. Sun Miao had time, and cooking was second nature¹ to her. Most importantly, she was cooking for the person she loved. Su Ruixi also loved eating her food; the expression on her face whenever she ate was always different from her usual one. Perhaps this was the meaning of cooking.

Seeing others—especially the person you love—feel satisfied because of something you made, made you feel happy yourself.

Sun Miao had time in the afternoon, so she even bought some crabs to manually pick out the meat and roe, preparing to make Crab Roe Noodles² for Su Ruixi. Judging by Su Ruixi’s expression yesterday, she clearly hadn’t had her fill of the crab roe. That tiny bit of crab powder was gone in a single bite, and she obviously wanted more. In that case, she would just make a whole dish of Crab Roe Noodles and let Su Ruixi eat to her heart’s content.

Sun Miao sat in the dining room, holding a special tool for extracting crab roe and meat, and picked away unhurriedly. On a large plate next to her, several steamed crabs were piled up, waiting for Sun Miao’s attention.

Her fingers were nimble. She slid the small tweezers into a crevice of the crab shell, and with a soft click, she gently pried it open. Her phone was propped up on a stand to the side, playing a TV drama.

Sun Miao wasn’t really watching; she was just listening with her ears pricked. The room was too quiet, and having some background noise actually made her feel more comfortable. Two plates were placed in front of her; one was already filled with a good amount of crab meat, the other with crab roe.

About two TV drama episodes later, Sun Miao finally finished shelling all the crabs she had bought.

Crabs were quite expensive right now. They weren’t very big and had little roe, but the price was not cheap. 25 yuan for one. The wholesale price by weight was 200 yuan per jin³, but the ones she picked out for herself all had broken legs and claws. However, since it was for her own consumption, she wasn’t that particular, so Sun Miao didn’t mind.

After shelling them all, Sun Miao pressed the power button with her pinky to put her phone on standby, then she carried the plates into the kitchen and began to cook. She was already an old hand at making the crab roe mixture. It was done in no time and set aside. Then, she tied on her apron—the Strawberry Bear one that Su Ruixi had bought for her—and started making dinner.

Since Crab Roe Noodles was the main course, the other dishes were relatively simple, with small side dishes being ideal. She had bought some jellyfish, which had been soaking in cold water all afternoon to remove the saltiness. It should be about right now, so she took it out and began preparing it. Cold-dressed jellyfish was truly both simple and delicious. After soaking and changing the water multiple times, it was cut into shreds, quickly blanched, and then plunged into ice water.

After a while, it was taken out again. Minced garlic, chopped green onions, a little salt, vinegar, sugar, and oyster sauce were added. Finally, a spoonful of hot oil was drizzled over it, and it was all done⁴.

For Su Ruixi’s sake, Sun Miao didn’t add any chili or cilantro, and even the amount of garlic was very small. Su Ruixi didn’t like food with overpowering flavors, so Sun Miao was very restrained when adding each seasoning.

She stir-fried two more vegetable dishes, and the last step was to make the Crab Roe Noodles.

Thin noodles were best for Crab Roe Noodles. Su Ruixi happened to have some dried egg noodles at home. She put them directly into a pot, boiled them until cooked, and took them out. The pre-cooked crab roe mixture went back into the wok. Seasonings were added, and her hand movements had to be fast; otherwise, the already cooked crab roe would become old, hard, and less tasty. After a short while, the heat had to be turned off, and the entire mixture was poured over the noodles that were already prepared on the side.

Next came the mixing. Actually, this step would be more fun if the person eating did it themselves, but there was a proper technique to mixing noodles. So Sun Miao simply did it herself. Her chopsticks scooped up the noodles, thoroughly mixing in the crab roe. There was a method to her mixing; the chopsticks flew up and down in the plate. By the time she was done, every single strand of noodle was coated with the somewhat granular crab roe mixture. Under the light, even the noodles seemed to have turned a golden yellow.

After dividing the noodles evenly into two portions, Sun Miao brought the dinner she had prepared in the kitchen out. She glanced at the time, figured Su Ruixi would be home soon, and decided not to take a shower. Sun Miao did this on purpose. Usually, she would try to finish cooking early, take a shower, and then come downstairs. After all, having just cooked, her body would inevitably be a little sweaty and smell of cooking fumes.

But she was making Crab Roe Noodles today. If she made them too early, the noodles would definitely get stodgy and not taste good. So she intentionally estimated the time, aiming for just before Su Ruixi returned, so they could eat together as soon as she got home.

Her estimation was about right. Not long after she finished cooking, Su Ruixi arrived home. She put down her keys, changed into her slippers, and walked over to Sun Miao. “I’m back~”

“Mhm!”

Sun Miao wiped her hands. “Go wash your hands. Time to eat.”

Su Ruixi went to wash her hands. When she came back and saw the Crab Roe Noodles, she couldn’t help but be taken aback. She didn’t think she had mentioned wanting to eat this yesterday. But seeing Sun Miao’s expression, she knew—she really did understand her, and she doted on her.

The two sat down to eat. Su Ruixi first took a bite of the Crab Roe Noodles. Sun Miao truly had some skills. The way she made these noodles gave off an “Ants Climbing a Tree⁵” vibe. The noodles were coated in the crab roe mixture, and with one mouthful, both noodles and crab roe entered her mouth together. The crab roe had that familiar taste, no different from yesterday, just that the flavor was a bit richer.

Su Ruixi didn’t particularly like strongly flavored food, but she found this mouthful of crab roe mixture to be incredibly delicious; it was supposed to be rich. The noodles diluted the flavor of the crab roe a little, but they had a bit of a chewy texture in her mouth, which was really quite good.

Su Ruixi was happy eating the noodles, and Sun Miao was satisfied too: Heh, you big glutton, did you really think I wouldn’t know what you wanted to eat?

She also relaxed a bit and started talking about her day. When she mentioned the customer who looked a bit like Su Ruixi, speculating that she might be a relative, Su Ruixi stiffened slightly, an imperceptible change. She certainly knew that was her own father, but she didn’t plan on letting them meet just yet.

Mainly, she knew her father’s temperament. Faced with her boldly coming out, her mother had reluctantly accepted it but still held some complaints about Sun Miao. If even her mother was like this, what more her a-less-than-open-minded father? When they eventually met, he would probably find fault no matter how he looked at the situation⁶.

She didn’t care if her father felt displeased, but Su Ruixi didn’t want Sun Miao to be wronged.

So at this stage, it was better for them not to meet. They would decide whether the two sides should meet only after she had finished working on her mom, and her mom had gotten her dad under control.

“No, you probably mistook her for someone else.”

Since Su Ruixi said so, Sun Miao could only nod. “Is that so.”

Then, she started talking about the middle-aged female customer she met today. Upon hearing Sun Miao say that she “took heaven as her teacher,” even Su Ruixi grew curious. “Sun Miao, who exactly did you learn from?”

Sun Miao fell silent for a moment. She was actually communicating with the system: Can I tell Susu-jie?

The system was indifferent about it: 【You can, but you cannot reveal it to any more people. It is only because she is your lover that this system is making a special exception.】

The system agreed, but Sun Miao still had to think about how to tell Su Ruixi without scaring her. She opened her mouth and replied, “In a little while, I’ll tell Susu-jie when I’ve figured it out.”

She didn’t know that her silence just now and these words had made Su Ruixi feel a pang of heartache for her for no reason. Su Ruixi, at times, was someone who could really let her imagination run wild⁷. She had previously wondered about the relationship between the lemon tea boss and Sun Miao, and now she had imagined some strange scenarios.

Sun Miao had never mentioned her family to Su Ruixi, nor had she ever seen any other relatives or friends of Sun Miao. Naturally, Su Ruixi assumed that her relationship with her family was terrible, or even worse—that she had no family at all! A young woman all alone in the world, and with such amazing cooking skills—perhaps her master was of paramount importance to her.

The master found the all-alone Sun Miao, raised her, but the master has already passed away…

Unconsciously, Su Ruixi had imagined all this. After she finished her train of thought, she responded to Sun Miao’s answer by nodding solemnly. “Okay! Tell me when you’re ready to.”

“…”

Sun Miao’s hand holding her chopsticks paused. Su Ruixi’s expression was genuinely strange; it seemed like she had misunderstood something. But whatever, let her be. No matter how much she misunderstood, it couldn’t possibly be more explosive than the truth.

After dinner, Sun Miao went upstairs to wash up, while Su Ruixi began to clear the dining table and kitchen. This had always been their division of labor. Su Ruixi, who once never dirtied her hands with chores⁸, had gradually learned how to tidy up.

When Sun Miao came back downstairs, Su Ruixi finally remembered something and brought it up with her. “The auntie I hired for the house, she took leave to go home before. I gave her a few extra days off, she’ll be back tomorrow. I’ve canceled her cooking three meals a day, only keeping her on as a part-time cleaner. You might see her tomorrow afternoon.”

“Okay.”

Sun Miao didn’t say things like, “Let’s just not have a housekeeper, I can do the cleaning,” because she was genuinely busy. It was only during these seven days that her working hours were relatively short. If she returned to her six-in-the-morning to six-in-the-evening schedule next cycle, she really wouldn’t have much time to clean at night.

However, Sun Miao was also a bit curious about this housekeeper. In their life together, the two of them talked about many things, and of course, Su Ruixi had mentioned the time she brought home the broth from a malatang stall, only for the housekeeper to make a bowl of vegetable and egg noodles, completely besmirching the broth. Sun Miao was very surprised; it was the first time she had heard the word “besmirch” used to describe the relationship between noodles and soup.

She also wanted to see for herself just what kind of situation would make Su Ruixi use such a word.

But before she could meet the housekeeper, she met the owner of Yuanfu Lou first.

The next day, she followed the same routine as the day before. She woke up in the morning, went to the wet market to buy ingredients, Su Ruixi left for work first, and then she prepared the Lion’s Head Meatballs with Crab Roe and pedaled her tricycle to the entrance of Yuanfu Lou.

There were more customers than she had imagined. Her stall was supposed to open at 11:00 AM, yet at this time, some customers were actually choosing to wait outside Yuanfu Lou instead of going in. When they saw Sun Miao approaching, that group of customers hurried forward, chattering away. Not far away, a waiter shot her a look that clearly said he wanted to kill her⁹.

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