Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 137

I Lost

Faced with Chef Qian’s demand, Sun Miao simply shook her head. “Whether you can eat it or not depends on you, Chef. Please come early tomorrow to buy it.” After speaking, Sun Miao ignored Chef Qian and continued to pack up her little food cart.

In this game, the winner was already destined to be Sun Miao.

When it came to the bet, Chef Qian had been utterly crushed by her. As for the compensation—the 540,000 yuan from the “ten times compensation for a fake” clause—Su Ruixi would naturally handle the negotiations. During dinner two nights ago, Su Ruixi had told Sun Miao not to worry, that she would take care of it.

Since Su Ruixi said so, Sun Miao had nodded and stopped thinking about it.

At this point, the matter was more or less settled; there was no way Chef Qian could stir up any more trouble. But from the look of him, he desperately wanted to understand how he had lost so completely. Sun Miao watched him for a moment. Having finished packing her cart, just before leaving, she said one more thing to him: “You lost your original intention for cooking long ago.”

In truth, Sun Miao didn’t much care what that original intention was to begin with. Before she transmigrated, she ran a breakfast business, opened a breakfast shop; her original intention was simply to make money. She figured there were plenty of people like her. But even making money had to be done by the book. You couldn’t just cut out the capital and lower it to the absolute minimum for the sake of reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

Making money like that was, to some extent, conscienceless.

Even worse was hanging a sheep’s head to sell dog meat¹.

The price Sun Miao was charging now was quite expensive, but her culinary skill was worth it. On the other hand, the Yangzhou Fried Rice that Chef Qian personally cooked for 1888 yuan a serving, Sun Miao actually felt it was a bit beyond its intrinsic value. Even with Chef Qian’s skill added in, it wasn’t quite right.

But he brought a lot of added value and did indeed have real skill. So, although Sun Miao found it a bit pricey, she and Su Ruixi kept quiet and wouldn’t say a thing.

That was, until Su Ruixi realized that the takeout, which was priced the same as what Chef Qian cooked on the spot, was clearly not made by him, but by a substitute. Even the ingredients were of a lower quality. This was a true loss of original intention, and a case of hanging a sheep’s head to sell dog meat.

Whatever his original intention was, Chef Qian had long since thrown it away.

After saying her piece, she paid no mind to Chef Qian’s reaction, hopped on her electric tricycle, and took off.

On the fifth day that Sun Miao was selling Lion’s Head Meatballs with Crab Roe, the person at the very front of the line was Chef Qian. Sun Miao was somewhat surprised, but she still served the customer. After one night, he looked much more haggard, as if he hadn’t slept at all the previous night and had been thinking about many things.

But Sun Miao just asked him in a neutral and calm tone, “One serving is 588. Eating here or to go?”

“I’ll eat here.” Chef Qian still carried a trace of unwillingness. He seemed to be gritting his teeth, as if determined to settle the score right then and there.

Sun Miao was completely unbothered. She treated Chef Qian just like any other customer, with no difference whatsoever. Sun Miao had him sit at a small table to the side and even brought the dish over to him. After selling a few more servings, she saw the fellow chef who had eaten at her stall a few days prior.

“I’ll eat here too.”

She and Chef Qian clearly knew each other. Sun Miao nodded, and after the woman sat down, she brought her serving over as well.

Jiang Ping sat down opposite Chef Qian. Chef Qian lifted his head. He looked at the Lion’s Head Meatball with Crab Roe in front of him and didn’t rush to eat, but instead asked, completely baffled, “What she made doesn’t look that much more outstanding than mine? The aroma smells about the same, so why…”

Jiang Ping directly shattered his illusion. “It’s very different. You can’t refuse to admit even the most obvious things just because of your own selfishness. She only put it in a plain, unremarkable disposable container, and it was even stewing for a while, yet this Lion’s Head Meatball with Crab Roe can rival yours in color and aroma… no, it’s even better than yours. You should know where the gap between you two lies.”

The unwillingness on Chef Qian’s face became even more pronounced. He reached for the spoon, his hand trembling.

“Have a taste. The new waves of the Yangtze River push the old. She truly does make it better than you, and better than me.”

Jiang Ping actually felt that Chef Qian was a pity. She was someone who cherished talent and knew that he was gifted. But he had gone down the wrong path midway, engaging in dishonest dealings. On one hand, she lamented his talent; on the other, she detested him for doing things that tarnished the reputation of Huaiyang cuisine.

Chef Qian hesitated for a long time before finally taking a bite of Sun Miao’s Lion’s Head Meatball with Crab Roe.

Delicious is delicious; this is a point that cannot be faked. As a chef himself, he understood the quality of a dish even better.

It had to be said, this Lion’s Head Meatball with Crab Roe made by Sun Miao was, in the eyes of both Jiang Ping and Chef Qian, perfect. It was a level they were both far from reaching. If the gap between him and Jiang Ping still gave him the motivation to catch up, then the gap between him and Sun Miao was a chasm.

Before, he had even stood before Sun Miao and spouted nonsense, mocking her for not knowing how to cook at all… thinking back on it now, he felt like a clown.

“I… I…” After finishing Sun Miao’s Lion’s Head Meatball with Crab Roe, Chef Qian was speechless. After a long while, he finally stammered out an admission, “I lost.”

He had indeed lost. This serving of Lion’s Head Meatball with Crab Roe was at a level he couldn’t reach even if he spurred his horse to a gallop. But as he said it, his words were full of unwillingness. The moment he thought about how he, a man in his fifties who had been working around a stove with his master since he was a child, had ended up losing to such a young girl, Chef Qian felt a ball of frustration lodged in his chest.

He couldn’t vent it, nor could he swallow it down.

As a chef, Jiang Ping of course understood Chef Qian’s state of mind. But she was far more magnanimous than him. She simply nodded and said, “You didn’t lose without reason.”

Having said that, Jiang Ping finally opened her own takeout container and began to eat.

Sun Miao paid them no mind and started packing up her things, preparing to go home. It was at this moment that Su Ruixi’s car drove over. Counting the days, today happened to be Saturday.

The two of them had slept together last night as well. This morning, Sun Miao had woken up and made food as usual. When Su Ruixi came downstairs, she was still in her pajamas. Sun Miao was a little puzzled. “No work today?” Su Ruixi yawned and said, “It’s Saturday. I’ll see this afternoon if I need to go to the office for a bit, but I’m not going out this morning.”

Sun Miao nodded. Just as she was about to leave, Su Ruixi leaned over and gave Sun Miao a little kiss, whispering, “You’re finishing up at the stall pretty early now, aren’t you?”

“Mhm.”

The moment she got there, the ferociously “hungry” customers would surround her, and in about twenty minutes, they would buy up all 20 of her Lion’s Head Meatballs with Crab Roe. Every time this happened, Sun Miao would think—selling Lion’s Head Meatballs with Crab Roe like this at a stall isn’t bad. [LP: “Hungry” is a pun. The original text uses 穷兇极“饿”, a play on the idiom 穷凶极恶 (qióng xiōng jí è), meaning “extremely vicious.” The author swapped the character for “vicious” (恶, è) with its homophone “hungry” (饿, è).]

At 588 per serving, 20 servings was 11,760 yuan. That one day was equivalent to a week’s income for her. Plus, the time was short; not long after she arrived, everything would be sold out, allowing her to go home early.

But then she thought again, this 588-yuan-a-serving Lion’s Head Meatball with Crab Roe required a year of hellish training, 365 days. That meant she would have 8760 hours where she couldn’t see Su Ruixi… thinking of it that way, it was better not to make things like the Lion’s Head Meatball with Crab Roe.

Both Jiang Ping and Chef Qian thought her talent was outstanding, but only Sun Miao herself knew how much blood, sweat, and tears she had put in.

In the system’s space, she was tortured to the point of being inhuman. The moment her eyes opened, she was working, her hands never stopping. The system was extremely harsh with her, almost making her think there were two different systems; it had two different faces inside and outside the space.

After being tormented like that, as long as one wasn’t truly talentless at cooking, they could be trained into a master chef. However, the system also believed that Sun Miao did have talent.

If she had no talent, she could have spent her whole life trying and perhaps only reached Chef Qian’s level, never being able to achieve the flavor she could now.

Just as Sun Miao was thinking, “Why is Susu-jie here?” she saw her pull the car into the parking lot in front of the main gate, her reverse parking maneuver incredibly smooth. After the car was parked, the rear door opened directly, and the first to jump out was Hip-Hop Mei, followed by the Yabi Mei, who got out from the other side.

Finally, the driver’s side door opened, and Su Ruixi got out.

The question that had just surfaced in Sun Miao’s mind was immediately thrown out, because Susu-jie was dressed so beautifully today, and with such an aura. She wasn’t wearing high heels, just a pair of black flat leather shoes and a pair of brown trousers. The pants were tight at the top and loose at the bottom, with a wide-leg feel, and the high waist outlined Su Ruixi’s figure. She wore a purple silk blouse, the hem tucked into her pants.

Over that, she wore a thin, suit-style jacket of the same color as her pants. Her hair looked like it had been straightened. A few strands on the left side were separated to hang in front of her chest, while the rest fell behind her back.

Su Ruixi truly lived up to her reputation as a “veteran of the beauty world”; her own styling was so well done. She held a dark brown clutch in her hand, looking just like one of those incredibly rich, powerful women.

Her inherently aloof and cool temperament was on full display, but it was neutralized by the Yabi Mei in a gothic maid outfit and the lively Hip-Hop Mei with large, pink sunglasses clipped to her collar behind her. The three of them really shouldn’t stand together; after looking at her girlfriend, Sun Miao didn’t know where to put her eyes.

Before Su Ruixi could even say hello, Hip-Hop Mei waved at Sun Miao. Her movement was quite exaggerated, and the sunglasses on her chest swayed, reflecting the sunlight and making Sun Miao look away instantly.

—That reflection was really too blinding!

Su Ruixi took a deep breath, resisting the urge to kick Hip-Hop Mei, and walked to Sun Miao first. As soon as she got close, Su Ruixi saw the crestfallen Chef Qian. Since he was here, the matter would be easy to resolve.

“Susu-jie, you’re here?”

With the three of them standing before her, she would of course greet Su Ruixi first. Su Ruixi gave a reserved “mhm,” and Sun Miao continued, “I was just getting ready to pack up and go home.”

Su Ruixi was very calm. “No rush.”

Taking advantage of her day off, she had to get everything settled. Su Ruixi had just said a couple of sentences to Sun Miao when the owner of Yuanfu Lou came rushing out of the building with her assistant. Su Ruixi had sent the owner a message as soon as she reached the parking lot.

She had actually already contacted the Yuanfu Lou owner last night. Today, she was going to make these two pay the price. Five days had passed, and Chef Qian should have seen Sun Miao’s true ability. The bet could, in fact, be concluded early.

The owner of Yuanfu Lou hurried over, which made Chef Qian and Jiang Ping stand up as well.

Seeing that everyone was here, Chef Qian could only sigh and concede, “This time, I lost.”

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