Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 176

The Stall Keepers

The next day, when Sun Miao went to set up her stall, she saw that several stall owners had arrived even earlier than her and were already set up on that road. Sun Miao arrived at her spot under the second streetlight and found that someone had already taken her position.

It was an acquaintance, the Fried Skewer Boss.

The Fried Skewer Boss had no business at the moment, so he was just standing there. When he saw Sun Miao coming over, he was stunned for a moment, then reacted: “Did I take your spot? I’ll move right away.”

If the Fried Skewer Boss were a bad person and was just occupying the latrine pit but not defecating¹, then Sun Miao would definitely have gotten worked up and argued with him properly. But the Fried Skewer Boss was so polite, it made Sun Miao feel embarrassed. She quickly waved her hands and said: “No need, no need, you don’t have to move, I’ll find another spot.”

The System shouted in Sun Miao’s mind: 【No, this is a feng shui treasure land² that we carefully selected! You can’t change it!】

Sun Miao pretended not to hear.

But the Fried Skewer Boss moved even faster than her. It was a good thing he had no business, otherwise he couldn’t have moved so quickly. As Sun Miao was waving her hands, he had already swiftly pushed his cart away, yielding the spot under the second streetlight to Sun Miao.

Sun Miao could only say thank you and push her own food truck into the position. She originally wanted to chat with the Fried Skewer Boss for a bit, but in a moment’s time, a line of customers had already formed in front of her. Sun Miao paused, and could only attend to the customers first.

Lining up in first place, as usual, was the Hip-hop Yabi duo. Seven or eight times out of ten, the two of them could occupy the first-place position.

The two first ordered their food. While Sun Miao was making the Yangyu potato cake, Hip-hop Mei’s little mouth started chattering away: “Little Boss Sun, I didn’t even know something like that happened yesterday! It was only when someone sent the video to the group chat that I found out what was going on! You’re treating us too much like outsiders. If you had said something earlier, we would have definitely come over to help! How are you? Are you hurt? I saw that dead man heading towards you!”

Hip-hop Mei’s loud voice made everyone around them look over. Yabi Mei silently shifted to the side, seemingly pretending not to know Hip-hop Mei.

Sun Miao looked at Yabi Mei, a little envious. She could move away and pretend not to know her, but Hip-hop Mei was clinging tightly to her little cart, so she couldn’t pretend even if she wanted to. Sun Miao looked at the incessantly chattering Hip-hop Mei and answered her: “It’s fine now. Actually, he didn’t touch me, he just flipped my stall. I didn’t accept mediation; I’m going to sue him.”

Only then did Hip-hop Mei feel relieved.

Although she was flighty and her loud voice let everyone know, her concern for her was genuine. Because of this, Sun Miao prepared an extra small bag of chili sauce for her: “Here, I see you quite like this. Take it home to eat.”

Hip-hop Mei’s eyes widened. She was a person who couldn’t be happy without spice. The reason she was captured by Sun Miao’s little stall in the first place was because of the malatang. That fragrant and spicy malatang made it impossible for her to stop. Later on, even when eating Jinling duck blood vermicelli soup, she had to add a heavy amount of chili.

This time, the Yangyu potato cake didn’t have meat, but it had a rich chili sauce, and also a chili sauce with zhe’ergen added. It was a bit of a pity that Hip-hop Mei didn’t eat zhe’ergen.

Now, hearing that Sun Miao was going to give her a bag of chili sauce, although the bag was very small and the chili sauce was only half the size of her fist, Hip-hop Mei felt extremely happy. Hip-hop Mei took the chili sauce with her hands. Before she could say a word, she was pulled and dragged away by Yabi Mei next to her: “Thanks, boss, we’re leaving first.”

Hip-hop Mei still wanted to say something, but her mouth was covered by Yabi Mei.

Only when they were far away did Yabi Mei let go of her hand: “You loudmouth, were you planning to shout in the middle of a crowd again? Little Boss Sun gave it to you, instead of secretly laughing to yourself, you want to announce it so the whole world knows. When that time comes, let alone Little Boss Sun giving it to you privately, she might just directly blacklist you.”

Hip-hop Mei was silent for a moment, and also thought through the key point of the issue. She even thanked Yabi Mei and promised that she would absolutely not show off the chili sauce Little Boss Sun gave her on any social media platform.

“……”

Yabi Mei took a deep breath. She really hadn’t guessed wrong, this person Xu Zi’an was really preparing to show it off everywhere!

Her eyes darted around, and she smiled like a little fox: “Just thanking me with your mouth is useless. You should also express it with your actions.” Her original intention was to get half of the chili sauce from Hip-hop Mei, but Hip-hop Mei’s eyes lit up: “Right! You’re right! Little Boss Sun even gave me chili sauce, I have to show my appreciation. Let me think, what would be a good gift to give!”

After speaking, she dragged Yabi Mei and ran off.

Yabi Mei was almost angered to the point of laughing: What, I’ve been by your side for so long and cleaned up so many of your messes, and you don’t know how to thank me?

Today, while Sun Miao was setting up her stall, she encountered quite a few situations like Hip-hop Mei’s. Today’s line was a bit longer than usual; apparently, old customers who knew what happened yesterday had come to see Sun Miao.

Even Zhou Ling, who had been fooling around for a few days and was now honestly waiting for her results at home, came over with her mother. The “little sister” of Zhou Ling’s mother, who had helped record the video and act as a witness yesterday, was also there. She was still trying to persuade the mother and daughter next to them: “Aiyo, no need to worry. Wasn’t I there yesterday? With me around, I definitely wouldn’t let your precious Little Boss Sun suffer a loss.”

Zhou Ling’s mother was still over there saying: “You come over to buy things without bringing a driver or a bodyguard or anything. Otherwise, how could Little Boss Sun have been bullied? It’s all your fault.”

“…You didn’t bring one either, did you?”

“When I came before, I wouldn’t be alone. A driver is a must. He’s nearby now, he can come right away with one phone call.”

The two of them talked over there for a long time. When they finally got to the front of the line, Zhou Ling came over first and said to Sun Miao in a low voice: “Jiejie, are you okay? Yesterday when I heard Auntie and Mom talking, I was so worried. Some adults are really bad. If you encounter them, you must not confront them head-on!”

Zhou Ling frowned, clearly expressing her disapproval of Sun Miao’s action of grabbing a knife yesterday. Sun Miao didn’t argue with her, just said: “Okay, I know, next time I’ll do as Lingling says.”

The feeling of being cared for really makes one’s heart become soft soft³. Zhou Ling’s mother and her little sister added from the side: “Exactly, if you have any more trouble later, just come find us.” Zhou Ling’s mother added in a low voice: “I still owe you a favor, you can feel free to make use of me.”

After buying the Yangyu potato cake, this group of people also left.

But the people who cared about Sun Miao came in an endless stream. Later, the Lemon Tea Boss also came with the Cat Master. The Lemon Tea Boss was also carrying her own stall setup. Seeing the Fried Skewer Boss on one side of Sun Miao and the other side empty, she immediately beamed with joy: “Aiyo, is this empty spot saved for me?”

“In your dreams. It’s just that the other people couldn’t fit their stalls here, only your little lemon tea table can fit.”

The Cat Master retorted her own boss. Niuniu also meowed a few times at Sun Miao. The Lemon Tea Boss wasn’t annoyed, and just set up her small stall next to Sun Miao, preparing to continue selling lemon tea.

Sun Miao very patiently said to Niuniu: “The things I’m selling this time you can’t eat, okay? Be good, Niuniu.”

Niuniu didn’t know anything, only that she didn’t have anything to eat. She meowed for a long time, then was carried to the back of the line by the Cat Master.

While setting up her stall on the side, the Lemon Tea Boss chatted with Sun Miao: “It feels like business is pretty good here. I see the stalls of several businesses around here are bustling with customers, they must be earning quite a lot.”

Sun Miao’s hands were busy, and she had no time to pay attention to her. The Lemon Tea Boss didn’t mind. She had set up next to Sun Miao’s stall for seven days before and knew what kind of temperament Sun Miao had. If she was busy with work, she would at most make a few “en” sounds and would absolutely not engage in conversation.

However, just as the Lemon Tea Boss said, business here was indeed good. Even a stall like the Fried Skewer Boss’s, which logically shouldn’t have much business in the morning, could actually sell one or two orders. He sold fried skewer burritos, fried some rice cakes and starch sausages, put some scallions and cilantro inside, and rolled it up with a pancake, which could also serve as breakfast.

Not to mention the others, like those selling changfen, egg-filled pancake⁴, shouzhuabing⁵, rice flour noodles, and rice noodles. There were really a lot of people in front of those stalls.

As the customers were buying, they were also saying: “This is how it should be! Before, when I took the bus over here and passed by other factory districts, there was a whole bunch of stalls at their gates. But when it came to our gate, there wasn’t even a single stall. Is that right?! This is what I want to see!”

“Wuwuwu, I haven’t eaten snacks here in so long. The taste is actually pretty good, and it feels very clean too.”

“Yay, in the future, whoever loves to eat the garbage cafeteria food in the company can go eat it. Anyway, I’m going to make the company gate my home. Wuhu, take off~⁶”

This batch of stalls was indeed much cleaner than the average street stall because they all had permits. To get a permit, one really had to make a lot of rectifications, especially in terms of hygiene, which was managed very strictly. However, after obtaining a permit, there were both advantages and disadvantages.

The advantages naturally need no further explanation. As long as it was a place where setting up stalls was allowed, you could operate 24 hours a day; you no longer had to be chased around by the Chengguan, and could even puff out your chest when you saw them, just hoping for the Chengguan to come and chase you away so you could slap your permit right in front of them.

“See this? I have a permit.”

As for the disadvantages, of course there were some; first was that □□ required a sum of money. Getting the permit itself wasn’t much, but making the rectifications according to the requirements was not only troublesome, but the modifications also cost a sum of money. There were also regular inspections every year and so on.

But compared to the disadvantages, for the vendors, the advantages were clearly greater.

On the faces of the small stall bosses, most wore sincere and kind smiles. This was a kind of smile Sun Miao was familiar with and also liked. The small bosses around her were just like her, their hands working non-stop, greeting the customers before them with their most enthusiastic side.

When setting up a stall, it’s better to have more people, so the human world’s smoke and fire aura⁷ is more abundant.

The System really liked that kind of atmosphere: a quiet, empty street, a solitary little stall, with a small, gentle, pale-yellow light turned on, an atmosphere where the stall owner and the foodie understood each other without words.

But Sun Miao preferred a long street with many different kinds of stalls, where customers flowed like clouds among the stalls, occasionally buying one or two snacks to hold in their hands. The sounds of hawking, the sound of spatulas hitting woks with sparks flying, the slight noise from customers chatting—all these sounds mixed together, creating a lively and bustling atmosphere.

Actually, both are a kind of human world’s smoke and fire aura. No matter which kind it is, everyone is living seriously and diligently. Sun Miao, actually, liked them all very much.

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