Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 185

She Does Not Have Good Intentions!

Her stomach could not be reserved only for the oyster pancakes. Sun Miao had also made many other delicious things, and she wanted to eat every single one of them!

Su Ruixi ate to her heart’s content. The itinerary for the next few days was much the same; they would occasionally go out to eat, searching for delicious or locally characteristic foods. Sun Miao took Su Ruixi to eat a particularly interesting thing called Qindao Sea Jelly¹.

This was something one could make themselves. After eating it, Sun Miao brought Su Ruixi back to the hotel, replicated a batch herself, and made quite a lot of it.

It was just more suitable for summer and tasted better after being chilled. The weather was not too hot right now, so eating it chilled was still a bit cool on the mouth. The so-called Qindao Sea Jelly was actually made using a unique local marine product: shihuacai², a type of seaweed that grows on reefs in the intertidal zone. In the past, the local elderly would go pick it and bring it home to boil down to get the sea jelly.

The texture of the sea jelly was a bit like liangpi³ or liangfen⁴, but its appearance was very similar to bingfen⁵. As long as it was washed clean and boiled until viscous, it would set into a jelly-like form. Cut into small cubes or strips, it could be eaten directly after sprinkling on seasonings and toppings.

Icy and cool, it also had a bit of a chewy texture. Su Ruixi quite liked it.

Sun Miao readily agreed that when summer came, she would make it for her again. Craving this taste, Su Ruixi bought some shihuacai and had it mailed directly home.

The two of them were happily eating, drinking, and having fun outside, and in the blink of an eye, many days had passed. On June 28th, the fifth day of their trip, Hip-hop Mei was about to twist herself into a mahua⁶ at Yabi Mei’s house. She desperately @-mentioned Sun Miao in the group chat, but Sun Miao did not reply with even a single sentence.

At this moment, Hip-hop Mei was experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

“Logically speaking, today is the 28th, so it should be the third day that Little Boss Sun would be selling something new, right? But I can’t see Little Boss Sun at all! I even saw the pictures Su-jie posted in her Moments! The sun is shining for ten thousand li⁷ over on their side. There must be a lot of seafood in Qindao right now, Su-jie must be eating to her heart’s content!”

She was on Yabi Mei’s floor, writhing just like a live maggot. Yabi Mei found the sight of her so annoying that the sound of her keyboard-tapping grew a little louder. However, what Hip-hop Mei said was not wrong. Logically, it should have been the third day; they should have been getting some new food!

But that was also just logically speaking. Right now, that little couple was in Qindao, which was a two-hour flight away.

In the group chat, under Hip-hop Mei’s lead, everyone was wailing in a myriad of ways: “Without the snacks made by Little Boss Sun, I’m going to die!”

【Help, Little Boss Sun, I think I’m having withdrawal symptoms, this world cannot be without the food made by Little Boss Sun!】

【Egg fried rice, malatang, beef pancakes, vermicelli soup, changfen, wontons, crab shell yellow, crab roe lion’s head, yangyu potato cake…】

【Ahhhhh this world is too cruel! I’ve fallen down, and only Little Boss Sun’s snacks can make me get up!】

【You quickly come back~ quickly come back~】

After wailing and howling like ghosts and wolves in the group chat along with everyone for a while, Hip-hop Mei started to get some ideas. She sincerely asked Yabi Mei: “Do you think we could go to Qindao too? After all, only we know the two of them are in Qindao. There are only a few top-tier hotels in Qindao, right? With Su-jie’s personality, she definitely booked a presidential suite. We just need to find which hotel’s presidential suite has been booked for many days, and that’s eighty percent likely to be Su-jie and her.”

“If many hotels have their presidential suites booked out, we’ll just stay at a different hotel each day. We’ll be able to have a ‘chance encounter’ with them eventually.”

“…” At this moment, Yabi Mei did not know whether to praise Hip-hop Mei for being smart or for being an idiot.

If you were to say she was dumb, she had managed to think of this method to precisely locate Su-jie and Little Boss Sun. If you were to say she was smart… that little couple had gone on a romantic trip, and she insisted on having a “chance encounter” with them, unafraid that if she really ran into them, Su-jie would fly into a rage from embarrassment and righteously disown her⁸, and then Little Boss Sun would also block her for good measure.

Yabi Mei took a deep breath and asked her if she had considered this latter possibility.

Hip-hop Mei froze. She was silent for a long while, then started rolling on the carpet in Yabi Mei’s home: “I don’t care! I don’t care! Wuwuwu, I’m really going to die, I’m going to starve to death!”

“Let me treat you to Yuanfu Lou. Their head chef’s crab roe lion’s head isn’t as good as Little Boss Sun’s, but at the very least, the taste isn’t bad.”

Hip-hop Mei did not want to eat at Yuanfu Lou; she only wanted to eat from Sun Miao’s little stall. But what Yabi Mei said was also right, the food at Yuanfu Lou was at least edible. So, she could only tidy herself up and set off for Yuanfu Lou with Yabi Mei.

At the same time, she conveniently called up her group of rich second-generation friends, including the friend from Cuiting Yayuan who drove an itasha⁹.

They gathered at Yuanfu Lou, ordered a large private room, and each person had a crab roe lion’s head placed before them. Besides this, they did not order any other dishes. Hip-hop Mei stared at the crab roe lion’s head for a long time, and after a while, she suddenly let out a long sigh, “Ai.”

This sound from her seemed to trigger some kind of mechanism, and the group of people facing the crab roe lion’s heads in front of them also began to sigh “ai” unceasingly.

When the waiter came over to ask if they wanted more water, they were frightened by this scene. They turned around and went directly to find the owner, Yuan Xiangyi. Yuan Xiangyi was stunned for a moment, then told them not to worry about it.

In reality, business at Yuanfu Lou had been incredibly good these past few days. Many customers came and specifically requested the crab roe lion’s head made by their Huaiyang cuisine head chef, Jiang Ping. Actually, there had been a period like this before, which was after that Little Boss Sun stopped selling crab roe lion’s head, and everyone would come over to eat in order to reminisce about the taste of the lion’s head.

However, after eating, they would still comment that it was not as good as the one made by Little Boss Sun.

Yuan Xiangyi, however, did not mind. Regardless of whether it could compare or not, business was business. The only one who was not too happy was Jiang Ping. What chef could be happy after being told their cooking was not as good as someone else’s?

But Jiang Ping was different from Head Chef Qian; she was the type of person who turns shame into courage¹⁰. Especially after having tasted Little Boss Sun’s crab roe lion’s head, she felt that her skills were inferior. The current Jiang Ping was working hard to improve herself, practicing making crab roe lion’s head very diligently.

She was, after all, a head chef, and her talent was evident. The crab roe lion’s head she made already had seventy percent of Sun Miao’s skill. Even if everyone still felt it was not as good as their white moonlight¹¹, the taste could be considered very good.

Now that so many people were coming again and all specifically requesting crab roe lion’s head, Yuan Xiangyi was a bit surprised. A couple of days ago, she had asked a regular customer about it.

The other party replied: “Ai, isn’t it all because of this plum rain season? Little Boss Sun said she doesn’t set up her stall on rainy days and just disappeared, saying she won’t be setting up her stall for the entire plum rain season. By the way, does your restaurant have a chef who can make yangyu potato cake? That stuff is simple, it can’t be hard to make, right? It can’t possibly be that much worse than hers, can it?”

The corner of Yuan Xiangyi’s eye twitched: Hey, you come to my private kitchen restaurant and order yangyu potato cake?!

Yuan Xiangyi suppressed the urge to curse and said with a smile in her eyes: “We don’t have that. Next time, I’ll find a chef who can definitely make delicious yangyu potato cake.”

Yuan Xiangyi understood the reason now. She sent a complimentary dish to the customer’s private room before leaving. Business had been good recently, but that was not the reason Yuan Xiangyi was staying here. It was because she had recently set her sights on another chef and was preparing to be away for several days, so she had come to Yuanfu Lou first to oversee things for a few days.

The evening of the 28th was when she was scheduled to leave.

She needed to make a trip to Qindao. Yuanfu Lou had plenty of chefs—head chefs for Cantonese cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine, and even Sichuan cuisine—but it lacked a head chef for Lu cuisine¹². The Lu cuisine head chef she had her eye on was in Qindao, and his specialty was Qindao’s most famous Lu cuisine dish—braised abalone in its original shell¹³, also known as “soft gold”¹⁴.

Yuan Xiangyi was flying over this time having already negotiated with the person in advance. It was just that the other party was still a bit hesitant, so they had arranged to meet in person for him to decide whether he wanted to switch jobs.

After settling matters at Yuanfu Lou, Yuan Xiangyi boarded the plane to Qindao. She landed at four in the afternoon and, without a moment’s rest¹⁵, got into a private car heading to the restaurant where the chef currently worked. Although this chef was renowned and had been recommended by a friend, Yuan Xiangyi still wanted to personally taste his cooking.

As if it were a story that could not happen without a coincidence¹⁶, Yuan Xiangyi actually ran into Sun Miao and Su Ruixi at the restaurant entrance.

The three of them stood at the restaurant entrance, looking at each other in dismay¹⁷.

Su Ruixi had originally planned to pretend she did not see Yuan Xiangyi and go straight inside. Sun Miao even nodded at Yuan Xiangyi, preparing to follow Su Ruixi’s footsteps. But Yuan Xiangyi was thick-skinned. With a smile on her face, she spoke up directly: “Little Boss Sun, please wait, please wait. Have you also come to eat Lu cuisine?”

What she asked was actually rather pointless. Since they had come to this restaurant, if not to eat Lu cuisine, what else would they be eating?

However, Sun Miao was a polite and good child. Since someone had asked her a question, she could not just walk away. So she stopped and patiently answered Yuan Xiangyi’s question: “Yes, Susu-jie heard that the Lu cuisine here is very authentic, so she brought me to try it.”

For the past few days, she had been the one taking Su Ruixi around everywhere, and they had mostly eaten snacks and things she made herself. When Su Ruixi suggested taking her to eat at a famous Lu cuisine restaurant, she naturally would not refuse.

“What a coincidence! As it happens, I made a reservation in advance with a renowned master here. If you don’t have a prior reservation, would you like to join me?”

In reality, her true intention was to befriend Sun Miao. As a restaurant owner, when she encountered a “wild” head chef like this who ran around setting up stalls everywhere and had no restaurant affiliation, she was naturally dying of craving and desperately wanted to throw a sack over her and bring her back to her own restaurant.

Because Sun Miao had stopped, Su Ruixi also stopped. Hearing Yuan Xiangyi’s words, she lifted her head slightly and immediately said: “No need, I’ve already made a reservation. Farewell.” She said her goodbyes to Yuan Xiangyi in three simple words and pulled Sun Miao away.

Don’t think she could not see it; that Yuan Xiangyi was staring intently at her Miaomiao! That kind of gaze that wanted to pack her up and take her home was exactly the same as her own!

Their starting points might be different; Yuan Xiangyi wanted to bring her to her own restaurant, while Su Ruixi wanted to bring her home.

After they showed their reservation information, the waiter led the two of them to their reserved private room. Seeing that there was no one else around, Su Ruixi then said quietly to Sun Miao: “Miaomiao, you should stay a little further away from that Yuanfu Lou owner, okay?”

Sun Miao was looking at the menu at that moment. Hearing Su Ruixi say this, she raised her head in some confusion: “What’s wrong?”

“That person does not have good intentions!”

Su Ruixi spoke ill of Yuan Xiangyi without any reservation, and the System, which had seen through Yuan Xiangyi’s intentions, also nodded its head frequently in agreement: 【Exactly, that woman does not have good intentions!】

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