Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 188

Nine-Hole Abalone

Su Ruixi’s eyes opened, and she suddenly felt like the sky had collapsed.

She thought she hadn’t heard Sun Miao’s words clearly: “You say that one more time?”

Sun Miao very earnestly and clearly said to Su Ruixi again: “It’s like this, I want to set up a stall, and set up the stall for one day tomorrow. However, I won’t sell much, and it will probably be sold out in half a day.”

Su Ruixi took a deep breath: “Where, and selling what?” She actually really wanted to say: No, didn’t we come out here for a vacation? She, Su Ruixi, a dignified president and a thousand-gold big miss¹, basically said goodbye to work after leaving home. Even if her assistant called her, she would just say a few sentences telling the other party to see to it, and then hang up.

As a result, now, Sun Miao was unexpectedly telling her that she wanted to take a day out of their honeymoon to go and set up a stall?

However, even though in her heart there were seven injustices and eight angers², Su Ruixi didn’t refuse directly, and instead inquired about Sun Miao’s thoughts. Sun Miao was also very embarrassed, now kneeling on the bed, her face written full of a guilty conscience. Hearing Su Ruixi’s words and knowing that Su Ruixi had made some concession, she immediately laid out her stall plan for tomorrow.

“Just at the second lamp post on the west side of this hotel’s entrance, selling the braised abalone in its original shell we ate yesterday. After I make it in the kitchen here, I’ll put it into disposable meal boxes, take it downstairs, and place it on a small folding table to sell.”

Su Ruixi couldn’t help but pinch the space between her eyebrows, reminding Sun Miao: “Miaomiao, this is Qindao, many of your original permits can’t be used here…”

Sun Miao became even more guilt-ridden: “Um, it’s already been taken care of.”

“……” At this moment, Su Ruixi subconsciously asked: “You’ve already taken care of all of it?”

She was truly quite astonished, because Su Ruixi knew Sun Miao’s situation all too well. Sun Miao, an orphan with no father or mother, also had no relatives to rely on, and even fewer friends. If one were to speak of capable diners, there were indeed many, but no matter how long their hands were, they couldn’t reach all the way to Qindao.

That was why Su Ruixi felt it was very strange; just how on earth did Sun Miao get it done?

Su Ruixi’s astonishment was too obvious, which caused Sun Miao to become even more guilt-ridden. She said in a small voice: “This, actually…” Sun Miao gave up on finding an excuse: “Susu-jie, I don’t want to lie to you, just like how I told you before that I would tell you if something came up. But right now I don’t know how to say it, you give me a little more time.”

Through this one sentence, Su Ruixi’s brain supplemented³ a lot on its own. This person who helped Sun Miao handle the permits, was perhaps the same person who taught her culinary arts. Su Ruixi had always thought before that Sun Miao’s teacher was already dead, but from the looks of it now, they probably hadn’t died yet.

She then became even angrier.

No, how on earth are they being a teacher to someone? Not helping to pave the road⁴, just letting her set up a stall to sell snacks day in and day out, and moreover, not helping when things are encountered, relying completely on herself to be busy before and after! Su Ruixi, of course, wouldn’t complain or feel that it was troublesome; she purely couldn’t stand that the teacher clearly had the ability but wouldn’t show their face.

If it weren’t for me, who knows what state Sun Miao would be bullied into!

Su Ruixi got angrier the more she thought about it.

She saw Sun Miao’s somewhat troubled look, reached out her hand, and pulled Sun Miao into a hug: “It’s okay Miaomiao, I did not not agree. You just set up the stall, but you said it’s only for one day, you can’t set up a stall again afterwards.”

“Okay.”

Su Ruixi and Sun Miao chatted for a while, and learned that Sun Miao only needed to set up the stall and sell ten portions to be done. Her expression flickered for a moment, and then she revealed a smile: “Then I won’t eat today, I’ll come and buy tomorrow, that way Miaomiao will have one less portion to sell!”

This bit of money was nothing to Su Ruixi, and Sun Miao also wanted to sell out early and stick⁵ with Su Ruixi, so she also nodded her head: “Okay.”

After getting out of bed, Su Ruixi followed Sun Miao today, constantly wandering through various markets, especially the seafood markets. Sun Miao really hadn’t expected that nine-hole abalone would be so hard to find.

There was even a stall vendor who attempted to use other abalones to pass off as nine-hole abalone, and after being exposed by Sun Miao, was still over there muttering: “Aren’t they all the same, they’re all abalones.”

Su Ruixi almost got into an argument with the person, but it was Sun Miao who pulled her away. Su Ruixi was very unhappy: “What’s going on, isn’t it said that nine-hole abalone is a specialty of Qindao? Why are so few being sold.”

“Because there are a lot of people, and a lot of tourists, wanting to buy the authentic ones is comparatively difficult. Isn’t it the same with the Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs⁶ produced in Gusu⁷, which is relatively close to us? Although they all say they are Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs, even if you drive to their lakeside, the ones you buy might all be bath crabs⁸, and not local crabs.”

Although she patiently explained to Su Ruixi, Su Ruixi could also tell that because she couldn’t buy any nine-hole abalone, Sun Miao was quite dejected.

Su Ruixi in turn comforted Sun Miao: “Don’t you worry, we’ll definitely be able to buy some.” She directly took out her phone and dialed the hotel suite’s butler. The butler indeed had some connections⁹, and directly said to leave it to her, no problem.

“Let’s trust this butler for now, Miaomiao, let’s buy other things first.”

After everything was bought, Su Ruixi also found someone to help them carry it all. If it were up to Sun Miao’s own temperament, she probably would have made several more trips to carry it all herself.

When they returned to the hotel, the butler was already packed and ready to depart, wanting to take them to purchase the nine-hole abalone. This time there wasn’t even a pause; the two had just gotten out of the car when they got into the hotel’s car and set off to make the purchase. The butler truly had some skill; the nine-hole abalone that they couldn’t find after visiting several seafood markets was actually found by her.

Moreover, the size was not small, just right to satisfy Sun Miao’s requirements.

But for large abalones, the price would also shoot shoot shoot upwards. Also, because they were people brought by the butler, the seller knew with one look that Su Ruixi had money, and the opening price was the same as for a black gold abalone¹⁰: “A four-head¹¹ abalone is 1000 for one, you take a look and see how many you want.”

When Sun Miao heard this, she was already frowning.

Actually, to speak the truth, she had always felt that pricing abalone by the head was just an IQ tax¹², purely for fooling people. The so-called head, for example, a two-head abalone, what does that mean? It just means that within one jin¹³ there are two abalones; just those two are enough for one jin. An eight-head abalone means that eight are enough to make up one jin.

The larger the abalone, the more valuable it naturally is; you also have to look at the region and variety.

Nine-hole abalone is not a particularly scarce or expensive variety, nor does it have the gimmick of black flesh like the black gold abalone, so it cannot be sold at such a high price. These things Su Ruixi did not know, so she looked directly at Sun Miao, letting Sun Miao go and negotiate the price. Sun Miao spoke directly: “Too expensive, you’re taking us for fat sheep¹⁴ to slaughter.”

The moment an expert makes a move, you know if they’ve got it¹⁵. The seller sighed, knowing they couldn’t make a big profit today, and could only begin to go back and forth with Sun Miao.

In the end, Sun Miao used the price of 100 yuan for one six-head abalone and bought a dozen or so to go.

Su Ruixi sighed with emotion: “A six-head abalone is only 100 yuan each, and he wanted to sell me a four-head for one thousand. He was purely taking us for a wronged big head¹⁶.”

“Who says otherwise? If we didn’t know the price, we definitely would have been cheated.”

Actually, if one didn’t know the inside story, they would have been cheated back at the seafood market. The nine-hole abalone is very different from other abalones; the nine-hole abalone is more oval-shaped, its surface is smooth, and even its holes are flat, whereas on other abalones, they protrude outwards. And the holes that the nine-hole abalone uses for breathing are also more numerous than on other types of abalone.

The nine-hole abalone has from 6 to 10 respiratory pores, while other abalones generally only have 4 or 5.

This is also the origin of the nine-hole abalone’s name.

To be honest, Sun Miao really hadn’t expected nine-hole abalone to sell for so much, because nine-hole abalone is an abalone from warm water sea regions, and its growth cycle is also faster. Logically speaking, it shouldn’t be this expensive. One can only say that there are too many tourists, causing the local product to also become a case of a thing being precious because it is scarce¹⁷.

Fortunately, they still managed to buy it, and even added the seller’s contact information, so if they want to eat it again in the future, they can just have him send it by air freight.

On the return trip, Su Ruixi was still talking to the butler, expressing Sun Miao’s plan to set up a stall at the hotel entrance tomorrow. The butler was somewhat troubled, but Su Ruixi was a major client, so she could only express that she would go and discuss it. The pressure Su Ruixi gave was very full, and it was the first time Sun Miao had seen Su Ruixi negotiating with others head-on as a business elite. Never mind the butler whose sweat flowed down her whole forehead, even Sun Miao, who was watching from the side, felt that the pear mountain was big¹⁸.

As expected, the kind that even my former boss couldn’t compare to… her aura is too full.

The most crucial thing was that the current Su Ruixi was not yet in her complete form¹⁹; the clothes she wore were very casual, her sunglasses were even pinned to her chest, and the location was also inside the car. If it were changed to an office, and Su Ruixi was wearing a full formal suit, then it was estimated that neither Sun Miao nor the butler would dare to breathe a big breath²⁰.

Perhaps because the pressure Su Ruixi gave was too full, the butler brought a reply in the afternoon. They would allow Sun Miao to set up a stall, but the corresponding permits had to be fully prepared. The hotel side probably thought Sun Miao was acting on a sudden impulse²¹ and planned to use this move to make Sun Miao know the difficulty and retreat. As a result, who knew that Sun Miao had come prepared, and directly threw out all the permits.

After the butler finished looking at the permits, she wiped her sweat and expressed that there was no problem.

Under these circumstances, the hotel was unexpectedly easy to talk to. The hotel’s presidential suite was one hundred thousand a night, and Su Ruixi had directly booked it for over ten days, which was over a million; add to that the fact that Sun Miao had immediately gotten the permits handled on a sudden impulse, which was something a person with no connections in the local area could do. Taking it all into account, they were truly unwilling to offend such a person.

In addition, Sun Miao was only selling ten portions, which would have no impact on either the hotel or the guests, so in the end, they just let her be.

The next morning, after Sun Miao woke up, she first got up to make breakfast for Su Ruixi and herself, and then after calling Su Ruixi up to eat breakfast, she began to make the braised abalone in its original shell.

The braised abalone in its original shell is called “soft gold,” and this is not an undeserved reputation²². Tightly enveloped by ham, abalone, and winter bamboo shoots, the layer of thick sauce drizzled on top sparkled under the reflection of the light, truly like gold. And abalone itself originally has the fine reputation of being the gold of seafood.

Its nutritional value is very high, and during the Qing dynasty, it was even praised as the head of the “Sea’s Eight Treasures,”²³ and its price has always remained high.

Sun Miao rarely made this kind of dish; the raw materials for the previous crab roe lion’s head were not very expensive, and compared to abalone, that was completely a case of a small shaman seeing a big shaman²⁴. The braised abalone in its original shell she made, selling it for 588, she truly did not have a guilty conscience in the slightest; one abalone alone cost 100! The price of Jinhua ham was also laid out there, and adding her craftsmanship, 588 was not pure profit.

Not only did Sun Miao feel it was worth it, but Su Ruixi, watching from the side, also felt that 588 was no different from a white giveaway²⁵.

She was somewhat regretting it now; she shouldn’t have said she wanted to buy one. Now she would have to wait until noon when the selling started. If it weren’t for that sentence, Su Ruixi could have started eating right now!

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