The Last Day for Spanish Mackerel Dumplings
Getting this answer, Su Ruixi smiled until her eyes curved into crescents: it seemed her status was higher than Sun Miao’s little stall. See, Sun Miao had said that if she didn’t do this anymore in the future, she wouldn’t either.
“In that case, I might retire a long, long time in advance.”
“Mhm, when that time comes, we’ll go travel the world together.”
As the two of them cuddled together, Sun Miao completely tuned out the system shouting in her mind: 【Beauty makes wisdom muddled1! Beauty makes wisdom muddled! Host, wake up! You have to keep running this stall forever!】
She had no intention of listening to the system. The whole point of working was to live a better life. She did indeed love to cook, and she also loved the life of running a stall and chatting idly with customers, but she couldn’t really just never retire and run a stall for her entire life, could she?
The moment she imagined herself as an old lady in her seventies or eighties, still tremblingly pedaling a tricycle around to set up a stall and make food, Sun Miao couldn’t help but think how bitter her fate was. Of course, there were elderly stall owners, either to supplement their family’s income or to alleviate loneliness and boredom. But with Su Ruixi by her side, how could she possibly find life boring and need to run a stall?
Sun Miao completely ignored the system, infuriating it to no end: 【In the future, I’m definitely going to find a Host who is serious about work and motivated! I absolutely cannot hand over all the business income to the Host!】
Sun Miao could only offer a moment of silent prayer for the system’s next host.
Perhaps every system was as pure and kind as her own at the beginning, only to be led astray by a bad host like her.
However, given the system’s personality, even with this new rule added, it should still be a pretty good system. At the very least… it wouldn’t resort to killing and punishing at the drop of a hat. Thinking of this, and also to make the next host’s life a little less unlucky, Sun Miao decided to placate the system.
“You can’t blame me. Think about it, I started my stall when I was twenty-five. If I do it for twenty years, I’ll be forty-five. After running a stall for so long, the timing would be perfect. Shouldn’t I set off to see the great rivers and mountains of our country? You can see them with me, too, and just like before, you can teach me more regional specialty dishes and snacks. System, you’re the best, and I want to take you out to have fun, too.”
The system was incredibly easy to handle. Hearing Sun Miao say this, it completely forgot about the matter.
Later, Sun Miao had the system put itself in the little black room2, only to come out the next morning.
On the last day for the Spanish Mackerel Dumplings, Sun Miao had already predicted that there would be a lot of people, but the vast, dark mass of them in front of her still made her gasp. However, after a quick glance, Sun Miao saw that the customers were basically all her regulars, with very few new faces.
Beyond that, the ranks of the uncles and aunties had grown even larger. When she was selling the mini bubble wontons and crab shell pastries before, Sun Miao had indeed served some older customers, but they hadn’t formed a contingent of this scale at the time. It wasn’t like now, where they stood by the roadside, standing opposite the young people and resisting with equal ceremony3.
Sun Miao pushed her cart to her usual spot, and a line that seemed to have no end immediately appeared before her.
The Hip-hop Yabi Duo, sporting dark circles under their eyes, stood in the very first spot.
Hip-hop Mei’s dark circles were heavy, but her entire being was exceptionally excited. “I didn’t even go home last night. I slept at the scenic area entrance with her.” Sun Miao’s gaze drifted, spotting an RV not far away. To get first place in line, the two of them had really gone all out.
Looking at Yabi Mei, she had more style than Hip-hop Mei, at the very least: you couldn’t even see her dark circles. This wasn’t because Yabi Mei didn’t have any, but because she was wearing Japanese visual-kei4 smokey eye makeup today. The area around her eyes was a field of black, so naturally, the existence of dark circles couldn’t be detected.
“Two orders of dumplings, to go.”
Seeing Sun Miao look her way, Yabi Mei directly asked for two orders. Unwilling to show weakness, Hip-hop Mei immediately followed up: “Three orders, to go.”
After saying this, Hip-hop Mei didn’t chat with Sun Miao anymore, but instead turned to look at the uncle behind her, jerked her chin up at him sharply, and then let out a “Hmph” through her nose.
This action of hers infuriated the uncle. “Little girl, don’t get cocky. I’ll definitely be the first one here tomorrow.”
Hearing this, Hip-hop Mei became even more delighted. “I’m not coming tomorrow. You come, you come.”
The uncle didn’t understand and thought Hip-hop Mei was backing down, so he also let out a huff. Sun Miao packed up the dumplings for the Hip-hop Yabi Duo and handed them over. The two of them were always too lazy to calculate the bill and would just overpay; for five orders, they directly gave her five hundred.
When it was the uncle’s turn, Sun Miao gave him a timely reminder, “Uncle, today is my last day at this spot. I won’t be here tomorrow, so don’t make a wasted trip.”
“Ah?”
The uncle was stunned for a moment, then immediately asked, “Then where will you set up your stall?”
Sun Miao took out a QR code. “I don’t know for now either. This is the QR code for the group chat. If you want to know, just join the group…” Just as Sun Miao was about to ask if the uncle knew how to use a smartphone, the uncle pulled out his own latest model flagship phone and swiftly scanned the code to join the group.
“Okay, you have to remember to notify us!”
He could even afford the newest flagship phone, yet when he first came to buy, he only bought half an order of dumplings.
This was the wisdom of the elderly. This way, even if the uncle got scammed, he would only be scammed out of half an order’s worth of money, not a full one. If it were one of the limpidly foolish5 young people, they would insist on the principle of “I’ve got to see what kind of thing sells for this expensive,” and get scammed out of a full order’s worth of money at once.
The reason there were so many customers this early in the morning was that they had been thoroughly spooked by the student faction before. “Good thing it’s summer vacation now, and most of the students have gone back to their hometowns. Otherwise, with their perseverance, we definitely wouldn’t have been able to get a spot in line. And that streamer named Lizi, she’s too much, actually posting a store exploration video!”
“Exactly! So many people joined the group chat yesterday, it made me so full of worry I couldn’t sleep. I was specifically planning to come on the last day to buy the Spanish Mackerel Dumplings, so that in three days I could eat something new again!”
“Luckily, that streamer’s fans don’t know that Boss Sun sells out a lot of stuff early in the morning. They aren’t here yet, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have gotten a turn!”
Sun Miao nodded along from time to time as she served all the customers. This wave was over by six forty-five. Only when there were no more customers in front of her did she take a short break and check how many portions were left. There were indeed a lot of people this morning. She had prepared one hundred and twenty portions today, and in that short time, only about twenty were left.
After a little while, Grandma Li came over with her granddaughter to hang out and bought a portion for the two of them to share. Nannan was a little girl, after all, and couldn’t eat very many, and Grandma Li was also getting on in years, so one portion was just right for the two of them.
Sun Miao gave them two bowls of dumpling soup; she wasn’t so stingy as to skimp on that.
The two of them were planning to sit at the small table to eat, but Sun Miao remembered that Grandma Li had just said she was taking her little granddaughter out to play, so she mentioned offhandedly, “Other customers said there are stone benches inside the scenic area with a very nice view. Grandma, would you like to take Nannan inside to eat?”
This was a roadside, after all. Although Sun Miao kept her small table wiped quite clean, the coming and going of people would inevitably kick up some dust.
Hearing Sun Miao’s words, Grandma Li also nodded. “Oh, good idea. We’ll go eat inside then.”
Sun Miao put lids on the dumpling soup, tied up the plastic bag, and then gave it to Grandma Li.
After a while, Shen Yiqiu also arrived. She hadn’t come for so many days, not because she didn’t want to eat Sun Miao’s dumplings, but because Sun Miao had previously had Su Ruixi bring some home, and she had been eating them at home for the past few days. The number of dumplings Sun Miao had prepared for Su Ruixi’s parents was actually quite large, but it couldn’t withstand the old couple eating them every day, for almost every meal. The dumplings were disappearing like nobody’s business; how could they last with the two of them consuming them like that?
They had finished them the night before last. She had resisted the urge yesterday but found that she still wanted to eat them. Most importantly, she knew where to get them, so she had rushed over first thing this morning.
The moment she saw Sun Miao, Shen Yiqiu felt a bit awkward, not knowing how to react. But then she thought: Sun Miao doesn’t know that I’m Su Ruixi’s mother. And so, Shen Yiqiu calmed down again.
“One order of dumplings, to go. Dipping sauce the same as before.”
Sun Miao served Su Ruixi’s mom, adding an extra-large, sunny smile that made Shen Yiqiu feel she couldn’t handle it and had to flee immediately. It was only after she got into her car that she began to think: All she does is smile all day long. She already has a family, yet she still smiles so happily!
But on second thought: there’s nothing she can do about smiling. Life is too hard, having to get up so early every morning to run a stall. She’s in the service industry; if she doesn’t serve with a smile, she won’t have any customers.
On one hand, she wanted to nitpick Sun Miao as a “mother-in-law,” but on the other hand, she knew that Sun Miao was truly a good girl. These two thoughts tangled in her heart, leaving her extremely conflicted. She looked at the dumplings on the small tray table in the car and couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh. “Aigh.”
After a moment, Shen Yiqiu realized she couldn’t just let herself be the only one struggling with this. She gritted her teeth and resolved that next week, when Sun Miao started her stall again, she would quietly make Father Su suffer a setback too!
While Shen Yiqiu was making her resolution, Sun Miao served several more customers. She also ran into the major client who was hoarding grain6, the beef pancake solo stan7, Tong Yuwei. She was the last one today. After asking how many portions Sun Miao had left and learning there were only five, she waved her hand without hesitation. “Pack them all up for me. I got my bonus these past couple of days, so I’m loaded right now.”
After she spoke, she couldn’t help but sigh. “The food Big Sis makes is delicious, but the price is just too expensive. A beast of burden8 worker like me can’t afford your dumplings.” Her tone shifted. “So, Big Sis, when can the beef pancakes make a comeback?”
The Spanish Mackerel Dumplings were delicious. If she took these five portions home, she could finish them in about two days; she wouldn’t get tired of eating them for every meal. But the Spanish Mackerel Dumplings were expensive! One portion of 10 cost 88 yuan. The beef pancakes were still a better value. The money for one portion of dumplings was enough for several beef pancakes.
At a time like this, as a beef pancake solo stan, if she didn’t promote9 her own main idol10, could she still be called a solo stan?
Sun Miao was used to the solo stan’s promotion of her main idol, but she, the event organizer, pretended she didn’t hear it. “I’m packing up and going home now.”
Tong Yuwei pouted. “Stingy.”
After Tong Yuwei left, Sun Miao sent a “Sold out” message in the group chat. She had just put her phone away when she took it out again.
She forgot, she forgot. She had another group chat. She was so focused on posting in Group 1 that she forgot to post in Group 2. She opened Group 2 and edited the exact same message, but the replies below were a series of question marks.
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