Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 276

The Ultimate Knife Skills

The moment Su Ruixi returned, her eyes were immediately drawn to a tall dish that stood out from the rest. She was quite familiar with it. Su Ruixi often attended business banquets where Pagoda Meat¹ was a frequent guest. When you’re treating guests, you always go for these kinds of things that look flowery and fancy.²

Sun Miao had mentioned on the phone this morning that she was learning to make Pagoda Meat, but now that Su Ruixi was seeing it in person, her first impression was that it looked pretty much the same as the version served in restaurants.

At a glance, there were no obvious differences in appearance. After all, they were all made using the same kind of mold, so how different could they be? But upon closer inspection, she discovered that Sun Miao’s Pagoda Meat was exceptionally unique.

Her Pagoda Meat was remarkably solid and much more uniform. Each layer was perfectly identical, arranged so neatly that it looked like a delicate work of art. Su Ruixi recalled the Pagoda Meat she’d eaten in the past; they never looked this good. Some were even uneven, looking more like a sloppy pile of meat.

Moreover, the sauce clinging to Sun Miao’s creation gave it a crystal-clear translucence. By contrast, the ones she’d eaten before had always looked greasy.

This definitely wasn’t a case of “in a lover’s eyes, a Xi Shi appears”³; she genuinely believed Sun Miao’s Pagoda Meat was in a league of its own.

After washing her hands and sitting down, Su Ruixi got ready to eat. She found the opening at the base of the pagoda, slid her chopsticks in, and gently pulled outward. In her experience, Pagoda Meat was usually quite fragile. Even when waiters claimed it was a single, continuous strip, she always found it broke with the slightest tug.

But Sun Miao’s was different. She pulled once, and it held firm. Su Ruixi had to stand up, lift her chopsticks higher, and pull the strip outward. In an instant, the entire pagoda unraveled, collapsing into a single, long, unbroken strip of meat that piled up obediently in her bowl.

She fell silent for a moment before turning to Sun Miao. “Miaomiao… you can’t blame me for this.” Her voice was laced with innocence. Sun Miao knew, of course, that it wasn’t her fault, but the sight of the perfect pagoda collapsing into a heap in Su Ruixi’s bowl was still pretty funny.

Luckily, Sun Miao was prepared. She brought out a plate and gestured for Su Ruixi to transfer the meat. As Su Ruixi tipped the contents of her bowl onto the plate, she was still talking. “You know, if it’s like this, I bet I could rebuild the pagoda with a little effort.”

While Su Ruixi was still talking, Sun Miao took her chopsticks, jabbed the long strip of meat, and neatly separated a section. Su Ruixi choked. Her beautiful dream of rebuilding the pagoda had just been punctured by Sun Miao. In fact, the way she was poking the meat now was oddly reminiscent of how she used to poke the belt noodles⁴ in the Dapanji.⁵

But in any case, now she could eat a small piece.

To reiterate, Su Ruixi preferred vegetables over meat. This personal rule was constantly being broken in Sun Miao’s presence, but she genuinely believed it to be true. She didn’t like meat, especially rich dishes like Dongpo Pork⁶ or Soy-braised Square Pork⁷. This was particularly true in the Jiang-Zhe-Hu⁸ region, where sweet flavors were incredibly popular.

Their Red-braised Pork⁹ was always coated in tons of sugar, making it incredibly greasy. Even at modern wedding banquets, the huge pork knuckles were often left untouched for the exact same reason. So for someone like Su Ruixi, it was a definite pass.

But when Sun Miao was the one cooking, it was a completely different story.

Sun Miao’s cooking was truly on another level. She didn’t douse her food in sugar. She used it, but only just enough to create a glistening, crystal-clear glaze. The lean meat looked firm and flavorful, while the fat was rich without being greasy. And this was five-flower meat¹⁰, no less. The five-flower meat, now a deep soy-sauce red, rested obediently in the white porcelain bowl. A touch of reddish-brown sauce clung to the side, making the meat look all the more sparkling and enticing.

Without hesitation, Su Ruixi reached out with her chopsticks, picked up the piece, and placed it in her mouth.

Pork belly is characterized by its alternating layers of fat and lean meat, which creates a rich and complex mouthfeel. The moment it entered her mouth, the first sensation was the soft, almost waxy texture of the pork. There was a hint of sweetness, but the savory flavor was much more pronounced.

The balance of sweet and savory amplified the meat’s natural flavor, while the saltiness elevated the entire dish. One small piece wasn’t nearly enough. It was gone in the blink of an eye. Her gaze immediately shifted back to the rest of the Pagoda Meat, and her chopsticks followed.

Su Ruixi ate more than half the Pagoda Meat without feeling the slightest bit greasy. Sun Miao’s cooking was just that incredible. It left one’s lips and teeth retaining the fragrance¹¹, making you want to devour every last bite. It was impossible to put her chopsticks down, driven by an irrational fear that if she paused for even a second, someone else would finish it. Even though that someone was Sun Miao, who she knew would never fight her for food…

Still, she had to eat a few more bites quickly. Otherwise, it would be gone in a moment—eaten by her.

After finishing over half of it, Su Ruixi finally put down her chopsticks. It wasn’t that she was full, but she remembered the filling hidden beneath the pagoda. If she ate all the pork, she wouldn’t have any room left for the stir-fried meat with dried mustard greens and diced bamboo shoots.

Su Ruixi was greedy; she wanted it all. So, she set down her chopsticks, picked up a spoon, and dug in. She started with the meat, of course.

This meat had been dry-fried¹², giving it a completely different flavor and texture from the pagoda. The pagoda meat was exceptionally delicate—especially the fat, which melted the instant it touched her tongue. In contrast, the meat slices in the filling were drier, with the satisfying chewiness of a good small stir-fried pork.¹³

The saltiness of the greens and the freshness of the bamboo shoots perfectly complemented the meat, and Su Ruixi ate to her heart’s content. When she tried the greens and bamboo shoots on their own, she discovered another distinct flavor profile. The greens were soft, while the bamboo shoots were crisp. The combination was so good it made her regret not trying the “vegetarian” part sooner.

“Delicious! This is delicious, too!”

Sun Miao brought her a bowl of rice, and after that, all restraint was lost. By the time Su Ruixi finally stopped, most of the meat was gone, and she’d finished two whole bowls of rice. She hadn’t even touched the other dishes, focusing solely on the Pagoda Meat and doing some hardcore eating.¹⁴

Since Su Ruixi had overeaten, Sun Miao brewed some hawthorn tea¹⁵ to aid digestion. Su Ruixi loved it. The hawthorn was sour, but Sun Miao had added rock sugar, giving it a pleasant sweetness. A cup of this tea after a big meal always made her stomach feel much better.

“Susu-jie, if you keep this up, I won’t be able to make you nice things anymore. You’re always overeating. And didn’t you say you wanted to lose weight?”

The comment, especially the last part, made Su Ruixi blush. She was lying on the sofa while Sun Miao gently rubbed her stomach as if stroking a kitten. She turned and buried her face in Sun Miao’s embrace, murmuring, “I am losing weight! I’ve been eating really well in the afternoons. You always make me those low-calorie snacks.”

Sun Miao smiled. “I wasn’t criticizing you. Besides, I never thought Susu-jie needed to lose weight in the first place.”

“No way! I still have to!”

So, after dinner and TV, Su Ruixi dragged Sun Miao outside for a walk. Sun Miao didn’t mind. Her upcoming street stall task was a relatively relaxed one, so another stroll¹⁶ with Su Ruixi was no problem. The two walked arm in arm, enjoying the mid-October evening.

In mid-October, the city wasn’t too cold yet. Even though autumn had arrived, there was still the “Autumn Tiger”¹⁷ to contend with. It was much warmer than the nights they’d spent in Xin Province¹⁸. There, they had needed heavy coats at night, but here, people were still in short sleeves. At most, they’d switched to long pants and might add a thin jacket in the early morning or late evening.

It wasn’t too late, only around eight o’clock. The elderly residents had already finished their evening walks, so the community paths were mostly filled with younger people. The main groups out and about were either walking their dogs or walking their kids.¹⁹

From a distance, Sun Miao spotted a Samoyed galloping toward them. The dog looked familiar—it belonged to Grandma Li from down the street. The person walking it, however, was a stranger, a woman who looked only slightly older than them. As the dog charged, its handler clearly couldn’t hold it back. “Bad dog, stop!” she yelled, but the Samoyed paid her no mind.

In an instant, the dog had dragged the woman right up to them, its tail wagging so furiously it looked like it might take off. It immediately tried to pounce on Sun Miao, as it always did, which nearly scared the life out of its owner. “Ah! Bad dog, you can’t pounce on people!”

Sun Miao just waved her hand with a smile. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Yeye and I are old friends.” The woman finally breathed a sigh of relief. True to Sun Miao’s word, the Samoyed didn’t do anything aggressive. It just nudged her with its nose, sniffing intently, before looking up at her with big, pitiful, moist eyes.

Good fellow²⁰, it smelled the meat she’d cooked today.

They exchanged a few pleasantries before the woman managed to pull the Samoyed away. Su Ruixi watched it go, glancing back reluctantly. “That dog is about to become a spirit²¹,” she murmured. “It actually figured out you made something delicious.”

“Haha, that’s a dog’s nose²² for you.”

The Samoyed wasn’t the only one with a dog’s nose; the people in Sun Miao’s group chat had one, too. They obviously couldn’t smell her Pagoda Meat, but just looking at the picture she posted was enough to make them drool. Then they saw the details: the time, the place, and—most importantly—the 20-portion limit. A fire of indignation flared in their hearts.

“Twenty portions! Who is that supposed to feed? You have two groups full of people! Twenty portions isn’t even enough to sprinkle between the teeth!²³ And you’re selling it at lunchtime? Are you trying to make your customers fight until their heads are broken and blood is flowing?!²⁴ Huh?!”

Besides, things were different now. When she first sold Lion’s Head²⁵ for 588 yuan, most customers thought it was too expensive and stayed away. But their mindset had since shifted. Everyone now realized that the food made by Little Boss Sun was simply irreplaceable. People in the group were constantly lamenting that they’d missed out on the Lion’s Head.

On second thought, while 588 yuan for a single portion was steep, it was perfectly acceptable if you could find two or three people to piece together a group²⁶ and have a taste. At 100 or 200 yuan per person, it was totally manageable.

So now, when she announced another 588-yuan dish, nobody thought Little Boss Sun was overcharging. They just thought they were too poor.

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