Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 30

Buying Beef at the Wet Market

Sun Miao’s smile couldn’t be contained. While smiling, she replied with a sticker of a well-behaved Shiba Inu dog saying “Thank you.”

After Sun Miao set off again, the system chattered away in her mind: 【If you like her, go after her! What’s the use of just giggling at messages?】

This time, Sun Miao admitted that the system was a bit venomous. In just one second, it made her wear a mask of suffering [痛苦面具 | tòngkǔ miànjù | internet slang for an expression of pain/discomfort]: “You don’t understand. If it were really that simple, it would be much better.” If she were a 2D anime character, she wouldn’t have to consider anything, just needing to have a passionate love affair.

But everyone lives in the real world, with too many helpless situations.

Even putting aside the insurmountable gap in material conditions between her and Su Ruixi, the single fact that Su Ruixi is straight was enough to nail Sun Miao’s feet to the spot. She’s straight! And her parents are still alive! If she really got together with Su Ruixi, she would face her parents’ disappointed gazes and contemptuous curses. Her originally happy and harmonious family might even be completely broken.

If she truly liked her, how could she bear to see all of this?

Facing Sun Miao’s concerns, the system uttered a second sentence that deepened Sun Miao’s mask of suffering: 【Then it would be better if she were also an orphan.】

“I, on behalf of Su Ruixi, thank you very much.”

Who talks like that? That’s why systems are systems, they’ll never understand the human heart.

However, what the system said wasn’t entirely unreasonable. Sun Miao was able to calmly face her identity as a homosexual, also because she was an orphan without father or mother. She didn’t need to be responsible to anyone, nor did she need to repay her parents’ kindness, much less face a family. So, being a homosexual is what it is, anyway, it didn’t affect anyone else.

However, she still had selfish motives, changing Su Ruixi’s contact name to “Susu-jie”.

“Su-jie” was too formal, not suitable for Su Ruixi. Calling her Susu-jie, even if someone saw it, she could explain it away.

Hehe, Susu-jie.

Sun Miao returned home and tidied up her small food cart. After playing on her phone for a while in her room, she went to sleep. She slept particularly early, entering dreamland before 9:30 PM. This was because she had to get up particularly early the next morning.

She went to bed at 9:30 PM and woke up at 4:30 AM. After Sun Miao got up, she quickly washed up. She didn’t need to do any skincare. Even if she diligently spent half an hour on skincare in the morning, the sweat from her work would render her efforts futile.

Sun Miao’s skin was a bit rough, but because she was young, she looked rosy and had a good complexion. Coupled with her regular sleep schedule, she was actually quite presentable.

After spending three minutes brushing her teeth and washing her face, and applying some fragrant cream, Sun Miao finished washing up. She even admired herself in the mirror: “Not bad, with a little makeup, this little face of mine could charm a thousand girls in a lesbian bar as a gentle T [娘T | niáng T | referring to a more feminine-presenting butch lesbian].”

“In this era, grandpa Ts [爷T | yé T | referring to a more masculine presenting lesbian] are no longer in demand. It’s time for us gentle Ts to rise up~”

Sun Miao spoke words the system couldn’t understand, actually just trying to encourage herself. Humming a tune, she cooked herself a bowl of mifen [米粉 | mǐfěn | rice noodles] to eat, using the leftover mifen from when she made malatang. She had thought the mifen she made was quite delicious at the time, so she made a lot extra, had a shop vacuum-seal it, and stuffed it in the freezer, waiting for a later time to enjoy it.

After finishing a bowl of mifen, it was just past 5:00 AM. Sun Miao rode her food cart to the wet market. The beef stall she had carefully chosen also started work quite early. When she arrived, the stall owner was already portioning the beef, and quite a few small restaurant owners were waiting to take their meat away.

Sun Miao could tell at a glance that the beef was extremely fresh, probably delivered last night and slaughtered in the early morning hours.

The beef stall owner had drained the blood relatively cleanly, but there was still some blood-red coloring on the beef, with droplets of blood dripping down and pooling on the ground. The surrounding people were completely indifferent to this, and Sun Miao was long accustomed to it.

“Little Boss Sun, here to buy beef again~” Sun Miao had bought beef quite a few times. Previously, when she was making malatang, she also needed to make peeing beef balls and marinated beef slices. She was young and pretty, so the owner remembered her right away.

The owner of the beef stall was a woman. She looked big and burly, but her smile was honest and kind. She had to be this strong, because she had to carry an entire cow. The cow flew around in her hands, looking incredibly easy to handle. The average man couldn’t do it as well as her.

After some investigation, Sun Miao had chosen this beef stall. Firstly, the beef was fresh, genuinely fresh. Secondly, the owner was a good person, easy to talk to, and efficient in her work. When Sun Miao went to other stalls to buy, some male owners would condescendingly offer unsolicited advice, or seeing that she was a young girl, assume she didn’t know anything and try to sell her cuts of meat they couldn’t get rid of, at inflated prices.

This female owner wasn’t like that. Not only did she give Sun Miao exactly what she asked for, but she also saw that Sun Miao was a young girl working hard and deliberately gave her a discounted price.

Sun Miao actually didn’t need such a discounted price. Her business was practically cost-free, and she sold her food at a high price. The beef stall owner also had a hard life. When other customers, aunties and grandmothers, saw Sun Miao carrying beef, they would recommend she buy from this owner, because she really had it rough.

Her husband ran off, leaving her to raise a son and a daughter on her own. She relied on going to select cows late at night, starting the butchering before daybreak, and working tirelessly day and night just to support her two children.

Sun Miao admired her greatly, so even though the owner gave her a discount, she still paid the market price.

Sun Miao loved money, was even obsessed with it, but she had principles.

The owner greeted Sun Miao, and she naturally responded in kind. Sun Miao always greeted people with a smile, and her face immediately lit up: “Yes, I’m here to buy beef.”

“You used up all the beef yesterday? Little Boss Sun, business must be good.”

“Hehe.” Sun Miao chuckled twice and then started to buy meat: “How much beef tenderloin do you have today?”

“Plenty! Little Boss, you just say how much you need.”

Sun Miao calculated yesterday’s sales, estimating how much she should buy. She decided to buy a bit more. Even if she didn’t sell it all, she could keep some to make peeing beef balls or marinate some beef slices to eat during her downtime. She wasn’t so particular about what she ate herself; she could just freeze it for a while and take it out later.

“Then I’ll take 20 jin [10 kg or 22 lbs] of beef tenderloin and 15 jin [7.5 kg or 16.5 lbs] of beef short ribs.”

“Alright!”

The owner quickly used a razor-sharp cleaver to cut the meat Sun Miao wanted. After weighing it, she routinely asked Sun Miao: “Should I cube the beef tenderloin and debone and cube the short ribs? You don’t want them ground, right?”

“Right.”

The “grinding” the owner referred to meant using a machine to mince the meat. But Sun Miao didn’t need that, because using a machine for this would be too rough, destroying the meat’s natural texture. When she made peeing beef balls, she always pounded and chopped the meat herself. Using a machine… simply wouldn’t do.

Sun Miao took the meat and then went to buy some Napa cabbage and green onions. By the time she got home, it was already 5:30 AM. The journey took a little over half an hour, so she had at most an hour to prepare. But Sun Miao wasn’t worried; she was quick and efficient.

First, she kneaded and mixed the dough—ten minutes and done—then set it aside to rise. Next, she spent twenty minutes processing the beef, adding seasonings and setting it aside, then began making the dough wrappers. Sun Miao was quick with all of this. After another half an hour, with the dough wrappers also set aside to rise, she started seasoning the filling.

In between, she also found time to prepare her own lunch and dinner, even the soup, packaging them separately and neatly storing them in her food cart. She was grateful for modern technology that allowed her to make instant bouillon cubes [浓汤宝 | nóngtāng bǎo | concentrated bouillon/stock cubes]; otherwise, simmering soup fresh every day would have driven her crazy.

After all this was done, she placed the rising dough wrappers and the filling into her food cart, hopped onto her electric scooter, and set off.

When she arrived at the Jinsha Building, it was only 6:50 AM. Sun Miao got off, set up her stall, and seeing there weren’t many people around, took out her ingredients and started assembling the dough and beef filling, making one beef pancake after another. The stainless-steel trays the system had provided were already full of beef pancakes, and Sun Miao placed these trays into the cabinet below.

The cabinet below was divided into small compartments. Except for a larger drawer used to store her personal belongings, the others were pre-measured and specifically designed to hold the trays and other items.

The system’s black advanced technology was truly impressive; this small food cart was exceptionally user-friendly.

After finishing all of this, it was around 7:10 AM. Office workers hadn’t arrived yet, but a few sanitation workers came by to look. However, after hearing the price, they waved their hands and left. Sun Miao thought to herself, it was true, her prices were indeed a bit steep.

But she couldn’t be blamed. The prices were set by the system. In the system’s words:

【This is already very cheap. Can you imagine eating beef pancakes made by a state banquet chef or an imperial chef for just ten yuan?】

The system had a point, and Sun Miao was speechless.

Sun Miao sat in her chair for a while. It wasn’t until 7:20 AM that office workers started getting off the bus and coming over. At this time, the pre-preparation for her beef pancakes was complete, and they were ready to be placed in the oil-filled pan and cooked.

The first customer approached. This person had bought her beef pancakes yesterday and asked: “Do you have any ready-made ones?”

“Not yet, I just put them in the pan to cook.”

“How long will it take?”

“About ten minutes.”

The office worker glanced at their phone: “Then I’ll wait a bit. I want a non-spicy one.”

“Okay.”

Coming early sure gave one confidence, being able to wait ten minutes just like that. Sun Miao didn’t really understand people who came to work so early in the morning. When she used to work for others, she always arrived just on time.

After finishing cooking one pan of pancakes and giving one to the customer in front of her, Sun Miao started cooking the second pan. By the time the second pan was done and the third pan of pancakes was in the pan, the eight o’clock office workers started arriving one after another.

People didn’t eat that much in the morning. Most bought just one; occasionally, those with bigger appetites bought two. Or, if they were also buying for colleagues, they might buy a few more. But it was rare for anyone to buy three or four, like they did in the evenings.

The eight o’clock workers bought two pans worth—twenty pancakes. The 8:30 workers bought another three pans worth. Sun Miao thought for a moment and, before the 9:00 rush arrived, set aside two non-spicy pancakes and hid them away, just like she had done last night.

It was a good thing she hadn’t stopped working all morning. From 8:30 to 8:50, there was almost no line, and she quickly sold another three pans worth. In one morning, she had sold eight pans worth. This already surpassed yesterday morning’s sales. She estimated that she would be able to sell all the beef she had prepared today.

At 8:55, after the last two customers bought their pancakes and left, Sun Miao saw Su Ruixi strolling over unhurriedly.

Being the boss was certainly different.

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