Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 32

Buying a Lunchbox

In reality, Su Ruixi also didn’t understand why she repeatedly asked Sun Miao what she was eating. Perhaps… it really was because she craved Sun Miao’s lunch.

Sun Miao’s culinary skills were evident. Whether it was the egg fried rice at the beginning, or the later malatang, all the way to the current beef pancakes, each and every one was top-notch.

In this case, her stir-fried dishes definitely wouldn’t be bad either.

“Mastery of one leads to mastery of all” wasn’t just empty talk. She could fry egg fried rice, knew how to control the heat and basic seasonings, and even more, knew how to stir-fry. When she made malatang, she had to master a large pile of ingredients, and marinating beef slices was a very important dish among them. These skills added together meant her stir-fried beef wouldn’t be bad to eat.

Making soup was the same. She made both spicy and non-spicy soup bases divinely. Based on this, she added other matching ingredients, such as whole chicken, radish, and winter melon. With a little adjustment, it definitely wouldn’t be bad.

She also cooked everyday stir-fried dishes very well. Sun Miao felt that her current self could outshine her past self by who knows how many levels.

Furthermore, Su Ruixi knew that the dishes Sun Miao made were very much to her taste. Under these circumstances, to say that Su Ruixi didn’t want to eat Sun Miao’s cooking was impossible.

Casually asking a few questions was already Su Ruixi’s limit. She couldn’t just say to Sun Miao’s face, “You’ve already brought me soup, couldn’t you make an extra portion of your dishes and bring it to me?”

No, she absolutely couldn’t say that.

Su Ruixi returned to her office, sat on the guest sofa, opened the lunchbox, paired it with a beef pancake, and started to eat. The beef pancake wasn’t completely cold, still carrying some warmth. Su Ruixi felt she could eat it directly.

She had taken the beef pancake she bought yesterday back home. Su Ruixi microwaved it a bit. Just like Sun Miao said, microwaving the beef pancake made it a bit softer. Yesterday, it hadn’t felt as crispy.

Today, it was still relatively warm, so Su Ruixi didn’t plan to heat it up.

After all, there was no oven or air fryer in the company, and using the microwave directly would indeed affect the taste. Su Ruixi wasn’t in a hurry to eat the beef pancake. Instead, she first looked at the soup. Today’s soup was tea tree mushroom bone soup [茶树菇骨头汤 | cháshùgū gǔtou tāng], also garnished with a few goji berries [枸杞子 | gǒuqǐzi].

A smile surfaced on Su Ruixi’s face. She first took a sip. The fifty-yuan lunchbox’s insulation ability was also pretty good. It was warm in her mouth. Su Ruixi was very satisfied.

Chopsticks were always kept in the office. Su Ruixi used chopsticks to pick up a tea tree mushroom and put it in her mouth. It tasted pretty good. Not particularly delicious, but the tea tree mushroom wasn’t dry. On the contrary, because it was soaked full of soup, it was very plump. The slight bitterness neutralized with the soup’s subtle sweetness, making it even tastier.

Although this flavor wasn’t the best—Su Ruixi had tasted tea tree mushroom and old duck soup made by a chef, and the tea tree mushrooms in that were truly eyebrow-raising—this flavor was the most suitable for Su Ruixi. She didn’t like dishes that were too strong in flavor, and the soup Sun Miao made was just right.

Just at this moment, the assistant knocked on the door. Su Ruixi let her in.

The assistant hadn’t yet seen Su Ruixi and started with a flurry of advice: “President Su, today is relatively relaxed. You can’t skip lunch! Even if you really can’t eat much, just have a couple of bites. I’ll order takeout for you…” Her words unfinished, she saw Su Ruixi sitting on the sofa, properly drinking soup, a familiar bag beside her.

Oh, it was the beef pancake bag.

Just now during her lunch break, she had also bought two, as usual, one spicy and one not spicy, eating until her mouth was glistening with oil.

Wait, this morning Su Ruixi seemed to have also eaten beef pancakes, two of them. At first, she was surprised that Su Ruixi could finish them, but unexpectedly, right under her nose, Su Ruixi completely polished off both beef pancakes.

Hold on, when did Su Ruixi go buy beef pancakes?

Just now in the tea room, she had overheard a few colleagues chatting, saying that the beef pancakes downstairs were selling incredibly well. Last night and this afternoon, there were people who hadn’t been able to buy any. Su Ruixi hadn’t moved from her office during her entire lunch break, only going downstairs for a bit just now.

No way? Weren’t the beef pancakes sold out?

At this moment, the assistant felt that Su Ruixi has a dog outside [外面有狗 | wàimiàn yǒu gǒu | has someone running errands/doing their bidding]. Had she arranged for someone else to run errands? Then could she, the chief assistant, still keep her position?

The assistant worried anxiously, but then heard Su Ruixi say: “Later, go buy two insulated lunchboxes for me, just like this bowl…” Su Ruixi pointed to the soup bowl in front of her, then changed the subject: “Slightly bigger than this bowl.”

This amount of soup is too little, even a chick pecking at rice would find it insufficient.

The assistant noted down the instructions: “Okay, President Su, I’ll personally go buy them this afternoon.”

Su Ruixi nodded with satisfaction, her words not yet finished: “After you return, help me wash the bowl. Also, buy a bag specifically for carrying this bowl, but it needs to be small, delicate, and good-looking. Just by looking at the outside, it shouldn’t be immediately obvious that it’s a rice bowl bag.”

The matters Su Ruixi explained were quite specific, and the assistant indicated she understood. After all… she, a dignified CEO, couldn’t possibly swagger around town carrying a rice bowl bag, right?

Su Ruixi was very concerned about saving face.

The assistant’s trembling hand made a small “OK” sign, then retreated. Her speed was very fast. Su Ruixi finished her lunch and had just looked over some materials when the assistant returned. She had bought two bowls for Su Ruixi and also brought the rice bowl bag she wanted.

The official name of the rice bowl bag should be a bento bag [便当包 | biàndāng bāo]. This type of bag is an essential item for workers who bring their own lunch, and now there are many variations. However, the constant principle is that the interior must be lined with an insulating layer, that is, aluminum foil. Then, the space needs to be relatively large, and the handle must be sufficiently sturdy.

Lunchboxes are already heavy. If the handle is flimsy, it will easily break. In addition, the bag also needs to be sufficiently stain-resistant. Due to the built-in aluminum foil, if frequent washing causes the foil to tear, the insulation effect will be greatly reduced. Therefore, this type of bag was developed with the requirement of being stain-resistant and inexpensive. If it gets particularly dirty, just wipe the surface. If you really don’t want it anymore, just throw it away.

However, Su Ruixi’s bento bag was relatively expensive. It was very different from the kind on the market that were obviously bento bags. Instead, it looked more like an exquisite clutch bag. The exterior had a leather-like texture. If it got dirty, you only needed to wipe it with a wet wipe. It could also be slung over the shoulder and carried without anyone realizing it was a bento bag.

Although this bento bag would leave Su Ruixi with no hands to carry any other bags, and the price was only a few hundred yuan—utterly incomparable to the dozens, or even hundreds of W [represents thousands in online slang] that Su Ruixi usually carried—as long as she considered that it was used to carry a lunchbox, its functionality completely outclassed those designer bags, so Su Ruixi felt carrying it wasn’t a problem.

“Mm, how much was it in total?”

The assistant showed Su Ruixi her electronic payment statement and softly said: “President Su, yours was 980 yuan. The 120 yuan after that was for the lunchbox I bought for myself.”

Su Ruixi became interested: “What does the lunchbox you bought look like?”

Having been Su Ruixi’s assistant for so many years, the assistant already knew Su Ruixi’s personality. Her asking this question didn’t have much meaning, it was purely curiosity. If you didn’t show her, her curiosity would slowly inflate. If you showed her, her curiosity would dissipate.

So, the assistant very readily brought over her own lunchbox.

Su Ruixi looked at it and thought it was quite good.

It was a double-decker design, made of good material that could be microwaved directly. Su Ruixi thought for a moment, then unexpectedly kept it: “It’s quite good, give it to me.”

“?”

The assistant was stunned. Originally, Su Ruixi wasn’t like this. She would just look, and absolutely wouldn’t directly take it. While the assistant was bewildered, Su Ruixi directly reached out and took the lunchbox, then transferred money to the assistant: “1100 yuan, right? I’ll transfer you 1500. Go buy another one yourself after work.”

The assistant’s salary was high, but an unexpected 400 yuan still made her happy. So, the assistant didn’t bother with the question of why Su Ruixi insisted on snatching her lunchbox and accepted the money with a beaming smile.

Su Ruixi had her wash the lunchbox she had used at noon, and the assistant went to do it. Su Ruixi looked at the lunchbox on her desk and began to think: how could she hint to Sun Miao to make a portion of stir-fried dishes for her too?

This problem stumped Su Ruixi, making her feel it was even more difficult than the hundred-million-yuan project proposals in her hands. Directly asking would easily lead to Sun Miao refusing. Once refused, with Su Ruixi’s temperament, it would be difficult to ask a second time. Indirectly hinting, Su Ruixi also felt was difficult…

While Su Ruixi was racking her brains, Sun Miao had already begun kneading dough, making the beef pancakes she would sell in the evening. Today, once the beef pancake blanks were ready, she directly placed them in the pan to fry, then while rolling out dough and filling beef pancakes, she continued frying.

Because today was April 30th, and tomorrow was the May 1st Labor Day holiday, there would definitely be many people leaving early today. Yesterday, when the workers were leaving, many had wanted to take a pancake to eat on the road, but Sun Miao wasn’t prepared at that time, and they were in a hurry to catch their transportation and couldn’t wait for Sun Miao’s beef pancakes to be ready.

Learning from the previous day’s lesson, Sun Miao started frying beef pancakes early today.

Sure enough, around 3 o’clock, people gradually started coming out of the office building. Seeing Sun Miao’s beef pancake stall, they walked directly over, asking if there were any ready-made beef pancakes.

Sun Miao was prepared and immediately replied: “Yes, there are both spicy and non-spicy ones, all 10 yuan each. The spicy pancakes aren’t very spicy, just mildly spicy. If you want to eat them spicier, you can also add some chili sauce.”

Because she was well-prepared this time, the customers quickly finished buying and left. Sun Miao sold quite a few pancakes. However, they all bought them to eat on the road, so each person only bought one or two to line their stomachs. Only those with particularly long journeys would buy more.

For example, there was one customer who bought a whole panful at once.

Sun Miao didn’t have that much stock left and had to cook them fresh. She also asked the customer if they could wait.

“It’s fine, boss. My departure time is still early. You go ahead and make them.”

While she was waiting for Sun Miao to cook the pancakes, she also casually chatted a bit. Although Sun Miao didn’t reply to her, she continued talking to herself: “Boss, the pancakes you make are really delicious, just a little expensive. I’m not buying so many for myself to eat. There are in-flight meals on the plane, so there’s no need to bring anything to eat at all.”

“So, I’m buying these to take back for my parents to eat.” She smiled warmly: “I also want them to taste something this delicious.”

---

---