Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 37

Why are you at the company?

Logically speaking, Su Ruixi’s family is so rich, what delicious food hasn’t she eaten? But the problem is, her dad is love-struck, and her mom firmly believes her cooking is delicious. So, from childhood to adulthood, Su Ruixi has basically eaten the food cooked by her own mother.

Salt and pepper spare ribs are one of the few dishes her mom can cook without messing up.

However, Su Ruixi doesn’t like the salt and pepper flavor. She has been her mother’s daughter for twenty-seven years, yet her mother still hasn’t realized that Su Ruixi prefers simple congee and side dishes to these strongly flavored dishes.

Of course, it’s also possible that Su Ruixi’s preference for lightly flavored dishes is due to her mother’s excessive whimsy in the kitchen.

Just thinking about going home to eat salt and pepper spare ribs that night made Su Ruixi very hesitant. Her gaze shifted, and she saw the lunch Sun Miao had given her. At this moment, she felt that the world wasn’t so dark.

Su Ruixi decided to heat up her food first, then start eating. She is a particular person and insisted on heating each dish separately. Her private tea room only has one microwave oven, and heating each dish individually would take a lot of time, so she took her lunchbox to the staff’s communal tea room.

Her company has a moderate number of employees, about one hundred and fifty, and rents two floors directly. The tea room on her floor has six microwave ovens, enough for her use.

Four dishes, one portion of rice, the soup was in a thermal lunchbox so it didn’t need reheating, and the shrimp didn’t need reheating either. So, four microwave ovens started whirring simultaneously. After microwaving, Su Ruixi took the disposable lunchboxes into her office.

She placed them on the coffee table in front of the sofa, took out the chopsticks she kept in her office, and prepared to eat. She actually wanted to transfer the food into her own bowls, but this wasn’t her home, and there weren’t so many bowls and chopsticks here, so she could only microwave the food in the disposable containers.

Su Ruixi thought it was time to ask her assistant to buy these and keep them in the office just in case.

Looking at the dishes in front of her, Su Ruixi was very satisfied. She naturally knew what snow peas tasted like; Sun Miao had stir-fried them to look fresh and light, with barely any visible oil. Just thinking about it made her mouth water. She opened the container with the shrimp, then unwrapped the dipping sauce. Before she even started eating, she felt her phone vibrate.

She picked up her phone and saw a message from Sun Miao.

【Su-jie, Su-jie! Forgot to tell you, the shrimp don’t need to be reheated, they’re meant to be eaten cold. Your stomach isn’t good, eat a few bites of something hot and drink some soup before eating the shrimp. Also, the dipping sauce is for dipping; don’t just pour it directly onto the shrimp. The shrimp will get too salty if they soak in it for too long.】

【Forgot to tell you just now, sorry, sorry!】

Su Ruixi’s mouth pouted slightly. Really, what did Sun Miao take her for? She wasn’t an idiot when it came to common sense. Didn’t she know that reheated boiled shrimp would have a fishy smell? She was such a picky eater; she knew all about these things that would make food smell bad!

So Su Ruixi would never do such a thing.

But it felt nice to be cared for. Su Ruixi typed on her phone and replied to Sun Miao: “Got it, thanks.”

After replying, Sun Miao quickly sent a little rabbit emoji. Su Ruixi found it cute and couldn’t help but smile. Since Sun Miao didn’t send any more messages, she started eating. As Sun Miao suggested, she first ate a few bites of rice and then drank a few sips of soup.

The soup was as delicious as always, and even the rice was very tasty. After swallowing a mouthful of rice, Su Ruixi felt it was unusual, reminding her of the rice from the egg-fried rice. Sun Miao definitely didn’t use particularly good rice. A rich woman like Su Ruixi had eaten countless expensive types of rice.

Some were even tribute rice [贡米 | gòngmǐ | high-quality rice historically offered as tribute to the imperial court], plump as pearls, which was truly delicious.

This type of rice had a very low yield, a world of difference compared to the yield of hybrid rice, and naturally surpassed ordinary rice on the market in terms of taste. What Sun Miao used was definitely not the expensive rice that cost tens or even hundreds of kuai [≈ $14 USD] per jin [0.5 kg ≈ 1.1 lbs], but rather the kind from the supermarket that cost one hundred or even fifty kuai for a large bag of 10 jin [5 kg ≈ 11 lbs] or 25 jin [12.5 kg ≈ 27.5 lbs].

But Sun Miao’s cooking skills perfectly compensated for the rice’s lack of quality.

How was this rice made…? Su Ruixi really didn’t understand. She looked carefully; the rice wasn’t glistening with oil. She had seen news online and knew that some restaurants in shopping malls would add a few drops of oil when cooking rice to make it smell more fragrant.

Such rice looked exceptionally appealing and tasted more fragrant.

But in reality, that was to cover up the fact that they were using old rice.

Su Ruixi didn’t find that kind of oily rice tasty either; she could tell immediately upon tasting it. Clearly, Sun Miao hadn’t done that. This rice was very clean and absorbed moisture well, looking glistening.

After a few bites, Su Ruixi stopped trying to figure it out. After a few more bites, she noted the rice had a good texture, neither too soft nor too hard, each grain distinct, and a noticeable fragrance upon entering her mouth. It was hard to imagine that such ordinary rice could be cooked so deliciously. If she used the kind of rice from her own home, how delicious would it be?

After eating the rice and soup, Su Ruixi was even more anticipating the remaining dishes. Sometimes she felt that raising her expectations like this wasn’t good; expecting too much easily led to disappointment. But thinking about Sun Miao, maybe she could defy her high expectations.

Su Ruixi was curious about the shrimp. She saw that they were peeled. She actually felt a little apprehensive. She didn’t like frozen shrimp; they had a fishy smell and weren’t tasty. She first ate one without dipping sauce and found the meat firm and fresh, just without any flavor.

No wonder Sun Miao had specially prepared a dipping sauce; it turned out the shrimp wasn’t seasoned.

This bite also let her know that these shrimp were definitely not frozen shrimp, but freshly peeled. Su Ruixi paused for a moment. She didn’t know Sun Miao’s family background, but judging from her frugal appearance, she could guess that Sun Miao’s family was definitely not well-off and couldn’t afford a maid to help peel shrimp.

In other words, these shrimp were peeled by Sun Miao one by one.

Knowing this, a hint of joy arose in Su Ruixi’s heart.

She also felt relieved: She didn’t have to worry about hygiene issues with Sun Miao peeling them. Sun Miao was a clean person and paid special attention to food hygiene. How could she possibly peel shrimp with dirty hands?

Su Ruixi picked up another shrimp and dipped it in the sauce. After putting it in her mouth, her eyes lit up. There was no fishy smell, only the natural sweetness of the shrimp meat, with a hint of salty flavor from the fresh soy sauce, the aroma of scallions, and the slight pungency of minced garlic, making the originally bland shrimp instantly bloom in her mouth.

The flavor wasn’t overpowering, and the pungency of the garlic was completely different from chili peppers, something she could accept. After one bite, she felt that the shrimp suited her taste perfectly.

Su Ruixi had certainly eaten better boiled shrimp; in terms of quality, these sand prawns [基围虾 | jīwéixiā | a type of prawn commonly farmed in brackish water] were quite average. But there had never been a boiled shrimp dish that suited her taste so well, as if tailor-made for her.

The snow peas that followed were the same, light in flavor but not bland, with just the right balance of saltiness and sweetness. The fried egg was even more exceptional. Not too oily, yet beautifully fried, its edges slightly crispy, the egg white soft, and the center runny.

It wasn’t completely runny, half was cooked, and half was still flowing with yolk. She hadn’t microwaved the egg for long, so the runny yolk retained a slight warmth, the edges were also warm, but not fully cooked.

Its seasoning was also simple, just a little salt. Su Ruixi didn’t know how Sun Miao had sprinkled the salt, it wasn’t heavy, yet perfectly even, every bite with a moderate flavor.

Mixed with the rice, its taste wasn’t inferior to egg-fried rice, with an additional unique flavor.

Su Ruixi ate happily, lost in the moment, until her office door opened, she realized someone had arrived.

In the next moment, she made eye contact with her assistant.

“Su-zong, why are you at the company?”

“……” Su Ruixi lied without blushing or a racing heart, just like when she tricked Zhou Ling’s mother: “I still have some work to do, so I came over to take care of it.” The assistant believed her, because in her mind, Su Ruixi was a complete workaholic.

The assistant nodded: “I see.”

Su Ruixi in turn asked her assistant: “What about you, why are you at the company?”

“I suddenly received a message from the contact person at a partner company at home. There’s a document at the company, so I came to send it to her.”

Su Ruixi nodded, affirmed the assistant’s work ethic, and asked her to submit an overtime application for today, so HR could pay her triple time for the holiday.

As she said these words, she shone brightly in the assistant’s eyes, only the bowl she was holding diminished the radiance somewhat. The assistant’s gaze fell on the bowl Su Ruixi was holding, and she glanced at it again, noticing that Su Ruixi subtly shrunk back with a guilty look.

The assistant subconsciously asked: “Su-zong, what are you eating?”

The moment she pushed the door open, Su Ruixi hadn’t hidden her joyful expression while eating, which the assistant saw clearly. This surprised the assistant greatly, as Su Ruixi was a very picky eater.

The assistant had never seen anyone pickier than Su Ruixi. Although she had the means to be picky, it was a bit excessive! Yuanfulou, a private restaurant known to the local wealthy, was a place the assistant frequently ordered takeout from for Su Ruixi. But even though their ancestors were imperial chefs and there were still many skilled chefs working there, Su Ruixi still didn’t like it.

The assistant thought there couldn’t be any food more delicious than Yuanfulou’s, yet Su Ruixi didn’t like it.

Su Ruixi, who was so picky, actually showed an expression of satisfaction and joy while eating one day? This made the assistant very curious and she couldn’t help but ask the question.

Su Ruixi replied: “Nothing, just some stir-fried dishes.”

“What stir-fried dishes?”

“Boiled shrimp, stir-fried snow peas, stir-fried baby bok choy, fried egg, and some soup.”

“……Oh.”

The assistant’s eyes were still on the bowl, but Su Ruixi showed no sign of inviting her assistant to share. Inexplicably, she thought of the previous scene of questions and answers between herself and Sun Miao.

Hmm, quite similar.

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