Chapter 81 Another year has passed, and you always seem to... whenever there's food involved...

Yu Xiaoyue: "How much did it actually cost?"

"Five hundred?" Ji Yu considered her mother's tolerance level before tentatively stating the number.

After hearing the number five hundred, Yu Xiaoyue felt it was acceptable, but then a suspicious look appeared on her face. "Is it really only five hundred?"

“Really,” Ji Yu nodded, her eyes firm, “So Mianmian, don’t refuse, just accept it.”

Chen Mianmian still didn't believe it. How could a Toshiba refrigerator, so new, only cost five hundred? But then she thought that Ji Yu was trying to improve the family's living conditions, and that it would be easier for her parents to accept if she offered a cheaper price, so she didn't say anything more.

Ji Yu was still fiddling with his refrigerator, putting in some perishable ingredients and seasonings from the kitchen, while Yu Xiaoyue had already gone to cook.

Unable to refuse their hospitality, Chen Mian and her mother had lunch at Ji Yu's house before leaving. Ji Yu drove them there in the borrowed truck, which still had another refrigerator in the truck bed.

When Chen Mian refused him again, Ji Yu offered a reason he couldn't refuse: "Consider it an advance betrothal gift. This is one of the three turns and one ring."

Lin Huijun pointed out gently, "Xiaoyu, when we used to talk about the 'three turns and one sound,' we meant a watch, a bicycle, a sewing machine, and a radio. Your refrigerator is indeed quite valuable."

Chen Mianmian then became curious about what Ji Yu planned to give as the remaining three items.

"It's alright, Mom. We'll send some things to Ji Yu's family in the future. It's fine if we give and take." Chen Mian comforted her mother and told her to accept the refrigerator so that Ji Yu wouldn't feel embarrassed.

Seeing this, Lin Huijun had no choice but to agree. She was thinking about what to give Ji Yu's family for the New Year. The two children had a good relationship, and the two families should continue to visit each other. It couldn't be that only the Ji family was making contributions while her family was reaping the benefits without contributing anything.

People would laugh at me if I did that.

With the long winter approaching, the "forest girl" style has launched two new coats, one pearl white and the other navy blue. They still retain some special patterns, but what is even more amazing are the buttons on the two coats. Instead of the usual buttons, they are exquisite hand-sewn Chinese knot buttons.

The cuffs are designed to be slightly tapered, resembling lanterns, and the hem of the coat is also made light and airy like a skirt through a special folding technique.

When this design was first created, it was only available in navy blue. Lin Huijun was still racking her brains about what to do with the other styles when Li Hongmei casually pointed out the solution: "Why can a style only have one color? Even a rainbow has seven colors."

Inspired by her, Lin Huijun quickly tried other color combinations and finally settled on three colors: pearl white, navy blue, and Chinese red.

Each style has had its elements, patterns, and buttons slightly adjusted, but the overall style remains consistent. The red style is reserved for release before the Lunar New Year.

In order to better build the brand's reputation, Wu Wei has changed the name of his previous "Wu Er Women's Clothing" store to "Mori Girl Clothing".

The store's layout was also changed at Chen Mian's suggestion. The original separate display of tops and bottoms was changed to a display of complete sets.

The shop assistants will prepare the clothes in advance according to the company's requirements, and hang the clothes together. They will even place accessories such as necklaces and handbags next to them, saving customers the trouble of matching.

After the changes, the store's sales increased by 50 percent compared to before.

Chen Mian: "Many people come in, take a look, and leave, or they put together a style they like but don't think it looks good and leave. But these customers are not actually without consumption needs, they just lack some styling skills."

What "Mori Girl" does is to empower each customer with this ability to match outfits, guiding them to try out the store's standard outfits and then use some versatile styles to create new sets.

At this point, additional discounts are offered, making them feel like they're getting a good deal. They start buying one or even several sets instead of just one item, ultimately making the clothing store the one who benefits.

While the new products were once again widely praised, the "Mori Girl" company also welcomed a new member, Qin Muya. Her arrival laid the foundation for the "Mori Girl" brand's brand tone for the next ten years, focusing on being a sweet and girly brand.

Qin Muya usually enjoys reading fashion magazines and pursuing fashion. After the "Mori Girl" brand appeared, she became its most loyal fan and has her own unique ideas about dressing.

After a chance encounter at the store, Chen Mian firmly invited her to join the company to be responsible for the brand's promotional planning and styling guidance.

After recognizing Qin Muya's abilities, Li Hongmei proactively increased the offer: if Qin Muya could help the company's sales reach a new level within three years, she would receive 5% of the "Forest Girl" company's shares as a reward. These shares would come from Li Hongmei's existing share.

Qin Muya confidently brushed a stray hair behind her ear, "Just you wait and see, I'm going to make sure every girl in China is wearing our clothes."

.

Since getting a refrigerator at home, Lin Huijun has fallen in love with freezing all sorts of things.

She froze leftover vegetables, steamed buns, and dumplings, and as the Lunar New Year approached, she started freezing meat.

Chen Mianmian suggested, "Mom, should we freeze some meat dumplings? I want to eat hot pot this Chinese New Year."

A new hot pot restaurant recently opened in the city, and I heard the owner is from Chongqing. The hot pot is fresh, fragrant, spicy, and numbing, and all kinds of ingredients can be cooked in it. Chen Mian fell in love with it after trying it once.

She and her mother tried to recreate the hot pot base at home twice, but neither tasted the same as the one in the restaurant.

Ji Yu even went to the owner specifically to learn how the hot pot base was made. The owner thought he was a competitor trying to steal the recipe and refused to budge. Ji Yu begged for many days before the owner finally agreed to sell him a few portions of the ready-made hot pot base.

Boss: I just opened for business and people are already causing trouble.

Lin Huijun: "Sure, but can you still eat dumplings after eating hot pot?"

Chen Mian: "Let's eat hot pot and dumplings together."

Lin Huijun thought about it for a moment and decided it wasn't a bad idea. "Then I'll start cooking the dumplings first."

"No need. Once everyone has eaten enough, we can just put the dumplings in the hot pot. They'll soak up all the broth and taste delicious."

Lin Huijun suddenly realized, and looked at her playful daughter with a smile, "You always have an endless supply of fresh ideas when it comes to food."

“Hehe,” Chen Mian laughed smugly, “When Hehe comes, I’ll let her try my secret dipping sauce.”

There are also various fresh vegetables in the greenhouse. Liu Qiaofeng's greenhouse experiment has been successful. Chen Mianmian specifically sought her out to learn the techniques, but not for growing grapes. Instead, she wanted to be able to eat fresh vegetables even in winter.

The greenhouse vegetables were harvested a few days ago. The yield wasn't very high, but it was enough for several families, and some could be given away. That's why Chen Mianmian thought of having hot pot for New Year's Eve dinner so that her older brother and younger sister could also try it.

Although we've already decided what to eat for the New Year's Eve dinner, we still need to prepare some snacks and treats.

Some of the snacks in Northwest China are quite complicated to make, so Lin Huijun only had time to start making them after Chen Muhe came to Xinjiang for vacation.

Chen Yongliang was called away by Ji Feng to play chess. The Chen family was once again the familiar trio. Unlike in the past, the house was very warm this year. The boiler in the kitchen burned through several walls and pipes, and could keep the heat going all the way to the last room.

The mother and her two daughters sat in the spacious living room, wearing only thin sweaters. They held several square pieces of dough in their hands, their fingers flying as they shaped the dough into exquisite three-dimensional patterns, like flower petals of different shapes, which were absolutely beautiful.

This food is called "Guozi" and is also a type of Northwest Chinese noodle culture. When kneading the dough, add half a bowl of cooking oil. If you have the means, you can also add milk. This makes the dough yellow in color, as the oil permeates the dough.

After shaping, simply deep-fry them. They will be crispy and delicious, and deep-fried food is also suitable for long-term storage.

This time, Chen Mian also tried adding dried Sichuan pepper leaves to the other half of the dough. This kind of "fruit" has a unique fragrance of Sichuan pepper leaves.

Adding a suitable amount of chopped Sichuan peppercorn leaves when kneading the dough is a favorite way for their family to eat it, and it goes well with both steamed buns and pancakes.

After making about a hundred more "fruits", there was still some dough left. Lin Huijun thought for a moment and decided to make the rest into small twisted dough sticks. Although the taste should be about the same, changing the shape would make it more enjoyable to eat.

In previous winters, the family would set up a stove in each room for warmth. Chen Mianmian's favorite thing to do was to roast all sorts of things in the stove. This year, without the stove, she is a little unaccustomed to it.

After thinking it over, I decided to go to the city market and buy two small stoves. Now the stoves have come in handy again.

Chen Mian took out the leftover meat filling from making dumplings, cracked a few eggs into a bowl and stirred them well. She then directed her younger sister to go to the kitchen and find an iron soup ladle. She poured a small amount of egg liquid into the ladle, swirled it around, and the egg liquid coated the inside of the ladle evenly.

Heat a spoon on the stove for one minute until the egg liquid has slightly solidified into an egg crepe. Then, put a small amount of meat filling inside, and use chopsticks to fold the egg crepe together and seal it. A delicious egg dumpling is now ready.

If the meat filling inside wasn't still raw, Chen Mian would have wanted to take a bite right away.

No problem, the egg dumplings were half-cooked, but the fish balls were fully cooked. Following the instructions in the cookbook, she made two kinds of fish balls herself: one was spinach fish balls, and the other was fish balls with meat filling. The hand-pounded fish balls were chewy and bouncy, and when paired with fish soup made from fish heads, they were devoured by her family as soon as they were made.

Dahuang and Xiaohua ate so much they practically buried their heads in their bowls.

Chen Mian had no choice but to buy more fish and do it all over again. This time, she made it clear to her family that they couldn't eat it anymore and that they should save it for the New Year.

Only the family members could understand, but the kitten didn't care about any of that. Recently, Xiaohua had been too lazy to walk, so she directed her mount, Dahuang, to carry her. They ran to the kitchen and squatted down at Chen Mian's feet, waiting for the fish to eat.

Chen Mian: "These are for eating during the Chinese New Year."

Little Flower: "Meow?" We'll eat it on whichever day it's Chinese New Year.

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Author's Note: Stay strong, I hope I can squeeze out at least 6,000 words by tomorrow morning, otherwise I'm doomed again! [crying emoji]