Chapter 12 012 Tomato Scrambled Eggs

As a senior high school homeroom teacher, Zhao Yu was still busy during the summer vacation that year.

The college entrance examination results were released a few days ago, and students have been calling one after another to report their good news. Schools are also constantly monitoring students' application information.

"Teacher Zhao, please go to the third floor of Teaching Building 1 again this morning."

The principal's call was expected. This year, Zhao Yu's class produced two students who ranked in the top 100 in the province, making it the best class in the entire school.

The principal jumped for joy the night the results were released.

As a private high school, it has been competing with several key public high schools since its inception, and this year's results have finally surpassed those old rivals.

The principal urgently ordered several red banners and then tirelessly contacted several homeroom teachers of the graduating class, spending several days at school consulting with parents. Good grades meant that choosing a university major was equally important.

Zhao Yu told her son, Chen Zihan, not to drink cold water.

"Your stomach has just recovered, so you can't eat whatever you want."

Chen Zihan nodded obediently, but couldn't help asking Zhao Yu, "Mom, you said there would be crispy eggplant for lunch today. What is crispy eggplant?"

Zhao Yu filled a large cup of herbal tea for her son: "Mom has never had this before."

Chen Zihan's eyes lit up: "It must taste delicious."

Zhao Yu stuffed the little glutton into the car: "Then you can enjoy it at noon, and tell your mother about it tonight."

After dropping her son off at the library, Zhao Yu rushed off to school.

After a busy morning, around noon, the teachers discussed what to eat.

"How about we just order takeout?"

It's so hot outside. I don't know if there's something wrong with the climate this year, but it hasn't rained since late June. The drought gets worse every day, and it's scorching hot every day.

One of the teachers suggested eating at the entrance.

"The small restaurants near the school gate are all open; it's just a short walk to one of them."

Another female teacher quickly waved her hand: "No, think about it. They usually have a lot of customers, so the ingredients don't pile up and can stay fresh. But in the summer, you can imagine how bad business is."

The worse the business, the less fresh the food becomes.

"Then why don't you just order takeout?"

"When I order takeout, I order from restaurants with a lot of orders. This one is pretty good; it sells 4,000 orders a month."

The female teacher gestured with her fingers: "Hunan-style stir-fried pork, a few dishes, rice and drinks."

Several teachers ordered food from this restaurant.

Only Zhao Yu suddenly remembered the restaurant where she had ordered food for her son yesterday.

"You guys order, I'll take a look myself."

She opened Wen's mother's WeChat Moments, and the background picture showed the restaurant's name and address.

Zhao Yu thought, since her son said it was delicious, she should try it too.

Zhao Yu scrolled through the food delivery app for a while but couldn't find the store. Finally, she searched by name and found a store with no rating.

"...Just opened?"

Zhao Yu felt something was wrong again. She saw the photos of the kitchen that Wen's mother had posted that day. Although it was clean, there were signs of use.

Clicking on the details again, Zhao Yu became even more confused.

"How come this location is so close?"

The female teacher next to me leaned over to look: "This one? It's the shop across the street from the school. It opened last year. Walk along the street, it's the second to last one. You usually eat in the cafeteria, so you probably haven't been here before."

Zhao Yu found it somewhat amusing; she had gone through a long and winding road, only to end up eating right across from her own school. Looking through the comments again, she saw only a handful, and several of them were posted by the same person.

"Teacher Zhao, you're eating at this restaurant?"

"Yes, I ordered food from their restaurant for my son, and he said it was quite delicious."

Female teacher: "...Really? This place just sells rice bowls and noodles with toppings. It's clean, but it tastes no different from the cafeteria."

Zhao Yu casually selected a tomato and egg noodle soup on a food delivery app.

"Try it, it'll probably taste like home cooking."

Zhao Yu lowered her expectations. After all, how bad could a dish like tomato and egg be?

She often orders this because she doesn't know when to eat, so it's less likely to be a bad choice.

The orders came in very quickly. The delivery riders didn't even ride their bikes; they just left them at the restaurant entrance and walked to the school.

"Your meal."

Zhao Yu took the takeout box and pushed open the door to enter the office.

The meals for the other colleagues arrived shortly afterward.

"Hey, that was pretty fast, I got my food in five minutes."

After the female teacher finished speaking, the rider's expression showed a hint of hesitation.

Zhao Yu had just returned from the restroom and overheard the young man muttering something as he passed the rider.

"A restaurant that can serve food in five minutes... what's there to be happy about?"

Zhao Yu: ...

The female teacher invited everyone to eat at a clean desk. Zhao Yu wisely refrained from mentioning what the delivery rider had just said.

The Hunan cuisine had a slightly pungent, spicy flavor, and as soon as the takeout box was opened, several teachers felt a bit hungry.

"It looks alright."

Spicy diced chicken consists of crispy fried chicken pieces nestled among bright red dried chili pepper segments.

Stir-fried pork with chili peppers: the green chili peppers were soft and limp, the pork slices were thin and charred, and a thick layer of oil had seeped into the bottom of the bowl.

There was also a dish called "Grandma's Vegetables," which looked dark and unappetizing, but predictably it would be very appetizing.

Regardless of how these dishes taste, at least they look nice when they're presented.

After a busy morning, the teachers finally put down their chopsticks and found the salty, spicy, and savory flavors quite delicious with rice.

"Teacher Zhao, you should try some too."

Zhao Yu couldn't handle spicy food very well, and upon seeing the bright red dishes, she immediately waved her hands.

"I'll eat my own food."

The Wen family's takeout box was exceptionally simple: a large, transparent, round box containing half a bowl of scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and a plastic bag with cooked noodles.

It has neither a trendy Chinese-style box nor a sturdy and attractive packaging bag.

Zhao Yu poured the noodles from the plastic bag into a disposable lunchbox. The noodles looked unappetizing at first, but once they were coated with rich tomato sauce in the bowl, everything changed.

The stir-fried noodles retained some of their shape, but the edges of the tomatoes and eggs had melted into a clump, the bright yellow eggs coated in the tomato-red sauce, their color vibrant and enticing. Especially the tangy aroma, which wafted into the nostrils the moment the noodles were stirred.

Zhao Yu perked up and picked up a mouthful of noodles.

The sweet and sour taste burst in her mouth, and Zhao Yu, who was not used to sweet tomato and egg stir-fry, was speechless for a moment.

The female teacher had also smelled the sweet and sour aroma, and stared at Zhao Yu's brows, which relaxed after just one bite of noodles.

"...Teacher Zhao, is it delicious?"

Zhao Yu wiped her mouth, a little apologetically: "It's delicious! But the noodles are all soupy, so I won't let everyone have any more."

As she spoke, Zhao Yu quickly slurped the noodles into her mouth.

The other colleagues swallowed hard and looked back at their own food.

It was utterly tasteless.

While all five flavors are equally important, the sweet and sour taste of scrambled eggs with tomatoes overpowers these salty and spicy dishes, making them seem so... shallow. They felt like simply cooked dishes served up; the spiciness that had just been appetizing instantly turned into something that was merely meant to fill the stomach.

The female teacher stirred the rice in her bowl and gave a dry laugh: "That family must have changed their cook."

She had been there a few times before, and it wasn't like she hadn't eaten scrambled eggs with tomatoes before.

That's absolutely not the taste!

In the end, none of them finished the three dishes, and the female teacher kept asking Zhao Yu what she meant by ordering food for the child.

Zhao Yu threw the empty lunchbox away and then began to explain.

Another teacher slapped his thigh and exclaimed, "You should have said so earlier! My husband spends so much time in the library too!"

"Come on, recommend the group to me."

Zhao Yu was full of questions: "Sister Liu, didn't your child already graduate?"

Teacher Liu waved her hand: "I graduated last month. I'm taking the civil service exam now, and I have to rush to the library to grab a seat every day."

Zhao Yu: ...

Teacher Liu said nonchalantly, "The after-school care program doesn't say there's a strict age limit. No matter how old they are, they're still children."

Teacher Liu successfully joined Wen's mother's group and excitedly booked a small dining table for her own child who was preparing for the exam.

Meanwhile, the children who actually eat at the after-school care center were still having a rough time at noon today.

Although Zhang Zhuangzhuang ate incredibly delicious scallion oil chicken and sweet and sour crispy eggplant today, his world seemed to collapse when he saw that the other children's lunchboxes contained scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

"Waaaaah, why didn't you give me scrambled eggs with tomatoes...?"

Especially when they saw Chen Zihan eating scrambled eggs with tomatoes on top of rice, and everyone looked so satisfied, Zhang Zhuangzhuang was even more overwhelmed.

"Waaah, I want to tell my grandma."

Zhang Zhuangzhuang couldn't wait to go home in the afternoon, so he called his grandmother using his smartwatch.

We ordered the same food, so why is his menu incomplete?

Wen's mother found it strange that, even though it was past lunchtime, Zhuangzhuang's grandmother suddenly asked her in the group chat if she could send over a separate bowl of rice with toppings.

I specifically requested a tomato and egg rice bowl.

She typed blankly in the group chat.

[Grandma Zhuangzhuang, didn't you say the child doesn't eat tomatoes?]

Zhuangzhuang's maternal grandmother remained silent for a long time. After a while, she secretly sent a red envelope to Wen's mother.

Wen's mother opened it, and inside were twenty yuan.

Grandma Zhuangzhuang's voice followed closely behind, but it was no longer as aggressive as it had been the day before.

"Boss lady, my child is eyeing other people's food... From now on, you don't need to give us any special treatment."

Wen's mother frowned as she returned the red envelope and also sent a voice message.

Twenty yuan is too much. Rice bowls are a dish that the restaurant already has, and they still have a few left. You can order directly from a food delivery platform.

After turning off her phone, Wen's mother suddenly smiled a while later.

Wen Fan was secretly hiding the stolen Coca-Cola in her schoolbag when her father saw her doing so and quietly stood in front of her to shield her.

"What are you laughing at?" Wen's father asked, trying to make conversation.

Wen's mother waved her hand, thinking about it and still finding it rather amusing: "I just feel... that being too clever for one's own good can backfire."

The phone beeped a few times, and Wen's mother's eyes lit up.

Four more people suddenly joined that food ordering group.

Seeing the number of group members increase to ten, Wen's mother was in a great mood.

However, she also started to have some ideas and suggested to her daughter that the two meat and two vegetable dishes at lunchtime be changed to two meat dishes and one vegetable dish.

"I've run out of lunchboxes at the store, so when I buy them again, I'll buy the three-compartment kind, and I'll add a serving of fruit at lunchtime."

Summer fruits and vegetables are cheap, and stir-frying vegetables isn't difficult, but my daughter always complains that we can't cook them in advance for lunch. No matter how well a stir-fry is made, it will lose a lot of its flavor after half an hour.

Instead of that, why not reduce one vegetable dish and add a serving of watermelon or cantaloupe?

After obtaining her daughter's consent, Wen's mother also explained the situation in the group chat, and the customers all expressed their agreement.

So the next day, Wen's mother asked Wen's father to buy a big bag of watermelons.

The moment Wen Fan saw the watermelon, something suddenly occurred to him.

"Mom, save me a few watermelons. I need them."

A note from the author:

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