Chapter 83 Sticky Rice Chicken, Braised Pork Ribs Noodles with Scallions [Third Update]...

The next morning, Yao Qingqin went to open the shop, but she was startled before she even reached the door.

There were already quite a few people waiting outside the store, and they automatically formed a long queue that stretched from the store entrance all the way to the street corner!

Among them were quite a few delivery riders, some of whom even shouted as they communicated with the person on the other end of the phone.

"It's not that I don't want to deliver, it's just that the door isn't open!"

"I can't just wait for your order, my other orders will be overdue soon."

The rider had the phone on speakerphone, and all he heard was the nonchalant voice on the other end saying, "No big deal! Buddy, I'll give you a 50 yuan tip. Cancel the other orders. My girlfriend just wants to eat the persimmon cakes from this place."

Fifty dollars!

The rider, who was being looked at with envy and jealousy by the other riders, immediately patted his chest and said, "Okay, I'll transfer all the other orders and deliver this one just for you!"

He hung up the phone with a satisfied smile and stood in the queue, transferring all the other orders to other people one by one.

Yao Qingqin: ...

It's not that she didn't understand; she hadn't been checking her phone much yesterday and had no idea what had happened.

At this critical moment, Wen's mother, who always gets up early, felt uneasy and came to the store, where she happened to be with Yao Qingqin.

She patted Yao Qingqin on the shoulder: "...Go ahead and get busy."

With so many guests, Wen's mother made a phone call home, asking Wen's father to come as well.

As soon as the store opened, some people greeted Wen's mother warmly, while others took photos with their phones.

Wen's mother was a little embarrassed, but since the guest was there, she answered all the questions she could.

"You mean brown sugar water? That was a gift from my daughter."

"The store is indeed not very big, and there aren't many varieties right now."

"Please line up, everyone. There are a lot of people today. Each person is limited to three of each item."

"Six yuan each."

Wen's mother helped pack the food, Wen's father flipped the sesame cakes, and Yao Qingqin only had to wrap the sesame cakes.

Wen's mother didn't say much about Wen Fan's affairs. Some people came just to follow the trend and wanted to ask more questions, but their attention was quickly diverted to the persimmon cakes.

"Wow, it smells so sweet!"

The sweet aroma of freshly baked osmanthus persimmon cakes is irresistible, and many people start posting about them on social media after just one bite.

Holy crap, this osmanthus persimmon cake is absolutely delicious! I'd call it the ultimate autumn cake!

La la la, let's start a wonderful Monday with osmanthus persimmon cakes!

The early bird catches the worm!

Yao Qingqin finally finished her morning tasks and checked her phone to learn the whole story. She was happy for Wenji's sudden popularity, but also a little heartbroken...

How come all these other people's casual photos of persimmon cakes look better than hers!

Some people even took a bite and then pointed their phones at the opening to take a picture, with the big tree in front of the store as the background.

The delicate osmanthus blossoms, crushed peanuts, and sesame seeds in the brown sugar syrup, placed alongside the autumn leaves in the background, create a sweet aroma that you can almost smell through the screen!

The more Yao Qingqin looked at the pictures she had posted on the review page, the worse they seemed. She resolved to study photography and editing properly that night.

After taking stock of the morning's items, Wen's mother found that the morning's expenses were about the same as before.

Yao Qingqin asked her if she wanted to make more: "Many people didn't get any today."

The queue was too long, and many students wanted to eat there, but didn't have the time, so they could only look at it from afar and leave.

Some people who queued up were unable to buy anything and had to leave disappointed.

After thinking about it, Wen's mother shook her head and decided against it.

"We're busy enough as it is."

If you're selling pancakes all morning, how are you going to prepare the vegetables and ingredients? Are you going to skip lunchtime business?

"That's settled then. It's a seasonal product anyway. Once we run out of persimmons, we won't sell them anymore."

Some things are only truly appreciated when you eat them at that moment, because they will be endlessly savored in the future.

****

It was an unusually busy morning for Wen's mother.

When Wen Fan arrived at the school, he was also surrounded by people.

Han Lulu looked sad: "I was happy for you at first, but then I felt sad when I thought about having to compete with others for food in the future."

Business is so good, will she still be able to go there often to eat delicious food?

The students around me were in a similar state, all feeling both happy and sad.

Wen Fan took three takeout boxes out of his backpack.

"Today's dish is sticky rice chicken..."

"Ugh, it's my turn to have extra lessons today!"

The physics class representative rushed forward and excitedly grabbed two servings of sticky rice chicken.

Inside the disposable lunchbox were two sticky rice chickens wrapped in lotus leaves. As soon as the lotus leaves were peeled off, the aroma of sticky rice wafted out.

The physics class representative shared one with my deskmate. The glutinous rice inside the lotus leaf glistened with oil, and the sticky rice grains wrapped around chicken, mushrooms, and dried shrimp, with a whole salted egg yolk in the middle. The chicken was boneless and steamed until incredibly tender, and the egg yolk in the middle was soaked with butter. The glutinous rice was fragrant and oily, and the rich filling made one bite satisfying.

With that fragrance, everyone had only one thought in their mind.

Only by studying can you enjoy delicious food!

When the homeroom teacher, Ms. Wang, entered the classroom and smelled the fragrance, she couldn't sit still any longer. She asked Wen Fan to go to her office.

Wen Fan thought the teacher wanted to see her, but when she entered the office, Teacher Wang immediately asked her if her family's restaurant was Wen's Restaurant.

Wen Fan nodded.

Teacher Wang: ...

She had always ordered takeout from Wenji, but perhaps because she had some prejudice against Wen Fan, she never associated Wen Fan's surname with that restaurant.

But after seeing the news online yesterday, I became curious and searched for the address, and suddenly everything connected.

The restaurant owned by Wen Fan's family is the one she frequents. It's also because Wen Fan helped people outside of school that her family has become so popular.

Teacher Wang looked at Wen Fan with mixed feelings.

Having taught for over a decade, she believes that she only needs a short time to get to know a child's personality and future.

But it doesn't seem to apply to Wen Fan.

Wen Fan stood in front of her. Her long blonde hair, which had been cut short, had grown a little longer in the past two or three months, covering her ears. Perhaps annoyed, Wen Fan used two clips to hold back the stray hairs.

Wen Fan, with his calm and composed gaze, possessed a rare air of earnestness upon closer inspection.

This aura makes her stand out in a crowd.

After a moment of silence, Teacher Wang suddenly asked out of the blue, "I thought your Chinese grades were pretty good before, but lately your quizzes haven't been going so well?"

When asked about his grades, Wen Fan also expressed his deepest respect for his teachers.

"I've been focusing more on science lately, and I'll pay more attention to that in the future."

Recently, the English class representative has been urging Wen Fan to allocate some of his time from memorizing classical Chinese texts to English, but the homeroom teacher discovered it so quickly.

Wen Fan felt somewhat ashamed and thought that next time he would rather make time for it himself than delay a subject like this.

Being called to the teacher's office felt like a huge humiliation to her.

Teacher Wang coughed lightly: "What I mean is... students' time is also very tight. If you still don't understand something, you can come to the office after class to ask the teacher."

Wen Fan's eyes widened.

She brought breakfast to her classmates when she asked them to attend extra classes.

If we let the teacher make up the difference...

Under Wen Fan's gaze, Teacher Wang gradually felt a little embarrassed. She didn't mean to steal the students' breakfast, but for some reason, it came out like this.

...However, the aroma in the classroom this morning was too strong. I don't know if the smell of glutinous rice this morning was from glutinous rice or glutinous rice chicken.

When Wen Fan returned to class, Han Lulu anxiously asked her if the teacher had scolded her.

Wen Fan pursed her lips, thinking it was best not to let Han Lulu know.

Now it's not just her classmates who are fighting over her breakfast for extra classes.

...Teacher Wang seemed to want to try it too.

...

After a morning of classes, Wen Fan went back to the shop for lunch. Han Lulu and Qin He didn't go with her; in their words, they didn't want to compete with others for the fun.

"Your house must be very busy today; I doubt there will be a place to sit if you go there."

Although the food in the cafeteria wasn't good, Han Lulu and Qin He decided to go there rather than make a wasted trip.

Wen Fan ate at home by himself and was quite surprised when he went to the store.

There weren't many people in the store or at the entrance, especially inside the store, where not even all the tables were full.

"Mom and Dad, are we not having any guests today?"

That shouldn't be the case.

It was so lively last night, why are there so few people today?

Before Wen Fan could say anything more, she saw her parents staring blankly at her from behind the counter.

"...Sold out."

Wen Fan:......

Wen Fan went to the kitchen and found that not only the ingredients, but also several of the store's seasonings were out of stock.

Wen's mother: "At 11 a.m., as soon as we opened for takeout, everything was sold out."

If selling out in 10 or 20 minutes was considered good business before, today everything in the store was sold out in just three minutes, as fast as the blink of an eye.

Some people even hire delivery riders to come to the store to buy things for them. The riders smile when they arrive, but they don't smile when each trip costs several tens of yuan.

And so, even though everyone anticipated this yesterday and prepared more things today, everything still sold out in seconds.

Even the sesame seed cakes with fillings sold at the entrance had a queue starting at 11:30, so Yao Qingqin had no choice but to start selling them, and they were all sold out in just half an hour.

In other words, the fried food in the store hasn't been sold yet because it wasn't prepared properly.

"Shall I ask your dad to go buy some noodles and make you some when he gets back?"

Wen Fan: "No need, I'll just have something simple to eat."

The kitchen had nothing but a bunch of scallions and a few pork chops.

Wen Fan used the back of a knife to pound the pork chop to break the tendons and membranes. He then added a little cooking wine, salt, sugar, and light soy sauce, along with an egg and some cornstarch. After marinating for a while, he deep-fried the pork chop until it was thoroughly cooked. He then fried scallion segments in the pan until fragrant, placed the fried pork chop on top of the scallion segments, and poured in the prepared sauce.

The aroma of scallions and meat made Mr. Wen, Mrs. Wen, and Yao Qingqin, who had been busy all noon, feel hungry.

Wen Fan cooked several bowls of noodles, one bowl for each person, topped with braised pork chops with scallions.

The pork chop is fried until crispy and delicious, and the scallion oil removes the raw astringency of the scallions, giving the pork chop a unique and mellow aroma. The rich meat juices are mixed with the savory sauce of the scallions, making the pork chop crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, with the aroma of scallions filling the air.

After finishing her meal, Wen's mother felt extremely satisfied and slapped her chopsticks together.

"I've made up my mind, I'm going to expand the store!"

Business at the store is getting better and better, and the small space is no longer enough to cope with the changes in business.

But if you asked Wen's mother to move to another place now, she wouldn't be willing.

The best solution is to sublet.

Qu Qingqing's family pharmacy has three storefronts, and Wen's mother had previously heard Qu Qingqing say that she wanted to split one of them off.

Since she was too busy at home, Wen's mother decided to go to Qu Qingqing and the landlord Yang Hong. In any case, expanding the storefront would make many things much less troublesome.

After finishing his pork chop noodles, Wen Fan clapped his hands like a little seal.

"Mom, I support you!"

She had long complained about how small the kitchen was!

It's nothing compared to her former imperial kitchen; even the small white table in the palace was bigger than this place!

"Let's expand the store quickly! She can't wait to have more stoves!"

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A message from the author: Happy National Day!