"Sister, Sister Bonnie, Auntie..."
As soon as she stepped off the platform, Bonnie heard calls from her family amidst the noisy crowd.
"Lin Bo, Lin Feng, Er Bao..."
They had to squeeze through the endless stream of people to finally meet.
"Sister, Liu Jiu, San Qi, let's go out first, there are too many people."
Lin Bo, dressed in military uniform, was quite eye-catching. At the age of thirty, he had matured considerably.
Lin Feng and Er Bao also took some of the luggage from San Qi and the others. The group struggled to squeeze out of the crowd.
"Sis, let's go eat first. Liu Jiu and San Qi must be hungry, right?"
The boat back to the island was in the afternoon, and Bonnie didn't refuse; she was genuinely hungry.
"Is Uncle still at Sihaiju? Didn't Master Chen retire and open his own shop? Where is he?"
Bonnie and Master Shen have kept in touch, and she knows that he opened a small restaurant after he retired.
"Let's go to Master Chen's place. Sihaiju is in chaos without Master Chen keeping things in order. Even my uncle doesn't want to work there anymore."
Lin Bo led the way, and Bao Ni and her group went to Shen's Restaurant, which was owned by Chef Shen.
The shop, which is about 60 or 70 square meters, is very clean and tidy. It's not lunchtime yet, but there are small groups of people sitting inside, mostly retired elderly people who have just bought groceries and are having breakfast at a leisurely pace.
"Baoni? When did you get back, you little devil?"
Master Chen had just finished his work and came out when he saw Bao Ni and her group coming in.
"Master Shen, may your business prosper. I just got off the train and have come here begging for food."
"Welcome, a warm welcome! It's been two or three years since we last met. How long can you stay this time?"
Master Shen was deeply impressed by this young friend despite their age difference, and they got along very well afterward, maintaining contact all these years. No matter where Bao Ni went, she would always send him some local specialties, without fail.
"It will be about a month before the children start school."
Bonnie also wanted to go and see her secret hideout, to see if it was still there.
"That's good. Please sit down first, and I'll go make you something to eat."
Chef Shen didn't bother with pleasantries and rushed to the kitchen. He had just gotten off the train and was obviously starving.
"Sis, you don't know yet, do you? Lin Feng applied to a university in Beijing for the college entrance exam this year. The results are out, so there shouldn't be any problems."
Lin Bo suddenly remembered Lin Feng's situation. In the past two years, several members of their Lin family have been admitted to universities, but so far, Lin Feng has the best grades and is going to Beijing.
"Really? Lin Feng, that's impressive! Which university did you get into?"
Bonnie patted Raymond Lam on the shoulder, almost missing him. Before she knew it, the kid had grown up and was now 1.8 meters tall.
"Military Medical University".
Lin Feng took the exam last year, but his results were not ideal, only enough for a junior college, and even then, it was a teacher's college. He didn't want to be a teacher; he wanted to be a doctor, a military doctor. After discussing it with his parents, he decided to repeat a year.
"That's good too. Our family will have people in every department of the hospital from now on."
Bonnie made a joke, happy for Raymond Lam and also for her uncle.
My uncle's family has three sons. The eldest, Lin Nan, graduated from junior high school and learned to cook from him. He started as an apprentice at Sihaiju Restaurant and is now a full-time employee. The second son, Lin Jiang, passed the entrance exam for a junior college two years ago, I think he studied mechanical engineering, and he can work in a shipyard in the future.
Back then, a chance encounter led her to take her uncle off the island, which changed the fate of the children in the family—something Bonnie never expected.
"Here, seafood porridge, made with the freshest seafood. You haven't had this in a long time, have you? Try it."
Uncle Shen brought out a large pot of porridge, worried that it wouldn't be enough for Bao Ni and the others. He knew that they were a group of people with big appetites.
"Grandpa Chen, just smelling this makes my mouth water!"
Sanqi is a picky eater, very particular about food, and has a very sensitive sense of smell and taste.
"Eat quickly, I'll make you some more oyster pancakes, they're really fresh."
The three of them, including Bao Ni, were hungry, so they didn't care about anything else and each had a bowl of seafood porridge to eat.
Lin Bo and the others had finished eating, and watching Bonnie and the others eat made him feel hungry again.
"Ah! I've been craving this taste so much! It's so fresh, nothing like our dried seafood can compare!"
I ate so much Panax notoginseng that I'm stuffed; my stomach is bulging.
"Lin Bo, why don't you take them out for a walk? I'll chat with Uncle Shen for a while."
Seeing that the children were bored, and since it would be a while before they left the ship, Bonnie asked Linbo to take them out for a walk.
"Okay, sis, we'll just wander around the neighborhood and come find you when it's time."
Lin Bo left with the children, and Bonnie could now chat quietly with Master Shen for a while.
"Uncle Chen, how's your business?"
Master Shen brewed a pot of tea and sat down to catch up with Bonnie.
"It's alright. I used to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner all at once, but it was too tiring. In a few days, I plan to cancel breakfast and only make lunch and dinner."
At first, I was worried that business would be bad and I was thinking of keeping as many customers as possible. After a while, the customer flow was huge, but we were short-staffed and it was too tiring.
I have to get up too early in the morning and stay up until eight or nine o'clock at night. I can't stay up that late; age catches up with me!
Master Shen is almost sixty years old. If it weren't for his grandchildren, he would be living a peaceful retirement life.
"Breakfast is too tiring, health is the most important thing. Now that I'm just starting out as a private business, I don't lack customers. If I do a good job with hygiene and service, business will be good."
Bonnie had no business experience; she simply mentioned it, drawing on some marketing strategies from later generations.
"Yes, that's what I'm planning too. In the restaurant business, you have to be able to retain repeat customers."
Chef Shen had been a chef his whole life, and he understood the principles better than Bao Ni. It's just that in those years, state-run restaurants operated under that model, and there was nothing that could be done about it.
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