When Su Qingluan saw Manager Liang's reaction, she knew that although the fat uncle didn't say it in the letter, he still had some complaints about her being "missing" for such a long time.
Of course, it would be more appropriate to describe this level of feeling as "resentment" rather than "dissatisfaction".
Seeing this, Su Qingluan hurriedly rubbed her hands and stepped forward: "Uncle Liang, it's me, I'm Su Qingluan!"
"Humph, if I don't write to you, you won't remember me, Uncle Liang."
"How could that be?" Su Qingluan apologized repeatedly, pulling out two pairs of the largest gloves from her bosom. "I'm giving these to you, the great Buddha, with my mother's 'flowers'. They're not expensive, but they're very useful!"
Shopkeeper Liang looked down and saw two pairs of very thick cotton gloves.
He had heard of these cotton gloves before, but because he heard about it too late, the orders from Yang's company were already scheduled for several days later. In addition, Manager Liang himself did not need a piece of warm fabric, so he was not in a hurry.
However, he did not expect that these cotton gloves, which were in great demand in Lefeng County, were made by Su Qingluan's mother.
After all, Shopkeeper Liang wasn't really that angry with Su Qingluan. Plus, seeing that she brought a "gift", he chuckled and said, "You still have a conscience and don't come empty-handed." Then he happily put on the gloves and tried them on.
After all, Su Qingluan had a certain degree of friendship with Shopkeeper Liang. Although she had never measured him with a ruler, she still had a good understanding of his body shape.
Therefore, Su Qingluan chose two pairs of the largest-sized gloves - because although Manager Liang's fingers were not the longest, his palms were thick, so the largest-sized gloves were just right for him.
"Look, aren't these gloves just right?" Su Qingluan smiled. "If I weren't thinking about Uncle Liang, would you just pick out a pair of gloves?"
No matter how much flattery is offered, Su Qingluan decided to flatter the angry uncle in front of her mindlessly so that he would be subdued as soon as possible.
Liang Youdao was obviously pleased with the fact that Su Qingluan had chosen the right size of gloves. He stopped sneering at her and started smiling again.
"Alright, alright," Liang Youdao patted Su Qingluan's shoulder, "Come and see the crabs."
Although Su Qingluan also wanted to eat crab roe, she thought of what she had planned in her mind before, so she said to Liang Youdao: "Uncle Liang, let's go to the kitchen first. I'll mix the noodles first."
Liang Youdao laughed and asked, "Why, what new tricks have you come up with?"
Su Qingluan smiled and said, "It's not really a new idea. It's more like improving the appearance of the existing food in the store." As she spoke, Su Qingluan winked playfully at Shopkeeper Liang.
Although Liang Youdao seemed easy to talk to with a smile on his face all day long, he had been in business for many years after all. As soon as Su Qingluan said this, he understood what she meant.
Just like many commodities nowadays will see price increases or disguised price increases once the packaging is changed or the weight is reduced, Su Qingluan's proposal is obviously intended to "raise prices".
So he asked curiously, "I wonder what ingredient Qingluan wants to 'improve'?"
Su Qingluan smiled and said, "I'll keep it a secret for now. I can only say it's related to pasta."
"Okay, I want to see what tricks you little elf can come up with." Shopkeeper Liang also laughed and followed Su Qingluan to the back kitchen.
It is already noon, and the kitchen is bustling with activity, with only one or two stoves not being used. Of course, the kitchen is not often used at full capacity, and only during the peak customer flow during special festivals each year will all the stoves be activated.
Everyone was busy, including Xu Yuanwei, who looked even angrier than usual. He just hurriedly greeted Su Qingluan and went on with his work.
Su Qingluan was not in a hurry. She washed her hands and started kneading the dough.
Although Su Qingluan didn't make much noise, the kitchen helper who was closer still noticed that Su Qingluan's noodles were different from those of other families.
"Madam Su, why do you add so much salt to the noodles?" The young kitchen helper next to her happened to see Su Qingluan adding quite a lot of salt, so she asked curiously.
"Because this can make the noodles...soup cakes more stretchable." Noodles in this era were still called "soup cakes", which made Su Qingluan a little uncomfortable.
After all, purely from the appearance point of view, "noodles" are more vivid than "soup cakes", aren't they?
Su Qingluan's position was in a corner of the kitchen, and the stove below was not on, so it was relatively "quiet", which made it very convenient for her to operate.
Soon, the dough was ready. Su Qingluan placed it upside down in a large basin and looked at Liang Youdao: "Uncle Liang, we haven't seen each other for a long time. How is my aunt? I heard that she..."
The two of them walked towards the second floor while chatting about family matters.
The time passed quickly during the casual chat, especially since Shopkeeper Liang was quite talkative. Su Qingluan thought she had only chatted a few words, and half an hour had flown by. She had asked the servant to remind her when the dough was ready, otherwise she wouldn't have noticed it was too loose.
Perhaps it was because many furnaces in the kitchen of Hongfulou were working at the same time, and there were more than ten or twenty people busying around in the kitchen, which made the temperature of the entire space much higher than that of an ordinary kitchen, so the dough was more relaxed than Su Qingluan initially thought.
Originally, after dividing the dough into small portions, rolling them into pancakes, and brushing them with oil, it was necessary to relax them again for a while, but now it is not necessary.
So Su Qingluan started stretching noodles in a corner of the kitchen.
At first, her movements were small, and the pancake in her hand looked ordinary, so it didn't attract any attention.
However, as Su Qingluan's arms shook more and more violently, the dough was pulled longer and thinner by inertia, and finally made a loud "snap" sound on the chopping board, like the crack of a whip, which finally attracted the attention of several people nearby.
At first, no one knew what Su Qingluan was doing.
This is not surprising. Although there were noodles in this era, such as "tangbing" and "lengtao", which are commonly called noodles by modern people, they were basically made by grinding various grains into fine powder, kneading them into dough, rolling them into flatbreads, and then cutting them into thin noodles.
However, this was the first time that anyone had seen someone tear the dough into thin pieces like Su Qingluan did.
Especially every time Su Qingluan pulled the dough, the long "stick" would make a loud and crisp sound on the chopping board, which sounded very exciting!
So even though everyone was busy and couldn't move away, their eyes kept drifting towards Su Qingluan.
Xu Yuanwei also gradually moved the stove to the side of Su Qingluan. This way, although he still had to be busy cooking, he could still watch Su Qingluan stretching noodles out of the corner of his eye.
Su Qingluan didn't hide it at all - rather, she wanted everyone to learn this "exaggerated and eye-catching" noodle-stretching technique.
After all, in an era when stretched noodles were still considered a "new thing", the process of making stretched noodles itself was an eye-catching performance for many people - the best evidence was that the kitchen helpers around couldn't help but take a peek.
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