Chapter 16 Gold Bricks and White Jade
The voices sounded familiar, Qi Huan looked up and saw that it was Lin Jian and Xue Ke.
"Why are you here? I just went to your store, but the door was locked tightly, and I couldn't send a message through the optical magnetic storm." Lin Jian said a lot to himself, and then patted the empty seat of the passenger seat, "Get in, I'll take you home."
"I haven't gotten off work yet. I can't go back until evening." Qi Huan looked embarrassed.
"Go to work? Don't you run a shop?" Xue Ke interjected, leaning half of his body into the front seat.
"Business in the store is not good, and my hands are not convenient during this period, so I'm doing odd jobs at the unloading yard." Qi Huan explained awkwardly.
Seeing that they knew each other, Wan Laoer came over and said with a smile, "Yes, Ah Huan has been helping out at our unloading yard recently."
Lin Jian raised his eyebrows and pointed at the stone beast in the trailer. "If we do it here today, can we make him leave earlier?"
"Yes, definitely." Wan Laoer rubbed his hands and smiled so hard that his teeth were showing.
"Okay." Lin Jian turned the steering wheel neatly with his backhand, and the airship blew out a wave of air and turned to slide into the courtyard.
Wan Lao Er came close to Qi Huan and whispered, "Your friend?"
"A regular customer of the store." Qi Huan touched his nose. He had been here twice and even added his contact information. Could he be considered a regular customer?
Xue Ke jumped off the airship, took two steps to Qi Huan and started to order food. "I want to eat Chunfeng Steamed Buns and Dongpo Pork later."
"Okay, I've just developed a few new dishes, let's try them together." Qi Huan was amused by his impatience, "Didn't you just go to the hunting area? How come you're back so soon?"
"We were lucky. We encountered a C-level spotted beast not long after we entered. The boss said to transport it back first." Xue Ke pointed to the round stone beast with green stripes in the trailer.
Only then did Qi Huan understand why Wan Laoer wanted to make this deal so much. A C-level stone beast was a rare big deal.
Although the lunch break was not over yet, a C-level stone beast meant a generous reward, so Lao Wu naturally had no objection to starting work early. He spread out the knives and started working with Qi Huan.
The beast core that was finally opened was the size of a fist and was green in color. In Qi Huan's opinion, it was at least C grade.
Lin Jian was generous to begin with, and seeing that the item was good, he gave an extra reward of one thousand silver coins. Wan Laoer was also a good person, and not only did he release the person early as promised, he also gave the thousand directly as a bonus to Qi Huan, who had brought back this business.
Qi Huan was also very happy. He went to the food store in the front yard to do some shopping. He then went back to the backyard to fill a basket with the pile of animal feet and tails that he had taken apart in the morning. Since he had a favorable airship today, he didn't mind buying as much as he wanted.
"Can this thing be eaten?" Xue Ke looked at the basket of animal feet and tails in the trailer with an expression of disgust.
"Don't judge a person by his appearance." Qi Huan raised his eyebrows confidently. The purple-red afterglow of the setting sun reflected in his eyes, like blooming summer flowers. Xue Ke was stunned for a moment.
Lin Jian, who was dozing off in the front row, opened his eyes and tilted his head to look behind him. "Anything light?"
"How about fish?" Qi Huan pointed to one of the baskets. He had discovered before that Xue Ke liked to eat strong flavors, while Lin Jian liked to eat lighter flavors. Sweet flavors were also OK.
Lin Jian shook his head in disdain, "They are all thorns."
"Don't worry, I'll make you a boneless one today." Qi Huan has been deboning fish and shrimp every day these days, and he has roughly guessed why fish and shrimp are not selling well. Fish and shrimp have bones, shells, and bones, which are troublesome to eat, and are not very popular in this world. Smaller poultry are only used to make soup, and the meat is not eaten at all.
So he had planned to find an opportunity to try making fish balls. He checked last night and found that the fish in the basket had few bones, tender meat, and it was easy to remove the bones and make fish paste.
The food store is close to the restaurant, and it is even faster to take the airship, so you can get there in just two or three sentences.
This time, Lin Jian ordered two tables of eight people for dinner. After hearing Qi Huan say that it would take about two hours to prepare, he asked Xue Ke to help deliver the food to the kitchen and then went back, agreeing to come back at 6:30.
"Those guys are big eaters. Give them more meat and staple food." Before leaving, Xue Ke specifically reminded Qi Huan.
Qi Huan patted his chest and said that he would take care of it.
After putting away the things, Qi Huan went upstairs to check on Tuan Tuan. The little guy was still sleeping in bed, his porcelain-white face against the dark quilt and pillow, like a piece of jade. In fact, there was a moment yesterday when he thought of the child that the silver-haired young man and his friends were looking for. But although the child was a child, the hair color did not match at all, and the two did not leave any contact information, so he could not get in touch even if he wanted to. The fastest way was to look through the missing notice of the base.
When the little guy heard the noise, he opened his eyes and looked, then saw that it was him and closed them again with relief.
Seeing the sleepy eyes, Qi Huan's tone softened unconsciously. He squatted at the head of the bed and whispered, "Two tables of guests will come downstairs later. It might be a little noisy. Don't be afraid. I'll bring you food later."
Tuan Tuan nodded in a daze. Qi Huan pulled the corner of the quilt for him, turned around and went downstairs to prepare dinner.
After entering the kitchen, Qi Huan first took a look at the hidden star coins, and then began to sort the ingredients. Within three or five minutes, Quan Hai knocked on the door and came in, holding the basket made from an old helmet in his hand.
"Food?" Qi Huan glanced at the helmet in Quan Hai's hand curiously.
"You can try it if you have good teeth." Quan Hai teased with a smile, took out the box and placed it in front of him, "Brother Man said that money should not be accepted for nothing, so this is a return gift for you."
Qi Huan opened the box and saw three F-level energy stones on the left and a thin silver metal sheet on the right. Two-thirds of the metal sheet was engraved with a tiger head pattern. What was more special was that the tiger was wearing a martial arts-style helmet, which made it look particularly handsome and majestic. At the bottom was a word [维] and behind it was the word '贰'.
"What's this?"
"A 50% discount card for the Vino family. He is the best craftsman in our base, especially good at making metal parts. He can make all kinds of weapons and knives, but the price is a bit expensive."
Making metal parts? Qi Huan remembered the family that Wan Laoer mentioned at noon, who lived in East City, "Is he a Tata?"
"That's not clear. Do you know him?"
"No, I just happened to hear someone talking about it."
Quan Hai's face was filled with gossip, and he lowered his voice, "I heard that many people at the Nomad Base would pay a lot of money to find him to make weapons."
"Do they have so much money?" The natives of the base have a hard life, it must be even harder outside.
“What do you think the vagrant base is?” Quan Hai lowered his voice, almost to a whisper, “There are plenty of poor and destitute people, as well as illegal residents and desperate criminals. Those people are not short of money.” There is no protective shield outside the base, and the more powerful the weapons, the greater the chance of survival.
Qi Huan clicked his tongue and thought about it the other way around. A waste planet with poor signal and almost no management outside the base is indeed very suitable for those interstellar thieves and desperate criminals. No one will check on them at all. As long as their self-protection ability is strong enough, this place may be a paradise for them.
"Anyway, if you want to make a new sword or something in the future, this should be useful." Quan Hai patted the card.
"Thank Brother Man for me." Qi Huan put the metal piece back into the box. Brother Man had obviously thought about it and gave him something that was more practical to him.
Quan Hai took out another bag and stuffed it in his hand. Inside was two brand new white masks. "These are the masks you asked Quan Yu to make. They have been washed clean."
"I'll make a separate dessert for our sister later." Qi Huan put on a mask and planned to wear it for a while to try out its breathability.
"What do you mean our sister? That's my sister!" Quan Hai angrily punched him on the shoulder.
"mean."
"What are you doing?" Quan Hai looked at the food on the tables around him. This amount would be enough for five or six days, right?
"A regular customer has placed an order for dinner tonight, two tables of eight people." Qi Huan raised his chin proudly.
"Then let me help you." Quan Hai rolled up his sleeves and took away the basket containing the animal's feet and tails with familiarity.
"Wash the animal's head first." Qi Huan bent his slender fingers and tapped the freezer door next to him. Then he smiled and made a fist gesture to Quan Hai, "I'm grateful for your kindness~"
"Pay double the labor fee." Quan Haibian joked with him while moving the beast head. Qi Huan seemed to be a lot more naughty after losing his memory, but he was easier to get along with.
"Of course." Qi Huan responded repeatedly and continued to sort the basket of ingredients he had just finished halfway.
What he found at the bottom were actually two extra packages of spices and a few boxes of fruit. The spices were the two kinds he didn't want to buy yesterday because they were too expensive. The fruit included a box of lychees that he particularly wanted to eat that day, a box of more expensive pears, and two boxes of red fruits. All together, they amounted to at least forty or fifty silver coins.
Qi Huan shook his head. He bought a lot of things today and Boss Wan helped pack them. These things must have been put in by him.
"Apart from the white-water beast head and braised beast bones, what other dishes do we have today?" Quan Hai, who was diligently scrubbing the long-faced beast head, chatted with Qi Huan in a casual manner.
"That's a lot. Gold bricks and white jade, fish ball soup, boiled pork slices, Dongpo pork, pear and shrimp, white water beast head, mushrooms and vegetables, spring breeze steamed buns, braised beast bone noodles, plus a sweet and sour snack to relieve greasiness and stimulate the appetite - sugared pineapple. Six dishes, one soup, two staple foods and one snack, ten dishes, perfect." Qi Huan scooped out the blood foam in the pot and listed a long list.
The menu was prepared according to Xue Ke's instructions and Lin Jian's taste, with meat as the main ingredient and light vegetables as the supplement, enough to satisfy one's hunger. Among them, Dongpo pork, Baishui animal head and braised animal bones took the most time, and Quan Hai really saved him a lot of effort here.
"What are gold bricks and white jade?" Quan Hai was stunned.
“Cut the fish and tofu into cubes and fry them until golden and crispy.” Qi Huan had eaten the dish of Gold Brick and White Jade in a Michelin restaurant before. The original version was pure cod meat, and he had a sudden inspiration to remake it into a double-taste version with fried tofu and fish cubes. It is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, fresh and juicy, and can be eaten directly or with sauce. It is very popular.
"What about pear hitting shrimp?"
"Stir-fried shrimp with pear." Qi Huan pointed to the box of pears next to him. Actually, he originally wanted to make sweet and sour shrimp, but when he saw the pear that Boss Wan stuffed in, he made a sudden change of idea.
There are actually quite a few recipes using pears, such as desserts like Sydney stewed with rock sugar which has therapeutic effects, orange jade soup for sobering up and relieving dryness, and pears with bergamot and citron in sauce. But in Qi Huan's personal ranking, the combination is absolutely perfect, and one of the top three is the fried chicken with pear in "Suiyuan Food List". The pear and shrimp is a modified version of the fried chicken with pear. The sweetness of the pear and the tenderness of the shrimp "collide" to create a super delicious taste, which should be more suitable for Lin Jian's taste.
"Better than meat?" Quan Hai, like Xue Ke and Xiaotuanzi, is a meat-eater.
"It depends on who you are talking to. Everyone has different preferences." After the Dongpo pork and the beast's head were stewed separately, Qi Huan began to fillet the fish and remove the fish bones. Because he was wearing a mask, his voice was muffled. "Some people like meat, some like shrimp, some like sweet food, and some like spicy food. Taste, like aesthetics, is a very subjective thing."
"Yes, my sister likes your sugar pineapple the most." Quan Hai nodded, "By the way, Brother Man also said that you are luckier than him, so you should come to us to pick up more goods when you have time in the future."
"Okay, but can you let me know earlier? Otherwise, it will be inconvenient to ask for leave." Who doesn't like the feeling of picking up a bargain? Qi Huan responded without stopping his hands. He divided the sliced fish into two parts, one part was cut into mahjong pieces, and the other part was scraped into fish paste and added with fat and spice water to remove the fishy smell.
If you have a blender, making fish balls is not difficult, but you need to be patient when taking the raw materials. In order to ensure the taste and color of the finished product, in addition to fish bones, you also need to remove the fish skin, fascia, and the area close to the fish skin with red blood.
"There's really nothing we can do about it. We're lucky to get the news a few hours in advance, and it only happens once or twice a month. We can't pick up more even if we want to."
Once or twice a month seems to be okay. Qi Huan nodded silently.
"Also, Lao Pi lives not far from here. Be careful if you see him next time. He's a very stingy person and might cause trouble for you..."
The second half of Quan Hai's sentence was drowned out by the noise of the food processor beating the fish paste. Qi Huan clicked his tongue and thought it would be better to offend a gentleman than a villain. But he did not regret it. He had to be tough when it was time to be tough. Such shameless people would only become more and more aggressive. If he had given in at that time, he would only be bullied even more miserably afterwards.
The two of them chatted while preparing the dishes. Time passed quickly and it was half past six in the blink of an eye.
Outside the restaurant, engines roared, two airships landed at the door, and Lin Jian and Xue Ke walked in with a few people.
Several dishes had been placed on each of the two tables. The three-finger-wide boiled animal head meat was rolled into petals and arranged around the plate to form a flower, with the 'center' of the flower being a small plate of salt and pepper dipping sauce. The gorgeous coral red fruits were round like pearls, and the crystal clear sugar coating shone brightly under the warm yellow light. The green vegetables were spread out in a slanted fan shape, with round mushrooms piled up on the leaf ends, as if the tail feathers of a phoenix were slightly spread out in the wind, which was pleasing to the eye. The fried fish pieces and tofu were wrapped in a thin layer of golden skin, neatly stacked layer by layer, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top to form a tower. If you look closely, you can see tiny bubbles of oil constantly overflowing from the puff pastry shell, and the flowing light like broken gold is rustling, obviously they have just come out of the pot.
"Wow, what kind of dish is this?"
"The dishes served in the restaurants of three-star chefs are not as good-looking as this."
"How could a chef from a useless planet have such skills? It must be fake, right? It can't be eaten?"
"Do you have a signal? If there is, let me take a picture first."
The eight people looked at the two tables of food and talked about it. The originally quiet restaurant was suddenly filled with noisy voices.
"The chef of this restaurant puts all his efforts into plating?" Qin Huai glanced at Lin Jian. He had just seen the sign outside the door. It looked so good. How bad must it taste to get six rotten eggs? He was wondering why his cousin suddenly wanted to treat their hunting team to a meal. Maybe he was cheated and wanted to mess things up?
Lin Jian didn't bother to respond, waiting for someone to get slapped in the face.
"If you think it looks good, then I'll take it as a compliment." Hearing the voice, Qi Huan rushed out to greet them and poured a few cups of barley tea for everyone.
Xue Ke scratched his head and asked, "Are these all new dishes?"
Qi Huan was just about to remind them about the long-faced beast, so he introduced them one by one, "This dish is Tangshan red fruit, which tastes sweet and sour, and is appetizing. This dish is Baishui beast head meat, which is taken from the head of the long-faced beast. It is recommended to season it with pepper and salt. This one is called Jinzhuan Baiyu, and the ingredients are Pei fish cubes and tofu cubes..."
The cups and plates clinked as everyone started to eat. Some took the candied pineapple first, while others picked up animal heads or gold bricks and white jade with their chopsticks. For a moment, the surroundings were so quiet that only the sound of candied shells and crispy fish chunks being chewed could be heard.
Lin Jian and his friends were too busy to say anything, while Qin Huai was questioning their lives. How could such delicious food be made of six rotten eggs? Those who rated it either had problems with their tongues or their brains!
Just at this time, Quan Hai, the guest waiter, brought up the fish ball soup and Dongpo pork, both of which were served in individual bowls according to the number of people. Qi Huan and Quan Hai served the dishes to two tables respectively, and everyone's attention was once again lost in the aroma of fish and meat.
The fish balls in the soup bowl were as white as porcelain, translucent and cute. Wei Jin anxiously stretched out his chopsticks to grab them, but they slipped out with a swish.
The round fish balls fell on the table and bounced high, hitting Lin Jian's handsome face.
That was the store's sponsor! Qi Huan at the table subconsciously wanted to reach out his left hand to stop him, but unfortunately his arm was clamped by a splint, so he struggled in vain.
The next second, the fish ball was suspended in mid-air.
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