Su Xiaoxiao smiled: "Before the New Year, I hadn't supplied Jinji with goods yet. You brought the egg yolk pastry you bought from me to Old Madam Qi to taste, right?"

"Ahem!" Shopkeeper Sun cleared his throat awkwardly, "Don't we have any raw materials?"

Shopkeeper Sun has a mind and talent for business, and most importantly, he is very courageous and dares to sell business even if he has not yet obtained it.

Manager Sun's move really helped her a lot.

"Girl, what are you thinking about?" asked Manager Sun.

Su Xiaoxiao said, "I was thinking, my egg yolk pastry is not so easy to imitate. If Madam Qi finds that the taste this time is different from what she ate before, do you think she will be unhappy?"

“Hiss—”

Shopkeeper Sun gasped.

He hadn't thought of this just now. That's right, even if he got Su Xiaoxiao's recipe, the snacks he made still had slight differences in taste.

The same is true for wife cake and chestnut cake.

As for the egg yolk pastry... the salted egg yolks only arrived this year, and he is no longer the owner of Jin Kee, so he has never tasted how it is made there.

Shopkeeper Sun said, "But what if Madam Qi can't taste it? There is a slight difference in taste, but it's not that big. Besides, even if you make it yourself, you can't guarantee that every pot will taste exactly the same! I heard that Jinji's chef didn't rest during the Chinese New Year, and concentrated on practicing the heat at home, just to master your recipes."

"What you said is possible." Su Xiaoxiao is not the kind of person who underestimates herself, but she is not blindly confident either. "Can you still enter the Qi family?"

Shopkeeper Sun sighed, "The Qi family is doing business with Jinji, not with me, Sun Quan. I guess it will be difficult."

"Ten taels."

"Oh, I really have no idea."

"Twenty taels."

"I've already said..."

"Thirty taels."

"Hey you girl——"

Su Xiaoxiao said, "Ergou, go call the group of people over and tell them that Manager Sun gave it to them!"

Shopkeeper Sun was startled: "I suddenly remembered that Aunt Ding from the Qi family is my fellow villager!"

…

At daybreak, Shopkeeper He got up early with the help of his concubine.

Today is Madam Qi’s birthday, and it is also the first cooperation between Jinji and the Qi family. The Qi family is influential in the city. As long as this deal is done, why should Jinji worry about not being able to make a breakthrough in the city?

In order to express his importance to this business, Manager He decided to deliver the goods to the Qi family in person.

He went downstairs and came to the kitchen.

"Is the dessert ready?" he asked.

The waiter came out from the kitchen and said with a smile: "Don't worry! I've been watching it all night! I guarantee that nothing will go wrong!"

The snacks were made at dawn, and after a whole night of watching, they were blown all the way to the sky!

Manager He was too lazy to argue about these trivial matters and asked someone to pack the snacks into food boxes and take them to his carriage.

He also sat on it, and was accompanied by the waiter and an old friend of Jin Ji.

The group arrived at Qi's house.

Even though Jinji is the largest dim sum shop in town, it is still far inferior to wealthy families like the Qi family.

The person who came out to greet them was a small steward from the Qi family.

"It wasn't you last time." The steward frowned.

Shopkeeper He said politely, "I am the new shopkeeper of Jinji, my last name is He."

"Over there, over there! Don't hang the lanterns in the wrong place!" The steward shouted to the servant beside him. After that, he looked at the shopkeeper He and said, "What did you say? Come on, come in!"

Manager He was very angry that a small manager did not take him, the big manager, seriously.

However, he also understood that the Qi family was one of the most powerful families in Xinghua Town, and they could not afford to offend them! "I've already said that you don't have to come in person." The waiter also felt sorry for his master, thinking that if the shopkeeper came in person, he would be treated with some courtesy.

Who would have thought that the servants of the Qi family looked down on them and ignored them! Shopkeeper He said calmly, "They are just minions."

When he gets the favor of Madam Qi, won't this servant with no sense of taste be able to be dismissed with just one sentence? Over there, a pretty little maid came over with a lantern.

"Miss Qing'er, it's so early?"

The young steward, who was indifferent to Manager He and others, actually smiled in a fawning and obsequious manner when he met this maid.

The maid said, "The old lady has woken up. Have the snacks from Jinji arrived? The old lady said to give them to her to try first."

The steward smiled and said, "Miss Qing'er can just give you instructions for this kind of thing. Why bother going there yourself? Miss Qing'er, go first, I'll take you there!"

The maid said, "Don't pick on people who make a lot of noise, or you'll disturb the old lady's peace."

"Ah, yes, yes!" The steward turned around with a smile, his expression turned cold, and said to Shopkeeper He, "Snacks."

Shopkeeper He winked at the waiter and the old servant, and they brought in food boxes one after another and handed them to the steward.

The steward called a few clever servants, and together with the maid, they brought the snacks to Old Madam Qi.

The waiter looked at the other person's graceful back, swallowed his saliva, and whispered: "Boss, the Qi family is indeed a wealthy family. Even their maid is much prettier than the girl in Yuehonglou..."

Yuehonglou, the place of fireworks in Xinghua Town.

Shopkeeper He wanted to kick him. Comparing the maids of the Qi family with the girls in the brothel, did he think his life was too long? Shopkeeper He was waiting in the yard outside the kitchen, not waiting for the bill, but waiting for the feedback from Madam Qi.

He was confident that Madam Qi would like it! She might even want to meet him! What he never expected was that instead of waiting for Madam Qi to summon him, he was scolded by Miss Qing'er.

"What kind of snacks did you send? They are totally different from last time! The old lady is angry! We agreed to buy snacks from Jinji, but who told you to buy them from another place?"

The young steward was confused and turned to look at Manager He.

Shopkeeper He said, "Miss Qing'er, we are from Jinji."

Qing'er asked angrily, "So you changed the cook?"

Shopkeeper He said hurriedly, "No! All the snacks today were made by our Jinji chef! No one else was involved!"

The dim sum sold on weekdays is prepared with the chef giving some instructions and other cooks sharing the responsibility. However, the Qi family’s birthday banquet is of great importance and the chef does it all himself.

Qing'er said coldly: "Why does the taste differ?"

Shopkeeper He frowned. The cook hadn't changed. Could it be that the girl had provided them with inferior salted eggs? At this time, a servant hurried over: "Manager Zhang! The people from Jinji are here! They said they are here to deliver snacks for the birthday banquet!"

Shopkeeper He's eyes flashed with surprise: "We are from Jinji! How come there is another Jinji here?"

The servant looked at Manager He and said to his own steward, "That man's surname is Sun, and he was here last time."

(End of this chapter)