Chapter 38 Yue Ning Arrives in Hong Kong
On one side is Shenghua Building, which is busy and claims to be the authentic inheritance of Baohua Building; on the other side is Baohua Building, which is cleaned and tidied up every day.
Everyone thought that Baohualou was going to close, but Yue Baohua denied it and insisted that Baohualou would never close. As for whether it would reopen, Yue Baohua said that it would have to wait until his granddaughter came, and he also said that he would hand over Baohualou to his granddaughter to run.
The problem is that Yue Baohua said that his granddaughter was eighteen years old and had gone to the Northwest with Yue Baohua's son when she was five years old. The Northwest? Anyone who has seen martial arts movies knows that it is a place with smoke all over the desert. Since the business was to be handed over to his granddaughter, which restaurant had she worked in before? Yue Baohua said, "Shepherding sheep."
The old customers originally thought that Yue Baohua was only 60 years old. Even if he was a little older and was impacted by Shenghualou, he could at least survive for a few more years, right? But now he said he wanted to hand over Baohualou to his granddaughter who was herding sheep in the northwest. How long could Baohualou last?
Yue Baohua was so stubborn that he said his granddaughter didn't want to live in the house in Repulse Bay and was determined to run Baohua Building. He even specially cleared a room for his granddaughter, installed a bathroom, purchased furniture, and carefully arranged it. He was not just talking. What was wrong with him? Was he crazy?
Ten days later, early in the morning, Baohualou, which had been closed for a long time, suddenly started to restock. Although the amount of goods was not much, probably enough for three or four tables, it was a sign of movement.
Every time a batch of goods was delivered, Yue Baohua would come out to inspect the goods in person. At this time, Zhu Rouqiang came to deliver the goods.
"Uncle Hua, you told me so much on the phone, how could I not save the best for you? Look at this meat, how is it?" Zhu Rouqiang picked up a piece of pork belly and showed it to Yue Baohua.
Yue Baohua smiled and said, "Thank you."
Zhu Rouqiang asked him, "Are you going to open the store today? Can you handle it?"
"We are not open today, because my Ningning is back." Yue Baohua said with a smile.
"Oh! My granddaughter is back, so I'll prepare some delicious food for her, right?"
Yue Baohua shook his head: "The little girl wants to treat her friends to a meal, and she opened the menu and asked me to prepare it."
"Didn't she come from the mainland? Doesn't she already have friends in Hong Kong?" Zhu Rouqiang asked.
Yue Baohua is not the type to show off, and Ning Ning also said that it must be unexpected in order to give everyone the greatest shock, so he said: "I met him in the mainland."
"Is it your boyfriend? So soon?" A neighbor who got up early heard it and came over to ask.
Yue Baohua shook his head: "Don't talk nonsense, she is still young and still needs to study, we are just ordinary friends."
Ding Shengqiang came over with a cigarette in his mouth: "Master, my granddaughter is here, is Baohualou really going to open?"
Yue Baohua was too lazy to pay attention to him.
Ding Shengqiang looked down at the meat that Baohualou wanted. There were only a few pieces, so he said, "Master, since Ningning is a shepherdess, why don't you give her some mutton? Mutton is her specialty, right?"
The remaining pork on the pork truck was all from Shenghualou. Ding Shengqiang looked at the meat and asked Zhu Rouqiang with a smile, "Aqiang, the amount of meat from my family now can equal the amount from your two families before, right?"
Zhu Rou Qiang naturally wanted to praise the big customers: "Brother Qiang, your business is really hot now. Both of your two businesses were very popular before, but now you are the only one with so many, you are really capable."
Ding Shengqiang smiled happily: "With money piled in front of you, you'd be a fool not to make money. You have to find a way!"
"That's right, that's right. You are very capable." Zhu Rouqiang hated this kind of situation the most. He had to make money, but even if Baohualou closed down, he still had to call Yue Baohua, who had taken care of his business for more than ten years, "Uncle Hua". He really didn't want to talk more about this with Ding Shengqiang in front of Yue Baohua.
Ding Shengqiang had tasted the sweetness of these days. Even if Yue Baohua ignored him, he would go to Yue Baohua and say a few words, hoping to stir up some trouble and make the TV and newspapers hot again. After all, after a few days, the heat had subsided again. People who have tasted the sweetness always miss the days with the highest sales. He wished that Yue Baohua would be so angry that he would be hospitalized for two days.
Ding Shengqiang took out a cigarette and handed it to Yue Baohua. Yue Baohua refused to take it, so he gave the cigarette to Zhu Rouqiang and then distributed it to his fellow men.
He smoked a cigarette and looked up at the sign of his own restaurant: "Shenghualou, this sign is not just a casual remark, it must have real ingredients."
Yue Baohua looked at the pork in the bamboo basket. Zhu Rou Qiang had fresh pork from two major slaughterhouses in Hong Kong. The meat was produced by Hong Kong or supplied by the mainland. It was slaughtered locally and put on the market on the same day. It was extremely fresh. Slightly worse was the refrigerated pork supplied by Thailand, Taiwan and the mainland. The pork was slaughtered locally and transported to the port city in a refrigerated manner. It took four to five days from slaughter to market, so the taste was a bit worse. The worst was the frozen pork from overseas. It had been traveling across the ocean for two or three months, and before it was shipped, it might have been frozen in a cold storage for half a year. The price of frozen meat was only half of fresh pork, or even lower.
Most of the meat in the baskets now is frozen meat, which is used to make barbecue. The cost is naturally cheap, which can fool those who don’t know the business.
Yue Baohua snorted coldly: "It's better to have real materials."
The poultry seller came to deliver chickens, ducks and geese to the two families. Yue Baohua didn't ask for much, but insisted on personally inspecting them. The poultry seller said, "Uncle Hua, look, these chickens, ducks and geese are still warm. They were all killed early in the morning. This lion-head goose is so good!"
Yue Baohua picked up the goose and examined it, saying, "It's very good."
Ding Shengqiang saw that Yue Baohua only had a few chickens, ducks, geese and pigeons, and he checked each one carefully.
When he was at Baohualou, Yue Baohua always emphasized over and over again that only good ingredients can guarantee the quality of dishes. Even the best cooks cannot make delicious dishes out of bad ingredients. And good ingredients sometimes do not require the chef to use any skills, and they are delicious simply by boiling them in water.
Yue Baohua is a stubborn person. In fact, most people don't have such a sensitive sense of taste. They can't distinguish the subtle differences at all, let alone roast duck and roast meat with spices. Frozen white-strip duck and frozen white-strip meat save half the cost, reduce the price, and increase the profit.
"The old lion king on the grassland always refuses to admit his age and always thinks he is still very strong. One day a young lion appeared in front of it, and it shamelessly said that the young lion was too young. Only when the young lion showed its fangs and pressed it under its feet, would it feel afraid." Such a sophisticated statement could not have been thought up by Ding Shengqiang, who could barely read. It was written by a reporter he hired and published in yesterday's newspaper.
Although the more he was scolded recently, the better his business was, but who wants to be scolded like that every day? He asked reporters to write a few articles, and these few sentences were the most to his liking.
After hearing such a strange conversation, Yue Baohua straightened up and said with a smile: "You? And a lion?"
"Haven't you seen clearly these few days? Your ideas are outdated and can only be eliminated. Don't think about anything else, just give me the Baohua property? Your side is closed and I can't fit you here." Ding Shengqiang said to Yue Baohua.
Yue Baohua laughed: "The old lion is old, but it has a little lion whose talent is dozens of times higher than its own. That little lion is a natural lion king. And you are just a bald wolf."
"Master, are you unable to accept that your son died in the northwest? Are you fantasizing too much and going crazy? You don't have a grandson, that's a granddaughter. When have you ever seen a woman become a chef?"
The more Ding Shengqiang thought about it, the more he felt that he was right. Yue Baohua must be crazy and talking nonsense.
"Then you wait."
Yue Baohua hadn't seen Ningning for more than ten days, and he was really going crazy thinking about her. Thinking that the child should have left Yuecheng by now and was on the way to Hong Kong City, and he would be able to see the child at noon, Yue Baohua showed a gentle smile on his face, and went in to prepare the chickens, ducks and geese first, because Ningning was going to treat friends to dinner in the evening.
Yue Baohua was concentrating on preparing the chickens, ducks and geese for roasting in the kitchen. Outside, Ding Shengqiang was talking to the neighbors who had gotten up early at the door about what Yue Baohua had just said.
"My master's brain is really wrong. He actually fantasizes that his granddaughter can be a chef. Not to mention that his granddaughter went to the northwest when she was five years old. She lost her father at the age of thirteen and had no one to teach her. Since ancient times, women have been around the stove at home. I have never seen a woman being the head chef in a big restaurant. Right? Just that iron pot, flipping the pot all day long, which woman has the physical strength to do that?" He saw Asong coming over, "Asong, you really need to take the master to have his brain checked. He may not be able to accept that his son is gone. Now he is fanciful and thinks that his shepherdess granddaughter from the northwest is a very talented chef."
Ah Song spends every day with his master, who is normal in other aspects, but when it comes to his granddaughter, he insists that she is a better chef than him. He and his two fellow apprentices have discussed this privately and feel that it is unrealistic.
He couldn't tell whether his master had lost his mind because of his thinking. He could only tell himself that his master's granddaughter was coming today and he would see what the situation was.
"Boss Ding, do you have nothing to do?" Asong pushed Ding Shengqiang away.
"Asong, why are you so distant with me? Sooner or later you will have to rely on me for a living." Ding Shengqiang said.
Ah Song sneered, "Don't worry, if that day comes, I will go to Shau Kei Wan to find a job in a factory, and I will never live under your thumb."
Asong walked into Baohualou, and the chef was already busy. Seeing him coming, the chef said to him, "Asong, help me brush the crispy water. I need it tonight. After I pick her up, the duck won't have time to dry."
Ah Song looked down at the crispy water that the master handed him. Why was it cloudy? Wasn't the crispy water they usually used always bright red and clear?
"This is Ningning's recipe. She once made crispy glutinous rice chicken in Yuecheng, and she used this crispy water. It is crispier than the crispy water we usually use." Yue Baohua said.
"Crispy glutinous rice chicken, the one that needs to be deboned?" Among the brothers, only the eldest and second brothers knew how to make this dish. For the others, it was already good enough if they could deboned one chicken successfully.
Yue Baohua smiled: "Yes, that's it. The technique I taught you may have some problems. Ningning is more adept at dismantling it. When she comes, let her tell you the tricks, but this still requires more practice. You just find it troublesome."
Ah Song chuckled and started to apply the crispy water. He asked, "Is Ningning's crispy glutinous rice chicken delicious?"
"It's delicious. Zhirong modified the crispy glutinous rice chicken based on the Huaiyang cuisine's eight-treasure gourd duck. The glutinous rice in their chicken's stomach is fried with broth, and the glutinous rice completely absorbs the flavor of the eight-treasure broth. We stir-fried the ingredients and mixed them into the cooked glutinous rice."
Ah Song's skill in removing chicken bones was not good, but the master never kept his secrets and taught him everything he needed to know. He knew the whole process very well. After the master explained it to him, he understood everything.
He said, "How did Ningning learn it?"
"I don't know. She's very skilled, better than me."
"Better than you?" Asong kept wondering in his heart. Sometimes he thought it was possible, but sometimes he thought it was impossible.
The master and his apprentice finished applying the crispy water, and the other two apprentices also came.
Today, Ningning went home, and Qiao Junxian and Cui Huiyi invited two tables of friends for her. She also said that Baohualou has been closed for so long, and although the wages are still paid, everyone must be worried. Taking this opportunity, she also invited everyone to have a meal together, firstly to let everyone see her cooking skills and calm people's hearts, and secondly to thank everyone for their support during these days.
Yes, Baohualou has not been open for business these days, but Shenghualou across the street is extremely popular. When they are short of people, they poach people from Baohualou. The three apprentices are still there, but the younger apprentices below are not so good, not to mention the waiters and handymen. People have resigned one after another and gone to work at Shenghualou. Now only two-thirds of the people in Baohualou are left, and several of them are waiting and watching.
Please have a good meal later and prepare for the busy days ahead.
Yue Baohua assigned the remaining work to his three apprentices and said, "I'm going to the port to pick up Ningning."
"Master, there's not much to do. I'll go with you!" Asong really wanted to meet the little girl who could make crispy glutinous rice chicken as soon as possible.
"Okay then, let's go!"
The master and his apprentice walked out of Baohua Building together. Shenghua Building was also about to open for business. Ding Shengqiang was not there, but the neighbors were talking about it. When Yue Baohua came out, someone asked, "Uncle Hua, where are you going?"
"Go pick up the child. He will arrive at the port at noon." Yue Baohua said excitedly.
Ding Shengqiang's words just now aroused the curiosity of the neighbors. They all wanted to see what Yue Baohua's granddaughter looked like.
Ah Song came along, so he drove the car. Yue Baohua hummed Cantonese opera, feeling very happy. It was an hour's drive, and the factory buildings and wasteland that were usually not worth seeing became scenery in his eyes.
After parking the car, Yue Baohua and Asong went to the border crossing to wait for Yue Ning. They arrived early, and the two smoked on the sidelines, watching batches of people passing through the border. Mainlanders and Hong Kong people can be distinguished at a glance, not to mention the way they dress, but also their temperament.
Seeing a girl who was wearing fancy clothes and heavy makeup but had a very rustic temperament coming over, Asong couldn't help but ask, "Master, what does Ningning look like?"
"A very pretty girl, tall and thin, with a very special temperament, not inferior to those female stars in our Hong Kong city. She looks a bit like Zhou Mingling." Yue Baohua said.
Now Ah Song started to wonder if his master was exaggerating. Who is Zhou Mingling? She was the winner of Miss Hong Kong's Most Photogenic Pageant five years ago. She is known for her tall, beautiful and heroic appearance. She became popular last year for playing a policewoman in a TV series. Is she really that beautiful? Is it possible?
At this time, another group of people came over, and Asong saw Yue Baohua carefully identifying them.
Ah Song didn't know her anyway, the master was looking for his granddaughter. He saw a pretty girl wearing sunglasses, she was taller than him, her skin was not as white as the female stars in Hong Kong. Ah Song had worked in the restaurant for so long, he had seen many young men and women who went abroad to study, they learned the ways of the foreign devils, they liked to tan, tanned their skin into wheat color, saying it was healthy beauty. Of course, the skin color of this pretty girl was not that dark, it was a light honey color, this kind of skin color had a different charm.
She is also dressed very uniquely, with a golden yellow short-sleeved top and black pants. The design of this dress is very unique and the texture is very good. It should be silk, right? Which family in Hong Kong is this lady from? This beauty took off her glasses, wow! Her eyes are so beautiful.
Wait, why is the pretty girl walking towards them? Why is the master coming to meet her?
Yue Ning pulled the suitcase and walked to Yue Baohua, smiling happily: "Grandpa!"
Yue Baohua looked at his granddaughter and was a little bit unrecognizable. Her skin was much whiter than before, and she had more flesh on her face and body, which made her look healthier and more well-proportioned. I knew she could dress up, but I didn't expect her to be so good at it. This dress was obviously made of old-fashioned crackle-patterned Xiangyun gauze, with a slanted collar, and it was golden color that most people could hardly control, but how come she looked so casual and elegant when she wore it?
Yue Ning turned around and showed it to Yue Baohua: "How is it? How is it? Grandpa Zhou has taken good care of me, right?"
"It's well taken care of. Really well taken care of." Yue Baohua couldn't stop smiling.
Grandpa just looked at her and didn't introduce her. Yue Ning could only speak for herself: "Let me guess, this should be Uncle Asong, right?"
When she called his name, Asong quickly responded, "Yes, yes, I'm Asong."
"Hello, uncle." Yue Ning said with a smile.
Asong took Yue Ning's suitcase. Yue Ning took his grandfather's arm and said, "Grandpa, let's go."
As they walked, she took credit for it to her grandfather: "Grandpa, I have been very good these days. I eat hard and listen to you and spend money hard. Didn't I call you and tell you that the silk fabrics at the Friendship Store are good and cheap? So I bought several pieces..."
Yue Ning was also idle, and with the foreign exchange Yue Baohua gave him, he went to the Friendship Store, which only accepted foreign exchange coupons. There were indeed many imported goods that were not available on the market, but these goods were very expensive, including brands that he was familiar with in his previous life. A T-shirt cost hundreds of yuan, and a bag of Hershey's chocolate cost dozens of yuan.
Until she saw Chinese porcelain and silk, it was like opening the door to a new world. In her previous life, she liked to wear new Chinese clothes. When she saw these silk fabrics with traditional patterns, fine weaving and solid materials, and the materials for making a set of clothes were less expensive than a bag of chocolates, how could she resist? She bought more than a dozen pieces of fabrics in a row.
After buying the fabric, she didn't want to wear cotton shirts anymore. But it was too much work to cut and sew by hand. She knew that there were no private tailor shops in that era, so she asked the brothers in the kitchen of Fuyun Building, who knew an old tailor? Unexpectedly, Uncle Abang's parents were a pair of old tailors in the tailor shop on their street, and they were also masters who could make cheongsams and suits.
It was a piece of cake for the master craftsman to make simple new Chinese style clothing for her.
She finally wore her own style of clothes again. Who could understand this feeling? She couldn't help but offer her treasure to her grandfather: "Grandpa, I also bought you the same material, and then we can wear parent-child clothes."
Thinking about himself, an old man, wearing the same clothes as his granddaughter, Yue Baohua wanted to refuse, but he also had some expectations in his heart. Finally, he said, "Okay."
Arriving at the parking lot, Asong put away his luggage and said to the grandparents who were talking, "Master, Ningning, you sit in the back so it's more convenient for us to talk."
"Thank you, Uncle Asong!"
After getting in the car, the two talked about what happened in the past few days. With Ah Song around, Yue Baohua couldn't say anything about him pretending to be sick or falling, so she could only listen to Yue Ning talking about Fuyun Building and the Zhou family. She said, "Qiao Junxian personally went to Yuecheng to give me the clearance documents. Do you know why he came in person?"
When Yue Baohua heard this, he wondered if this young master was too attentive. He asked, "Why?"
"He didn't get to eat chicken rice when he was in Beijing, and he kept thinking about it. That day, I made an appointment with Grandpa Zhou to eat clay pot rice with oysters and preserved meat, so I took him to Grandpa Zhou's house for dinner. As a result, he kept talking about chicken rice while eating the clay pot rice, which made Grandpa Zhou also want to eat chicken rice, and he insisted on having chicken rice in the evening. But I made rice noodles for them in the evening, so they kept thinking about it. Aunt Zhou said that she and her two brothers no longer live in Yuecheng, and Grandpa Zhou is old, so she hopes that Grandpa Zhou can come to Hongcheng to live with them. This is good, I finally attracted Grandpa Zhou with that bowl of chicken rice."
"You!" Yue Baohua rubbed his granddaughter's head lovingly.
At first, Asong thought that the master was crazy about having children, but now that he saw Yue Ning in person, he found that she was not only beautiful, but also had an extraordinary temperament. She looked like a rich girl, and had nothing to do with shepherdess. Listening to her conversation with Yue Baohua, it seemed that her cooking skills were so good that she could even make the second young master of the Qiao family come to Yuecheng. The master said that he would invite Ningning's friend to dinner tonight. Could it be this young master of the Qiao family?
"Master, you were busy inside today. Do you know what Ding Shengqiang said?" Asong couldn't help but ask.
Yue Baohua snorted and laughed: "What good words can he say."
"What did he say?" Yue Ning asked curiously.
Asong imitated Ding Shengqiang's tone and repeated his words questioning the suitability of a girl to be a chef.
After hearing this, Yue Ning said happily: "Oh, Uncle Qiang is really interesting. The days ahead will definitely not be boring."
Ningning called "Uncle Qiang" softly and affectionately, but Asong felt inexplicably uneasy.
Finally they arrived at the block where the restaurant was located. Asong parked the car in an open space outside the block, helped Yue Ning carry the suitcase, and the three of them walked into the street together.
Yue Ning looked at the tenement buildings on both sides of the street and the shops under the buildings. It felt both familiar and unfamiliar. This place was filled with the unique charm and bustling atmosphere of a port city.
The owner of a clothing store that puts up signs for clearance sales all year round, saw Yue Baohua passing by and immediately rushed out, loudly holding a megaphone in his hand, shouting, "Uncle Hua, is this your granddaughter?" The voice was deafening.
Yue Baohua was startled. Yue Ning looked at the uncle with a smile and waved his hand to say hello: "Hello!"
The uncle still held up the megaphone and shouted, "Uncle Hua, your granddaughter is so pretty!"
The weather was already hot, and beads of sweat instantly appeared on Yue Baohua's forehead. The shop owners and shop assistants on both sides of the street all ran out and looked in their direction.
Yue Ning smiled and greeted the people on both sides. An old man with poor eyesight, afraid that he could not see clearly, ran to her wearing reading glasses to look carefully, and Yue Ning stopped to let the old man see enough.
Yue Baohua introduced: "Ningning, this is Chang Bo from Yongxingji."
Yue Ning bowed slightly and said politely, "Hello, Uncle Chang!"
After Chang Bo looked at Yue Ning up close, the others gathered around. Chang Bo asked, "Baohua, did you bring your granddaughter back from the mainland or from abroad?"
"Ningning, put on your sunglasses so everyone can see." Asong said to Yue Ning.
Yue Ning followed Asong's advice and put on sunglasses. Everyone couldn't help but take a deep breath. Yue Baohua said that his granddaughter looked like Zhou Mingling. Asong said, "When I first saw her, I had the same idea as Chang Bo, but I saw her walk out of the port with my own eyes."
“It’s so beautiful.”
"Uncle Hua said his granddaughter was pretty, but I didn't expect her to be so pretty."
“…”
The owner of the clothing store was still shouting with a loud speaker: "Those who haven't seen Uncle Hua's granddaughter, come quickly!"
This shout called out Sister Hua from Baohua Building and also called over Ding Shengqiang.
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