Chapter 208 Not Returning to Taiwan
Chen Dexiang is old, so he took a flight here early in the morning. After lunch, his young wife took him out to the mall.
The fourth wife's eyes lit up as she entered the shopping mall. Chen Dexiang really didn't understand what was so exciting about a scarf and a handbag that made her so excited.
He was old, and felt dizzy in such a noisy scene.
He walked to the counter and asked Mrs. Four, "Have you finished your shopping?"
"There are so many counters. I have to go through them one by one. You know what? The things here are so cheap. I can buy at least two or three items here for every one I buy in Taipei." The fourth wife said excitedly, "I also have to buy something for Yulian. You yourself said that Yulian is a great contributor to our family. She gave birth to three grandchildren in a row."
"She can come by herself next time," said Chen Dexiang.
"My parents-in-law buy it for me. It's the love that the elders show to the younger generation."
"Okay! I'm tired, I'm going to take a rest." Chen Dexiang raised his hand and glanced at his watch helplessly, "We must leave at 4:30, Wu Zhihai will pick us up at 5 o'clock."
"Okay! Okay! I got it." The fourth wife continued to buy goods.
"Then I'll come here again later."
"good."
Chen Dexiang wanted to find a place to sit down, so he walked around and came to the entrance of Ning Xiaochu Noodle House. It was already past three o'clock, why were there so many people? This actually piqued his interest.
As soon as he walked into the noodle shop, a waiter bowed and said, "Welcome."
In the restaurant, Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese were intertwined. He looked at the menu, and the waiter came up to introduce: "Old man, do you want a meal or a drink?"
"I'll just take a look." Chen Dexiang saw the brochure on the counter and asked, "Can I have a copy?"
"sure."
He took a flyer and found a seat to sit down. As he got older, he got tired easily after standing for a long time. Since he was already here, he should buy something, otherwise it would be inappropriate to occupy someone else's seat. He was looking at the flyer, thinking about what drink to order.
"Old man, here's a cup of barley tea for you." The waiter brought him a cup of barley tea.
"I haven't ordered a drink yet."
"This is free. Customers can come here to rest after shopping. You don't have to order." The waiter smiled and pointed to the newspaper rack in the corner. "We also have the newspaper of the day and the discount brochures of the mall. If you are interested, you can take a look."
"Okay." Chen Dexiang then realized that there were many men in the store who were like him, with a cup of barley tea in front of them, drinking tea and reading newspapers.
He took a sip of the barley tea and it tasted really good.
He took a newspaper of the day. The newspaper in Hong Kong reported the love affair of the British prince in great detail. Turning over it was a photo of Yue Ning. The article said that she took the HKCEE yesterday. When she came out of the English language test, the reporter interviewed her. She said that the English practice this year was not in vain and she felt pretty good. The reporter also interviewed other candidates, and they all said that English was difficult this year.
After finishing the tea, someone came to refill the cup, and soothing music echoed in my ears. It seemed like two different worlds from the hustle and bustle outside.
More than an hour passed quickly, and he suddenly heard the music change to a cheerful sound. Looking up, he saw the store employees queuing up. It turned out that they were preparing for the dinner market.
The time was almost up, and Chen Dexiang walked to the door. The waiter at the door bowed and said, "Have a nice trip."
He didn't buy anything and just had a cup of tea for free, but he was still treated so politely.
Just now at Ningyan, he thought that it was natural for such an expensive restaurant to have such good service. But this is just a noodle restaurant, and the price of the set meal is less than ten Hong Kong dollars. How do they provide such service?
Chen Dexiang walked to the agreed place and looked at his watch anxiously. It was already a quarter past four, but there was no sign of the fourth wife. She was so drunk with shopping!
At 4:57, the fourth wife came over panting with bags and bags. Chen Dexiang looked unhappy: "Do you know what time it is now?"
The fourth wife complained, "I need to try on clothes and pay the bill. Who told you not to be with me? I can only run to the cashier by myself, back and forth, it's so inconvenient!"
Chen Dexiang was too lazy to argue with her and said, "Go back quickly."
"Help me get it." The fourth wife said in a soft voice.
Chen Dexiang took the bag and asked, "How could she buy so many things?"
"How much did it cost? Did you spend all the 30,000 Hong Kong dollars I gave you?"
“…”
Seeing his concubine remained silent, Chen Dexiang walked forward with a sullen face: "Why don't you hurry up?"
When they walked into the hotel, they saw Chen Jinying and Wu Zhihai already waiting in the lounge area.
Chen Jinying saw them, walked over, and looked at the bags in their hands: "Fourth Aunt, you bought a lot on the first day!"
"I also bought some for your father and Jinlong." The fourth wife said quickly.
Chen Jinying looked at Chen Dexiang thoughtfully and nodded: "Oh!"
Chen Dexiang felt inexplicably uncomfortable when she looked at him, and said, "Let's go upstairs and put our things down first, and come down right away."
When he got upstairs, he got angry at the fourth wife: "I told you not to come with me, but you insisted on coming. And you came and you are still so ignorant, buying this and that."
"What's wrong with me buying some things? And I always buy things on sale. I usually have to socialize with those ladies..." The fourth wife burst into tears, "Isn't it because your daughter saw me spending your money? You are so afraid of her. Last year I bought a ruby necklace, and your daughter was unhappy at the dinner table. You said I was a spendthrift."
At that time, the second child was already terminally ill and the doctors said there was no hope for him. His daughter begged him to spend more money on treatment, but he told her not to waste the money and to consider whether it was worthwhile to treat him so desperately.
While the father and daughter were arguing about this matter, this ignorant woman actually bought a necklace and showed off in front of those ladies.
His daughter found him and asked him why he had money to buy a necklace for his second wife but no money to treat his second wife's illness? He could only take out money to continue treating his second wife's illness.
He asked his concubine to be more sensible, but she started to quarrel with him instead, saying that why was it allowed to spend money on the second son's medical treatment but not hers? She was really unreasonable.
"You can cry if you want to. You like it here anyway. I'm going to do my business."
"I'll go too." The fourth wife couldn't let the old man and Chen Jinying go to Baohua Building alone. When they came out, her son told her to keep a close eye on the old man. She couldn't let the father and daughter go to Baohua Building privately.
"Then go wash your face and go quickly."
Chen Dexiang knew that this was his son's little trick, but what could he do? He was old, and after his death he would have to rely on his son to offer incense.
He waited for more than 40 minutes. When he went downstairs to meet his daughter and Wu Zhihai, it was almost six o'clock in the evening, the rush hour after get off work, and the traffic jam in the undersea tunnel lasted for nearly 40 minutes.
It was almost seven o'clock when the group arrived at Baohua Building. The chairs in front of the Baohua Building were already full of people.
When the manager on duty saw them coming, he quickly walked up to Wu Zhihai and said, "Azhi, can you wait a moment? You made an appointment for 5:30, and by 6:30 you guys hadn't arrived yet, so I reallocated the seats. I'll make it for you right away."
Wu Zhihai turned around and said, "Master, we are late. According to the regulations, the seats will be reallocated in less than half an hour. Let's wait."
"Aren't you the chef of Baohualou? You don't even have a seat?" The fourth wife looked at Chen Jinying, "If we have a reservation in our restaurant, we shouldn't give the seat to someone else before the customer arrives, right?"
Chen Jinying said calmly: "Business in our store is not that good. It is not uncommon for customers to arrive an hour and a half late after making reservations."
Chen Jinying said to the manager on duty: "We will wait patiently."
"Thank you for your understanding."
Of course, they wouldn't be made to wait too long. Ten minutes later, the manager on duty personally led them in and went up to a small compartment on the second floor that could seat eight people.
"Azhi, the dishes will be served as you ordered before. If you have any other needs, please tell Xiaowen." The manager on duty brought the waiter to talk to Wu Zhihai.
"Sister Fen, thank you for your help. Please go and get busy!" said Wu Zhihai.
Wu Zhihai ordered drinks. Baohualou was different from Ningyan. The turnover rate was very fast. As soon as the guests sat down, the cold dishes and roast meat were served.
Chen Jinying looked at a plate of osmanthus flowers arranged to look like a string of copper coins and decorated with carved flowers, and asked, "Isn't it said that Baohualou focuses on value for money? Why is the cold dish presentation so exquisite?"
"Apprentices use this to practice. In Baohualou, it doesn't matter if your skills are a little rough. Once you pass the test, you can go to Ningyan to cook." Wu Zhihai said, "Among the chefs in Baohualou, Ningning is the best at dish decoration. She has a solid foundation in painting. The second one is my master Axing. I have learned a lot from him these days."
The waiter brought the wine, Wu Zhihai opened the bottle cap, stood up and poured the wine: "Boss Chen, Master, you have never tried Yubingshao, right? This is a wine brewed with fat pork, and it is rarely seen outside of Guangdong Province."
After pouring wine for the father and daughter, he poured the Imperata root water for the fourth wife: "Fourth wife, the bamboo sugarcane, water chestnut and Imperata root water tastes very good, you will like it."
Chen Dexiang took a sip of Yubingshao. This wine has a unique aroma, a mellow and sweet taste, and is sweet and full-bodied.
The fish soup was served as the first soup, and this dish was made by Ma Yaoxing. Ma Yaoxing is talented, hardworking and studious, so his cooking skills are naturally impeccable.
The braised green fish head we had for lunch was added with abalone sauce, which was rich and sticky; the fish soup was fresh, fragrant and smooth. Both are delicious dishes that you will linger on after eating them once and want to have them again.
The door was pushed open, and a familiar aroma wafted in. Chen Dexiang turned around and saw a steaming stir-fried dish and a spring pancake being served.
In the steaming heat, the spicy aroma of leeks, the freshness of bean sprouts, and the mellowness of soy sauce are intertwined together.
The waiter said, "This is spring pancakes made by Chef Fan from Beijing, and stir-fried dishes made by Chef He."
Chen Dexiang couldn't wait to lift up a thin spring pancake, pick up a piece of stir-fried vegetables with chopsticks and roll it into the pancake, and take a bite. Wrapped in the flexible pancake skin, the bean sprouts are still crisp, the chives still retain their spicy sweetness, the vermicelli is full of sauce but dry and not greasy, the shredded meat is smooth and tender, and the whole dish still has that slightly burnt and smoky aroma.
He was born in Jiaodong. Almost every household in the village had someone who went to Beijing to make a living. He was the same. At the age of twelve, he followed his uncles from the same village to Beijing to be an apprentice.
He has spent most of his life in Beijing, and what he is most familiar with is the smell of Beijing's hutongs.
This dish, stir-fried mixed vegetables, was not on the menu of their restaurant, and he himself had not thought of making it. But when he took a bite, it was so familiar that his nose was sore, as if he had returned to the days of making a living in Beijing.
"The cooking temperature is so good, the aroma is so fragrant. Now I understand why the fried fish maw with osmanthus flowers that day amazed the guests." Chen Jinying sighed, "They really have a lot to learn from them."
When the fourth wife, who was having lunch, heard this, she remembered that during lunch and even on the way back, the father and daughter had been discussing what they saw at Ning Yan.
My son always said that he was just a puppet pushed to the front in the store and had no say in the kitchen at all.
The things I bought just now were not that much, and besides, I didn't buy them just for myself. How much money had I spent on the woman's medical treatment in the past few years? Whenever the old man's daughter made a fuss, he would always pay the money obediently.
And that day during the satellite live broadcast, which was such an important moment, Chen Jinying ran away, and the old man only said a few words, but in the end, didn't he still hold a grand funeral for that woman?
She sneered, "De Xiang Hotel is also a famous hotel in Taipei. I don't understand, Jinying, why you come here and keep praising them, as if we are nothing."
The door was pushed open again, and this time the waiter brought crispy glutinous rice chicken to the table.
After the waiter left, Chen Jinying smiled faintly: "If you don't understand, you can ask my dad, ask Jinlong, how many people in the entire Dexiang kitchen can make a bag chicken? Jinlong has learned it for so many years, how is it doing? Look here, there are people in Ningyan who can disassemble a 36-day-old pigeon, the crispy glutinous rice chicken on the table, and the Qiankun roast goose during the satellite broadcast."
Wu Zhihai added: "We also have three sets of ducks, domestic ducks, wild ducks and squabs, one layer after another. All chefs who make the list must have good cooking skills."
When the fourth wife, who was already feeling aggrieved, heard Chen Jinying say that her son was not good at cooking this dish, she immediately became furious. What did Wu Zhihai mean by saying this?
She had endured it for so many years and didn't want to endure it anymore. She slammed the table and yelled, "If you despise Dexiang so much, why are you still staying in Dexiang? Don't you despise your father for giving you a low salary? The salary here is high, why don't you come? They want you to be their apprentice, how can they not want you?"
"What nonsense are you talking about?" Chen Dexiang grabbed his concubine.
The fourth wife was not willing to listen at this time, and she poured out her thoughts that had been suppressed for so long: "Why am I talking nonsense? We have had enough of mother and son for so many years. This time I brought your father to Hong Kong City and showed him here. He said that the restaurant at home needs to be changed here and there. Your father is so old, how can he have the energy to do these things? You will cover up everything when you go back? You failed to take Xiaohao away, so you use this trick, right? Let me tell you, it is wishful thinking for a daughter to covet her mother's family's property."
Chen Jinying nodded: "Okay! As you and your son wish, I will not return to Taiwan, but stay in Hong Kong."
Chen Dexiang roared in a low voice: "Jinying!"
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