Chapter 26 Gossip and Clues
Jiangyou didn't expect that the best-selling product today was winter melon tea.
The weather today was extremely hot. After ten o'clock, the scorching sun made everything scorching hot. Even under the outdoor parasols, it was extremely hot, so all the customers moved into the cooler shop.
Jiangyou cast a cooling spell in the store. Although it was not as good as modern air conditioning, it could at least create a cool breeze, which was better than nothing.
The ice-cold beer was a great way to cool down, and the gelato they'd made was sold out. Jiangyou made another batch of vanilla ice cream and placed an additional order for cocoa from Holly.
However, ice cream has always been a luxury for the rich, nobles and dragons. Guests with slightly lower economic conditions still prefer the cool and sweet winter melon tea.
Whether it was customers coming into the store or customers ordering takeout, they all bought both the tea to drink and to be taken away. Jiangyou prepared five large buckets of tea, all of which were sold out.
Customers who ordered takeout had the ravens bring cowhide or sheepskin water bags, buying them bag after bag without hesitation. Jiangyou sold them at 10 nickels per liter. The profit margin was low, but sales were high. When the weather got hot, people sometimes couldn't eat, but they could drink sweet, cold drinks one after another.
"We need to buy a few more winter melons tomorrow." Jiangyou muttered and sent a new message to Holly in the contact book.
Xiaolong Leodore appeared leisurely after the lunch rush hour. As soon as he entered the store, he brought a cool breeze, which immediately attracted a wave of passers-by who were suffering from the heat.
"What do we have to eat today?" Xiaolong asked with great interest.
"Here's your favorite thick toast with ice cream," Takumi said, bringing out a portion. "There's more if you want some!"
"Great!" Leodo was very satisfied. "Give me as much as you can. I can eat as much as you want."
"Only three servings," Jiang You said with a smile. "Today's hot-selling dishes are the steamed spare ribs with fermented black beans and the braised chicken with scallion oil. They're also super delicious!"
"That's fine." The foodie dragon was very easy to talk to. "That's all I need!"
Xiaolong happily ate the thick toast with ice cream, while Jiangyou rolled the extra small pieces of bread in the seasoning and baked them in the oven again until they were crispy and hard. Then she weighed the small pieces of bread and wrapped them tightly with wax paper. Finally, she cast a drying magic that she learned from "The 100 Most Commonly Used Household Magic".
This kind of magic itself uses wind magic elements to promote the drying of the environment and objects. It was originally used for household dehumidification and mildew prevention and for making dried fruits and vegetables. Jiangyou thinks it is also very practical to use it to keep bread crackers and potato chips crispy.
Today, the customers were all in the shop enjoying the cool breeze. Many of them noticed the new boards on the wall. They also didn't miss Jiang You restocking the strange box. A group of customers gathered in front of the box, peeking in, "What is this thing for?"
"Vending machine, I'll use this box to sell some snacks from now on," Jiang You locked the restocked box and smiled as he pulled out a nickel. "Currently, we're selling barbecue croutons. A 30g bag for only one nickel."
"You can insert a nickel into the coin slot on the left, and a bag of croutons will come out of the delivery slot on the right. When all the goods are sold out, the mechanism inside the vending machine will automatically activate, and the coin slot will be blocked by a baffle with the words "Sold Out" written on it."
"What about the box in the middle?" someone asked.
"This is for collecting clues~" Jiang You pointed to the task board: "This is a task issued by the vice-captain of the Kingdom Knights. Anyone who knows the inside story can write down the clues anonymously and put them in the box. If they are really helpful to the case, the person who provided the clues will be rewarded later!
"To ensure you receive your prize, please give yourself an uncommon pseudonym and write down a secret code that no one else knows. If this information is known to others, the prize may be claimed by someone else."
"Hiss! Be careful then!"
"A coupon for three limited-edition dishes? What can I redeem?"
Someone pointed at the ice cream toast that Xiaolong was devouring and said, "That's okay too?"
"Can the expensive dishes eaten by noble gentlemen be used as well?"
"Then I want to eat food worth five gold coins!"
"Sure! We can do whatever you say! Some dishes require advance reservations. If you actually get the reward coupons, it's best to tell me a day in advance which limited-edition dish you'd like to eat the next day." Jiang You said, "But instead of thinking about which dish you'd like to eat, why not think about what clues you can provide? After all, the prerequisite for getting the reward is that the robbers are arrested~"
Jiang You thought for a moment and then warned, "By the way, if you want to buy something, don't put the money in the wrong slot. If you put the money in the clue box, you can only get it out after the Knight comes back. I don't have the key to this box."
However, the guests who became excited in an instant didn't know whether they heard her instructions or not. They seemed to have immediately turned on the gossip mode, gathered together and chattered to each other, asking questions and whispering about the legends of the robbers.
Takumi wandered around the shop with great interest, listening in, and discovered that the locals all had a wealth of stories to tell. However, she couldn't tell which were useful intel and which were just fabricated ghost stories.
The only thing people knew for sure was that the robbers had suddenly appeared about three months ago. As for the number of robbers, people had different accounts: some said there was only one, others said it was a whole team, and the most outrageous claim was 300 burly men...
Jiangyou tactfully expressed to the guest his doubts about how three hundred burly men could sneak into the city, walk on the streets at night without attracting the attention of the surrounding residents, suddenly appear and disappear, and quietly rob the nobles, but the storyteller was obviously convinced of his own story.
Jiangyou cleared the empty plates and went back into the kitchen. When she emerged, she heard that the number of "three hundred" had, in the short span of time, multiplied by word of mouth to "eight hundred." She took a deep breath, instantly understanding the difficulty of Andre's work.
We really can't blame the Kingdom Knights for not working hard this time. It's just that the witnesses' testimonies were a bit too outrageous.
However, while the guests were gossiping animatedly, Jiang You also noticed that someone quietly took out a pen and paper, wrote furiously for a while, folded the paper into a small and thin piece, and then pretended to be nonchalant as he walked to the vending machine and bought a bag of croutons.
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