At three o'clock, when it was time for the workers to start their shift, the canteen could finally close up shop.
"No one's coming, close up and pack up." The woman serving the dishes peeked outside and saw no one.
Whew~
The three people in the kitchen breathed a sigh of relief.
"We finally got through it. You're really amazing, Sister Wang. You knew in advance that the investigators would be coming and made thorough preparations."
"It was a bit rushed. I heard there will be three inspections. Let's be more careful from now on." Sister Wang was clearing away the plates in front of the table when she suddenly praised, "Qiangzi, you did a great job today. It's all thanks to the help of your...friends that we were able to prepare the dishes. Find some time to go out for a meal or karaoke with them these days to thank them."
"Okay, sis, can I get reimbursed?" Wang Qiang immediately stopped playing the game upon hearing this.
"Sure, I'll reimburse you for everything, but you can't spend it recklessly."
Okay.
After receiving permission, Wang Qiang patted his behind and went out in a nonchalant manner.
Sister Wang looked at Wang Qiang's retreating figure with some emotion. This kid has finally settled down and started doing something serious, instead of fooling around like before.
Looking away from her work, Sister Wang couldn't help but feel a little uneasy.
Yesterday the workers gathered and made a fuss, and I was planning to just deal with it today and get by.
Unexpectedly, I received a call from the site's logistics supervisor at nine o'clock this morning, saying that someone would be coming to inspect the quality of the canteen food today.
In a rush, they had to ask Qiangzi's cronies for help to quickly gather the ingredients and prepare them before mealtime.
However, because I was too busy, I didn't have time to calculate the costs.
But with two such large meat dishes today, it's definitely over the limit; this meal is a losing proposition.
At four o'clock the next morning, Xu An woke up precisely one second before the alarm clock rang, rode his bicycle to the town's wholesale market to pick up the meat he had ordered the day before, and the round trip took one hour and twenty minutes.
I can bring the freezer home this afternoon, so I won't have to spend more than an hour running to the wholesale market every morning to pick up meat anymore.
Every afternoon after closing up shop, I would stop by the market to buy meat. The price of meat was 50 cents cheaper per pound in the afternoon, and the 50 cents saved was pure profit.
Sixty boxed meals are only ten more than fifty, but the workload has doubled.
When we had fifty boxed meals, our family's heirloom iron pot could barely handle one batch. But after adding ten more, it couldn't fit in one pot anymore, so we had to cook two separate batches.
However, cooking them separately in two pots allows the ingredients to absorb more flavor, which can be considered a minor advantage.
As of today, Xu An and Xu Heping have been setting up their stall at the Zijing Garden construction site for nine days. They are very familiar with the situation here and have even gained some regular customers.
Therefore, Xu An confidently handed over the boxed meal business to Xu Heping and went to the Shanghai Library construction site to expand sales.
Although this construction site is not very large, there are two smaller construction sites nearby, and the total number of workers on the three sites is more than 300.
If that doesn't work, there's another construction site a little further away with more than two hundred people.
Xu An refused to believe that these four construction sites couldn't even handle thirty boxed meals.
Because Xu An and Xu Heping were going about their business separately today, and it wasn't convenient to bring Xu Kang and Xu Le along, the two started to quarrel.
Finally, after Xu An promised to bring them candied hawthorns and super cool stickers, the two obediently stayed home with their grandmother.
I left 15 minutes earlier than usual today and arrived at the entrance of the Zijing Garden construction site at 10:30.
The fried noodle stall was already set up, and today it was placed obediently to the side, without taking up Xu An's and his group's spot.
Seeing that the two even greeted each other, it's likely that they had asked around after going back yesterday and found out that they really did have temporary stall permits, so they didn't dare to cause any trouble.
Xu An unloaded two styrofoam boxes full of boxed meals, a bucket of soup, and a large bag of disposable supplies from the tricycle.
Turn the two baskets upside down on the ground, place a wooden board on top, and put a whiteboard with today's dishes written on it. The stall is now set up.
Xu An left the bicycle with Xu Heping and rode it to another construction site.
It took twenty minutes to arrive, at 11:10.
The construction site of the Shanghai Library.
The library is not located in the city center, but it is in an emerging development area. In five years, most of the residential buildings here will be demolished and replaced with office buildings, making it Haishi's new CBD by 2020.
Unauthorized construction or alteration of houses is now prohibited here, and even installing an awning requires a series of very complicated procedures.
Since 2016, people in Xujia Village have been required to submit an approval report if they want to build or renovate houses.
Rumors of demolition and redevelopment of the Xujia Village area began in 2016, but as of 2027, the rumors remained just that—rumors—and Xu An failed to become a "demolition beneficiary."
The construction site is next to a residential area with many restaurants and roadside stalls.
There were seven or eight stalls set up at the entrance of the construction site, offering a wide variety of food, including fried noodles and rice, sweet soup, spicy hot pot, hand-pulled pancakes, and roujiamo (Chinese hamburger).
Xu An found an empty spot to park his tricycle, handed out cigarettes to each of the stall owners, and said a few kind words to them.
There were two or three workers standing in front of each stall. When the stall owners saw that Xu An was selling boxed lunches and had no direct competition with them, they took the cigarettes and continued working, ignoring Xu An.
The whiteboard with today's meals written on it, which Xu An had just put up, immediately attracted the attention of the few people who came out of the construction site.
The 8-yuan boxed lunch includes braised pork belly with preserved mustard greens, stir-fried tofu skin, garlic-flavored bok choy, and lotus root and pork bone soup.
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