Chapter 86 Ma's Restaurant
"Have you heard? Xia Wu caught a snake with his bare hands in the mountains. It was over three meters long!"
"Oh my god, she's so brave? Most people would be scared to death when they see a snake, but she dares to catch one?"
"She's not afraid of snakes. Do you know why?"
"Why?"
"Because that snake is the guardian of the Mother Goddess, and it recognizes Xia Wu as its master!"
"Why did you recognize her as your master?"
"I heard that it's because she can make money and can also help everyone in our village make money, so the Mother Goddess appeared and sent her a guardian."
"That's pure nonsense. If the Mother Goddess will bless anyone who can make money, then why isn't that person in our village blessed? His family is ruined!"
The guy they were talking about was the first millionaire in the village. He made a lot of money by doing business in his early years. When he returned to the village, he built the most luxurious house in the village and changed wives several times. Later, he lost all his money gambling, his wife ran away, and his son and daughter were unwilling to come back. The old gambler owed a lot of debts, and when people were chasing him for debts, he fell into the river and died.
In the past, he was the richest man in the village, but the Mother Goddess never blessed him.
"How can they be the same? One makes money but doesn't use it properly. He changes wives one after another, gambles, and doesn't even raise his own children. The Mother Goddess won't bless such a person. But Xia Wu actually does good things. Haven't you seen the village secretary often help her? Why does he help her? Because she generates income for our village. The elderly in the village go to her for meals, and the children go to her after school. In the past, they would all be kind-hearted people. So, isn't it obvious who the Mother Goddess would help?"
The villagers spread more and more stories, and in short, they all believed that there was something behind Xia Wu's hill.
Yantou Mountain has been booked by someone before. Wang Meng almost lost all his pants and had to terminate the contract to go out to work. Why can Xia Wu make money?
In addition to her quick mind, the villagers unanimously agreed that the vegetables and fruits grown by Xia Wu were also delicious. They had all eaten the vegetables grown by Xia Wu on the mountain, and they were indeed more delicious than those they grew.
They hadn’t thought much about it before, always thinking it might be an illusion. But now that the snake spirit has appeared, everyone in the village thinks it’s the Mother Goddess appearing.
The villagers don't have much entertainment, so they talk about all sorts of random things after dinner, but no one takes them seriously.
However, some people believe that this is the fact, and the things from Xiawu Mountain are just good.
Ma Xueqing wandered around the mountain for a while, waiting for Xia Wu to come down. He saw a vegetable garden halfway up the mountain and went in. There were more than ten acres of vegetable gardens planted with a wide variety of vegetables: cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, eggplants, beans, kidney beans...
And they are growing well.
He also saw the loofah that Chef Zhang wanted to buy. It was really good. After just one look, Ma Xueqing thought of what dishes he could make with the loofah.
The temperature has risen in the past few days and the loofahs are growing fast. Ma Xueqing sees quite a few loofahs hanging on the vines.
Just as he was wondering how Xia Wu could ask for groceries, he saw a bucket truck approaching on the mountain road. Who else could it be but Xia Wu?
Ma Xueqing hurried to the side of the road and waved, "Little girl, little girl, stop!"
Xia Wu stepped on the brakes and the car stopped right in front of Ma Xueqing: "Mr. Ma, are you still thinking of buying snakes? They're gone. I'll let them go."
"No, why would I keep thinking about buying it? Look, the loofahs in your garden are almost old. I came all the way here, I can't go back empty-handed. Can you sell me some?"
Xia Wu didn't doubt it and readily agreed: "Okay, as long as you don't buy snakes, I have other things on the mountain, you can tell me."
Ma Xueqing smiled and said, "Then I'll tell you, first you have to give me a hundred kilograms of loofah."
Xia Wu: “???”
The old man came to her to buy goods!
"How much? A hundred pounds? What do you need so much for? Besides, you can't take it with you. It's so heavy."
"Hey, don't worry about it. I have a way to take them away. At worst, I can just hire a car. You just promised me that it would be easy. Give me another 30 kilograms of leeks and green beans..."
Xia Wu was so confused by what she heard that Ma Xueqing came to Khan to recruit soldiers and asked for all the similar vegetables growing in her garden.
Not only that, Ma Xueqing acted like a weasel and asked Xia Wu, "By the way, have those chickens you raised grown up yet? Are you going to sell them when the time comes?"
Xia Wu was really at a loss for words. "It's still too early. We have to raise them for at least a year or two before we can eat meat. Forget it. Call a taxi and I'll find someone to pick the vegetables for you. Let's make it clear first: I won't give you a bargain. You can pay whatever price I give Chef Zhang. We're all acquaintances, so we can't neglect one for the other."
"I understand, I understand. I understand everything, Xiao Wu, right? I hear everyone calls you that, but can I really call you that? You know, I opened a restaurant, but I don't expect to make a lot of money. They're all long-time customers, so I just want to find some good dishes and not let them down. Thank you so much!"
This is serious.
Xia Wu waved her hand, telling Ma Xueqing not to be so polite.
She grows so many vegetables that she can't eat them all herself. Even if those city people come to experience picking, how much can they pick at one time?
People always have to be sold, no matter who they are sold to.
There are all kinds of vegetables grown in the vegetable garden. Xia Wu wants to fill all the netizen's vegetable baskets.
However, vegetables such as loofah and cucumber are impossible to pick and eat once they reach maturity. If you wait for a while, the originally delicious vegetables will become old.
Xia Wu made a phone call, and soon Shi Hongniang came with Qiu Lan, Wang Minping and others. The women were very skillful and used scissors to cut the grown loofahs.
Put it in a big bamboo basket first, and then ask Xia Wu to pull it back to the courtyard by the well to weigh it.
A pound of loofah costs three yuan, and a hundred pounds only costs three hundred yuan. The vegetables cannot be sold at a good price.
I bought five or six baskets of vegetables, weighed them when I got home, and calculated the total price, which was just over a thousand yuan.
While Xia Wu and the others were picking vegetables, Ma Xueqing called someone. When the vegetables were picked, the car to pick Ma Xueqing arrived at the foot of the mountain.
Ma Xueqing didn't waste any time and went straight home with the purchased vegetables.
To get back to the city where Ma Xueqing is from Donghua Town, even if you take a ride, it would cost three or four hundred yuan, which is almost as much as the price of vegetables.
Shi Hongniang couldn't understand why these city people were so restless. She sighed and said to Xia Wu, "I heard from the people in Haotang Village that there are quite a lot of young people going there. They've been making a lot of money these days."
There are many mountains in Yanggou Village and there is much water in Haotang Village. You can have enough fun in their villages in one day. Those who come to play should have gone back, but now they turn to Haotang. The longer they stay, the more places they have to spend money, and both villages make money.
Xia Wu smiled and thought that this was just the beginning.
If the villagers knew that she used to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a single dish at a random restaurant, they would probably find it unbelievable.
After six hours on the highway, Ma Xueqing finally returned to his restaurant. His butt was numb from sitting in the car, and he got out of the car and limped into the restaurant with a stiff leg.
There were no customers in the store, the windows were clean and bright, and only the young apprentice was sitting at the front desk playing with his phone and scrolling through Kuaishou.
Ma Xueqing coughed, "Where are they?"
"Master! You're back? The brothers are all upstairs. Do you want me to call them?"
"Hurry up and call them down to move the dishes!" Ma Xueqing said angrily, "You guys are really born in a good era. When I was learning cooking, if you dared to be so lazy, you would have been expelled from the school and would not be wanted by the master."
His young apprentice Xiaoxi chuckled, "Master, the brothers didn't slack off. There were so many guests today that the spatulas in the kitchen were practically smoking. Several of our regular customers only wanted to eat your cooking. When they heard you were out, they reluctantly agreed to try what the brothers cooked, and in the end they were quite satisfied."
"Which old customers?"
"Just Lao Zhou and the others."
Ma Xueqing frowned when he heard Lao Zhou, "Lao Zhou ate the dishes made by your senior brother, is that a deal?"
"No, but he finished all the food. Isn't that satisfactory?"
While the master and his apprentice were talking, three more people came down from upstairs. Ma Xueqing had four apprentices in total. The eldest apprentice, Zhao Hui, started learning cooking from him when she was seventeen years old. After so many years, she is still with him. She is in her early forties this year and has not yet gone out to start her own business.
"Master, what were you doing in Tong City? Why did you come back just now?"
"Don't ask so many questions. The car is at the door. Unload the food carefully," Ma Xueqing asked a few older people to help him and continued the previous topic. "When has Lao Zhou ever come here and not finished eating all the food?"
"That's different. Master, your cooking is delicious, Lao Zhou will definitely finish it, but this is the first time that Senior Brother has made it for him..."
"Bullshit!" Ma Xueqing said angrily, "Old Zhou has lived a hard life and is terrified of hunger. He cherishes food the most in his life. He would pick up even a grain of rice that falls on the ground and eat it. Even if your senior brother cooks something terrible, he will finish it!"
Zhao Hui came down carrying a basket of loofahs, her eyes brightening. "Master, where did you buy such good loofahs?"
"Yes, this loofah is good at first glance. It will definitely taste good when stir-fried. And these leeks, Chef, shall we make leek pancakes tonight?"
Ma Xueqing ignored the noisy apprentices and went to the front desk drawer to take out a thick stack of account books. He flipped through them and finally found a mobile phone number. Without hesitation, he called it.
"Hello? Is this Lao Zhou? I'm Lao Ma. You came to eat today, but I wasn't in the restaurant. How was the food? Did you like it?"
"Oh, don't I know you? It's my fault too. I've only accepted a few apprentices in my lifetime. I'm almost dead, and I haven't even taught my apprentices to become masters. How about this, are you free tonight? I bought some delicious food, come over and I'll cook for you."
"We've known each other for years. Why are you asking me for trouble? Come on, I'll save a seat for you. That's a deal."
After Ma Xueqing hung up the phone, the apprentice was puzzled: "Master, is it necessary?"
Ma Xueqing said angrily, "I've known him for fifty years, and you know nothing. Old Zhou has made great contributions. He's suffered a lot in his life. I've known him since I was twenty. He has no other hobbies but to eat. I've said before that if he changed his profession, he would at least be a food connoisseur."
"Okay, stop talking. Go and move the food. I'll cook tonight myself so you don't ruin the food."
Just after four in the afternoon, a large iron bucket sat on a table at the entrance of Ma's Restaurant, with a small blackboard beside it reading: "Pea and lean meat porridge, five yuan a bowl."
The lid of the pot was half opened to let out the heat, and the rich aroma of porridge spread all around.
The aroma of porridge is just an appetizer. Next, the aroma of chive pancakes and fried loofah with eggs wafts from the kitchen hood of Ma's Restaurant...
Most of them are recognizable home-cooked dishes, but the ones made at Ma’s Restaurant are more delicious than what ordinary people make at home.
The residents living nearby are used to it. This restaurant has been open for decades near the old residential buildings. The cooking level is first-class and the prices are very reasonable. Many families with dual incomes who have no time to cook choose this restaurant as their first choice for dining.
The only drawback of this restaurant is that there are too many customers. It is difficult to find a seat during meal times, and sometimes there are not enough dishes, forcing customers to wait in vain.
So many people in the same city know that this restaurant is delicious, and they try to recommend it to outsiders, but it is difficult and the review score is not even four points.
Not long after the porridge bucket was put out, customers came to the store.
A white-haired old couple came to visit with the help of crutches. Both of them were nearly ninety years old and did not want to live with their children and grandchildren. They wanted to stay in their old house and usually hired a nanny to clean the house. They had two meals a day at Ma's Restaurant.
The two of them don't have to work, so they always come early, find out today's menu and who is the chef, and then decide what to eat.
Finally, the two old people ordered a bowl of porridge, a dish of fried loofah with eggs, and a dish of blanched lettuce. They didn't order any staple food. These were enough for them, and their stomachs couldn't digest any more.
Ma's Restaurant has two floors, and there is a large open space outside the door for tables and chairs. The old couple didn't want to walk any further, so they sat at the door and waited for the waiter to deliver the food.
The waiter was familiar with them and even brought an extra empty bowl. When the porridge was served, the old man scooped half of it for his wife, identifying it while saying, "There are peas in it. I don't like peas, so I'll give it to you. Eat less meat, your teeth can't chew it."
The old lady, who seemed to be less able to take care of herself than him, shakily scooped a spoonful of pea porridge into her mouth. After swallowing it, she scooped another spoonful and handed it to the old man, saying firmly, "Try it, it's delicious."
"I have never liked eating it in my life, just eat it," the old man said in refusal, but then he leaned forward and ate the spoonful of porridge.
"Huh? It's delicious!"
There is a reason why the old man doesn't like peas. When he was a child, he didn't have enough to eat, so he ate peas to fill his stomach when there was a gap between the harvest and the harvest. But he got tired of eating them after eating too much. He always felt that peas had an unpleasant smell, like stink bugs.
I say I don’t like peas, but in fact I don’t like the memories associated with that difficult time. Life is almost coming to an end, and there is no need to reminisce about the good and the bad, but I still have to listen to my spouse.
Apparently, he heard it right.
The peas in today's porridge taste sweet and refreshing, and have a unique flavor.
The old couple finished a bowl of porridge and still felt unsatisfied.
"Another bowl?"
“Another bowl!”
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