Chapter 49048. You Died After Just a Few Pence
The unit is spoonful.
Vegetarian dishes cost one cent per spoonful, a combination of meat and vegetables costs three cents per spoonful, pure meat dishes cost four cents, a bowl of sweet potato rice costs one cent, and refills are free for more than five bowls, and soup is also free.
Today's soup is five-fingered ginseng and pork bone soup. The sweet aroma fills the port the moment the lid is opened, tempting the taste buds.
There are many bamboo baskets placed in the store. The bamboo baskets are fine and waterproof. Large lotus leaves are placed inside, and the dishes are divided into different areas on the lotus leaves.
Vegetarian dishes include stir-fried choy sum with garlic, stir-fried tofu, cold wild vegetables, shredded potatoes with vinegar, and stir-fried black fungus with water celery.
The meat and vegetable combinations include scrambled eggs with cucumber, stewed pork ribs with potatoes, stir-fried meat with mushrooms, and minced meat and winter melon.
A spoonful of cold-boiled pig ears, stir-fried pork offal, and steamed eggs with minced meat cost four cents. The classic braised pork is a bit more expensive, at six cents.
Every dish is delicious.
The most fragrant thing is the most overbearing braised pork, which invaded the air here at lightning speed. Even if it was mixed with the hot smell of sweat and the sound of shouts, it still aroused people's appetite.
“Crackle!”
“Woof woof woof!”
The sound of a small string of firecrackers and the cheerful barking of puppies make this small shop more eye-catching.
"Don't miss it if you're passing by! We've opened a new shop! All the dishes are free to try!"
Lei Li was not at all shy, standing in the store and shouting, "Try before you buy! If it tastes good, have a bowl. If it doesn't, just leave. You won't be cheated if you buy!"
As soon as I said it was free, people came forward.
"boss."
There was a man wiping his sweat with a rough cloth, shirtless and still panting, who had obviously just finished work. He came from the river bank, staring at the vegetables, and asked,
"Can I really try it for free?"
"certainly!"
Lei Li pointed to the small baskets next to each vegetable basket, which contained samples and a dozen bamboo sticks. "If you want to try any dish, just use the sticks to take a bite. There's a price here, one to six coins per spoonful. It's up to you how much you want to eat."
"Wow, that sounds new."
The shirtless man picked up a piece of tofu with a bamboo stick. His eyes lit up when he put it in his mouth. He then wanted to try a meat dish, but was stopped by Lei Li.
"Use one skewer for each dish, and use the used skewer to stick the new dish. If you enjoy the food, the guests who come later will feel at ease, right..."
Lei Li smiled and gave the shirtless man a new skewer. "Why don't you try a few more dishes? If you don't like them, you don't have to buy them. Even if the deal doesn't go through, there's still righteousness!"
"Brother, if you think it's delicious, tell us more about it when you get back. You're our first customer, so next time you come back, I'll give you an extra spoonful of meat and vegetables!"
"You know how to run a business and you like to keep it clean. It's rare to see a shop like you, haha."
The shirtless man tried several dishes in a row, and his eyes lit up again and again. He thought every dish was delicious and fragrant, so he ordered several of them immediately.
"One spoonful of pork offal, two spoonfuls of red meat, one spoonful of choy sum...and soup? There's even pork bones in the soup!"
"This is five-fingered ginseng and pork bone soup. Five-fingered ginseng is a good tonic. This soup is not only delicious and sweet, but also has the effects of nourishing yin and moistening dryness, clearing away heat and detoxifying. It can also--"
Lei Li stretched out his words, deliberately raising his voice to keep the topic a secret. "It can also nourish the kidneys and strengthen bones! Women and men who drink it will have healthy skin and blood circulation. Men who drink it—"
He didn't say anything else.
But everyone who heard it understood what he meant. Some of the older and more experienced ones gave a good-natured laugh, while the younger ones were more sensitive and blushed immediately.
"Okay, give me a bowl!"
The shirtless man laughed and waved his hand, then paid the money and said, "My brothers are still moving goods over there. I'll go call them. But they have children and elderly people at home, so they're not as lavish as I am. Haha!"
17 cents for a meal.
For these coolies who could only earn a dozen or twenty coins a day, it was considered quite expensive. But compared with the restaurants in the city that charged hundreds of coins and taels of silver, the quality of the vegetables and meat was so cheap that it made people want to cry.
For example, in the Shanzhen Restaurant owned by the owner Haiwei, the Chinese cabbage that used to cost two cents per pound suddenly became twenty cents per plate when it arrived at his restaurant.
His net worth increased tenfold.
If we order a meat dish, wouldn't it cost over a hundred coins? If we order expensive game, we could spend one or two taels of silver, which is enough to cover the annual expenses of a farmer's family.
Lei Li listened to his words without any displeasure or disgust. He smiled openly and said, "Even if they pay a penny or two for a meal, they are still guests! How can I refuse a guest?"
“That’s right, hahaha!”
The shirtless man carried the food and said as he walked, "I'll take it over there for them to see, so they don't think I'm bragging. I'll be back soon!"
"Okay!"
Lei Li responded briskly.
With the big man in front, people began to ask the price, try the dishes, and order a few dishes, but none of them cost more than ten cents.
More people are waiting and watching.
How to say it?
Suddenly, a food stall with dishes as delicious as a restaurant opened in this port full of coolie laborers. It was like a trap falling from the sky.
Who knew that they had agreed to feed them first, and then use threats and inducements to cheat them? The two bosses were taller and stronger than the other, and looked more like laborers than them.
And the price is indeed a bit expensive.
They come here to earn money to support their families, and spending ten cents on a meal is already a luxury.
More people choose to buy a steamed bun with pickles they brought with them and eat it in a few bites, or simply eat the cold sweet potatoes they brought from home with pickles.
There was no red at the opening.
Lei Li and Zhou Yi were not discouraged. Seeing those people eating dry and cold steamed buns and sweet potatoes, they discussed it and decided to give away half of the soup for free.
Actually, it was what Zhou Yi wanted to give it to him.
Lei Li was a little unhappy about the free pork bone soup. It's fine if it's free, but cabbage soup is still soup! At worst, I could just add some egg drop soup—
A large pot of soup with two eggs.
But Zhou Yi said, "We dug the five-fingered ginseng ourselves, and the pig bones are not worth much. Any help is appreciated, and it doesn't cost much. We can just consider it as a good deed."
"How much is merit worth?"
Lei Li snorted, "Didn't we work hard to dig up the five-fingered ginseng? Didn't we spend money to buy the pig bones, which are worthless? What about the firewood? Firewood is free."
That’s what we say.
Lei Li still acquiesced to Zhou Yi's behavior of giving him the soup, and just stared at him quietly, as if thinking about something, which made Zhou Yi feel cold on his neck, back, and somewhere under his body.
“Free soup?”
"Pork bone?"
"Can it also cure diseases and strengthen the body?"
"No money?"
"You really don't want any money?"
"Isn't this a black shop?"
The workers were skeptical.
A thin man who looked like a teenager walked over bravely, holding the steamed bun tightly in his hand, "I'm here to get some soup... You said it's free, is that true?"
"real."
Zhou Yi said as he used a bamboo cup to serve him a bowl of hot soup with a little oil in it. "Don't throw the bamboo cup away after use. It affects the environment. Put it in the basket in front of our store."
"Okay, okay."
The skinny boy quickly picked it up, not caring about spilling it, and ran away quickly. Only after he ran far away did he carefully take a sip.
It smells so good.
It tastes really good.
After the first person went to claim it, the others naturally wanted it too. Under Zhou Yi's management, the authority of the stern and fierce scarred face, they lined up obediently.
There's some soup left.
But there were not enough bamboo tubes prepared.
It was originally intended to be a takeaway container for people who didn't have time to eat here, and the container was relatively large, so not many people got a share of it.
——As for why bamboo tubes are used, it’s because there are plenty of them, they’re free, and they’re convenient. There’s a large bamboo forest behind Lei Li’s house.
Someone found something else to replace it.
"I have a water bladder, use mine!"
"Didn't that brother just finish drinking? Hey, give me your bamboo tube!"
"I, I'll hold it in my hands! It's okay if it's hot... I'll just drink it in one sip at a time!"
The soup is gone.
"Come back next time."
As Zhou Yi spoke, he put away the bamboo tubes in the basket and prepared to take them to the backyard to wash. The shirtless man who had said he was going to call people came back.
"It's too late!"
A shirtless man ran over, his bowl already empty. "My brothers are like starving ghosts! I just showed up and before I could say a word, they've already snatched up all my food, leaving me with only a handful of vegetables."
As he spoke, the big man turned and called out to another group of men, "Hey! Didn't you say you wanted to eat? How's the place I picked? Are the dishes delicious and good enough?"
"Hey! You baldy! You've found a good place this time!"
"I just saw them serving soup. This shop owner is so kind!"
"Wow! This meat is so delicious and huge! Six coins a spoonful... The last time I went to a restaurant with the shopkeeper, they had some kind of eight-treasure meat, and it cost two taels of silver a plate!"
"If it tastes good, I'll bring my wife, parents, and grandparents over tomorrow. They've never tasted meat this delicious..."
The shirtless man called Baldy, along with his brothers, occupied all the tables in Lei Ji Fast Food Restaurant. The customers who came later were not unhappy because they had no place to sit, but just squatted down at a random spot on the side.
Squat anywhere.
The food that Lei Li and Zhou Yi prepared at the beginning was soon not enough, so they had to stir-fry and cook it quickly. They didn't close the stall until all the ingredients in stock were gone.
"When will you open tomorrow?"
"It opens at noon!"
Lei Li agreed to see off the last table before finally sitting down with a sigh of relief.
“So tired.”
"It's more tiring than a day spent digging herbs in the mountains. My face is almost frozen from smiling. And there's this crazy guy who can even make a few mistakes in calculations. I thought I didn't know he wanted to eat for free... You're just cooking in the back, so you have a lot of free time."
“Cooking is tiring too.”
"You deserve it."
Lei Li frowned unhappily. The more he looked at Zhou Yi, the more he wanted to pinch him. "Do you know how I felt when I heard them say that a plate of Eight Treasure Pork cost two taels of silver?"
"If we could also sell one or two taels of silver, we could quickly earn back the money we spent on the shop. The rent for this small shop is five taels a month!"
"Speaking of money, why don't you count how much money you made today? Multiply that by thirty days, and you'll definitely make back your investment and even make a profit."
"You'll die if you only make a few cents."
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