Food: Selling Boxed Meals at a Construction Site

During the afternoon business hours, most of the customers were local residents, so the first floor wasn’t even full. Xu An had Xu Kang and Xu Le go upstairs to play with a puzzle.

In the middle of the bustle, a few men walked in. One of them froze when he saw Xu An and whispered to his companion, "When did the owner change? Where’s Jiajia?"

"I guess you weren’t listening to a word I said. She got locked up, just like Qiangzi."

"I’ve been drinking too much lately, my brain’s a little fuzzy. How did Qiangzi get locked up, anyway? Now we have to pay for our own food and drinks. Things were better when Qiangzi was around."

His words made the others sigh. Ever since Qiangzi got locked up, their standard of living had plummeted.

Before, when it was too hot, they could rent a private room at a KTV to enjoy the air conditioning and play cards. Now, they could only find a shady tree to squat under and play.

After a few more laments, they pulled out sixteen yuan, handed it to Granny Xu, and took two trays to get their food.

While getting their food, they shamelessly grabbed two extra bowls. The four of them then carried their two trays of food up to the second floor to eat.

They were relieved to see that the only other people on the second floor were two children, Xu Kang and Xu Le. They quickly set down their food and started eating.

"The food at this place is pretty good, and the portions are huge. The four of us can get totally full on just two meals’ worth."

"They don’t use expired or nearly-expired meat, do they? I heard that’s why Qiangzi got locked up."

The man who spoke got a smack on the head and nearly choked on his rice. "What, did I say something wrong?" he sputtered. "It’s this cheap and the portions are huge. Don’t I have a right to be a little suspicious?"

"Don’t you recognize those two little ones? They’re the ones who used to sell boxed lunches from a stall across from the construction site."

"Speaking of boxed lunches, I heard the other day that someone found a cockroach leg in their food. They reported it and the owner had to pay them ten times the price of the meal. They really hit the jackpot."

The moment he finished speaking, the other three turned to look at him and asked in unison, "Is that story for real?"

"I—I think so?" The man who’d spoken couldn’t say for sure. "It’s just hearsay, after all," he said hesitantly. "I don’t know if it’s true or not."

Their gazes met, and you could practically see the sparks fly. They instantly knew what the others were thinking; they’d all had the same idea.

A quick look around confirmed that the only other people on the second floor were the two children playing with a puzzle. This was the perfect opportunity.

The four of them huddled together and whispered, "Hey, why don’t we give it a try? Ten times the price... a meal here is eight yuan, so ten times that is eighty. That’s enough for us to live it up for two days."

"I don’t have any bugs on me!"

"Me neither."

"I’ve only got a handful of sand in my pocket."

"Sand will work!"

Each of them quickly shoveled a large mouthful of white rice into their mouths. Then, they sprinkled a few grains of sand from the pocket into the remaining rice. Afraid of getting caught, they even used a spoon to mix it in.

"Misters, why are you putting sand in your rice?" Having seen what they did, a curious Xu Le put down his puzzle piece, pattered over to their table, and stared at them, blinking his big eyes.

"N-No, we didn’t. You saw wrong, kiddo." The man closest to Xu Le quickly covered the bowl with his hand to keep the boy from getting a closer look.

"Yes, you did! I saw it too! You misters took sand out of your pocket and put it in the rice!" Xu Kang had now come over as well, loudly contradicting them.

Xu Kang’s voice was so loud that Xu An, busy on the first floor, heard him. Wondering what was going on, he headed straight for the stairs.

Hearing the children’s questions gave the four men a massive headache. They quickly lowered their voices. "You kids saw wrong. We were just sprinkling some sugar on our rice. That’s right, sugar. We like our rice to be sweet."

Xu Kang looked skeptical at this explanation. Xu Le’s eyes darted back and forth, and he too lowered his voice. "Then can you misters take a bite and show us? We want to know if rice with sugar is tasty."

Just as the four men were looking at each other in dismay, Xu An arrived on the second floor. The first thing he saw was Xu Kang and Xu Le standing by the customers’ table.

"Kangkang, Lele, what are you two doing?"

When the two children saw their older brother, they rushed over and pulled him toward the table. As they walked, they said, "Brother, those misters are so weird! They like to put sugar in their rice! Does rice taste yummier with sugar? I want to try rice with sugar, too!"

’Rice with sugar?’

Xu An instinctively glanced at the rice on the four men’s table and saw that they were all clutching their bowls tightly, looking at him nervously.

"That’s not it, Brother! They didn’t put in sugar, it was sand! I saw it! It was definitely sand! They took it out of their pocket," Xu Kang insisted, sticking to his story.

"Heh, heh... we were just joking with the kids," one of the four explained lamely. "We didn’t put anything in it. Nothing at all."

Xu Kang got angry when he heard that, feeling like they were questioning his eyesight. He reached out his little hands to try and pry their hands off the bowls, but Xu An stopped him.

"Sorry, my younger siblings can be a handful." With that, Xu An picked up both children, one under each arm, and carried them downstairs.

Still in Xu An’s arms, the two of them were indignant. "Brother, don’t you believe us? We really saw it!" they protested, their cheeks puffed out.

"I do. I believe you."

"Then make them move their hands, Brother! We want to know if it was sugar or sand," the two of them insisted, still fixated on the question.

"How about I give you some rice with sugar in it?" Xu An had a good idea of what had happened, but he didn’t want to argue with the men in front of the children, so he immediately tried to distract them.

"Yay! We want to eat rice with sugar!" The distraction worked perfectly, and they immediately started clamoring for the treat.

Xu An got two small bowls, put about three spoonfuls of rice in each, sprinkled a little white sugar on top, and handed them to Xu Kang and Xu Le.

The two little ones happily picked up their spoons and began shoveling the sweet rice into their mouths.

After placating the two little ones, Xu An was about to head upstairs and see what was going on with those four men.

Just as he turned, he saw the four men coming downstairs. They scurried out the door in a flash, not daring to meet his eyes the entire time.

Xu An watched them leave without trying to stop them. Instead, he walked straight upstairs to the table where they had just been sitting.

At first glance, the bowls of rice looked fine. But after he picked up a spoon and stirred one a couple of times, he found exactly what he expected: sand mixed in with the rice.

’So they were trying to run a scam on me.’ They’d only scurried away because Xu Kang and Lele happened to catch them in the act.

’Someone’s already trying this kind of trick so soon. This sort of thing isn’t rare in the future; some people even make a career out of extorting businesses.’

’This time, I was just lucky that Kangkang and Lele happened to see them, and they ran off when they were exposed. But if the kids hadn’t seen them, and I couldn’t have produced any evidence, they would’ve gotten away with it.’

’If they’d succeeded once, it would be inevitable that others would get the same idea. At that point, my daily earnings wouldn’t even be enough to cover the fraudulent claims.’

’I have to take precautions!’

Xu An scanned the restaurant and finally made up his mind.

’I have to install security cameras in the shop, including at the front and back doors. That’ll put an end to this kind of trouble for good!’

As soon as the dinner rush was over, Xu An rode his bicycle to the city’s electronics market. He found a shop that specialized in security systems and ordered a full set of surveillance equipment.

After Xu An paid an extra fee for expedited service, the staff agreed to install everything that very night.

When choosing the cameras, Xu An picked a conspicuous model for the main entrance, but for the interior of the shop and the back door, he deliberately chose a model that was very hard to spot.

’If you want to kill a chicken to scare the monkeys, you have to catch the chicken first.’