Food: Selling Boxed Meals at a Construction Site

A girl pedaled her bicycle furiously down the road, muttering and cursing as she rode.

"Xu Heping and Xu An, you two good-for-nothings! Especially you, Xu Heping! You had something to say but made me ask myself. How am I supposed to ask?! Xu An doesn’t even have a phone at home. Am I supposed to send him a message in his dreams?"

Having been to Xu Family Village once before, the girl easily found Xu An’s house and stood outside, banging on the courtyard gate. BANG! BANG!

"Xu An, it’s Gu Wen! Are you home? Open the door if you are!"

Xu An, dozing off under the longan tree, was dreaming he was sitting in an office. A never-ending stream of documents was placed on his desk. The moment he finished one, three to five more would appear. It was endless...

The sudden banging on the gate woke him from his work hell, and for a moment, he was disoriented.

’Gu Wen?’

’Didn’t she settle down in the Capital? Why would she suddenly come looking for me?’

The thought lasted only a second before Xu An completely shook off the effects of the dream.

Right now, it was the summer vacation after the college entrance exams. Gu Wen hadn’t left for university in the Capital yet, so it was perfectly normal for her to come looking for him.

Xu An wiped the corner of his mouth to make sure he wasn’t drooling, then walked over and opened the courtyard gate.

Standing outside was a girl with dry, yellowish hair, slightly dark skin, and large, black-framed glasses—exactly as Xu An remembered Gu Wen.

"You were home and still took so long to answer! What’s up with you and Xu Heping? We were having a nice chat, but the moment I asked about you, he ghosted me. Are you two best buds fighting or something?"

"Did you need something?" Xu An didn’t answer Gu Wen’s question, instead asking her purpose for coming.

"Our homeroom teacher wants to collect everyone’s college application choices. Your family doesn’t have a phone, so I had to..."

RING~ RING~

The phone in Xu An’s pocket suddenly rang, interrupting Gu Wen.

He pulled out his phone and glanced at the call. It was an unknown number, probably a food order.

After giving Gu Wen an apologetic look, Xu An walked over to his lounge chair, picked up a pen and notebook, and then answered the call.

"Hello, this is Xu’s Fast Food. Are you calling to place an order?"

"Okay, okay. Four boxed meals—three braised pork with preserved greens and one boiled meat slices. New World Design Studio, delivered by 11:40. Yes, yes, I’ve got it all down. Thank you for your business."

From the moment Xu An pulled out his phone, Gu Wen’s eyes were wide as saucers.

He! Xu An! He actually had a phone! He had a phone and didn’t even join the class group chat!

And that good-for-nothing Xu Heping didn’t tell me either! Making me run all the way out here under the scorching sun for nothing!

The moment Xu An hung up, Gu Wen shoved her phone in front of his face and said coolly, "Add me. I’m pulling you into the class group chat."

Chuckling awkwardly, Xu An quickly sent a request to join the class group. Gu Wen took back her phone, tapped it a couple of times, and a "Successfully Added" notification popped up on Xu An’s end.

"What was your exam score? What schools did you apply to?" Gu Wen asked while tapping away on her phone.

"548," Xu An said with a light cough. "I applied to our Provincial Normal University."

"Oh, so you applied to the same school as Li Xindong. You two might end up being classmates."

Xu An was no stranger to Li Xindong. In his previous life, Li Xindong had attended every class reunion, though he rarely spoke, just quietly listening as everyone else talked about their lives.

’So he applied to the Provincial Normal University in my last life, too. Why didn’t he end up going to college, then? Did he bomb the exam and not get in?’

"What did Li Xindong score on the exam?" Xu An asked curiously.

"536. As long as the cutoff score doesn’t change much this year, he’s a shoo-in."

’The cutoff score for the Provincial Normal University in 2012 was 524. Li Xindong’s score should have been more than enough. So why didn’t he go to college in my past life?’

"Are you working a summer job now? I heard you on the phone talking about taking an order. Are you doing customer service?"

"Mhm, yeah." Xu An nodded, confirming without offering any further explanation.

"Quite a few people from our class are working summer jobs. I know of at least seven or eight. You’ve got the most relaxing gig, earning money just by lying around at home." Gu Wen teased him for a moment, then suddenly said, "That guy, Li Xindong, went with some kids from another class to work at a factory in the next city over. Turns out the foreman was a scammer who docked over half a month’s pay for some minor issues. After working his butt off for over a month, he only ended up with a thousand yuan."

’Xu Heping told me about this in my past life. I think Li Xindong got so angry he just quit on the spot. After he came back, didn’t he start going out to the tidal flats with the village folk?’

Gu Wen and Xu An chatted for a bit longer. After learning that the fast-food restaurant Xu An was working for still needed people, she left, looking thoughtful.

「The eastern mudflats.」

Li Xindong had returned home from the neighboring city two days ago and had started going out to catch Jumping Fish with the older men from his village.

Wild Jumping Fish were expensive, typically selling for forty to fifty yuan per jin. Around holidays, it wasn’t uncommon for them to fetch eighty to a hundred yuan per jin.

Such a high price was also a testament to how difficult Jumping Fish were to catch.

Li Xindong trudged through the mud, carrying a net bag in his left hand and a white plastic bucket and a small hoe in his right.

As he walked, he spotted a round hole in the mud. He covered another nearby hole with his net bag, then stomped his foot down on the first, uncovered hole.

With any luck, the pressure from his foot would cause the Jumping Fish to shoot out of the other hole with a spurt of water and land right in his net.

More often than not, however, the water would squirt out, but no fish would appear. When that happened, he had to use the hoe to dig.

A Jumping Fish’s color was very similar to the mud, so he had to be extremely focused while digging to avoid accidentally chopping it to pieces. A dead or injured fish was worthless.

Just as he was about to catch one, the fish made a sudden dash outward—right under the blade of his hoe. It was instantly decapitated.

Li Xindong’s heart ached so much he trembled.

’That Jumping Fish weighed a good two liang! Now that it’s chopped in half, I can only eat it myself. I can’t sell it for money at all. What a huge loss!’

’Sigh!’

Sighing, Li Xindong put the two halves of the Jumping Fish into his bucket, found a stone, smeared a layer of mud on top of it, and sat right down.

He took a water bottle from his bucket, took two big gulps, and then inspected his haul from the last three hours.

There were about twenty-odd Jumping Fish in the bucket. Only three of them weighed around one liang; the rest were small and skinny. All together, it was probably less than two jin.

But for a beginner, this was already a pretty good catch.

He wiped his hands on a clean patch of his clothes and carefully took out a phone wrapped in a plastic bag from his pocket.

As soon as he turned it on, he saw a message from the class monitor, Gu Wen.

’The fast-food restaurant where Xu An is doing his summer job is still hiring. If you’re interested, you can ask him about it. You can find him in the class group chat. His QQ name is Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant.’

’Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant? What a weird name.’

Li Xindong found Xu An’s QQ in the class group chat and opened a temporary chat window.

’Xu An, it’s Xindong. The class monitor said the place you’re working at is still hiring for the summer, right?’

After seeing Gu Wen off, Xu An lay back down under the longan tree to rest with his eyes closed.

Hearing the QQ notification sound, Xu An snatched up his phone and saw it was a message from Li Xindong.

’I just told Gu Wen the restaurant was still hiring, and Li Xindong is already asking about it. That was fast.’

’Yeah, the restaurant still needs delivery riders. It’s 0.5 yuan per boxed meal delivered. Work hours are from 11 AM to 2 PM, you get paid daily, and the restaurant provides one lunch meal.’

’What’s a delivery rider?’

’After customers place orders through various platforms, the fast-food restaurant prepares their boxed meals, and the rider delivers the meals to the customers. That’s a delivery rider.’

After Xu An’s explanation, Li Xindong finally understood what a delivery rider was.

But he thought about how most fast-food places usually only deliver to nearby customers. At most, he’d deliver twenty or thirty meals in an afternoon, which would only earn him ten-something yuan. He wasn’t too keen on the idea.

He read the message again and noticed the working hours were just three hours around noon.

The sun was too strong during that time. Going out to the sea to catch Jumping Fish could easily lead to heatstroke.

’If I can’t catch Jumping Fish, I can do some deliveries. Earning ten-something yuan in an afternoon and getting a free meal isn’t too bad!’

’Okay, I’ll come find you at the restaurant tomorrow. What’s the address?’

’Zijing Road South Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant. Remember to bring your ID. Get here before 10:30, and we’ll head out after lunch.’

’Got it.’

Li Xindong put his phone away, took another big swig of water, and threw himself back into the great undertaking of catching Jumping Fish.