Food: Selling Boxed Meals at a Construction Site

Just as Xu An was lost in his thoughts, there was a knock on his courtyard gate. It was followed by Aunt Hong’s anxious voice, "Anzi, Anzi, are you home?"

"I am!" Xu An put his phone away, got up, and opened the gate. He saw Aunt Hong standing outside in her pajamas, barefoot, with a panicked look on her face. "Aunt Hong, what’s wrong?"

"Anzi, did you just watch Hai City TV Station? The news on Hai City TV Station reported that the person in charge of Victory Supermarket was arrested on suspicion of selling illegal food products!" Aunt Hong gripped the gate so tightly her knuckles turned white. "What are we going to do? So many greenhouse farmers just signed contracts with them, and the cauliflower was just planted. Now that Victory Supermarket is in trouble, do you think it’ll affect the partnership?"

Xu An fell silent. He had just been worrying about this very thing. According to his memories from his past life, the impact was inevitable.

But this time around, the timing of the scandal was much better than in his last life.

In his last life, the scandal broke right before the harvest, just three to five days before the cauliflower was ready. They couldn’t plow it under, but they couldn’t sell it either. The timing was absolutely terrible.

But in this life, the cauliflower had only just been planted. Even if Victory Supermarket broke the contract, they could just plow the cauliflower under and plant other crops.

There would definitely still be some losses, but at least they wouldn’t be dragged down by a massive, unsellable cauliflower yield like last time.

"Victory Supermarket is a subsidiary of Qiansheng Group. They probably won’t just sit by and do nothing." After saying this, Xu An felt it sounded too disingenuous, so he corrected himself. "Victory Supermarket already compensated everyone for the crops they had to plow under before. It’s not too late to pull up the cauliflower and plant something else. The losses are still within an acceptable range."

Sigh!

Aunt Hong let out a deep sigh. She knew what Xu An said was the best solution for now.

While feeling sorry for the others, Aunt Hong couldn’t help but feel a little fortunate herself.

’Thank goodness I went to the beach to clear my head when I was feeling troubled that day. Thank goodness I ran into Xu An at the beach. Thank goodness I talked to him about the greenhouses...’

’If I hadn’t gone to the beach that day, I wouldn’t have met Xu An, and I certainly wouldn’t have discussed the greenhouses with a young kid like him.’

’Without that conversation, I most likely would have agonized over it for days before finally following the crowd and signing a contract with Victory Supermarket.’

Just thinking about it made Aunt Hong shudder.

’How terrifying!’

’Thank goodness! Thank goodness I went to the beach that day...’

At the same time, Hu Juan, Uncle Lin, and the two brothers from Yan Family Village also felt fortunate. None of them had chosen to work with Victory Supermarket.

After Aunt Hong left, Xu An sat back down in his rocking chair, pulled out his phone, and opened his chat with Lin Xu Yang.

He typed and deleted, deleted and retyped several messages, but in the end, he erased everything and closed the chat.

’I’m quite curious how Lin Xu Yang and the others found out about Victory Supermarket. Was it because of what I said, or was it something else?’

’But now that the mastermind behind it all has been caught, what’s the point of digging into it? Better to leave a little to the imagination.’

「A peaceful night’s sleep.」

The next morning at 5:10 a.m., Xu An woke up on time, washed up, and headed out to Qianhai Town to pick up his supplies.

He had just reached the entrance of the wholesale market when he heard a clamor from inside. The noise was even louder than usual.

Xu An slowed his pace and pricked up his ears. He realized everyone was talking about Victory Supermarket and Anxin Food Processing Company.

The topic of their conversation grew more and more outrageous. It started with expired food, then shifted to the food being toxic, and finally escalated to someone deliberately poisoning the food...

As someone who had experienced part of it firsthand, Xu An found their conversation pretty ridiculous.

’It’s only been one night. How did things escalate like this?’

Shaking his head slightly, Xu An quickened his pace and walked to Bald Chen’s stall.

Ever since Anxin Food Processing Company stopped selling expired and near-expired food, business at Bald Chen’s place had picked up.

Not long ago, he had even rented the adjacent stall and hired an assistant.

At the moment, a thick crowd was gathered in front of the stall. Bald Chen and his assistant were so busy they naturally didn’t notice Xu An standing behind the throng of people.

Now that Victory Supermarket was in trouble, Bald Chen’s business was likely to get even busier.

When a gap appeared in the crowd, Xu An slipped through and appeared at the front of the stall. "Bald Chen, here for my pickup!"

Hearing Xu An’s voice, Bald Chen quickly glanced up at him, handed the bag in his hand to his assistant, and said to Xu An, a little sheepishly, "Business is too good today. I didn’t see you there."

With that, Bald Chen turned and went into the back of his stall, emerging with a small blue pushcart piled with over three hundred pounds of meat.

"Let’s go!" Bald Chen shouted to Xu An, pushing the cart to clear a path. Xu An followed behind him.

"Business is especially good for you today!"

"Yeah, thanks to Victory Supermarket. As soon as the news broke yesterday, my phone didn’t stop ringing. It was all calls to place orders. I barely slept all night. I’m about to die from exhaustion," Bald Chen said, letting out a huge yawn.

He skillfully stopped the pushcart in front of Xu An’s tricycle. While loading the goods, Bald Chen teased, "You buy so many ingredients every day, your sales must be great. You must be making a lot of money. How are you still driving an electric tricycle that costs, what, a thousand yuan? That doesn’t fit your status as Boss Xu."

Normally, Xu An would have bantered right back.

But things were different now! Xu An had a vehicle! And it was a new model light-duty truck manufactured just last year!

"Heh heh, who says I don’t have a vehicle? I do, and it’s got four wheels!"

"Oh yeah? Then why didn’t you drive it here? Don’t tell me it’s still in your dreams and you haven’t brought it out yet." Bald Chen glanced at Xu An. Seeing the cheeky grin on his face, he assumed he was joking. "It would be much more convenient if you had a truck."

Xu An didn’t argue. After all, seeing is believing! ’Once I get my license, I’ll drive my little truck over here myself and let him see it.’

As they spoke, all the meat from the pushcart was loaded onto the tricycle. The weight of over three hundred pounds made the tricycle sink by a whole centimeter.

As he was taking out the invoice to prepare it, Bald Chen’s gaze swept over the street. His hands froze, his pupils dilated slightly, and he stared at the street in shock.

Xu An didn’t understand what was happening. He followed Bald Chen’s gaze and saw a young woman holding a five- or six-year-old child, struggling to walk down the road while dragging a huge suitcase.

The wheels of the suitcase made a loud rumbling noise against the pavement, like a farewell dirge playing just for them.

"Who’s that?" Xu An nudged Bald Chen with his elbow. Bald Chen finally pulled his gaze away.

"Looks like the family of the Anxin Food Processing Company’s boss." An unnatural flush appeared on Bald Chen’s face. He quickly averted his eyes, filled out the receipt, stuffed it into Xu An’s hand, then turned and vanished into the wholesale market with his pushcart in a flash.

Xu An looked at the receipt in his hand, then at the slowly retreating figure of the young woman, and finally toward the wholesale market.

’I feel like there’s some juicy gossip here, but I can’t get in on it. This is torture!’

After silently roasting Bald Chen for a bit, Xu An got on his electric tricycle and leisurely rode off in the direction of Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant.

Before he even reached the restaurant, he could see a van parked out front from a distance.

’Whose van is this? Why is it parked in front of my restaurant!’

As the tricycle got closer, he soon passed the van and saw his storefront. Two people were sitting on the ground in front of the door, leaning against each other and dozing, fast asleep.

Xu An recognized both of them. One was his restaurant’s braised food chef, Zhang Dezhen, and the other was Uncle Lin, the one with the seven greenhouses.

"Wake up, I need to open the shop!" Xu An gently tapped them on the shoulder. The two men jumped up like startled rabbits. Seeing Xu An, they immediately shouted in unison, "Boss Xu!"

...

’This scene is a little weird. The atmosphere is off. Gotta break the tension.’

"Uncle Lin, are today’s vegetables from your greenhouses?"

"Yes, yes." Uncle Lin finally shook off his drowsiness and returned to normal. "The produce in Xiudie’s greenhouses isn’t quite ripe yet. It’ll be better in another two days. So for the next few days, my greenhouses will be the supplier."

After Uncle Lin opened the back doors of the van, Xu An walked over, randomly picked a vegetable from a few different baskets, and brought it close to his eyes to inspect it carefully.

Color: OK. Size: OK. Ripeness: OK. Everything was perfect.

Very satisfied, Xu An put the vegetable back in the basket and called over Zhang Dezhen, telling him to move the baskets of potatoes, lettuce stems, and other vegetables used for braising into the restaurant. He then led Uncle Lin to the front of the Delicious Restaurant.

Uncle Lin looked at this storefront in confusion. ’Wasn’t Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant back there? Why did we come over here? This place doesn’t even have a sign.’

The next second, he saw Xu An pull another key from his pocket, insert it into the lock, and give it a light twist. The lock clicked open, and he pushed up the rolling shutter door.

He turned back to tell Uncle Lin to unload the goods and saw his confused expression. He explained, "This is my other shop. The first floor is for prepping and cooking, and the second floor is for storage."

Uncle Lin nodded subconsciously, his mind racing.

’He buys hundreds of pounds of vegetables and hundreds of pounds of meat a day, has two storefronts—one of which isn’t even open to the public—and runs a fast-food joint that closes at 2 p.m. And Xiudie actually said this was just an *ordinary* fast-food restaurant?’

’Does Xiudie even know what the word "ordinary" means?’