Food: Selling Boxed Meals at a Construction Site

Back at the restaurant, they had to wait until one o’clock to go back to the Hai City Library and Red Brick Creative Park to collect the meal box containers.

With nothing to do, Xu Guosheng set his sights on Zhang Dezhen. He pulled up a chair, sat down next to him, and started making small talk.

Zhang Dezhen was an honest man and answered pretty much anything Xu Guosheng asked. Before long, he had spilled his entire life story.

The conversation turned to his family. He said that once things stabilized, he planned to bring his wife and child over to go to school here. The educational environment was much better than back home, and life, in general, was much more convenient.

As he said this, Zhang Dezhen’s eyes sparkled, and he began to hawk their wares with even more vigor.

Thinking of the more than one thousand lunch boxes they had just sent out, Xu Guosheng clapped Zhang Dezhen on the shoulder. "Stick with my nephew, and you’ll be living the good life."

Zhang Dezhen just smiled without a word, but his eyes were filled with hope.

Today, they had fifty jin of braised dishes in total: forty-five jin of vegetables and five jin of meat.

By now, the vegetables were almost sold out, while three full jin of the meat remained.

The longer Xu Guosheng looked, the more his mouth watered, and the more he wanted to eat.

Just then, another customer came over, bought the rest of the vegetables, and also took one jin of meat. Finally unable to resist, Xu Guosheng bought up the remaining two jin of meat for himself.

After packing up all the remaining braised items, Zhang Dezhen carried the leftover braising liquid to the back kitchen and was about to pour it out when Xu Guosheng stopped him. "Old Zhang, what are you doing? Why are you just dumping it?"

Zhang Dezhen thought Xu Guosheng was upset about wasting the braising liquid and explained, "I always use fresh liquid for each batch. This stuff will taste off if I use it for a second batch."

"That’s not what I meant." Xu Guosheng looked around the kitchen and asked with some confusion, "Where’s the swill bucket? You don’t have a swill bucket?"

Only then did it dawn on Zhang Dezhen. ’That’s right, I didn’t even notice. There’s no swill bucket in the kitchen!’

’Is it over at Delicious Restaurant?’

The two of them carried the basin of braising liquid over to the Delicious Restaurant side, but after looking all around, they still couldn’t find a swill bucket.

Xu An had just finished taking inventory on the second floor, determining what needed to be restocked, what needed to be replaced, and what was still plentiful.

As soon as he came downstairs, he saw Xu Guosheng and Old Zhang scurrying around the restaurant with the basin like headless chickens. "Uncle Guosheng, Old Zhang, what are you doing with that basin of braising liquid?"

"Anzi, where’s the swill bucket in your restaurant?"

A swill bucket?

Xu An paused for a moment before realizing what they were talking about. "The restaurant doesn’t have one. The sinks have strainers, so you can just pour it down the drain. Just clean up afterward."

"You don’t know the value of things until you’re the one paying the bills! Do you know you can sell swill? It’s thirty cents a kilogram!" Xu Guosheng looked at him with an expression of deep disappointment, pointing at two large bags of trash outside the back kitchen door. "With all these scraps and leftover soup, you could probably collect over a hundred kilograms of swill a day. That’s thirty or forty yuan!"

At first, Xu An didn’t think much of it, but when he heard that, his heart suddenly began to ache with regret.

’Thirty a day is nine hundred a month! That’s more than half a month’s salary for one of the restaurant helpers.’

"Uncle Guosheng, do you know anyone who collects swill?" Xu An was quick to correct his mistake, asking immediately. After all, who would turn their nose up at money?

A series of names flashed through Xu Guosheng’s mind. Finally, one name stopped, growing larger and larger until it filled his entire consciousness.

The pig tycoon of Yan Family Village—Yan Shicai.

He was a famous pig farmer in Qianhai Town, sending a minimum of eight hundred pigs to market each year, with a record high of seventeen hundred in one year.

With so many pigs to raise, they ate a lot, so it was impossible to feed them exclusively on pig feed.

Swill from various restaurants, leftover stalks and leaves from greenhouse harvests, and other scraps were processed and mixed with the pig feed to save a significant amount on costs.

"When you’re done for the day, I’ll take you to meet an old friend of mine," Xu Guosheng said with a smile.

At one o’clock in the afternoon, Xu Guosheng set off for the Hai City Library and Red Brick Creative Park to retrieve the meal box containers. With that, his work for the day was done.

It wasn’t until two-thirty in the afternoon that Xu An finished his work. The two of them then drove the small truck toward Yan Family Village.

Yan Shicai’s pig farm was located outside Yan Family Village. From the outside, it looked like an unremarkable, single-story building with a massive footprint. Long, narrow windows were set high in the walls for ventilation.

This was the first time in two lifetimes that Xu An had ever visited a pig farm, and he found everything he saw fascinating.

Once inside the pig farm, he was so shocked his jaw dropped.

’Even capitalists aren’t this cruel!’

Inside were six long rows of iron-barred pens that stretched as far as the eye could see. Each enclosure housed a single pig, and the space was so small the animals couldn’t even turn around.

When they got tired of eating, they lay down. When they got tired of lying down, they stood up. When they got hungry from standing, they ate. It was an endless cycle, with no fourth option—unless you counted being sent to the slaughterhouse.

As the two were looking around, Xu An heard the main door of the pig farm swing open with a CREAK.

The newcomer was of medium height and slender build, dressed in simple clothes. He wore a pair of work gloves and waterproof boots splattered with fresh mud, looking as if he’d rushed back right after getting Uncle Guosheng’s message.

"Old Xu, it’s rare to see you here in broad daylight. What’s up?" Yan Shicai asked, pulling off his gloves as he spoke.

"Let me introduce you to someone." Xu Guosheng pulled Xu An, who was next to him, forward. "This is my nephew, Xu An. He’s opened a fast-food restaurant, and business is *very* good."

Xu Guosheng deliberately emphasized the word "very," and Yan Shicai instantly understood his meaning.

"Hello, hello. I’m Yan Shicai. Everyone just calls me the ’Pig Tycoon.’"

"Hello, Uncle Shicai!" Xu An replied obediently and politely. After a glance at Xu Guosheng, he stated his reason for coming. "Uncle Shicai, Uncle Guosheng brought me here to ask if you’re still collecting swill. My restaurant produces about a hundred kilograms of it a day."

’A hundred-odd kilograms... let’s just call it a hundred,’ Yan Shicai thought. ’Mixed with feed, that’s enough for about forty pigs for one day. For my farm, that’s not a lot. Not worth a special trip.’

"Where’s your restaurant located? If it’s on my route, I can pick it up," Yan Shicai asked directly, not beating around the bush.

"Zijing Road South Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant."

"Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant?" Yan Shicai murmured. "Why does that sound so familiar?"

"I knew you’d have heard of it. The fruits and vegetables from Xiudie’s greenhouses are all supplied to his restaurant now. Besides Xiudie, Hu Juan and Uncle Lin are supplying him too," Xu Guosheng said smugly from the side.

At the mention of Xiudie, Hu Juan, and Uncle Lin, Yan Shicai remembered. He’d overheard them talking about it when he went to the greenhouses to collect their leftover stalks and leaves after the harvest.

"South Zijing Road, right? I pass by there at noon and in the evening tomorrow. Pick a time, and I’ll come get it. The price is the same as the others, thirty cents a jin," Yan Shicai immediately agreed.

Once the deal was struck, Xu Guosheng relaxed, pulling Yan Shicai aside to shoot the breeze. The conversation eventually turned to what Yan Shicai had been doing just before they arrived.

Yan Shicai suddenly grew excited, gesticulating animatedly as he described the scene he had just witnessed.

"A fight broke out over at the greenhouses! Some people from Victory Supermarket showed up and said they wanted to cancel their contracts right then and there. Of course, everyone refused! They’d already cleared the old crops and planted cauliflower. Canceling the contracts now would be a huge loss."

"At first, it was just arguing, but then someone threw a punch, and WHOOSH, it turned into a huge brawl. When I left, law enforcement was already arriving to restore order. Tsk tsk, it’s the first time I’ve seen anything like that in years."

A small car drove at a steady speed along the highway from Hai City to Ma Family Village.

Inside the car sat a family of three. Judging by their clothes, their quality of life was quite good.

"Leilei, are you excited that Daddy’s taking you back to our hometown to play?"

"I am! I want to play with Big Brother Da Zhuang! Last year he took me to roast sweet potatoes in the fields, and they were so delicious," the little boy said, starting to bounce with excitement, his eyes full of longing.

"Do you remember your promise to Mommy?"

"I remember! No playing in the water, no climbing trees, and no... no playing with fire!"

"That’s right. And remember to tell Mommy and Daddy before you go out to play. No sneaking off on your own, okay?"

"Okay!"