Chapter 135: Swarming In
They had partied a little too hard last night. Liu Tong and his friend both got wasted and didn’t wake up until nearly ten o’clock.
Seeing he was already late, Liu Tong just reported that he was out on fieldwork, while his friend called in sick to his supervisor.
After washing up, the two of them headed to Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant together.
His friend had seen the restaurant featured on Hai City TV Station, and the food looked absolutely delicious on camera.
He just never had the chance to come and try it in person. His office was too far away, so he couldn’t get delivery.
This time, he finally had his chance.
After getting off the bus, they still had a bit of a walk to Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant. The two of them chatted as they headed over.
As they walked and talked, their conversation drifted to funny stories from their childhood.
"Do you remember how you used to guard your food as a kid? I think it was your aunt who came back from a business trip and brought you a bag of braised chicken feet. You heated them up in a pot, and man, the smell was incredible! It drew all of us over, and we just had to stand there and watch you chew on chicken feet for half an hour."
"Holy shit, how do you still remember that?" His friend couldn’t help but cover his face. "I was just so into the food that I didn’t notice you guys! Didn’t I share them with you after I snapped out of it?"
With that, Liu Tong’s friend, not to be outdone, started dishing the dirt on him.
"Weren’t you just as bad about your food? Those one-yuan bags of salted peas from the little store in elementary school? You’d buy a bag every day after class, stuff it in your backpack, and act all casual as you took it home to eat all by yourself."
"How did you know that? I never told you about it!" Liu Tong was stunned.
"Your mom told my mom. Said she’d sweep up a few peas that had rolled under your bed every day."
"..."
Time always flies when you’re chatting. It felt like they had only exchanged a few sentences before they arrived at the entrance of Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant.
Suddenly, Liu Tong’s friend’s nose twitched. He seemed to catch a rich, spicy aroma. ’Does that smell... like braised food?’ he thought.
His eyes scanned the area, finally landing on a stainless steel basin being stirred with a large spoon by an older woman.
That was it! The aroma was coming from there!
Just then, Liu Tong walked up to the table and asked, "Auntie, what kind of braised meat dishes do you have today?"
"We’ve got spicy duck necks, duck feet, and chicken wing tips. There’s also a little bit of the original flavor chicken feet left. Everything else is sold out."
"I’ll take a bit of everything. And some of the spicy braised vegetables, too."
Carrying the braised dishes and their freshly plated meals, the two found a quiet corner on the second floor and sat down.
Liu Tong placed the plate of braised snacks in the center of the table. As the plate wobbled, the braising liquid slid off the food. It dripped from the topmost chicken wing tip onto a duck neck, then trickled down the sloped contours of the meat and pooled around the plump duck feet at the bottom, bathing them in the amber-colored sauce...
Then, Liu Tong opened a can of iced apple cider vinegar and placed it in front of his friend. "Try this. Braised snacks and apple cider vinegar. I’m telling you, it’s a perfect match."
After speaking, Liu Tong fixed his eyes on his friend’s every move, waiting for his reaction after the first bite.
From the moment his friend saw the braised snacks, his eyes had been glued to them. Now, hearing Liu Tong’s words, he immediately reached out, pulled a plump duck foot from the bottom of the pile, and popped it into his mouth.
The braising sauce dripped from the tips of the duck foot, reaching his tongue first and activating every single taste bud with its savory flavor.
His teeth closed gently, effortlessly biting off a toe right at the joint. In the interplay between his teeth and tongue, the meat, already braised to fall-off-the-bone tenderness, separated completely. It melted into a savory paste in his mouth before sliding down his throat and landing safely in his stomach.
’Not enough! Not nearly enough! I need more!’
One by one, the sections of the foot vanished into his mouth. One by one, the bones, stained a pale yellow by the sauce, landed on the table, forming a small pile.
The saltiness of the braised snack built up in his mouth, warring with his body for its precious moisture and leaving a trail like a land parched by years of drought.
Just as the thirst reached its peak, a mouthful of cool, apple-scented nectar descended, washing away the accumulated saltiness. The clamoring from his body was instantly quelled.
Liu Tong watched as his friend, alternating between a bite of a snack and a sip of apple cider vinegar, devoured the entire plate.
’Damn! I knew it! There was definitely nothing wrong with my sense of taste!’
After wiping the sauce from his hands, Liu Tong’s friend leaned back in his chair, staring pensively at the plate, which now held only a puddle of braising liquid.
「Zijing Garden Construction Site.」
After the announcement about the meal subsidy yesterday morning, nobody on the site could focus on their work. People were constantly discussing it.
"Where are you eating?" had become the new greeting on-site. Even if two workers ran into each other in the bathroom, they had to ask.
The workers’ first choice was, naturally, Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant, which offered large, delicious, and cheap meals.
Guessing that the fast-food restaurants across the street would be packed today, Qiao Xingguo was already getting ready to make a run for it at 10:55 AM.
But fate had other plans. At 10:58, his foreman came over to chat for a bit. It wasn’t for long, only about ten minutes.
But because of those ten-odd minutes, by the time he sprinted to the front of Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant, he found that all the seats—across two restaurants, four floors, and seating for over a hundred people—were taken. A crowd was packed outside, waiting to get in...
Just then, Qiao Xingguo remembered Delicious Restaurant. Its flavors and dishes weren’t too different from Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant, so it was an acceptable alternative.
So he turned and headed toward Delicious Restaurant. He had only walked about ten meters when he saw a group of people walking back from around the corner.
"Is Delicious Restaurant full, too?" Qiao Xingguo asked, grabbing a coworker he knew.
"Sigh," the coworker let out a breath. "Don’t even ask. Delicious Restaurant went out of business. It’s the back kitchen for Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant now, not open to the public."
’Maybe I should just eat at one of the other places,’ he thought. ’The price is just a little bit higher, the portions a little bit smaller, and there aren’t as many choices, that’s all.’
By the time Qiao Xingguo turned back around, he found that the fronts of the other fast-food places were also packed with coworkers waiting to eat.
He glanced at the dazzling array of food stalls at the construction site entrance, then back at the sea of people in front of Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant.
Qiao Xingguo gritted his teeth and pushed his way into the crowd, waiting for someone inside to finish eating.
Liu Tong and his friend were eating and laughing upstairs. The tables around them had turned over twice within half an hour before the pace finally started to slow down.
When the two of them had eaten their fill and got up to walk down from the second floor, they were startled by the scene before them.
A massive crowd stood outside the restaurant, their eyes bloodshot as they stared at every table and every diner inside, looking as if they were ready to devour someone.
At that moment, Qiao Xingguo spotted Liu Tong and his friend coming down the stairs. Before his brain could even process the thought, his body darted forward, slipping between the two of them like a gust of wind, and landed on a seat that was still warm...
「2:30 PM, Golden Dragon Fast Food Restaurant.」
Two men sat across from a middle-aged man with narrowed eyes, their voices filled with confusion. "Old Sun, our little association has only been around for two days, and business has been pretty good. Look at me, my three restaurants are pulling in almost a thousand yuan a day combined. There’s no need to break off and go it alone."
"Old He! Are you really this clueless, or are you just pretending?" The squinty-eyed Old Sun jabbed a finger through the air toward Old He’s forehead. "You guys were in your restaurants all day? You didn’t go out and take a look?"
The two men shook their heads in unison.
"I visited over ten of the construction sites under Xuguang Real Estate. Guess what I saw?" Old Sun asked, a mysterious look on his face.
"What?"
"I saw that Yipin Xiang Fast Food Restaurant has opened three new locations, and they just so happen to be right near those construction sites. What a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?"
"No way," the two said, finding it hard to believe. "But just yesterday, he said that we all..."
"You two!" Old Sun jabbed his finger at them through the air again and said slowly, "You actually believed him? That the construction sites are just for short-term profits? Short-term profits, my ass!"
As he spoke, Old Sun’s voice grew louder and more agitated.
"Those construction sites are for either residential or commercial districts, and they’re all in great locations! Once they’re built, people will move in and shops will open up. And where there are people, there’s a need to eat, drink, and spend money! If it was really just short-term profit, why would he be so eager to open three new restaurants, all right next to those sites? He’s playing us for fools!" He paused, then his tone shifted. "Now, we don’t have time to build our own pot to cook the meat, but we can bring our bowls over to get a share of the meat and soup while it’s hot."
"What do you mean?" The two were immediately curious.
"Today, not only did I see that old fox Ren Peng, but I also saw the kid from Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant. And I saw their signs at the entrances of three different construction sites. Don’t get me wrong, Xu’s Fast Food didn’t open new restaurants. They’re running stalls! Boxed lunch stalls! That’s not too difficult, is it? We can do that too!"
The three of them looked at each other, and they could all see the flicker of interest in one another’s eyes.
「Yipin Xiang Fast Food Restaurant.」
Ren Peng sent a message to the managers of his Yipin Xiang Fast Food Restaurant branches.
’Recruit five people for off-site work tomorrow. They’ll be selling boxed lunches at a stall. There’s a fifty-yuan bonus. Give me your list of candidates for final approval.’
「Brocade Hotel, Office.」
"How did it go? What were the sales figures like at the construction sites today?"
"Very good. We went to a total of nine sites and sold 1,072 boxed lunches, averaging 120 per site. Sales were especially good at a few of them, so we’ll increase the number of meals for tomorrow. I’d conservatively estimate 1,500 won’t be a problem!"
"Excellent. Keep it up. Any news from the expo yet?"
"Not yet. The other hotels haven’t heard anything either. But we’re not far from the expo’s start date, so we should get news soon."
"Good. Keep up the momentum, don’t slack off. As long as you land this expo contract, you’ll be promoted to Head of Logistics."
"Yes, sir!"
After leaving the office, the man couldn’t help but mutter under his breath, "He says that every time. ’You’ll get promoted.’ It’s been over half a month and still nothing!"