บท 18: Chapter 18 Porridge
บรรณาธิการ: Larbre Studio
The girl completed the payment via WeChat and left with her boyfriend. Jiang Feng quickly cleared the table while Qiu Chen watched in astonishment.
"Feng, does your family's restaurant have such high expectations for empty plates?" Qiu Chen, who was still editing his social media post, was totally shocked by the girl's audacious behavior just now.
"She misunderstood," Jiang Feng explained.
"Ding, gained 1 point of popularity, task progress (3/100)."
"Feng, let's help you," Liu Zixuan, who had just finished posting on social media, eagerly took over the plates.
Jiang Feng didn't stop him, "It's just my parents in the kitchen, you can just put the plates in the dishwasher, don't bother asking my mom."
Liu Zixuan assured that he knew how to use the dishwasher and carried the plates into the kitchen.
"Ding, gained 1 point of popularity, task progress (4/100)."
"Ding, gained 1 point of popularity, task progress (5/100)."
"Ding, gained 1 point of popularity, task progress (6/100)."
The other three also began to help out. They took orders and cleaned tables, simple tasks that, although they weren't as adept as Jiang Feng, they couldn't really mess up.
Jiang Feng realized his family hadn't considered everything; he always thought the old small restaurant didn't need to hire anyone, but now it seemed they needed to recruit a few student workers.
Previously, when he saw small eateries near schools hiring students and offering two meals a day for only a few hundred yuan a month, he thought they were ruthless. Now that he was starting to recruit, he realized student workers were the best choice.
Meal times, inexpensive labor, and saving money—two birds with one stone.
Liu Zixuan spent a long time in the kitchen and came out holding a plate of yuxiang shredded pork, a trace of satisfaction at the corner of his mouth.
"You little rascal, you actually sneaked a bite!" Wang Hao instantly noticed the abnormality at the corner of Liu Zixuan's mouth and exclaimed, considering the amount of food they'd just eaten, "I can't believe you still have an appetite."
"Auntie gave me a glass of herbal tea," Liu Zixuan savored contentedly.
Upon entering the kitchen, he was surprised at how different Jiang Feng's parents' physiques were from his own. After a sip of the herbal tea, his mind was too preoccupied with the drink to think of anything else.
Indeed, Auntie Jiang was an angel-like person,
Only a bit on the plumper side.
The professors were the last group of customers to leave.
When the professors left, Professor Li still smiled warmly at Jiang Feng, leaving Liu Zixuan, who watched from a distance, dumbfounded.
Out of them all, only he had taken Professor Li's classes and knew how serious the old man was. He was unsmiling with the students and merciless when failing them at the end of term—truly an older version of a fierce deity.
"Feng, what did Professor Li just say?" After the professors left, Liu Zixuan curiously approached and asked.
"The professor asked if I was from Yanjing and whether my grandfather's generation was also from there," Jiang Feng said, finding it odd as well. It was just a meal, so why was Professor Li asking these questions?
Mr. Jiang Jiankang is skilled in Shandong cuisine, not the Jing-style cuisine from Yanjing. Although the two cuisines share similarities, it wouldn't make one assume Mr. Jiang Jiankang was from Yanjing.
"Your family mainly does Shandong cuisine, right?" Liu Zixuan also had some knowledge about food.
"Maybe Professor Li had the plum drink and felt it tasted authentically like something from Yanjing, which is why he asked," Jiang Feng suggested.
"Right, do you guys..." Jiang Feng was about to ask if they wanted to eat together, but then remembered they had already eaten, so he changed his question to, "Do you want to join us for dinner tonight?"
All four nodded so fast their heads might have reached 20Hz.
Qiu Chen and his group each held a glass of herbal tea, leaving gleefully. Despite Wang Hao already sneaking quite a few sips of the plum drink, herbal tea, and mung bean soup, he bravely managed to eat a full meal. Jiang Feng estimated that with his appetite, it wouldn't be long before he could catch up to his big cousin Jiang Zaidi's physique.
In the afternoon, Jiang Feng wrote a notice for a part-time job and pasted it on the glass outside the restaurant.
Hiring: Part-time delivery staff, two meals included, salary negotiable.
After putting up the hiring notice, Jiang Feng found a corner inside the restaurant to check his attribute panel.
With a morning of cutting vegetables, his knifework proficiency had increased by 326. The main task progress had reached (19/100), which was very encouraging. It looked like maintaining the plate-clearing discount for a few more days would complete the task.
"Ding, earned 1 point of popularity, task progress (20/100)."
To gain a point of popularity just like that!
Jiang Feng was momentarily stunned but quickly realized what had happened.
It was likely that some customers from lunch recommended Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant to their friends, the same principle as posting on social media, which could also increase popularity.
So, it seemed the main task could be completed very soon.
After a tiring day, Comrades Jiang Jiankang and Wang Xiulian went up to the second floor to rest. Taking the opportunity, Jiang Feng fired up the stove to cook a few pots of porridge.
Since acquiring the Cooking Porridge (Intermediate) skill, he hadn't yet made porridge; this was the perfect chance to see what the taste of intermediate-level porridge was like.
Jiang Feng cooked two pots of porridge, one with preserved egg and lean pork, and another with black rice.
One sweet and one savory. Since the plum drink had sold out, he would serve porridge that evening—one small bowl per person, perfect for lining the stomach.
Under the guidance of his intermediate Cooking Porridge skill, Jiang Feng could accurately sense when to use high heat, when to turn it low, when to stir, and when to add ingredients. It was as if he were possessed by a culinary god. Normally, without decades of experience in cooking porridge, one wouldn't have such sharp instincts.
The two pots of porridge were ready.
[One pot of reasonably tasty preserved egg and lean pork porridge with not finely crumbled preserved eggs and insufficiently marinated meat]
[One pot of reasonably tasty black rice porridge with not-so-fresh oats]
Jiang Feng tasted them and found that the flavor could rival that made by Mr. Jiang Jiankang himself.
He went to the entrance to change the special offer to include one free bowl of porridge with any meal and prepared to open for business.
He then went upstairs to wake Mr. Jiang Jiankang and Mrs. Wang Xiulian, who were already asleep, and invited them to come down and try the freshly cooked porridge.
Mr. Jiang Jiankang sleepily took a sip of the porridge.
"Ding, earned 9 experience points."
Mrs. Wang Xiulian yawned and took a sip of porridge.
"Ding, earned 11 experience points."
Jiang Feng: ...
Conveniently, Wang Hao came to help at the restaurant.
"Hao, come and try the black rice porridge I just cooked," Wang Hao had a sweet tooth, so Jiang Feng called him over for the sweet porridge.
"Ding, earned 31 experience points."
Jiang Feng: ...
Hao, you have changed, you weren't like this yesterday.
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