Baozi Xishi's Struggle

Chef Lu asked her, "After distributing the flower cakes, you can go listen to the lectures of the great monks. If you have any questions in your mind, you can also go and pay your respects and ask the great monks to answer your questions. Do you want to go?"

Shen Yu shook his head: "I'd better go around and look around. I don't know when this Dharma Assembly will end."

"In about an hour and a half, the Shenshi drum will be struck. After lunch, we will go shopping at the stalls and then gather at the mountain gate and go back together."

Chef Lu was fat and afraid of the heat, so he didn't want to move much. Seeing that she didn't seem interested in listening to the lecture, he asked again, "Are you going to the vegetarian hall behind here to eat vegetarian food, or to the food stall at the back door?"

"What is included in the vegetarian meal?" Shen Yu had never eaten vegetarian meals in a temple in modern times.

She loves meat, and when she went out traveling or hiking, if she came across famous temples or Taoist temples, she would always walk around with her companions, and then go out to find local delicacies and snacks to feast on.

Chef Lu had been to Guangning Temple several times before and was familiar with the place, so he introduced: "Eating vegetarian meals in the temple can accumulate merit. Vegetarian meals have always consisted of one rice and one dish, and seasonal soups. The rice is brown rice or mixed noodles, and the dishes are vegetarian stews such as bean sprouts, tofu, radish, and cabbage. At this time of year, green bean soup is cooked to relieve the heat. After eating, you can donate some incense money. But there are a lot of people, and you still have to queue up if you go there now.

When he heard that he had to queue, Shen Yu immediately expressed his desire to eat at the food stall at the back door and asked Chef Lu where he planned to eat.

Chef Lu had been here several times before, so he simply said, "Anywhere is fine. The weather is too hot, and it's cooler at the back door."

As it was still early, the two were not in a hurry and strolled back to the food stall at the back door.

It was lunchtime and there were already quite a few people at the food stalls.

Shen Yu saw that the enthusiastic aunt also had customers at her stall. She was busy greeting the customers, while a man with an honest face was cooking noodles at the back of the stall.

The woman immediately greeted her warmly when she saw her: "Miss, have you had your share of the flower cake? Do you want some noodles?"

Shen Yu smiled and replied, "Thank you, Auntie. I have already received my share of the flower cake. I wonder what noodles you have at home, and how much is one serving?"

The woman immediately pointed to her own noodle stall and said, "I have soup noodles and cold noodles, both are 15 cents. The soup noodles are topped with mushroom tofu, bean sprouts and cabbage, and the cold noodles are topped with cucumber shreds, spiced tofu shreds, and mung bean sprout shreds. Would you like soup noodles or cold noodles, young lady?"

Shen Yu and Chef Lu both ordered cold noodles.

In just a moment, two bowls of cold noodles were served, each with a small plate of neatly chopped pickled radish.

I picked up the noodles and mixed them evenly. I tasted them and they tasted pretty good. The cucumber shreds were made of very tender cucumbers, cut into very thin shreds. Once mixed, the fragrant juice was coated on the noodles. The spiced tofu shreds were cooked very well, the mung bean sprouts were very crispy, and the pickled radish shreds were sour and salty with the right taste. The only thing was that the noodles were not chewy enough, the texture was a bit rough, and they felt a bit loose.

Both of them were cooks in the restaurant and had a keen taste for food. They knew the noodles were much worse than those in the restaurant as soon as they took a bite. However, after the cold noodles were cooked and rinsed with freshly drawn well water, they tasted very refreshing and soothing.

After eating the cold noodles, they took out some flower cakes. They were already at the end of the queue, and the flower cake they got was just an ordinary jujube flower cake, a small piece that they finished in two bites.

After the meal, when it was time to pay the bill, Chef Lu wanted to pay it all, but Shen Yu refused. It's not easy for anyone to work outside, and Chef Lu has a family to support as well. She couldn't play dumb and take advantage of others.

Seeing that Shen Yu insisted and didn't seem to be acting, Chef Lu had no choice but to give up.

In fact, he was the kitchen manager of the restaurant and was a distant relative of the owner. His salary was much higher than Shen Yu's, so a bowl of noodles like this was really nothing.

The two of them paid their bills and strolled towards the mountain gate.

Chu Lu came over from the backyard, fanning himself with a large palm-leaf fan all the way, and by the time he reached the gate his forehead was covered in sweat.

He sat down on the stone steps at the entrance to the mountain, waved his hand and said, "You can go shopping by yourself. I need to rest for a while. It's really too hot."

Shen Yu had already walked around the stalls in front of the mountain gate in the morning. Everything she saw was new, novel and interesting, especially the tangrams and nine-ring puzzles played by children, which were so ingenious and wonderful. She watched them with great interest for a long time.

But she was short of money now and was reluctant to spend money on these things that could only be used as toys. When she looked at the toys that interested her, she didn't even have the courage to ask the price, so she lost interest in shopping.

She put down the basket she had been holding, poured a bowl of sour plum soup and handed it to Chef Lu, then sat down on the stone steps next to her, saying that she was also feeling hot and didn't want to go out for a walk.

The stalls in front of the mountain gate are still there, but they are not as busy as when I came here in the morning. The stall owners are all sitting idly, and some simply hide in the shade of the trees nearby, watching from afar when there are customers lingering in front of the stalls, and then coming over to greet them.

The vendors carrying loads on their shoulders no longer wandered around, but hid under the shade of the trees. Some of them with good business sold out all their goods in the morning and went down the mountain with their empty loads.

At the entrance to the mountain, there was a stall selling all kinds of children's toys. There were dozens of colorful paper windmills with small whistles. When the wind blew, the windmills turned into a circle of rainbows and hummed, attracting children to gather around and look up. There was a woman who couldn't resist the children, and while complaining about the high price of the windmills, she took out her purse to buy one. In a short while, he actually sold five or six windmills, and the vendor's mouth was almost smiling to the back of his head.

Shen Yu found it interesting and started laughing too.

The two of them sat there chatting casually, feeling the mountain breeze, which was quite comfortable.

Waiters from the restaurant came out one after another. Some went out for a walk, while others sat with them to enjoy the cool air. They sat together and chattered, making the scene very lively.

A tall waiter boasted to everyone: "You guys are not tall enough, so you didn't see it. I saw it clearly. Our boss's honey offering flower cake was placed on the altar in the middle."

"It's a pity that we can't eat the one in the middle. I heard that eating the one in the middle brings the greatest fortune!" Another waiter smacked his lips regretfully.

"The flower cakes in the middle are reserved for the rich families in the county. How can we get it?"

"But the small flower cake and this big flower cake we shared in the restaurant were both made by Miss Shen. So that means we have eaten them too."

"Haha, you are right."

"That's right. Now that I put it that way, I feel like I've been blessed."

"The flower cake made by Miss Shen is really delicious. The piece we got the day before yesterday was even bigger than what we got today."

The guys were trying to comfort themselves, and Shen Yu just smiled foolishly beside them with his lips pursed.

After discussing for a while, the 3:00 p.m. drum sounded. Chef Lu had rested enough, so he stood up and asked everyone to go down the mountain.

We walked past the porter stall under the tree and returned the can of sour plum soup to the vendor, then everyone walked down the mountain together carrying their purchases.