Baozi Xishi's Struggle

After a busy morning, I was so hungry that I parked the car when I got home and started making breakfast.

Shen Yu drank the mung bean porridge specially cooked by Li, chewed the soft pancakes with boiled eggs and pickles, and thought that it would be better if he could have soy milk or some soup with the buns, so as to avoid the trouble of only eating buns when ordering meals from the store and having to go out to buy some soup.

She told him about this idea, and Li suggested, "This is easy to do. The weather is hot now, so when we steam the buns, we can also make some soup. This will be another source of income."

Li said with some pride: "Before I got married, your grandmother taught me some cooking skills. I can cook mung bean porridge and lotus leaf porridge very well."

Shen Yu became interested after listening to it, so he asked Li to cook it for him to try at noon. Li agreed readily and said that he would cook some lotus leaf porridge at noon.

At noon, Li really brought out a pot of fragrant lotus leaf porridge.

There is nothing special about lotus leaf porridge. It is just ordinary rice porridge. When the porridge is almost ready, put a fresh lotus leaf in it and simmer for a while. After turning off the heat, the rice porridge turns a light yellow-green color and has a unique fragrance of lotus leaf. It is most suitable to drink in summer.

Shen Yu took a sip and praised: "Mom, this porridge is well cooked, fragrant and not too bitter, and the heat is just right."

Li said proudly, "Of course, I was watching the porridge the whole time. It doesn't matter if the lotus leaves are put in too early or too late. This is what your grandmother taught me. In the past few years, I haven't had the spare money to buy good rice to make porridge, so my skills have become rusty. The lotus leaves bought in the county town are not fresh enough. They are worse than those picked from the ponds beside the stream at home. They taste better than this."

Because she had breakfast late, Shen Yu felt full after just drinking porridge. She finished the porridge in her bowl, put down her bowl and chopsticks, and said to Li: "You guys eat slowly, I'll go to the store on the street to ask about ordering food."

Just after noon, there were few people walking on the street. Some shops had even half of their doors closed and hung up signs saying "Lunch break".

The first place Shen Yu went to was the cloth shop she had asked about yesterday. The shopkeeper had just finished his meal and was half lying on a rocking chair beside the counter, fanning himself with a folding fan and closing his eyes to enjoy the cool air. When he saw Shen Yu coming in, the clerk hurriedly stepped forward to greet her: "Hey, Miss Shen, come here. Our shopkeeper was just talking about you."

The shopkeeper heard the voice and knew it was Miss Shen from the bun stall. He stood up and came over with a smile on his face, "Miss Shen, the buns you sent were not enough for these brats. Coincidentally, you just sent the buns and someone from the head office came to pick them up. Each of the guys only got one bun, and they almost got into a fight over who got which filling. After eating, the guys all said it was delicious and begged me to order your buns for lunch."

Shen Yu couldn't help laughing after hearing this and said, "That's all my fault. I caused the guys to quarrel." The guy next to him scratched the back of his head embarrassedly and ran away pretending to be busy.

Shen Yu suppressed his smile and asked the shopkeeper, "Shopkeeper, I went back yesterday and figured out a way to order meals. I'll deliver the buns before lunch and order the quantity and date for the next delivery. If there's a temporary increase or decrease, I'll just send a waiter to Liushu Lane to let them know. When the buns are delivered, I'll settle the bill according to the quantity."

The shopkeeper heard this, slammed his folding fan shut and clapped it against his palm, saying with a smile, "This is a good idea. It can be delivered directly at mealtime, and there is no need to worry about the last minute additions or reductions that cannot be changed. Let's do it this way for now."

Shen Yu asked again, "Would you like to order some soup or porridge at the same time, boss? Eating steamed buns with plain water is always not tasty. Now that the weather is hot, mung bean porridge or lotus leaf porridge is the most refreshing and appetizing. A large bowl is only six cents."

The shopkeeper said, "Do you also make porridge at home? That's great. I'll give you some mung bean porridge."

The shop owner and two waiters decided on the quantity for tomorrow, which was three meat buns and one red bean paste bun for each person, plus a bowl of mung bean porridge for each person, to be delivered before lunch tomorrow.

After placing the order with the cloth shop, Shen Yu took out an account book and charcoal pencil from his cloth bag and wrote down the name of the shop and the types and quantities of the ordered meals.

The shopkeeper looked at the charcoal pencil in Shen Yu's hand with interest, and asked with a smile: "Miss, this pencil is rare. The tip of the pencil is so stiff, it doesn't look like an ordinary charcoal pencil."

Shen Yu smiled calmly and explained, "I can only recognize a few characters and I am not very good at writing. This brush is too soft, and the charcoal pencils used for sketching are too rough. Yesterday, I happened to see hard charcoal pencils used by craftsmen for drawing lines for sale in the pen and ink shop. I took one and tried it. It is fast and good for accounting. The price is much cheaper than a brush."

After hearing this, the shopkeeper took the charcoal pencil from Shen Yu's hand, looked at it carefully, and returned it to her, saying with a smile, "Young lady, you have a clever mind. I only occasionally see craftsmen using this pencil to draw lines on stone, but I never thought it could be used to write on paper. It's much more convenient than a brush, and it's very suitable for us to make some simple records every day."

Shen Yu said hurriedly, "Boss, this charcoal pencil can be used to make some unimportant records, such as accounts that I record today, settle tomorrow, and then will not be used. The carbon powder of this charcoal pencil cannot be kept on paper for a long time. After a long time, or if it is wiped hard, it will become blurred. The words written with ink can be preserved for a long time after the ink dries. For a store like yours with a large amount of daily inflow and outflow, and it takes a period of time to check the accounts, it is better to use a brush to keep accounts."

The shopkeeper couldn't help but sigh with regret, nodded and smiled, "Miss, you are right. We still can't save trouble. This account is very important. If we use the convenience for a while, it will be troublesome if the handwriting becomes blurred and we can't check the account. I'd better continue to use my brush. Even if I have to stand by the car to record the amount every time, the ink may accidentally drip and stain my clothes, which is also very inconvenient."

After hearing this, Shen Yu glanced at the shopkeeper's clothes and saw a few faint ink marks on the hem of the clothes, as if they were left there by ink that had been dropped on them before and not washed off in time.

The two chatted for a while, then Shen Yu said goodbye and went to the shop next door. It turned out that letting customers try before buying was the right thing to do. After tasting the food in these dozen shops, customers would place orders for tomorrow's meal.

Some shops are bigger, with five or six employees having lunch in the shop. Some shops have fewer employees, with only one employee guarding the shop. They prefer Shen Yu's house to deliver meals so that they don't have to go out for a meal and go to the shop to clean up the shop and then come back to clean up the shop.

After inquiring and recording the number of orders from the store, Shen Yu returned home and leaned over the table to count the number of orders for tomorrow. He originally thought that one person ordering only four or five buns was not a lot, but if he didn't count it, he wouldn't know. He didn't expect that the total number would be quite considerable.

For tomorrow alone, a total of sixteen stores have placed orders for tomorrow's lunch, for a total of two hundred and thirty-eight buns.

If twenty mung bean porridge are steamed in one basket, twelve baskets will be needed, which is actually the same number sold at the market entrance in the morning. In addition, half of the shops have placed orders for mung bean porridge, so the total income is even higher than in the morning.

This was such a pleasant surprise that Shen Yu was stunned for a moment.