Translator: Larbre Studio
Editor: Larbre Studio
The standard of the decoration and layout of the new shop had exceeded Jiang Jiankang’s expectations. He was originally feeling a little uncertain and worried, but after that, he immediately abandoned his son and dragged Wang Xiulian to the nearby farmer’s market to check out the situation.
In such a big shop, the supply of food materials needed to be carefully selected.
Jiang Feng, who had been left behind by his parents, went back to the dormitory with Wang Hao as he was used to.
“Feng’ge, I just saw a dish named Salix Leaf-shaped Steamed Bird’s Nest Soup on the first floor menu. What kind of dish is that?” Wang Hao asked curiously.
“That’s just a dish my dad puts there to show off, he doesn’t know how to prepare it at all.” Jiang Feng said, seeing Wang Hao’s stupefied spirit, he explained further to him, “The dish uses white bird’s nest as the main ingredient. My father only indulges in empty talk. The fact is that he has never made it at all. Only my grandfather made it when he was a chef in a state-owned Hotel.”
Wang Hao suddenly connected the dots, “No wonder you are so good at cooking. It’s a family inheritance.”
When they got to the school supermarket, Jiang Feng suddenly stopped walking.
“Would you like to have a chinese cucumber salad?”
He had dried peppers and chili oil in his bag.
Wang Hao was also known for his love of food. He would surely be able to gain lots of experience points by cooking for him. If he were to wait until he had tasted Comrade Jiang Jiankang’s skill tonight to cook for him, it would not be as easy to muddle through and get the points as before.
Of course, Wang Hao knew about the dish “Jiang Feng, you know how to make that too? Let’s go, there are cucumbers in the supermarket. When you’ve made it, I’ll post it on social media and make them salivate.”
Jiang Feng’s eyes brightened: “Have they all got back to school?”
“They all arrived ahead of time to welcome the freshmen. Now that that pack of animals is here, we’ll have to seal the door shut, Feng’ge. They didn’t even leave a single spoonful for me after they’d gotten a whiff of the Pork Chop Rice last time.” Wang Hao said cheerfully.
“It’s fine. I’ll just smash up a few more sticks. Ask them if they want some.” Of course, Jiang Feng would not refuse anyone. These people were sparkling experience points in his eyes!
Now that Jiang Feng had said that, Wang Hao whipped out his mobile phone and asked everyone in the Wechat group. As expected, he got a warm response from all the boys who had returned to school in advance.
Jiang Feng bought 10 sticks of cucumbers.
The cucumbers in the school supermarket were not very fresh. They had obviously been artificially ripened. Since all of them were of poor quality, he didn’t feel the need to choose between them. He took 10 passable pieces. After weighing them, he went to the cashier to check out.
Seeing that he had bought 10 sticks of cucumbers, the cashier spared a few more glances in his direction.
“Don’t buy vegetables at school. They’ve all been injected with fruit ripening agents.” It might be that because Jiang Feng was quite pleasant looking, the middle-aged cashier made it her business to give him a word of advice, “There is a small vegetable market behind the wholesale market. Many of the vegetables there are planted by the locals. They don’t use pesticides so they’re extremely fresh.”
“Thank you, auntie.” Jiang Feng thanked her sweetly, then took out his mobile phone and told Jiang Jiankang the information.
Wang Hao was waiting for Jiang Feng at the door of the supermarket. When he saw the bag of cucumbers that were carried out, he was surprised and asked, “Feng’ge, I remember that there are no kitchen knives in our dormitory, right?”
There was only a sharp fruit knife in the dormitory, and that was also the reason why Jiang Feng was usually reluctant to cook in the dormitory. It would take half a day to cut meat with a fruit knife.
“Just a fruit knife will suffice.” Jiang Feng said.
The taste of Chinese cucumber salads relies on knife work, the ingredients were secondary. Each family had their own recipes, and they wouldn’t differ much in taste.
As for the knife work.
Jiang Feng had already mastered such basic knife work when he was in primary five, allowing him to present a complete Chinese Cucumber Salad.
The dormitory was on the fifth floor. When Jiang Feng came up to the fifth floor with a bag of spices and cucumbers, he almost thought he had gone to the wrong room.
People were gathered from the back of the stairs to room 501, there were tall, short, fat and thin. There were at least a dozen people at a glance.
For people who didn’t know what was going on, they might have thought that the crowd had gathered in preparation for a group fight.
“Fuck, I just asked casually and you’re all here.” Seeing this situation, Wang Hao could not help but engage in an outburst of profanity.
The crowd included Jiang Feng’s classmates, some from the same department, and some who often came to Wang Hao’s shop to buy things and lingered around room 501.
“We’re here to celebrate the opening of Feng’ge’s new store!” Li Jian from the same class joked.
“My shop will open the day after tomorrow. Remember to come and show your support, guys.” Jiang Feng said with a smile, Wang Hao opened the door and entered the dormitory.
The fruit knife was on Jiang Feng’s table. Jiang Feng went to the balcony to wash the cucumbers and the fruit knife. Wang Hao began to wipe down the table quickly. The plastic chopping board had broken last semester and as they hadn’t bought a new one, they could only cut the cucumbers on the table.
After washing the cucumbers, Jiang Feng picked up the knife and skillfully cut the edge with the knife at a slanted angle first, then at a straight angle. He was so fluid in his actions, it was as if he was not using a fruit knife but the magical knives in the Chuuka Ichiban anime.
The people standing at the door had a look of captivation on their faces.
Jiang Feng’s cooking skills were good, but it was also relative and limited to the students in A University.
Find a relatively big hotel in A city, and one would easily find a huge handful of chefs with better craftsmanship than Jiang Feng.
These people had a good relationship with Jiang Feng. After seeing Wang Hao’s posts on social media, they thought that Jiang Feng’s family had already reached the peak of life’s hardship where he had to carry the burden of their family’s debts because of the restaurant they were opening. Hence, they had come to support Jiang Feng.
They had all agreed to eat a few mouthfuls of cucumbers per person, and use the food as an excuse to give him five to ten dollars each in order to make Jiang Feng’s life easier when he was starting school. The chinese cucumber salad was not the main point at all, their support was.
But now, several people at the door were staring involuntarily at the fruit knife in Jiang Feng’s hand.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh…
It was moving as fast as the knives in dramas.
Because room 501 often enjoyed hotpot in winter, they were well equipped with all kinds of seasoning and utensils. Jiang Feng took out two plates and arranged the sliced cucumbers into a circle, added salt, sesame oil, and sugar, and brought out the vinegar, dried hot pepper, and chili oil made by the old master himself from the bag he had brought back.
In his early years, the old master had learned how to brew vinegar from an expert Shanxi vinegar maker. In his opinion, most of the vinegar sold in the market now was soulless.
As soon as the jar of chili oil and vinegar was opened, the aroma wafted out.
“Do you guys prefer sour or spicy food?” Jiang Feng asked the few at the door first.
“Spicy, spicy!”
“Sour, sour’s good!”
“Anything’s fine.”
Four people gave him three kinds of answers. At this time, they could not remember that they were here to help. The two plates of cucumbers hogged their attention.
So Jiang Feng added more dry chili on one plate, and a normal ratio of seasoning on another.
10 cucumbers looked like a lot, but not much was left after it had been shared among a dozen people.
Wang Hao had the advantage of being in a favorable position, and as he had a special advantage, he tried to hog an entire cucumber. He was severely reprimanded by the crowd and had three-quarters of it taken away.
The chili oil made by the old master had a fiery kick. Several students who couldn’t handle the chili oil were in tears because of the heat, but they were still fighting in the front line trying to grab more food.
The sour and spicy aroma filled the doorway of room 501.
At first, some people had thought of giving polite compliments regarding the taste of the cucumbers. However, only a few plates of vinegar with dry pepper floating within were seen by those who had this thought.
The students who had come down to take out the garbage on the sixth floor saw the crowd gathered on the fifth floor. The air was still filled with the delicious sour and spicy aroma. They asked curiously, “what are you eating around here?”
“There’s nothing to eat here, nothing to eat, we’re helping to mop up the vinegar that had been spilled.” They all gave the same answer. It would not benefit them for the food to be shared with more people.
The 10 plates of chinese cucumber salad had been devoured clean by the crowd as if they were hungry wolves.
During this period, Jiang Feng heard “Ding, gained 111 experience points.”
“Ding, gained 167 experience points.”
“Ding, gained 109 experience points.”
He was on cloud nine.
After they had finished sharing the food among themselves, the crowd began to rush to wash the dishes enthusiastically.
“Ah!” Jiang Feng’s junior, who was in the same department, slapped his thigh and suddenly exclaimed, “Feng’ge, I almost forgot to pay for the chinese cucumber salad. I’ll just scan the QR code at the head of Brother Hao’s bed and transfer it to brother Hao first. Brother Hao, remember to pass it to Feng’ge!”
“Oh, how can I forget that!”
“Oh, look at my memory, Hao’zi. I’ll pass you the money, too.”
All of them appeared to be hit with a sudden realization. Jiang Feng was embarrassed to expose them because of their poor acting skills.
The biggest giveaway was that everyone would run away after paying. It was too deliberate.
Wang Hao was quite stunned as he looked at the series of money transfer notifications on his mobile phone.
“Since when do they pay after freeloading food?”
Jiang Feng smiled and began to keep the seasoning: “It’s all because of you, spreading false advertisements on your social media every day, I guess they all think that I’m too poor to eat.”
“What about all this money then?”
“Take it first, and return it through discounts when they go to my restaurant for meals.” Jiang Feng replied.
After packing up, Jiang Feng picked up the seasoning and put it in a bag to take to the store in the evening.
Wang Hao thought about the Chinese Cucumber Salad just now and asked, “Feng’ge, how do your father’s culinary skills compare with that dish of chinese cucumber salad just now?”
Jiang Feng thought for a moment and answered seriously, “The dish of chinese cucumber salad just tasted good because it was seasoned with the vinegar and chili oil made by my grandfather, which is probably my father’s usual standard.”
“The dishes my dad will be preparing tonight will definitely be his best dishes. It will definitely be better than that Chinese Cucumber Salad.”
Gulp
Wang Hao swallowed his saliva involuntarily.