Chapter 383: Gourmet System of the Eighties (21)

"Xiao Rong!"

Just as Xie Yang left, the elderly gatekeeper led a construction crew over:

"These people say they're here to work on the Da Shitang. I see one of them is specifically for breaking walls, and there are a few masons too. What's this? Is your Da Shitang planning a major project?"

What could Xiao Rong say? He could only nod with a wooden expression.

The gatekeeper: "Starting a project like this, the construction period won't be short."

Xiao Rong: "It's not long, half a month."

"Hah! It's going to take half a month?" The gatekeeper shook his head. "The Third Canteen over there has already opened for business. You lot are something else—not only are you not making money, you're losing it."

Xiao Rong closed his eyes: "Sharpening the knife doesn't delay the wood-chopping!"

"..."

The gatekeeper was someone who couldn't keep things to himself.

As soon as he went back, he told his colleagues in the guardroom.

Soon, the masters who contracted the windows at the Third Canteen all knew—

The Da Shitang hadn't opened for business, but had instead closed for renovations, with a construction period of at least half a month.

Some shook their heads and sighed: Young people are just young people. Once they get the contract, they don't rush to open for business, but instead spend half a month tinkering with interior decoration? Making it all flashy and fancy is a pure waste of time and a pure waste of money! Truly squandering their fortune!

Others gloated: I was worried that Xie Dani might have some tricks up her sleeve and might steal some of our business. I didn't expect her to be such a big fool! Wasting half a month just to make the canteen look pretty—good, good, good! For these half a month, the workers in the Old Factory District have nowhere to eat, so they'll definitely all come to the Third Canteen!

Actually, in Xie Yang's view, a half-month construction period for wall-breaking and major renovations really wasn't slow. In later generations, a project of this scale couldn't be delivered without dragging on for a month or two.

But in this era, building a house from the ground up would take shape in three to five days, and in half a month, one could move in and live there.

Spending half a month on interior decoration—if that isn't burning money and squandering, what is?

But she didn't care about that.

She was busy.

She disguised herself as a country woman selling tea eggs, and before dawn, she rode the 28-inch bicycle Zhang Li had left behind to the street where Xue Lihua lived.

【Host, you're here too early. That woman is still sleeping! Her distant relative hasn't arrived yet either.】

"It's fine, I'll sell some breakfast first to earn some travel money."

Main System: 【...】

What?

You came by bike!

You've pedaled that manual bicycle so hard it's sparking, faster than the early morning trams on the road. Do you still need to earn travel money?

Xie Yang didn't think so.

Since she was already here, shouldn't she earn some money to take back?

She couldn't just stand foolishly outside Xue Lihua's door waiting.

That wasn't her style.

Xie Yang parked the bike at the entrance of the alley and untied the small cotton-padded blanket from the back seat, revealing a double-eared Western-style pot.

She opened the lid, and immediately, the overbearing fragrance of the five-spice tea eggs that had been simmering all night wafted out.

"Come take a look, come take a look! Cheap, fragrant, and nutritious five-spice tea eggs for sale!"

Xie Yang imitated the accent of the woman who had sold her sunflower seeds and peanuts that day and began to hawk her wares.

At six o'clock on a summer morning, it was already bright, but there weren't many pedestrians, and those who were there were rushing to their units to change shifts.

These workers rushing to the workshop to take over their shifts hadn't eaten breakfast yet, and usually, they would go to their unit's Canteen to drink a bowl of thin porridge and eat a steamed bun.

But when they passed by Xie Yang, smelling the fragrance drifting in the air, they couldn't help but slow their steps.

"How much for these tea eggs?"

"Thirty cents each."

This price wasn't expensive.

The hard-boiled eggs sold to workers at the Gad Steel Factory Canteen cost twenty-five cents, and that was even with the worker's welfare discount.

People selling tea eggs on the street usually asked for forty cents.

Because the cost of going to the countryside to purchase farm eggs was fifteen cents.

Xie Yang had pondered this issue and figured it was because chicken farms weren't common in this era.

In a few years, when private chicken farms started popping up one after another, the price of eggs would be driven down.

For now, thirty cents for a tea egg was quite affordable.

And so, hearing the price, the workers who had slowed their steps stopped completely and opened their lunchboxes:

"Give me one!"

"I want two!"

Xie Yang scooped up tea eggs with one hand and collected money with the other.

Someone asked casually: "You're selling them so cheap, they aren't made from rotten eggs, are they?"

Xie Yang peeled one on the spot: "Would rotten eggs have such beautiful patterns?"

Then she broke it in half to show them the color of the yolk: "Would rotten eggs have such a beautiful yolk?"

The reason she sold them cheaply was that she hadn't spent any money on costs.

These eggs were rewards given to Shuisheng by the Gourmet System after he completed a Task.

He had already saved up two baskets in the Gourmet System's built-in space.

Before leaving yesterday, he had quietly put out a basket without telling her.

She only discovered it after the two children had left and she returned to the room.

The weather was hot, and so many eggs wouldn't keep for long, so she had boiled them into tea eggs to sell for money.

Only money will never spoil.

"It really isn't a rotten egg!" A passerby who looked like a Cadre bought one and didn't put it in a lunchbox, peeling and eating it right away. As he ate, he nodded, "Very fragrant! Very flavorful! This price is a bargain!"

Seeing this, others also scrambled to buy some.

"Then I'll buy one more."

"I want two!"

As time passed, the pedestrians on the road gradually increased.

Seeing someone selling tea eggs here for only thirty cents each, basically everyone would stop their steps to take one or two.

Someone even asked, "If I buy four, can it be cheaper?"

"Whoa! Lao Zhang, why are you buying so many?"

"To let my family have a taste."

"Lao Zhang really dotes on his wife and children."

Hearing their chat, Xie Yang was quite straightforward: "Four for one yuan."

With that, others were tempted as well.

Although buying four eggs for one yuan wasn't cheap—you could get several more raw eggs for that!

But the taste was truly good! And it was much cheaper than the tea eggs sold elsewhere!

"Then I'll buy four too!"

"Pack four for me!"

Selling them four by four, the full pot of tea eggs soon hit the bottom.

Seeing only four or five left at the bottom of the pot, Xie Yang hurriedly said to everyone, "That's all for today, they're sold out!"

"Aren't there still a few left?"

"These are reserved for my children."

"..."

The pedestrians dispersed.

Xie Yang could finally catch her breath.

She took out a Towel, wiped off her sweat, opened the lid of her water bottle to take a few sips, and listened as the Main System reported on the situation at Xue Lihua's home:

【That woman woke up and asked her husband what he wanted for breakfast. Her husband said whatever, so she went to cook a pot of dough drop soup. The bowl she gave her husband was full and thick, and even had a poached egg in it, while she gave Shuisheng and Musheng just a small bowl of the thin dregs from the bottom of the pot, and smugly asked them if they rarely ate white flour dough drops before.】

"..."

Xie Yang was so angry she laughed.

Is thin dough drop soup some kind of good thing worth showing off?

The breakfast she had been giving the children lately was either vegetable and egg noodles, bone and lean meat porridge, or scallion oil flower rolls and fresh meat buns she steamed herself.

The thin dough drop soup scraped from the bottom of the pot—if the two children ate that, they would be hungry before noon.

Xie Yang pushed her bicycle to the outside of the wall of Xue Lihua's courtyard.

Waiting for Xue Lihua's husband to leave for work and for Xue Lihua to go to the alley entrance to see why her distant relative hadn't arrived yet, Xie Yang climbed up with her bare hands and vaulted over the wall into the courtyard.

She whistled at the dumbfounded Shuisheng.

"Mom!"

Shuisheng recognized her through the whistle.

Xie Yang stuffed four tea eggs into his hands, whispered "Eat well, don't let yourself go hungry," and patted his head before leaving the way she came.

Musheng ran out with his short legs, clutching his favorite little wooden sword.

"Mom! Mom!"

Shuisheng thought he had also heard the whistle.

Unexpectedly, Musheng was pointing at the beautiful tiger-striped tea eggs in his hand and calling for Mom.

"..."