Chapter 112: Taste-Free Chopsticks
Translator: Xiong Guoqi Editor: DesTheSloth
Yuan Zhou’s tone revealed the feeling of gnashing his teeth in anger while talking. He speechlessly glared at the chopsticks that appeared to be a pair of ordinary wooden chopsticks. Every time he receives a reward from the system, it was a novel experience.
With a “Pa” sound, he closed the wooden box and decided to go upstairs for a little rest before coming down to open the restaurant.
Once the door was opened, he found many customers had gathered at the entrance, including his staff, Mu Xiaoyun.
“Master Yuan, how was the contest? There wasn’t any problem, was there?” Of the tens of people, the grandpa first asked.
The grandpa only got to know about the exchange of pointers this morning when he came to have breakfast. That old friend of his had also mentioned the contest once and probably it’s him who told that Chef Yu the detailed address of the restaurant. After all, other judges had never been to Yuan Zhou’s restaurant.
“No, no problem. Thank you.” Yuan Zhou gave him a nod, indicating everything was good.
“Boss Yuan, does that mean you won?” immediately, someone from the crowd asked.
“Yes. Business hours start now.” after giving an affirmative answer, Yuan Zhou continued saying.
“Let’s go and eat. Look, didn’t I say already? How is it possible that Boss Yuan will encounter any problems?” Having gotten the affirmative answer, Wu Zhou immediately spoke happily while walking inside.
“I’m not worrying, merely confirming.” Indeed, the regular customers basically didn’t worry as they had all personally witnessed the culinary skills of Yuan Zhou.
“It feels like my wallet is going to lose a lot of weight today,” somebody covered his wallet and bemoaned.
“Come on. You haven’t been here for half a month.” immediately, another man ridiculed him.
With a solemn look on his face, he then said at once, “Eh...., I have been saving money. I can order two different dishes today.”
While turning around and walking ahead, Yuan Zhou revealed a tender smile on his face. It was such a nice feeling to be sincerely cared for.
Yuan Zhou’s restaurant was crowded with many regular customers tonight, who were basically asking about the contest in the afternoon and then let their wallets slim down by buying some of their favorite dishes. Therefore, the restaurant appeared to be extraordinarily boisterous.
The next morning, after the one-hour business hour, Yuan Zhou straightaway went out of the restaurant towards the small vegetable market not far away. Naturally, he didn’t forget to take his hand cart.
While the hand cart was moving on the ground and emitting slight creaking “Zi Zi” sounds. Yuan Zhou went directly to a grocery store instead of the vegetable market.
The items in the grocery store were fairly complete with reasonable prices.
Yuan Zhou spent hundreds of RMB on a full cart of stuffs, making the boss of the grocery think he was a wholesaler, yet not exactly appearing to be one.
How could a wholesaler buy only one of each kind of item?
Since the hand cart was full of all kinds of bottles and containers this time, Yuan Zhou had to pull it with great caution on the way back. Fortunately, the boss was very nice. He helped to put some cushions between the items, hence reducing the risk of anything breaking if handled carefully.
Usually, Yuan Zhou would enter the restaurant through the front door when he purchased things. This time was no exception.
After entering, Yuan Zhou immediately went to the kitchen and moved all the items in the hand cart onto the azure stone countertop. Next, he took out a stack of small plates and laid them out in a row.
He began to pour different flavorings into the small plates, one of each kind. The remaining plates would then be taken back and placed into the cabinet.
The row roughly amounted to more than 20 small plates. Seated in the chair, Yuan Zhou took out the reward of the system that he had felt disgusted the previous night, the Taste-Free Chopsticks.
There was still half an hour before the restaurant would open for business. Yuan Zhou felt the period of the time was just good to try the effect of the chopsticks.
The oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea were respectively in the first few plates, which were quite normal. The remaining plates basically contained all other kinds of flavorings while a glass of water was prepared at the side.
He first tried the oil. Having slightly dipped the chopsticks in the oil and then put them in the mouth, Yuan Zhou found the taste to be the same; it had no change. Then, he dipped the chopsticks in vinegar and put it into his mouth again. There was, indeed, only the taste of the vinegar with no trace of oil. One should know that Yuan Zhou didn’t specifically wipe them.
No matter how clean they were wiped, ordinary new chopsticks carried a sort of intrinsic taste while used ones had even more of those taste. This was because the taste had mostly soaked into the inside.
Now it seemed that this pair of Taste-Free chopsticks were worthy of its name. At this, Yuan Zhou showed more interest and began dipping them in each of the plates, playing around extremely happily.
“Duk Duk Duk”, a sound of high-heels could be heard approaching the restaurant.
Raising his head and taking a look, Yuan Zhou saw a girl with clusters of wavy hair over her head. With an oval shaped face and a pair of peach blossom eyes, this fair-skinned girl was beautiful. The only blemish was her expression that did not seem good.
Though having noticed Yuan Zhou raising his head, she didn’t actually respond to him. Instead, she took a seat nearby, reaching out her long white fingers and tapping the table with a sound of “Dong Dong”.
“Non-business hours,” Yuan Zhou directly said that and then lowered his head, continuing to savor the tastes.
“If a boss like you plays that way, how could he get any customer? I’m just here to have a rest.” The arrogant look of the beautiful girl couldn’t cover the dim expression on her pretty face.
“Oh.”
Yuan Zhou didn’t want to receive customers outside of the opening hours. Nevertheless, since business hours were almost arriving, he said nothing more and merely continued to play with the Taste-Free Chopsticks, stirring them in each plate.
The beautiful girl first curiously watched him play for a while. When she found his actions to be quite repetitive, she then lost interest and then became irritable.
As a matter of fact, she had a fairly outgoing character. However, it really was a bad day today for her, which was why she was so irritable.
To the beautiful girl, Yue Yueli, it was an extremely terrible day today. She was originally in a bad mood and took a drive to release some stress. However, she had gotten a flat tire while driving outside. After parking the car and making a call to inform a repair company, she wandered around and got lost.
Then she entered this small and simple restaurant which nevertheless appeared clean, but now felt that the boss was definitely out of his mind.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Yue Yueli couldn’t bear the silent atmosphere hence asked a question.
“…” Yuan Zhou’s reaction was that he didn’t react. He was making the best use of the remaining time in playing with the chopsticks, actually experimenting.
“I want to order some dishes,” she didn’t actually know what food was served in the restaurant but just said that casually.
“It’s not the business hours right now.” Yuan Zhou would still answer all questions of the customers.
While turning her head and preparing to look at the exact business hours of the small restaurant, Yue Yueli got to see the prices on the wall and couldn’t help laughing. “Is there anybody who would come to eat with these prices?”
“I’m sorry. If you want to eat, please wait until the business hours start. If not, please leave.” Yuan Zhou was rarely in good mood thus spoke a long sentence.
However, his utterance sounded different when heard by Yue Yueli. No matter what, she was still quite a beautiful girl. Though she didn’t use her beauty to gain advantages, Yue Yueli nevertheless enjoyed quite a few preferential treatments. Nonetheless, this guy seemed to be ignorant of that and moreover wanted to drive her away.
“You open a restaurant but don’t accept any business. Besides, the price of your dishes is so high. I’m afraid not many people could afford them. For the sake of my bad mood, I will reluctantly order one serving of Watermelon Juice.” while revealing a manner as if to pity Yuan Zhou, Yue Yueli said discontentedly with her brows frowning.
“You have to wait until the business hours start and only then, have lunch.” Not having been swayed by that, Yuan Zhou gave the same reply again.
“If so, I’ll just sit here for a rest. You can continue playing with your chopsticks.” with an angry face, Yue Yueli said impolitely.
“My restaurant is too small that there won’t be enough seats for my customers in a while. Why don’t you go to other places for a rest?” with his never-changing solemn expression, Yuan Zhou was reluctant to give her any opportunities.
The rule of Yuan Zhou was that rules are rules, regardless of who they were.