The Game of Life-Chapter 736 - 735: Sell Individually (4000+)

Chapter 736 -735: Sell Individually (4000+)

Sun Maochai and Wang Xiulian took less than 10 minutes to come up with a strategy: they would sell the meat wontons as usual at noon, and if Ji Yue really wanted to eat them, they would reserve a portion for her. After all, the Swallow-tailed Pigeon that Jiang Feng promised to Ji Yue still hadn’t been made, so this 10 yuan pure meat wonton could be considered as the interest owed after so many days.

It’s just that Mrs. Wang Xiulian didn’t understand why Ji Yue, who had eaten Jiang Feng’s meat-only wonton before and developed a psychological shadow from just one try, would dare to eat it again after weeping so miserably over two or three bowls last time. These artistic students are really incomprehensible; even after switching careers to be waitresses, they haven’t given up their pursuit of art.

Sun Maochai didn’t understand either. He had thought of many things before and felt that any one of Jiang Feng’s limited dishes could become his signature dish, but he never considered that 10 yuan meat-only wonton. When he first looked at the menu, he expressed curiosity about this strange and cheap wonton and suggested that he wanted to try it, only to be tearfully stopped by everyone who had tasted it from committing such a suicidal act.

Taifeng Building had only one very capable, resilient, young, and experienced head chef; they couldn’t lose him.

Now, Sun Maochai was even more curious about Jiang Feng’s meat-only wonton.

Today at noon, the meat wontons would be sold as usual, but Wang Xiulian asked Ji Yue to hurry to the print shop to create a new survey form. After the customers finished their meals and settled the bill at noon, they would distribute the survey forms to them to ask for everyone’s opinion on the meat wontons and any suggestions they had about how they were sold.

If the customers had any suggestions, Taifeng Building was willing to change. If you think they don’t sell enough, Taifeng Building could adjust the portion size. They could sell by the bowl or by the piece. It’s one way to rely on hand speed to grab, or they could even draw lots. As long as the customers have a need, Taifeng Building would definitely do their best to satisfy their wishes.

Just thinking like this made Jiang Feng feel that Taifeng Building was a household that really considered its customers’ needs.

The unexpected popularity of the pure meat wonton substantially increased Taifeng Building’s turnover. After all, if a table for four seated six people and a table for six seated eight, they had to order food for four and eight people, respectively. Everyone who came had to eat something before leaving even if they couldn’t get the wontons.

While having lunch, Jiang Feng took the time to send a message to Zhou Shi, asking if he had time in the next couple of days to come by the store. He would treat Zhou Shi to a meal.

After sending the message, Jiang Feng casually tossed his phone on the table and continued eating. In the middle of his meal, he suddenly realized that someone was missing—Ji Yue had disappeared.

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“Qiqi, have you seen Ji Yue? Where did she run off to? Why isn’t she eating?” Jiang Feng stuffed a piece of tender pig’s trotter into his mouth and looked around.

Wu Minqi looked at Jiang Feng with a very strange expression and said, “Didn’t she just eat your wonton? Now she’s hiding upstairs crying.”

Jiang Feng: …

You might not believe it if I said it, but this time, she really was the one who asked for it.

After lunch, Jiang Feng checked his phone and saw that Zhou Shi hadn’t replied yet, probably because he was busy. At this time, Sun Maochai usually went to the teahouse for tea with the two sirs, but today was different. He needed to stay and discuss with Jiang Feng, Wang Xiulian, Fan Mei, and Ji Yue how to handle Jiang Feng’s pure meat wonton.

The meat-only wonton had been popular for a long time, but since this dish was not at all fit for human consumption, was outrageously cheap, and Jiang Feng only sold a few portions a day, nobody really took it seriously. Even from a BUFF standpoint, it was considered equal to the Sweet and Sour Yam, but no one among all the staff at Taifeng Building thought it was comparable to the Sweet and Sour Yam.

Even though the pure meat wonton had already earned quite a bizarre reputation, it was only sold as a bizarre dish.

But now, things were different. This dish was no longer what it used to be, all because of the four words from Xue Shaoheng that made it seem blessed with holy light. This was just the first day, and professors from the art institute and the legendary painters whose works could sell for a six-figure sum had come. Who knew who else would come from far and wide just to eat this bowl of wonton that everyone dreaded?

Artists from ancient to modern times, from the East to the West, are capable of anything for that elusive inspiration. Some choose to dabble in white powdery substances and embark on a path of crime and illegality. That’s still the mild stuff; the more severe might stab themselves or even amputate parts of their body, and the most extreme might even stake their lives in the process.

Compared to these methods of seeking inspiration, eating a bowl of all-meat wontons hardly seems worth mentioning.

When the all-meat wontons follow-up development seminar was convened, Ji Yue was still immersed in the sadness from just having finished eating the wontons.

Her eyes were lifeless, her gaze blank, her appearance withered.

She looked like a child who had just been savagely beaten by society and suffered a major life setback.

Sun Maochai was extremely interested in Ji Yue’s current state and curiously asked, “Does everyone look like this after eating the wontons?”

“Pretty much,” Jiang Feng said, “Ji Yue has had them several times and should have more experience. Some people look particularly frightening the first time they try them. I remember when my parents first ate them, they hugged each other and cried for over 20 minutes straight, until their voices were hoarse. The next day, their eyes were so swollen they looked like they had been beaten.”

Wang Xiulian: …

“It was your father crying, not me. I only shed a few tears,” Wang Xiulian chose to shift the blame onto her absent husband Jiang Jiankang, “And son, not to criticize, but those wontons you make are truly inedible. They’re so bad that even pigs would cry after eating them.”

Ji Yue nodded frantically in agreement.

“It’s really that miraculous? If it’s just because it tastes bad, it shouldn’t result in this kind of reaction,” Sun Maochai, having never experienced the might of Jiang Feng’s buff food, couldn’t understand and felt that this simply didn’t seem like something that would happen in real life. It was like the realm of the supernatural.

“You don’t understand. This bowl of wontons isn’t just ordinarily bad, it has surpassed the limits of bad taste, attacking your soul, making you scream from the depths of your heart as if malevolent spirits were gnawing at your very being,” Ji Yue said. Even though her artistic inspiration had not come, her literary level had apparently increased quite a bit.

Sun Maochai: …

Then why would anyone want to eat this thing? I really don’t get you artistic types.

“How about today’s customer feedback collection? What have the reactions been like?” Sun Maochai asked.

Fan Mei took out a stack of freshly filled feedback forms, “Most of the participants in the feedback were regular customers who had eaten the all-meat wontons before and new customers who came because of the reputation. The new customers mostly commented that there were too few wontons, making them hard to get, while the regular ones…”

Fan Mei paused, as the feedback from the regular customers was obviously beyond the understanding of ordinary people, “Some of them felt that the all-meat wontons were priced too cheaply, which made it too hard to obtain due to the low barrier, and some said that the serving size was too large.”

Everyone: ???

Fan Mei pulled out one of the feedback forms; the handwriting was quite elegant, but the content didn’t seem quite normal, “Take this customer, for instance; she also had a suggestion. She thinks that the wontons should be sold individually rather than by the bowl, or at least sell the wonton wrappers and meat separately, which would greatly increase their chances of getting some.”

Fan Mei pulled out another suggestion form: “This customer also has a suggestion. He thinks that wontons should be sold individually, and there should be a limit of one per person. What he said is…”

She picked up the suggestion form and squinted as she read aloud, “Pure meat wontons, such a sacred dish, it’s simply too extravagant and wasteful for one person to eat two or three a day, let alone those who eat a whole bowl. Such behavior is outrageous. To allow everyone to have a chance to taste it, there should be a limit of one wonton per person per day. Otherwise, it’s just too profligate.”

Everyone: ???

Actually, even selling pure meat wontons individually wouldn’t bring in much money, since a bowl contains only ten wontons, and only three bowls could be made per day, totaling thirty wontons. There were definitely more than thirty people who came to eat pure meat wontons today, and judging from the art students’ perseverance, fighting fiercely to get one today or tomorrow, and even if they got them today, they’d still want more tomorrow, they’d apparently need to eat pure meat wontons in succession.

Even if it inspired them, they would still need to pay for more.

Having been a chef for so many years, Sun Maochai had never before encountered such a bizarre dish, such peculiar customers, and such strange requests, and the key point was that these odd requests were actually popular. This left him momentarily speechless, unsure of what to say.

“Since the customers have requested it, I think it’s best to sell the pure meat wontons individually. You all in the kitchen might not have felt it much this noon, but we saw it in the lobby. There were a lot of people. If we keep it at three servings a day, it might be more than just a supply and demand issue,” Fan Mei said, “But if we sell them individually, we must be careful with the pricing. If the price is too high, it will inevitably affect our reputation.”

“We can’t set a high price,” Sun Maochai said bluntly. “Discounting the factors that I might not understand, this dish, whether in terms of quality, taste, or other aspects, is not suitable for a high price. It’s only suitable to be sold at a low price. If we really are to sell them individually, my suggestion is to keep the original price unchanged at one yuan each.”

Wang Xiulian had no objections to this. Although she was very keen to raise prices like a qualified unscrupulous capitalist, she had a conscience. As the first victim of the pure meat wontons, she felt that it was already outrageous to charge for such a lousy dish, and selling it at a high price was simply unconscionable.

“My suggestion is to stagger the sales times for the pure meat wontons, not to focus all sales at noon. I remember a bowl has ten, right? Let’s base it on thirty a day, sell twenty at noon and ten in the evening. That way, customers have more choices. It can also prevent too many diners at noon and too few in the evening, and if the queue is too long due to many customers, many will choose to dine at another restaurant. Invisibly, we would lose a lot of customers,” said Sun Maochai, who was a professional head chef, and even if he couldn’t understand the pure meat wontons, he could still offer what he felt was very good advice.

“I think that’s acceptable,” Fan Mei had no objections, and Wang Xiulian nodded in agreement. Jiang Feng had come to hear everyone’s opinions, and Ji Yue was utterly immersed in the sorrow of wontons and unable to extricate herself.

Thus, Sun Maochai’s proposal was eerily passed unanimously.

The follow-up sustainability discussion for the pure meat wontons was successfully concluded.

After the meeting, everyone naturally went about their respective business: those who needed to drink tea did so, those who wanted to stroll around went out, and those who needed to sleep in the surveillance room did just that. Sun Maochai was about to go to the teahouse to do what a qualified head chef at Taifeng Building should during his lunch break when Jiang Feng called out to him.

Zhou Shi had replied to his message just now.

Zhou Shi told him that he had made dinner plans with friends tonight. Initially, Zhou Shi intended to take his friends to Yonghe House for dinner, but after seeing Jiang Feng’s message, he changed his mind at the last minute and decided to invite his friends to Taifeng Building instead, and he also took this opportunity to visit everyone.

Zhou Shi said he would come early, arriving before the start of the evening shift. At that time, the kitchen wouldn’t be busy, and he would have time to chat and catch up with everyone.

If everything went as expected, tonight would be the moment that decided Zhou Shi’s future fate.

Jiang Feng wanted to ask Sun Maochai for a favor, to help him put on an act and tell a lie.

If Zhou Shi was merely coming to visit everyone, now that he’s entered the back kitchen for a chat, and since he’s already here, he might as well change his clothes, wash his hands, get back to his old job for a bit, work for free to relive old dreams, and reexperience the feeling of being a chef at Taifeng Building.

But now it’s different, Zhou Shi is here to dine.

A diner is a guest, and having a guest step into the back kitchen to cook a couple of dishes for themselves to eat, Jiang Feng felt, seemed somewhat improper.

The most critical point was that the dishes he cooked might not even be for his own consumption.

So, Jiang Feng wanted to stage a little act with Sun Maochai and claimed that at lunch today, he told everyone about last night’s encounter with Zhou Shi at Yonghe House. Sun Maochai happened to overhear and casually asked a few questions, so Jiang Feng briefly shared Zhou Shi’s situation. After listening, Sun Maochai was very interested, especially in Zhou Shi’s cold jellyfish salad—a dish never featured on Taifeng’s menu. Sun Maochai had been studying jellyfish dishes recently and was curious about this novel method of preparation.

Jiang Feng had a good understanding of Zhou Shi’s culinary skills. He was a self-taught rookie who had never formally studied from the beginning with a master, but he had built a decent foundation due to his natural talent. Most of Zhou Shi’s dishes weren’t very distinctive, and many were learned through imitation—which had the drawback of rarely capturing the true essence. Of his many dishes, it was the cold jellyfish salad, previously taught to Jiang Feng in exchange for the method of stuffed orange crabs, that could somewhat impress others.

Jiang Feng knew how to make the cold jellyfish salad, but he could excuse himself by saying he wasn’t as skilled as Zhou Shi or simply claim he never truly mastered the essence of the dish, so it would be necessary for Zhou Shi to personally make it for Sun Maochai to taste. Sun Maochai was a master of Cantonese cuisine who merely wanted to taste a dish, and Jiang Feng believed that most chefs, including Zhou Shi, would be willing to oblige.

The cold jellyfish salad could showcase Zhou Shi’s culinary skills, wasn’t complicated, and offered fewer chances to make a mistake. In Jiang Feng’s opinion, it was the most suitable and advantageous dish for assessing Zhou Shi.

With the excuse that Sun Maochai wanted to taste it, Zhou Shi wouldn’t dare to skimp on the effort and would surely give it his all.

That was all the help Jiang Feng could offer.

It just required Sun Maochai to agree to go along with this lie.

And of course, Sun Maochai agreed.

When he heard from Jiang Feng that Peng Changping wanted to take Zhou Shi as his last disciple, and that the cold jellyfish salad was quite distinctive, he was genuinely curious about how special it was and wanted to gauge the culinary level of someone whom Peng Changping had taken interest in.

“Of course, there’s no problem. Do I need to do any other preparations? Like, scripting a dialogue, or how to convey it when I meet him?” Sun Maochai not only agreed but was even a bit excited, “Should we rehearse it first? I’ve been invited by friends to make cameo appearances in films before, the kind with lines.”

Jiang Feng: ?

“No, no, normal performance is fine. You don’t even have to say a word, just nod in agreement or simply stand by the side.” Jiang Feng didn’t quite understand why these famous chefs all seemed to enjoy acting.

“Oh.” Sun Maochai sounded somewhat disappointed.

It was like he thought he had landed the lead role in a play but then discovered upon receiving the script that he was just a supporting actor—and not just a supporting one, but one without any lines.

Disappointing.