Until Sir left for the countryside, Jiang Feng had not been able to make a single dish that satisfied him.
Jiang Weiguo had returned to the countryside earlier, with 3 days left before Jiang Feng's school term started, for a very simple reason—he was worried about the precious fat pigs he raised.
"Dad, Mom will take care of the pigs, so just stay with peace of mind! Staying at my third brother's house is uncomfortable, you can come to my house," Jiang Jiandang tried to persuade at the station, thinking that the good days of eating Sir's cooking every day were about to end, he almost cried.
"No, no, your mother doesn't know how to cook pig food. I saw the photo she sent me yesterday, she's been feeding them to get skinny," Jiang Weiguo said with distress as he took out his phone to show Jiang Jiandang the photo stuffed with three fat white pigs, "They're not used to anyone else's cooking but mine."
Two streams of tears ran down Jiang Jiandang's meat-packed face.
"Feng, when you go to school, you better practice well and don't waste it. I saw on the news a while ago that college students like you enjoy cooking in the dorms, right? Learn more, and it wouldn't hurt to chop some vegetables and practice flipping the pan," Jiang Weiguo said and then he picked up a new set of knives and boarded the minibus back to the countryside.
"Feng, study cooking well and don't let your grandpa's teachings go to waste," Jiang Jiandang said, wiping away tears.
Jiang Feng: ...
If he dared to fry dishes in the dorm, not to mention anything else, the dorm manager would be the first to cut him up.
Probably with the chopping technique, cut him into a dozen or twenty pieces.
Chen Xiuxiu's school started two days earlier than Jiang Feng's, and she had booked her flight for the next day. To express his reluctance about the old neighbor starting school and to more conveniently rack up experience points, Jiang Feng personally made a table of dishes for her farewell meal.
Jiang Jiandang and his wife were not interested in the dishes Jiang Feng made; Jiang Jiandang's own cooking skills were probably even better than Jiang Feng's. Having eaten Sir's cooking for over ten days, Mrs. Wang Xiulian also turned up her nose at her son's cooking and went to help at Mr. Jiang Jiankang's busy store instead.
When Sir was around, the store didn't seem busy at all, but as soon as he left, the store inexplicably became busy.
The only guest to taste Jiang Feng's cooking was Chen Xiuxiu.
Five dishes and one soup, all of them homestyle dishes.
Stir-fried cauliflower, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, sweet and sour cabbage, cucumber in garlic sauce, seaweed egg soup, and the most difficult one, braised shrimp in oil.
It looked not bad because with the remarks given by the game, Jiang Feng knew that among these six dishes, the cucumber in garlic sauce was the best, and he accidentally put too much salt in the scrambled eggs with tomatoes.
After all, his knifework over the past ten days had not been for nothing!
Chen Xiuxiu, with her discerning taste, reached for the cucumber in garlic sauce first.
She snapped a small piece of cucumber and put it into her mouth.
"Ding, you have earned 3 experience points."
Jiang Feng: ...
You've changed, you used to give me 9 experience points for just a bite of corn.
Spoiled by Jiang Weiguo's feeding for over ten days, Chen Xiuxiu had clearly become pickier, giving only one or two points per dish, learning to be stingy like Mr. Jiang Jiankang, and had lost the generosity she once had when she could gain thirty-odd points from just a sip of congee.
Chen Xiuxiu's university was in Sail Province's Sutton City, where the cost of living was so high that not even Alan City could match it.
Taking into account the different tastes of the people in Sail Province and the local area, Jiang Feng reluctantly gave her a jar of chili sauce personally pickled by Sir.
Chen Xiuxiu joyfully mixed the chili sauce with her white rice and finished the second half of her meal.
Jiang Feng, having lost a jar of chili sauce without gaining any experience points, opened the attribute panel with a heavy heart.
The meal Chen Xiuxiu just had filled up the remaining experience points needed to level up to level five, and Jiang Feng, as usual, clicked to level up.
"Ding, congratulations to the player for reaching level 5 and completing the Novice Tutorial."
"Reward: Appraisal (Intermediate)."
"The game is updating; after the update is complete, the game will unlock the skill exploration and skill upgrade features."
Updating?
This game is pretty up-to-date.
Jiang Feng tried again to access the attribute panel, but all he saw was a single progress bar.
Update Progress: 0%
Perhaps Earth was a bit too distant, resulting in slow internet speeds.
An hour passed, and the update progress had only reached 2%.
Jiang Feng: ...
No wonder everyone talks about the global village, the internet speed in this village is just slow.
Since the game was updating, Jiang Feng simply went to help out at the store.
The regular customers all knew that Jiang Feng's family store was moving away, and business had been booming for the past few days. Whether it was mealtime or not, from 6 in the morning to 10 at night, the store was packed with people.
One afternoon when Jiang Feng was helping out, he happened to overhear an old customer who had been coming for twenty years sigh, "We will never find a restaurant as delicious as yours around here again."
It wasn't that Zet City lacked skilled chefs, but the only one whose skills surpassed Jiang Jiankang's was the head chef of a thirty-year-old restaurant in the city that had first been a banquet hall before transitioning into a hotel, where the prices were several times more expensive than Jiankang's Snacks.
There was a period when it was popular to show off local, obscure yet delectable eateries, and Jiankang's Snacks was one of the most frequently mentioned. During that time, Jiang Feng delivered takeouts daily, tanning several shades, and those unaware might think he had taken on part-time work moving bricks on a construction site.
But I digress. Jiang Jiankang felt a sense of loss for these dedicated customers as well.
When the state-owned restaurant closed down, Jiang Jiankang lost his job. Losing what had seemed like an iron rice bowl felt as if the sky had fallen. He and Mrs. Wang Xiulian put all their savings into buying this shop and opening this small stir-fry restaurant. If it hadn't been for the support of these customers at the beginning, Jiang Jiankang would have been so poor he could have been begging under a bridge.
How else could he have saved up money like now to open another restaurant in Alan City?
Today was Jiankang's Snacks' last day of business. The original plan was to stay open for two more days, but Sir had returned to his hometown ahead of schedule, so Jiang Jiankang and Mrs. Wang Xiulian decided to head to Alan City earlier too.
The new restaurant was about to open, and it was time to get accustomed to the new place.
On the last evening of business, Jiang Jiankang invited all of the old customers and neighbors of Jiankang's Snacks to dine. The restaurant couldn't accommodate everyone, so tables were set up outside. Nearly every shopkeeper on this street was an old neighbor or acquaintance of Jiang Jiankang, and knowing that this was the last day for Jiankang's Snacks, they all offered the space in front of their shops. Many shopkeepers also lent out their tables, chairs, and benches, and a few even lent out the bowls and dishes from their own shops.
Tables and chairs of various colors and sizes filled the whole street.
Jiang Jiankang was in the kitchen; from six o'clock, he worked non-stop until a quarter past nine, with dish after dish of Shandong cuisine being continuously brought out by Jiang Feng.
There were three or four dozen tables of guests, and Jiang Feng remembered almost every one of them.
That was when Jiang Feng realized, without being aware of it, Jiankang's Snacks had actually gathered so many regulars.
By eleven, even the last table of customers had left.
Jiang Jiankang was exhausted, drenched in sweat, with his oversized shirt already soaked. He sat down under the electric fan in the restaurant to cool off.
Jiang Feng and Mrs. Wang Xiulian busied themselves cleaning up the tables and dishes. After tidying and washing them, they returned them to their owners with a word of thanks.
By the time everything was cleaned up, it was past midnight. Zet City had no nightlife, and other than the streetlights, there was nothing else shining on the streets.
Jiang Jiankang stood in front of the store, sighed as he looked at the old, worn-out sign, and took it down.
He had no plans to sell or lease the shop; he felt it was good to let it sit there.
From then on, there was no longer a Jiankang's Snacks in Zet City.
"Son!"
"Yeah?"
"Learn well from your grandfather, take on apprentices, start a franchise, and when we come back from Alan City, we'll open an even bigger store!"
"A franchise?"
"I've already thought of a name, it'll be called Jiankang Hall!"
"..."