Chapter 118: The Day After Field Training Ends
On the first Monday after the Class Competition ended, the First Year High School students, having slept in hard that morning, were now all full of vigor. Every year, the first month after new students enroll naturally revolves around Field Training and the Class Competition, but this year’s biggest topic wasn’t Class One of First Year High School that won the championship, but rather Class Eight of First Year High School, this group that took an unusual path, and the Ancient Gourmet Club “A Bite of China Club” that guided them onto this path of wilderness survival (Xiang Chuan: I feel this term isn’t quite right).
Of course, everyone was even more curious about the rumored ancient gourmet food— is it really as delicious as it looked in the live stream?
Metea University Affiliated High School is, after all, a high school under a prestigious university, and many students have relatives who are civil servants at home, so they naturally know some rumors about the live stream. Some Second Year High School and Third Year High School seniors even directly obtained access to the live stream room through their parents’ connections, leaving them drooling with envy.
Some people couldn’t resist their curiosity and temptation, ran to the A Bite of China Club club activity room to try the buns there, and were instantly amazed. Then word spread from one to ten and ten to a hundred, building up a reputation among the Second Year High School and Third Year High School student groups. However, Xiang Chuan, considering safety and that the customers of her own club before departure were all First Year High School groups, prepared portions only for the Principal and Vice Principal besides arranging just about twenty buns each day for Little Star 1 and Little Star 2. So starting from the fourth day of the Class Competition in First Year High School grade, Second Year High School and Third Year High School grades staged various strength showdowns and scheming battles in the classroom every day over the ownership of these twenty buns. Finally, the sole winner from each class could enjoy the right to buy buns, and the winner could not participate in subsequent wins or losses to prevent consecutive championships, allowing more people to eat buns.
In the last few days, probably the Second Year High School and Third Year High School senior students were even more eager for them to return than the First Year High School students’ parents.
It was also fortunate that First Year High School students had no classes this morning, otherwise Class Eight of First Year High School—or accurately speaking, Xiang Chuan—would have been surrounded by the senior students demanding she quickly instruct the club activity room to make more buns.
The First Year High School students returning to school in the afternoon were now sharing their experiences from the Class Competition with the senior students in various clubs. And if there were Class 8 Members in the club, it would turn into the senior students pulling the Class Eight Students to share their experiences. At this time, not only were the senior students listening with keen interest, but even the First Year High School students from other classes in the same club were full of interest. After all, besides a few Class Cadres from the four classes in the Central Region, no one else had tasted the various freshly made gourmet food from Class Eight of First Year High School.
And the A Bite of China Club, as the center of the topic, was now also busy—busy inputting the new menus tinkered with over these six days into the kitchen AI, and reallocating the breakfast time and lunch time food supply amounts for Little Star 1 and Little Star 2.
It had to be arranged, as soon as Xiang Chuan opened the campus program, she received hundreds of messages from strangers asking if the A Bite of China Club could supply more buns and steamed buns, scaring her into thinking her terminal had a virus. In the end, Ainuo, who had connections with the Information Technology Club, told her: Our buns and steamed buns have made the senior students very envious; everyone is waiting for increased production of buns and steamed buns.
Upon careful inquiry, she found out it was again because of that live stream. Just thinking about this live stream made Xiang Chuan want to tilt her head back and empty her mind. What in the world was this? If she had known there would be a live stream, she wouldn’t have brought out so many things; she would have honestly munched on her own meal box, dug up a few pieces of ginger, and blended in as an inconspicuous little transparent with slightly noticeable luggage to get through this confrontation match.
“Were you called over by your parents last night?” Ouyang Yating handed her a cup of juice, looking at her with the expression of someone who had been through it.
“Your family too?” Xiang Chuan tiredly bit on the straw; those who didn’t know would think she had been lectured by Xiang Weiguo and Lin Minzhi all night yesterday.
“Everyone’s family, right? Liang Gong, how about your side?” Ainuo turned to look at Liang Gong, who was studying cake nearby.
“My mother works on the escort ship side, so she doesn’t know much about things on our main ship side. Instead, I told her quite a bit, and she’s very interested in your stir-fried chicken with shiitake mushrooms and steamed fish, Xiang Chuan.” Liang Gong smiled.
“Great, whenever Auntie comes to the main ship, we’ll go to your house to treat her.” Xiang Chuan smiled; she quite liked making some home-style dishes for relatives and friends’ families.
Seeing she didn’t want to talk about it, the three didn’t mention it further and shifted the topic to the upcoming menu arrangements for the club activity room and matters regarding ginger planting.
“Ginger must first be declared to the Agriculture Bureau.” Ouyang Yating explained, “Only after declaring to the Agriculture Bureau and obtaining approval can ginger be classified as a crop and enter the crop planting area of the production escort ship.”
“My father mentioned this to me; he’ll help handle it on his side.”
Mentioning this, Xiang Chuan’s eye corner twitched involuntarily. Last night when discussing this, Xiang Weiguo had proudly said it was because the higher-ups at the Agriculture Bureau were also watching the live stream and had their eyes on ginger, even proactively proposing to change ginger from a general ornamental plant to a crop for cultivation. This was good news; at least they wouldn’t have to wait as long as with yam to use it. Plus, with modern cultivation technology, maybe next month ginger could appear in the purchasable ingredients. But if it weren’t because they saw her making steamed fish and handling chicken in the live stream that sparked their interest, she would have been happier.
“Then should we sell steamed fish here at that time?” Liang Gong blinked and asked, “Today when I came over from the teaching building, many people asked if we would sell steamed fish here.”
“Steamed fish is a staple food side dish; if it’s to be sold, it should be sold at Yue Xiang Restaurant, right? Selling some pastries here is already the limit.” Xiang Chuan said grumpily.
Yes, Yue Xiang Restaurant. While Xiang Chuan was running to the nature reserve to outsmart wild vegetables, chicken, and fish, Yue Xiang Restaurant had also opened bustling with activity. Since it was a pilot, they opened one shop each in the commercial district, government district, residential area, education district, and agriculture district. In modern times, many things rely on online shopping, so the purchase price of offline shops was almost negligible, and they even opened in high-foot-traffic areas. At the initial opening, just putting out the “Yue Xiang” sign attracted many people, but when everyone saw completely unfamiliar buns and yam cake, they hesitated. In the end, they activated the backup plan Xiang Chuan had proposed to Xiang Weiguo—hire people to line up and create on-site buzz, thereby stimulating people’s herd mentality. Facts proved that even after 30,000 years, people were still the same; seeing a line made them unable to resist joining. Fortunately, what they sold at opening was honest-to-goodness buns and small pastries for young and old, not some weird 21st Century internet-famous food; otherwise, this kind of marketing would sooner or later be targeted by the Administration for Industry and Commerce or similar.
Then, Yue Xiang Restaurant became popular. Since it was pilot sales without online shopping services, people who wanted to eat had to obediently line up. At the worst, the queue stretched two streets, nearly smoking out the kitchen AI and service robots in the eatery.
Seeing this, Yue Xiang’s top executives quickly began planning layouts for various branch stores of the eatery and online sales matters. However, considering his daughter’s suggestion to temporarily not consider online shopping services, Xiang Weiguo shelved the latter. In compensation, he released all the recipes his daughter had authorized to Yue Xiang—like steak, cake, various stir-fried dishes, and such—to appease the shareholders and executives who were puzzled and dissatisfied about not expanding online shopping. Now everyone started arranging for the launch of various new dishes.
The top executives and shareholders naturally also knew about the live stream matter; like the Agriculture Bureau, they pounced on ginger like Grandet seeing a mountain of gold. Even when Xiang Chuan returned to school from the nature reserve, the ingredient classification modification plan for ginger drafted by the shareholders and Xiang Weiguo had already been submitted, with such swift action that it left Xiang Chuan dumbfounded.
