Chapter 157: “boyfriend And Girlfriend”
Xiang Chuan’s life motto in this lifetime was only six words: Lie Flat, eat and wait for death. If it weren’t for the food culture 30,000 years later being too “taste bud-moving,” with the Xiang Family’s foundation and Yue Xiang Group’s financial power, she and her brother and sister could even stretch out their legs and lie at home until the end of time, with their parents ensuring they lived in luxury until their children passed away.
Modern people have very long lifespans, so the scope for defining heirs isn’t limited to within three or four generations like in the 21st Century, but extends as far as eleven or twelve generations. Even if descendants are truly outrageous enough to have no good seedlings in eleven or twelve generations, wealthy families can still spend a fortune applying to the government for artificial embryos to “train new characters.” The asset-rich Xiang Family can naturally do this too, but since there was an excellent heir like Xiang Qi, Xiang Weiguo and Lin Minzhi naturally no longer considered artificial embryos. As for the later-born Xiang Chuan and Xiang Xue, they were purely to respond to the government’s multi-child policy and because the couple felt a mansion with only three people plus a few AI robots was too lonely. When Xiang Chuan learned about the current state of modern people’s birth policies, she had no doubt that if she hadn’t created so many “information turbulence products” keeping Yue Xiang Group and the Cultural Affairs Bureau busy without touching the ground, her parents might even have added a few more younger brothers and sisters for the three siblings.
In order to achieve the “eat freely” food standard as soon as possible, Xiang Chuan also vigorously diversified the development of existing materials, which made her feel the hardship of cooking. Fortunately, there was a kitchen AI by her side to help remember the menu and replicate the steps one-to-one; otherwise, Xiang Chuan, who had been a corporate slave for many years and usually only cooked instant noodles and Snail Noodles, would have long given up struggling and thrown herself into the embrace of liquid food and solid food.
This time, it was only because this group of kids in the class was so enthusiastic that Xiang Chuan rarely busied herself pointing out some simple cooking tips to them. After finally training this group of growth-stage modern people, who truly never touched yangchun water with their ten fingers, to a level where they could enter the hall and ascend to the chamber, Xiang Chuan wanted to enter the slacking state again.
However, reality was still very skinny.
“The mixing proportion is wrong, too much flour, stuff in two more pieces of meat.”
“Don’t put raw green onions in, it would be troublesome if customers don’t like eating them.”
“You kid again, putting a whole spoonful of salt in a fried egg, are you trying to murder the customers? Don’t cause a fatality in our shop.”
“I’ve said it so many times, don’t put tomatoes on the cake—”
Xiang Chuan was jumping up and down in the small partition cleared out of half the classroom, correcting the magical kitchen operations of Class Eight Grade One’s these “crouching dragons and phoenix chicks,” which made her deeply realize how threatening the phrase “the ignorant are fearless” was to most leaders. If it were on the battlefield, it would be fine, but in occasions outside the battlefield, and these “fearless” guys were one’s subordinates, the leader would probably have to eat quick-acting heart-saving pills as meals.
After experiencing a series of shocking “creative ideas” like “chicken cake” and “fruit noodle soup” over these past few weeks, Xiang Chuan resolutely stripped all the teenagers responsible for the kitchen of their menu writing rights.
At this point, Xiang Chuan was very glad that the recipe modification rights were in her hands; otherwise, she didn’t know where this group, relying on advanced modern medicine, would lead the budding gourmet seedlings that had finally sprouted in the modern era with their various “innovative” practices derived from the food sections of certain video websites.
—At least don’t stir up any extra trouble before reviving my great Huaxia’s eight major cuisines!
This was Xiang Chuan’s minimum requirement for modern people.
Since half the classroom was used as a kitchen, half the tables and chairs were moved to the corridor. With the help of AI robots, by the time the first batch of guests was brought up by students from Caida Affiliated High School Class 1-3, these desks had already transformed into individual small dining tables. It was also fortunate that Class Eight Grade One’s classroom was at the edge of the corridor, so it wouldn’t obstruct the back-and-forth movement of students from other classes; otherwise, the placement of these tables and chairs really would have given Class President Lu Daiqing a headache for a while.
The first batch of guests were Agricultural University students interested in the Ancient Food Club. When they heard that the meals in this small restaurant were handmade, the university students were still thinking “handmade Yue Xiang Restaurant food is indeed quite rare.” But when they got the menu, they found that out of the twenty meals inside, only a few beverages had been seen at Yue Xiang Restaurant; the staple food and dim sum sections were all unseen new menu items!
The university students looked at each other. There hadn’t been any news of new moves from the Agriculture Bureau recently, so it shouldn’t be developing new ingredients… right?
One university student took the opportunity during ordering to ask some questions to the boy in front of him wearing a maid outfit, and only then learned that the head chef and Ancient Food Club leader (Xiang Chuan: I’m the club president!) was actually the daughter of Yue Xiang Group Chairman.
—Could these be the new products that Yue Xiang Group is going to put on the shelves in restaurants next?!
Modern university students, whose associative ability was more than ten times stronger than their creative ability, immediately reached this conclusion and widely informed in the school communication group.
Then, the students from Caida Affiliated High School Class 1-3 discovered that at least a hundred guests wearing Nongda Affiliated High School badges surged over at once, instantly making the entrance of the butler maid small restaurant, which only had a dozen seats, extremely crowded.
Fortunately, modern people had long come up with multiple solutions for handling multi-person queues. Class President Lu Daiqing chose the simplest one: number ticketing for queuing.
Thanks to every modern person having a terminal, the student greeting the queuing guests at the door sent the numbers to the other party’s terminal queuing software. This public small software could clearly show the current queue length and the numbers already entered, and also predict for guests how much time until the next available seat.
Students who got numbers first simply waited by the classroom. Students with farther numbers went downstairs or strolled to other classes on this floor, greatly alleviating the long dragon queue in the corridor.
When Xiang Chuan, having taken off her apron, gloves, and chef hat, walked out of the kitchen and saw this scene, she couldn’t help but sigh that it had to be efficiency-focused modern people. If it were in the 21st Century, they would have queued up and down the stairs long ago, and the shop owners probably wouldn’t think of using number plates to organize order either, because wouldn’t a long dragon queue like that filmed as a Vlog or short video uploaded to the website attract even more customers?
Such online promotion formats were not very applicable now 30,000 years later.
Just as Xiang Chuan was standing at the classroom door curiously watching one Agricultural University student after another arrive upon hearing the news, Ouyang Yating and the other two had just finished handing over the greeting work and come out during rest time to catch their breath.
“Is everything okay in the kitchen? I could hear you shouting loudly from the corridor.” Ainuo asked, casually bringing out four cups of beverages.
“When I came out, I had Little Star One help watch it. If not, just stuff the class president into the kitchen and let him manage it.” Xiang Chuan took an apple fruit milk, took a gentle sip, and the fruit milk mixed with fine fruit bits instantly soothed her throat that had been strained for two hours.
After the authorization for fruit juice and fruit milk gradually rolled out to Yue Xiang Group, these beverages would soon be available in school cafeterias. Xiang Chuan was pondering ways to maintain the beverage sales of A Bite of China Club Small Restaurant when one night under the quilt, scrolling the screen and seeing fruit stand orange, she had a flash of inspiration: cut the fruit flesh into small chunks and add to fruit juice and fruit milk for more layers. After trial tasting by the foodies in the class, it was decisively added to the beverage list by the sharp-eyed class president Lu Daiqing.
These beverages were ones Ainuo had just casually grabbed while passing the kitchen, of course, obediently paying under the gaze of everyone in the kitchen.
No way around it; in operation-type exhibition projects, income and profit were one of the selection criteria. If they did internal pricing or backdoor deals, they would be cornered for a heart-to-heart by the class cadres in charge of finances and others. You know, Nongda Affiliated High School students and their university seniors were cut from the same cloth—completely clueless about industrial tourism, but when it came to breeding costs and agricultural product processing consumption, they were wide awake. This was also why most students hoping to enter processing and aquaculture industries could go toe-to-toe with Caida Affiliated High School in math scores.
Of course, Xiang Chuan, who only cared about hands-on and not costs, was a complete exception. After all, those considering cost issues were Yue Xiang and government bigwigs who bought the authorizations.
Class Eight Grade One students had half an hour rest time per group. Since Liang Gong and Chou Manman were ruthlessly assigned to other groups during group drawing by lots, the childhood friends trio ended up wandering around aimlessly with Xiang Chuan.
Just as Class President Lu Daiqing and Nancy had predicted before, many classes this time incorporated elements of ancient food or ancient culture into their themes, but ancient food was basically copying the products already on sale from Yue Xiang Group, while ancient culture was mostly influenced by Empresses in the Palace. The Class Three downstairs even boldly recreated one-to-one the grand hall from Empresses in the Palace; the moment it opened, Xiang Chuan even thought she had transmigrated to the Qing Dynasty.
Xiang Chuan understood the reason for this: because Xiang Xue’s online TV series site had started pilot operations. During the pilot, only live stream room audience could register, but screenshots and forwards were no longer restricted. The moment the first episode of Empresses in the Palace went online, the playback broke ten million, almost matching the live stream audience count. Even afterward, playback continued rising by 100,000 daily. When Xiang Chuan saw the data, she thought it was the government’s Historical Research Institute repeatedly checking details; now it seemed there were probably quite a few peers mixed in.
Xiang Chuan sat in the main seat, imitating the elegant tea-drinking gestures of the ladies in the drama, and gently took a sip.
—Hm, it’s boiled water.
She looked at the tea cup in her hand with a mix of laughter and tears, remembering that modern people still didn’t have tea leaf processing techniques. The few beverages available were their own fruit juice and fruit milk, and the yet-to-be mass-produced soy milk; all had some difficulty obtaining. Moreover, the tea cup was made of colored glass, different in feel from ceramics, once making Xiang Chuan think she was drinking fruit tea instead of role-playing as a consort drinking Biluochun.
Ainuo, seeing her own leader put down the cup with an indescribable expression instead of keeping it close to the teapot, naturally guessed what was in the cup.
Sure enough, once they left the classroom, Xiang Chuan’s complaining desire burst out, like the difference between tea cups and tea bowls, table and chair carving techniques, and so on…
“Classmates, may I interrupt for a moment?”
Just as Xiang Chuan was about to mention that glass tea cup, someone suddenly spoke behind the four. They turned around to see a student with the News Club badge, with two hover cameras, looking at them curiously.
Seeing the four’s faces, this news club member lit up: Sure enough, Class Eight Grade One people! Just as the senior said, males in female clothes, females in male clothes!
Upon seeing Xiang Chuan biting a straw, this news club member nearly shouted in surprise. With speed Xiang Chuan couldn’t even catch, he quickly opened his terminal, and the two hovering cameras beside him opened their lower half microphones.
“—You two must be the hot-topic Ancient Food Club couple, right? Can I interview you both?”
Xiang Chuan: I’ve been single since birth for thirty× years, have some manners!
Wrong chapter has been replaced, very sorry for the poor reading experience caused to all readers.
