Chapter 46: People Who Love Fruit
“Huh, Liang Gong classmate? You came in so quickly?”
When Liang Gong entered the wall carrying the cake, Xiang Chuan was placing three opaque sealed cups on the table, looking surprised at the first one to enter, him.
“The little… uh… little star just now? The servant let me in, it gave me the authorization.”
Liang Gong was a bit nervous, and the hand holding the cake plate was trembling slightly.
“That must be because I was tidying up too slowly.” Xiang Chuan smiled embarrassedly, she moved a chair to the front of the table, “Sit down, don’t stand, put the cake aside, we’ll eat it after the audit is over.”
After putting down the cake, Liang Gong sat on a sofa, he curiously touched the sofa. This was a 21st Century style sofa customized by Xiang Chuan from the Engineering Department, different from the popular modern floating sofas or anti-gravity chairs, this sofa couldn’t rotate freely when sat on, but relatively gave a sense of steady reassurance, the leather material used modern craftsmanship, so the seemingly coarse fabric surface actually didn’t feel as prickly as imagined.
While Liang Gong was observing the sofa, Xiang Chuan walked to his opposite side, placed the three cups in front of him, and inserted straws.
“Then, the assessment officially begins, please taste the three cups of liquid in turn… cough, please taste the three cups of liquid in turn, and state the raw materials of the liquid.”
Guess the raw materials? Liang Gong suddenly lost confidence, every time he ate liquid food he felt the ingredients were similar, how could he tell which meat was which meat, his mother was quite troubled by this, worrying if he could continue the family business in the future.
Now using liquid food to test him… sigh, he was probably destined to have no affinity with this club, he had originally planned to come here to learn how to make those chicken buns.
He sighed, picked up the middle cup, bit the straw and sucked.
Huh?
Liang Gong suddenly opened his eyes wide.
This wasn’t the sticky and gooey tactile sensation of liquid food, it was a mild liquid closer to water, and this taste… Liang Gong incredulously sucked another mouthful.
Not his illusion, this was indeed the taste of that plant he was familiar with!
Liang Gong subconsciously looked at the cake placed nearby, between the cake and the cake’s cream layer there were some blocky things of other colors mixed in, he had just been guessing if they were fruit, now he could be 100% sure: this was indeed fruit! And the thing he was drinking was some kind of rich liquid mixed with fruit!
“How is it? Can you taste it? Two kinds of liquids are used inside, answering the raw material of one of them passes the first question.”
Xiang Chuan appeared confident on the surface, but was still a bit uneasy inside.
You know, her own sister who had eaten fruit dim sum for over a week couldn’t taste other fruits right away, and these classmates who were only three years older than her sister… could they do it?
She had even mentally prepared herself to become the school’s only lone wolf club.
“One of them is… orange… right?”
Liang Gong’s increasingly small voice due to lack of confidence contrasted sharply with Xiang Chuan’s widening eyes.
“…………Yes! Yes!!! That’s right!!!”
If not for the good soundproofing of the light screen wall, the people outside would probably be scared to run away by Xiang Chuan’s voice now.
Xiang Chuan was overjoyed now, what a great start! What could be more exciting than gaining a capable helper right when she was about to roll up her sleeves and get formal! She eagerly placed the second cup in front of Liang Gong, and threw the straw from the first cup into the trash can.
This type of straw made from recyclable materials was made for sucking liquid food, since liquid food is mostly quite viscous, the straw models are basically large, Xiang Chuan searched for a long time to find relatively thin ones—children’s model straws. The biggest feature of this straw is the baffle inside that blocks saliva, when sucking upward, the baffle flips inward, sending the liquid food up, and after losing suction, the liquid that has contacted saliva is locked in the middle of the straw. Xiang Chuan thought this kind of thing could be made in the 21st Century too, just that the cost would probably be beyond what street-side milk tea shops could afford, which is only possible in Tianyuan’s 200th century where liquid food is prevalent and material costs are extremely cheap to have this kind of enjoyment.
If she hadn’t seen Xiang Xue and Chou Manman using this straw to drink fruit milk together the night before last, Xiang Chuan would probably have to consider wholesale a bunch of disposable small water cups to solve it, but that way just the fragrance might be guessed by classmates, after all, even if they haven’t eaten fruit, they more or less have impressions of the scent of these “decorations”… right?
“Congratulations, Liang Gong classmate, you passed the first question!” Xiang Chuan excitedly handed over the second cup, “Come taste the second cup!”
“…Mm!”
Xiang Chuan’s excitement greatly encouraged Liang Gong, he smiled, no longer so reserved.
With the foundation of the first cup, the second and third cups weren’t so difficult.
“This is apple, right.”
“This is… there’s fruit pulp inside? Mm, it’s peach.”
Liang Gong put down the last cup, looking nervously at Xiang Chuan. Xiang Chuan found it hard to describe her current mood, after transmigrating over a week ago, she had gotten used to the numbness around people to “modern food” and the shocked expressions when tasting 21st Century gourmet food, not to mention there was a chairman of the third fleet’s largest food processing group at home, she originally thought people’s understanding of food in this world was just like that, but now it seems… heaven never seals off all paths!
She ultimately wouldn’t become a lonely gourmet!
Xiang Chuan’s scant rationality held back her ecstatic mood, she smiled and extended her right hand, and opened her terminal to send the joining permission to Liang Gong, saying:
“Welcome to join, Liang Gong classmate.”
Liang Gong suddenly stood up, excitedly opened his mouth, but couldn’t say anything, he could only imitate and extend his right hand to shake back.
After the ceremony was completed, he confirmed the application permission, and the Ancient Food Club’s member count finally changed from the lonely “1” to “2”.
While Xiang Chuan used her terminal to instruct the starfish servant to call the next classmate in for the audit test, she curiously looked at Liang Gong: “Liang Gong classmate… mind if I call you Liang Gong?”
“Of course, Leader.”
Uh. Xiang Chuan’s mouth twitched in a tiny arc, although she knew he was calling her the leader of this Ancient Food Club, but…
For some reason, Xiang Chuan’s barren mind conjured up that famous line “Leader! What are you doing, Leader!”… anyway, it felt weird, whatever, change it later.
“How do you know the tastes of so many fruits? You know even my father, the Yue Xiang chairman, doesn’t know these tastes.”
Xiang Chuan voiced her biggest doubt.
“Kind of… an interest?” Liang Gong shrank his shoulders a bit embarrassedly, “My family is in the meat products industry, but I’ve been interested in plants since childhood, sometimes I’d do dissection experiments on the family’s fruit, once I accidentally licked the juice that splashed on my hand, found it tasted pretty good, so occasionally I’d sneak a taste…”
Xiang Chuan blinked her eyes: “Why sneak tastes? If it’s tasty, sharing with family would let you eat it openly.”
“Family… basically doesn’t like solid food much, other than the intake amount at the health standard line, they basically don’t touch vegetables or even plants.”
“Ah? There’s such a situation? Meat and vegetables don’t conflict, right?”
After Xiang Chuan subconsciously said it out loud, she got a surprised look from Liang Gong, she instinctively felt something wrong: did she say something without common sense again.
Liang Gong thought Xiang Chuan should have heard about the meat and vegetable situation, but thinking about it, she had a big brother who was university student council president, and she herself was fiddling with ancient food this new field, if she didn’t hear things outside the window… maybe she really didn’t know…? After sighing at the Xiang Family’s overprotection of their own leader, Liang Gong simply introduced the current situation of the agriculture industry.
Simply put, because people’s demand for food has been declining year by year to just the level needed to maintain the health standard line, after market food supply far exceeds demand, the major fleets’ adjustments to production escort ship scales are imminent, flour and rice noodles as the largest sources of starch naturally won’t be drastically reformed. And the most controversial right now are meat and vegetables, both sides keep arguing to hold onto their production scales, thereby maintaining the income of practitioners.
Xiang Chuan frowned, she had long heard about the downsizing of production escort ship scales, but didn’t expect animal husbandry and plantation industry to be affected… hope father’s activities can change this status quo soon, or, she could find ginger early to fiddle with a pot of pickled pork with Chinese cabbage to cool both sides down?
“Hello, I’m here for the audit test.”
The second classmate passing through the wall interrupted Xiang Chuan’s thoughts.
“Hello.” Xiang Chuan smiled and invited the other to sit, preparing to start the new round of assessment.
Whatever, now she only had one 16-year-old classmate who had tasted a few fruits at hand, these matters weren’t for her to worry about, better to think of ways to add more regular personnel to this club activity room.
