Chapter 17: The Proprietress of Jiajia Fast Food Restaurant
Inside Jiajia Fast Food Restaurant, the owner noticed something was off with the books as she sat balancing them behind the cash register.
Last week, they’d sold 217 chicken-thigh lunch boxes. How was it that so far this week, they’d only sold 102?
’Did a new store open nearby with a grand opening sale, siphoning off some of my customers?’
The owner stepped out of the restaurant and looked left and right.
She didn’t see any grand opening flower baskets, nor the paper debris left behind by celebration cannons. With no new stores opening, it was truly strange for her sales to drop so drastically.
She returned to the counter, her mind filled with questions, when she suddenly overheard two of her waitstaff chatting.
"It seems like a lot fewer construction workers have been coming in lately. During the lunch rush, we’d usually get at least ten, sometimes thirty or forty. These past few days, it’s been just two or three."
"Good riddance. Every time they came, they’d track dust all over the entrance. I had to mop it a million times a day."
’Construction workers? Laborers?’
The owner walked out of her shop again and looked toward the construction site entrance diagonally across the street. She saw a group of people gathered in the shade of a tree to the right of the entrance, each holding a bag with a lunch box.
In the shade to the left, workers were squatting in twos and threes. A closer look revealed they weren’t just cooling off—they were eating lunch boxes.
After a moment’s hesitation, the owner walked straight toward the right side of the construction site entrance. Even before she got close, she could feel the dust swirling in the air and instinctively covered her nose and mouth with her hand.
As the gathered workers dispersed with their lunch boxes, the owner got a clear view of what they had been surrounding: a small stall selling lunch boxes.
A bamboo pole was tied to a tricycle, and on the pole hung a whiteboard listing the available dishes.
’All these dishes from a beat-up tricycle? He’s certainly got a lot of tricks up his sleeve.’
She grumbled to herself and, seeing the crowd had thinned, sidled up to the tricycle to peer at the lunch boxes in the foam container.
Plenty of female workers had bought lunch boxes from him over the past few days, but this was the first time a woman who didn’t look like she worked on a construction site had shown interest in his food.
’Maybe she’s from one of the nearby villages.’
Xu An didn’t give it much thought. A new customer was always a good thing. Maybe in a few days, he could even hire some help.
He picked up a lunch box, placed it in front of the owner, and showed her each of the dishes inside. Finally, he asked, "Eight yuan each. Would you like one?"
The owner stared at the jam-packed lunch box, her mind racing with criticism.
’Is he insane? Eight yuan for all this food, including a whole portion of braised pork? This kid isn’t here to make money; he must be running a charity.’
’At this price, with these dishes, he’s definitely losing money. He won’t be able to keep this up for more than a few days. I’ll just let him be smug for now. When he goes out of business or raises his prices, they’ll all have to come back to my restaurant for chicken-thigh lunches.’
Waving her hand to decline, the owner swayed her slender figure and sauntered away.
Xu An calmly put the lunch box away. Business was like that—sometimes you made a sale, sometimes you didn’t. Success and failure were both normal; all you could do was take it in stride.
Xu Dongliang had been working at the Zijing Garden construction site since it started, so of course he recognized the owner of Jiajia Fast Food Restaurant. He’d even eaten there once, but after being treated with passive-aggressive sarcasm by the staff, he never went back.
"Anzi, you know who that woman was?"
"Who?"
"Her." Xu Dongliang jutted his chin toward the other side of the street. "She’s the owner of Jiajia Fast Food Restaurant. Before you set up your stall, her chicken-thigh lunch boxes sold really well."
Following Xu Dongliang’s gesture, Xu An looked across the street and, sure enough, saw the woman walk into Jiajia Fast Food Restaurant.
’So she realized I was stealing her business and came to scout the competition, huh?’
After warning Xu An, Xu Dongliang was about to leave when he suddenly remembered something.
"Anzi, do you have a health certificate?"
Hearing this, Xu An couldn’t help but slap the back of his own head.
’I was so focused on setting up the stall, I completely forgot about something so important.’
Any business related to food, from five-star hotels to roadside stalls, required a health certificate. This was for his own health as well as the health and safety of his customers.
Then another thought occurred to him. In his past life, he’d gone through a phase of being very interested in street vending and had specifically researched the necessary permits.
Besides the health certificate, there was another document: a temporary stall permit, a type of business license specifically for roadside vendors.
He just didn’t know if temporary stall permits existed at this time. He’d have to ask at the Urban Management Bureau.
Thinking of this, he casually asked, "Uncle Dongliang, do you know anyone who works for the Urban Management department?"
"What’s wrong? Worried they’ll chase you off?"
"No, I just want to ask if I need any permits to run a roadside stall. If I do, I’ll get them all taken care of at once. I don’t want them to use that as an excuse to give me trouble." Xu An pointed at the restaurant across the street.
He wasn’t planning on running this lunch box stall for just a few days; he intended to do it long-term.
If he operated here long-term and business stayed this good, it was inevitable that the restaurants across the street would get jealous.
It would be a huge loss if he got sabotaged because he didn’t have a health certificate or a temporary stall permit.
"I’ll ask around for you. I’ll have an answer for you tomorrow."
"Thanks, Uncle Dongliang."
"You little brat. Acting so formal with your uncle over something so small." Uncle Dongliang gave Xu An a light slap on the back of the head and strode away.
After closing the stall for the day, Xu An and Xu Heping went to the city hospital together.
After telling a nurse they needed to get health certificates, she pulled two forms from a folder and handed them over. They listed the required medical examinations.
There were quite a few people there to get health certificates, but the doctors and nurses were incredibly efficient.
Seeing twenty-three people ahead of them, they thought it would take a long time, but they finished all the exams in just over half an hour.
The only small surprise was that getting a health certificate required an anal swab. Both of them felt a little awkward and weird about it.
After all the exams, they went to a shop next to the hospital to get two one-inch headshots taken and submitted everything together. All that was left was to wait for the Health Commission to review the tests. If there were no issues, the health certificates would be issued to them.
There were more than ten people in the elevator lobby. Both elevators had just gone down, and it would probably take five or six minutes for one to come back up. The two of them exchanged a look. It was only five floors; taking the stairs would be faster.
In the stairwell, a young man with a buzz cut was leaning against the window, talking on his phone. It was probably a domestic knock-off phone, as the voice on the other end came through with perfect clarity.
"Erwa, I went through so much trouble to find you that job as a greeter, and you just up and left without a word? I heard you even shaved your head! It’s a big hotel with great benefits, what were you so unhappy about?
"If I were a few years younger, your Auntie would want that job myself. You’re out of the wind and rain, you don’t have to do any hard work, you just stand at the door, bow, say ’welcome,’ and you get paid."
"Hey, hey, hey, Auntie, are you still there? Auntie? Auntie? Can you hear me? Auntie, why aren’t you talking? I think my signal’s bad... hello? Hello? Hello? BEEP BEEP BEEP..."
The young man hung up the phone. He nonchalantly pushed open the fire door, left the stairwell, and muttered as he walked away, "To hell with being a greeter. It’s just a position for the bosses to grope."
Xu An and Xu Heping looked at each other again, undisguised shock in both their eyes.
’A male boss groping a male greeter? Or a female boss groping a male greeter?’
’Either way, that was a little too scandalous.’