Starting from a Bankrupt Sichuan Cuisine Restaurant

Zhou Yan soaked an extra three and a half pounds of dried bamboo shoots tonight, preparing for tomorrow’s braised vegetables.

The hot sales of the braised vegetables had indeed boosted the restaurant’s income.

Today, the vegetable dishes alone sold for 30.60 yuan, with a 50% profit margin, which was quite substantial.

Most importantly, the customer base for the braised vegetables was different from that of the braised meat. Braised meat sales had declined slightly, but not by much.

For those who loved to drink, braised pig’s head was still the perfect accompaniment.

Potatoes and lotus roots were extremely popular, so he’d double the supply tomorrow. Kelp was also selling well. "Seafood" definitely had a certain prestige to it, and for now, everyone still bought into that.

Zhou Yan didn’t dare to add dried tofu skin without careful consideration. He knew the stuff was a real hassle to make.

Right now, Lai Fu’s great-aunt’s health wasn’t great. Lai Fu had to make tofu and dried tofu, and now also dried tofu skin on the side. His production probably couldn’t keep up.

In any case, starting tomorrow, he would buy as much as they could make.

He was going to sell braised vegetables at full throttle!

So what if it was forty cents a jin?

Selling a hundred jin would still net him twenty yuan!

Zhou Yan took out a pen and paper and planned out his grocery list for the next day, calculating and writing down the exact quantities needed to avoid any chaos in the morning.

He had already spoken with the two vendors who sold potatoes and lotus roots. They would deliver to the restaurant tomorrow morning—forty jin of lotus root and a hundred jin of potatoes.

For a major customer like him, delivery was a basic courtesy.

If they were selling to individual customers, they might not sell that much in an entire morning.

Meanwhile, Jie had now become his second-biggest customer. He was planning to take five jin of braised pig’s head tomorrow to test the waters.

The foot traffic at the wharf was indeed excellent. The passing merchants and town residents heading to the market all had some spending power.

Jie and his crew had already built a good reputation for their Kneeling Beef. At sixty cents a bowl, they could sell eighty bowls a day, which was only forty bowls fewer than his own restaurant.

When it came to selling soup pots, Jie was definitely the authority.

Today’s revenue was 602.40 yuan, with a profit of 365.20 yuan, both new records.

Zhou Yan counted the money twice, a wide grin spreading across his face.

’The feeling of making money is so reassuring!’

Besides the braised vegetables, the increase in revenue from braised beef was also very strong.

Feiyan Restaurant had pre-ordered twenty jin of braised beef for tomorrow. That alone would bring in 60 yuan in revenue.

Thanks to the drop in meat prices, the profit margin had also climbed.

For now, customers didn’t seem sensitive to it, at least not in a way that affected revenue.

He wrapped the money with a rubber band and put it in a box. This was all money he was saving to buy a house from Duan Yu Yan.

He wondered if Mrs. Qiu had given her a definite answer yet. There had been no news for the past two days, which made Zhou Yan a little uneasy.

The Duan Family wasn’t short on money, and neither was Mrs. Qiu.

Even if the Qiu Family’s Old Mansion was left empty, it wouldn’t affect her at all. Keeping it was more of a sentimental thing.

As long as it was rented out and had people in it, the house wouldn’t easily fall into disrepair, no matter how old it was.

After all, it was a tile-roofed house built by a wealthy family, not like the rammed-earth houses in the countryside that could collapse at any moment.

Duan Yu Yan had given him her promise; now it was just a matter of whether she could convince Mrs. Qiu.

Lying in bed, Zhou Yan pulled up his quest log and glanced at it.

[Side Quests: Zhao Shulan’s Worries! Progress: 16%]

[Side Quests: Master’s Obsession! Progress: 88%]

[Side Quests: The Battle to Defend the West Bank Tofu Legacy! Progress: 38%]

Huh?

Zhou Yan’s eyes widened slightly. The progress bars for the other two Side Quests had also appeared.

Zhao Shulan’s Worries was about Huang Ying losing 60 jin. A progress of 16% meant she had already lost... ten jin!

Zhou Yan raised an eyebrow. ’This girl’s got it.’ In one week, she had dropped ten jin just like that.

She came to eat three meals a day, so he saw her too often to really notice a difference.

But weight loss was always fast at the beginning. To lose sixty jin, you needed willpower.

Back in college, the chubby guy in his dorm who slept in the bunk below him started a motivational weight loss journey at two hundred jin. He lost thirty jin in the first month and instantly became a campus celebrity.

Then he went back to his hometown in Shanxi for two months over summer break and came back weighing two hundred and fifty jin.

This left Zhou Yan, who had been his workout buddy, completely speechless. Zhou Yan had even developed abs over those two months.

The first night back, this buddy of his slept through the dorm bed, collapsing it and getting himself stuck in the frame.

Who could even imagine it? Firefighters had to come to the dorm in the middle of the night with a cutting torch to free him.

The chubby guy once again became a sensational campus celebrity.

See? Some people can become wildly famous just through raw talent.

’Unlike me,’ he thought. ’Good looks and a good body aren’t enough; I have to work this hard just to get a little bit of recognition.’

Still, Zhou Yan felt that the young lady, Huang Ying, had good willpower. She seemed more reliable than her brother.

Zhou Yan wasn’t too concerned about this quest. He’d just let it sit. ’Maybe it’s one of those lifetime achievement series.’

The quest with the most progress was his master’s obsession, which was to make a perfect stir-fried pork liver.

Master Xiao hadn’t been to the restaurant to study for several days. He was slacking off too much.

’I’ll find some time tomorrow to ask him what’s up.’

’This won’t do.’

A strict master produces a skilled apprentice.

He was still waiting for his master to trigger a reward for him.

The progress bar for the battle to defend the tofu had risen by another 8 percentage points, which was a bit of a surprise.

’Did they find happiness in making dried tofu skin and dried tofu?’

Zhou Yan wasn’t sure about the details, but he thought it was a good thing.

Looking at the progress bar, it seemed more like a reflection of Mrs. Sun’s state of mind. The increase meant she was becoming more and more certain that Lai Fu could make a living by making tofu.

Zhou Yan picked up a copy of *How the Steel Was Tempered* from his bedside. Wang had brought it for him the day before yesterday.

"Paul’s wages rose from eight Rubles to ten. In two years, he had grown taller, and his body had become stronger..."

The book closed, the light went out, and Zhou Yan peacefully drifted off to sleep.

...

The next day, Zhou Yan delivered five jin of pig’s head and another fourteen individually wrapped portions of pig’s head to the wharf.

"What’s all this?" Zhou Jie asked, looking at the dozen or so oil-paper packages in confusion.

Zhou Yan smiled and explained, "It’s sliced pig’s head. For the brothers who came by yesterday, one bag for each family. I’ll have to trouble you to make the deliveries, Jie. It all happened so fast yesterday, I can’t even fully place all my own kinsmen."

"Hey, we’re kinsmen, no need for this! Each of these bags is a whole jin, you don’t need to give so much! If you give away this much, you’ll have worked for nothing for days," Zhou Jie said, shaking his head repeatedly.

"I braised it myself, you can’t calculate it like that. It didn’t take a whole day," Zhou Yan said with a smile, holding Zhou Jie back to stop him from putting the meat back into his bicycle basket. His expression turned serious. "We’re kinsmen. This isn’t about money, it’s just a little something for everyone to taste. This is my favor to repay, I can’t have you do it for me.

This isn’t about a few jin of pig’s head. For anyone else, no amount of pig’s head could summon over a dozen kinsmen who would do whatever was asked of them."

"Well..." Zhou Jie was still hesitant.

His wife, Huang Caiyun, who was standing nearby, couldn’t help but chime in, "Just take it since he’s telling you to. When you deliver the meat, make it clear it’s from Zhou Yan. That way the favor is repaid, and next time Zhou Yan needs something, they’ll come at a moment’s notice. What are you dilly-dallying for?"

Zhou Jie immediately pulled his hand back and nodded. "Alright, I’ll deliver it to them later."

Zhou Yan smiled and added, "Two of the bags are for you and Haizi. Let me show you how to slice this pig’s head so it’s easier for you to sell later."

"Great. I even brought a new cutting board today, just for the braised meat, so the flavors don’t mix," Zhou Jie said, taking out a new board.

"Professional," Zhou Yan said with a laugh.

Zhou Jie had been butchering cattle for ten years. His Knife Skills couldn’t compare to Zhou Miao’s, but they were by no means poor.

Zhou Yan only needed to teach him the standard thickness for slicing. He cut three slices, all uniform in thickness, basically meeting the standard.

"There you go. Just stick to this standard and you’ll be fine," Zhou Yan said with a nod.

Zhou Yan had suggested that Zhou Jie sell only the pig’s head, firstly because the pig ears and snouts were prioritized for the restaurant, and secondly because slicing the ears required more demanding Knife Skills and would take up more of his time.

In any case, Zhou Jie’s main business was Kneeling Beef; the braised meat was just a side hustle.

After a bit more small talk, Zhou Yan hurried back to the restaurant.

The chopped vegetables were crying out to be braised, and today’s quantity was extraordinary.

Forty jin each of potatoes and lotus root, two jin of soaked dried tofu skin—that was all he had at home—and six jin of soaked kelp.

This morning, he had picked up three jin of dried tofu from Lai Fu’s stall, and he was braising all of it today.

Lai Fu had delivered six jin of dried tofu skin, but it couldn’t be soaked in time for today, so he’d have to wait until tomorrow.

Zhou Yan had told Lai Fu that he would buy as much dried tofu skin as he could make, since the stuff kept well.

Starting tomorrow, he would need five jin of dried tofu, and if it sold well, he’d increase the order.

After hearing this, Lai Fu’s eyes seemed to shine with clarity.

Three jin of dried bamboo shoots weighed a full fifteen jin after soaking.

The incredible absorbency was even a little shocking to Zhou Yan.

Dried bamboo shoots at fifty cents a jin meant that one jin of soaked shoots cost only ten cents.

Zhou Yan thought for a moment and decided to price the braised bamboo shoots at sixty cents a jin, the same price tier as the braised dried tofu.

However, Zhou Yan fished a soaked bamboo shoot out of the bucket. It was a slender bamboo tip he had specially selected yesterday.

These dried shoots were bought for braising with beef, so they were a bit on the tougher side.

Normally, braised bamboo shoots required tender tips, which resulted in a product that was both visually appealing and perfectly crisp.

He would see how the finished product and customer feedback turned out after braising them today. If they sold well, he would look for better quality, smaller dried bamboo shoots suitable for braising.

In his memory, the bamboo shoots from Ebian in Jiazhou were quite famous. He wasn’t sure if they were sold in Suji. If not, he might have to make a trip to Jiazhou to take a look.

The volume of the vegetable braising liquid had greatly increased today. The fire was ready, and Zhou Yan began adding and removing the various vegetables in batches.

Batch after batch, he controlled the heat with extreme precision, not daring to let his focus waver for a second.

The last to go in were the bamboo shoots, which had to simmer over a low flame in the braising pot for at least an hour to become tender.

Zhou Yan picked up a piece of the braised dried tofu with his chopsticks. It was about ten centimeters square and one centimeter thick. The semi-finished product had been a pale, baked yellow, but after braising, it had a reddish-brown, glistening sheen. The color was much more proper than the braised tofu his great-aunt had baked the day before.

He placed it on the cutting board and sliced it to the thickness of a coin.

The cut was smooth, revealing how the color of the braising liquid had permeated from the outside in, creating a gradual fade.

[A Perfect Piece of Dried Tofu]

Zhou Yan picked up a strip of the dried tofu and popped it into his mouth. The slightly dry, baked skin had softened after absorbing the braising liquid, but the tofu inside remained smooth and tender with a slight chewiness, a bit like egg tofu snacks.

The braised aroma wasn’t just on the surface; it had seeped deep into the dried tofu. It was full of a savory, meat-like flavor and rich with the fragrance of the braising spices.

The quality of the dried tofu itself was simply too high!

’It saved me so much trouble.’

Zhou Yan nodded repeatedly after eating it. He was more than satisfied with this braised dried tofu.

’Worthy of being the old lady’s long-term strategic partner, my core supply chain.’

"Master Xiao, Master Zheng, you’re here."

"Zhou Yan?"

"He’s in the kitchen. You can go right in."

Just then, Mrs. Zhao’s voice came from outside.

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(PS: Extra Chapter in exchange for monthly tickets!)