Travel back to ancient times and open a Sichuan restaurant

Chapter 39

The two returned home. The Zhong family was just about to eat when they saw them come back. The third brother, who had been planning to look for them, kept urging them to wash their hands and prepare for dinner.

Zhong Ruyi knew that her third brother was so anxious because there was braised chicken for lunch today. She smelled the aroma of the braised chicken as soon as she came back.

When it was served, the braised chicken immediately captured everyone's hearts. The second sister-in-law nodded repeatedly while eating it: "Little sister, this braised chicken tastes really good. I'm afraid one a day won't be enough to sell."

The second brother also said: "If we are busy enough, three a day will be fine."

The second sister-in-law rolled her eyes at him. She wasn't even starting to sell yet, but she was already thinking about selling three a day. She couldn't get fat by eating them all at once, so she thought two a day would be enough. She could sell one a day first, and then plan on selling two when the sales were good.

The second brother was glared at, but he still smiled foolishly. Mother Zhong simply couldn't bear to look at him.

"Sister-in-law, you can also add this braised egg to the braised food. An egg is not expensive at one cent. When the time comes, people will buy a braised egg even if it is sold for three or two cents."

Zhong Ruyi gave her sister-in-law some advice, and her sister-in-law nodded. She had just thought of the same thing, and the two of them agreed on the same idea.

After eating and drinking, Zhong Ruyi sat under the eaves to digest the food. She saw her second sister-in-law holding a freshly picked hairy fruit and breaking it open to eat. She asked hesitantly, "Second sister-in-law, this fruit is not fully ripe yet. Doesn't it taste sour to you?"

The second sister-in-law smiled embarrassedly: "I don't know what happened, I wanted to eat this fruit as soon as I saw it. It's not too sour, it tastes good."

After her second sister-in-law said so, Zhong Ruyi also took one to try, and her facial features wrinkled up because of the sourness.

The second sister-in-law was amused by her and kept laughing, and told her to stop eating. She was a person who could eat sour food and had always loved sour food. Before she got married, her parents knew that she loved sour food, and they would often buy some sour plums for her to eat, and also buy some green apricots to pickle.

Mother Zhong started packing things and putting them on the cart. They would be going back to town soon as they would open the store tomorrow. They had agreed to launch new dishes tomorrow, so if they rushed back tomorrow morning it would be too late, so they had to leave this afternoon.

We have nearly thirty chickens at home. We ate two of them in the past two days, so there are still more than twenty left.

When Zhong's mother heard that they were going to make braised chicken to sell, she went to the back of the house and grabbed five chickens for them to take with them. After they finished eating these five chickens, they could go to the farmer's house to buy more.

The remaining chickens will be raised until the Chinese New Year, and a few will be left for the eldest and second daughters-in-law to take back when they return to their parents' home.

The persimmons that had been dried previously were ready to be eaten, so Zhong's mother also took some for them. They also picked some peppers that were grown at home and took them all with them. All in all, they filled up the entire cart. The time had just come, and they were ready to set off.

Cui Cui followed the cart reluctantly, "Aunt, when will you come home next time? I don't want you to go."

The eldest sister-in-law patted her on the shoulder when she heard this. "Do you think your aunt is just going out to play? You are such a jerk!"

Zhong Ruyi also couldn't bear to part with Cuicui. In her original body's memory, Cuicui was always with her. Sometimes during the busy farming season, Zhong's mother would still let Cuicui accompany her so that she wouldn't have to work. The two of them always stayed together. At night, either Cuicui or Zhong's mother would sleep with her.

It has been like this since she came. Even though she can talk, eat and sleep like a normal person, Cuicui is always by her side.

But they had to part even though they were reluctant. Zhong Ruyi touched the little girl's head and whispered to her that she would buy her something next time she came back. Cuicui was reluctantly happy: "It's okay not to buy anything, as long as you come back early."

The little girl stood beside her sister-in-law with eager eyes, watching them leave. As they walked further and further away, her sister-in-law and her husband also went back. After the two left, Chen Dongzhi came out from under the jujube tree at the entrance of the village and watched them walk away quietly until they could no longer be seen.

When the three of them arrived at the town, it was already getting dark. They quickly opened the shop door and pushed the cart in. The second brother and his wife unloaded everything on the cart and packed it up. Zhong Ruyi went to prepare dinner.

It was getting late, and the oil lamps were lit in the store. At this time, someone knocked on the closed store door, and Aunt Chen's voice came from outside the door: "Yu Niang, Yu Niang, come and open the door. I brought you some food."

When the second sister-in-law heard the sound, she hurried to open the door. As soon as she opened the door, she saw Aunt Chen holding two bowls in her hands. Her grandson Xiao An was standing next to her. The little boy was also holding a bowl in his hand. She quickly turned aside to let the two grandmother and grandson in.

Aunt Chen walked in quickly and put the two bowls on the table. She smiled and said, "I knew you would be back today because you were going to open the store tomorrow. I knew you wouldn't have had time to eat after you came back. So I made some extra food tonight for you to eat when you come back, so you don't have to cook for yourself after such a long journey."

The second sister-in-law didn't expect Aunt Chen to care so much about them and even specially save food for them: "Thank you so much, Aunt."

"What's the big deal? This is how we treat each other as neighbors. We can't be like the family next door before."

Aunt Chen is talking about the store next to Zhongji. It’s empty now and the owner has moved away. It used to be a store selling sesame oil.

Although there was more than one oil-selling shop in the town, they were all on the same street and people on the street basically went to his shop to get oil. It was fine at first, but after a while, his daughter-in-law from a vinegar shop came back with oil. She could have gotten a full can of oil with the money she paid before, but this time she came back with much less.

His old lady took a scale and measured it, and hey! There was five ounces of oil missing. She thought it was her daughter-in-law who got five ounces less oil and took the money for herself. She was very angry.

At dinner time, she asked her daughter-in-law to get her another bowl of rice, and after she left, she complained to her son.

In a fit of rage, the son beat his wife. After being beaten for no reason, his wife ran back to her parents' home crying. Her brothers from her parents' home came to ask for an explanation, and the old lady said sarcastically that they had the nerve to come. Well, if they didn't come, what would happen if the daughter-in-law didn't give the money she had hidden to her brothers from her parents' home in the future?

At first, the young wife felt a little guilty, because she did secretly give money to her brothers from her natal family. When she heard her mother-in-law say this, she thought that she was feeling guilty because she was caught taking a bottle of vinegar back to her parents' home last time. When she heard her mother-in-law say that she had given some of the money for buying oil to her parents' home last time, she was stunned.

He immediately had a big argument with his mother-in-law. One side said that he did not hide any money, while the other side said that the money he gave should be used to fill a full can of oil. If it was less than a can, then he was hiding money.

In the end, they decided to go to the oil seller to find out whose fault it was. When they went there and asked the owner, the owner felt guilty. It was indeed his family that was shortchanged, but he didn't expect that the matter would be discovered and cause a big fight.

The old lady was also a shrewd person. As soon as she saw the guilty look of the oil seller, she knew the whole story. She wanted to smash his shop immediately, but in the end she made him pay compensation.

After this incident, people who lived nearby no longer went to his house to get oil, and they talked about it privately. It turned out that everyone noticed that the amount was less the next few times they went to get oil, but because they were neighbors, they didn't feel comfortable making a fuss over such a small amount of oil.

Unexpectedly, the vinegar seller found out and made a fuss about it. The oil seller's business gradually went downhill, so they simply closed the shop and opened another one.