Free Web NovelChapter 271: Chapter 131 Summer and Watermelon are the Perfect Match
The next day, Chen Ze didn’t open the main door. After a simple wash, he went straight down to the restaurant and then pushed open the small door.
"Let’s just start grilling skewers." Chen Ze took out his phone, sent a gathering message to the food delivery discussion group he had created yesterday, and then began grilling squid.
Chen Ze’s post on the gourmet forum started to get a constant stream of orders. All Chen Ze had to do was grill according to the quantity.
Soon, ten delivery drivers brought their delivery boxes and entered, nine men and one woman. They had all taken the day off specially to fulfill Chen Ze’s orders.
"Here are the delivery slips and prices. Pick them up yourselves, then come to me for the skewers." Chen Ze shut the kitchen door; he didn’t want the delivery drivers to see him.
After all, the sight of so many arms would scare anyone.
Although the delivery drivers were curious, they didn’t pay it much attention, grabbed the delivery slips Chen Ze had prepared, took the grilled skewers ready to go, and left to deliver the orders.
They were busy until the afternoon. Chen Ze’s fire had never been turned off, the order notifications kept coming in, and the delivery drivers had recharged their electric bikes many times, to the point where they even brought over the electric bikes from their own families.
"Lao Wang, what do you think, why doesn’t the boss open the main door?" a delivery driver asked curiously to his colleague.
"Why are you so nosy? The boss pays a good commission. Just working today amounts to more than half my usual monthly salary," Lao Wang said, taking a drag on his cigarette. He still had three orders on hand, each requesting a hundred skewers of grilled squid.
"No kidding. The round I just did, straight to the villas next to Kunming Lake, that place is grand," the only woman among them said as she walked in, placing her delivery box on the ground and catching her breath.
"Heh heh, if you ask me, the grilled squid here is just delicious. I couldn’t help but buy a skewer," a slightly overweight man picked up his packed delivery box, patted his belly, then headed out the door.
"That’s true. Just smelling that aroma, tsk tsk, it’s really fragrant." Another person couldn’t help but swallow, especially when he had just delivered an order and the customer immediately started eating the grilled squid, making his own stomach even hungrier.
"I’m not eating, I had buns and soy milk at noon, quite filling," Lao Wang said with a smile as he picked up his delivery box, which was ready.
"Uncle Lao Wang works really hard, way too dedicated. Today was supposed to be his day off, and he still came to deliver orders specially," the young woman stretched lazily on the table, completely worn out by the day. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
"I’ve heard Uncle Lao Wang say before that his son is in university, needing two thousand a month for living expenses," another burly man chimed in.
"Alright, mine’s ready. I’ll have to leave first, everyone." The one who had spoken first also picked up his delivery box to leave, giving the restaurant’s main door a glance before he did. This kind of lock...
The thought of Chen Ze’s earnings today made him clench his fist, wealth was indeed seductive...
Chen Ze slumped in his chair, exhausted like a dog from grilling squid all day long. If he hadn’t prepared rice with ice chestnuts in advance, today’s workload might have been even bigger.
"I’m not opening the door today, I’m almost worn out." Chen Ze twisted his neck, then took out his mobile phone to glance at the large amount of income on WeChat today.
If he added the cash, it would be even more, but Chen Ze still had to deposit the cash in the bank, otherwise it wouldn’t be convenient to use.
Chen Ze stood up, went to the kitchen to open the brine pot to take a look, the tail of the Edelman wild boar seemed to have changed color slightly, and he had no idea when it would be ready to come out and be used for cooking.
Chen Ze took out his phone and saw that it was already half-past six in the afternoon, all his grilled squid was sold out, and he had also used up one Moonlight Mushroom.
"It’s good that I ate the animation effect myself, otherwise I really couldn’t have managed today," Chen Ze let out a breath and then put on a jacket and walked out.
May 1st marked the festival for laborers, but for Huaxia, it also signified that summer had officially arrived.
Summer brought with it many delicacies, yet indispensable among them were cold drinks and fruit; among these, watermelon could be called the synonym for summer.
In the sweltering heat of midsummer, slicing open a chilled watermelon in a cool spot and scooping it out with a spoon, the crunchy watermelon also felt icy and sweet—this was Chen Ze’s memory of summer.
Chen Ze walked along the streets of Sun Moon City, where there were many pedestrians, all wearing masks. Chen Ze did not look at the hotly dressed beauties, instead he headed straight for the fruit stall.
"Boss, how much for the watermelons?" Chen Ze eyed the watermelons before him, which were local to Yun Province, rather than varieties like Black Beauty.
"Seven yuan per kilogram," replied the vendor, who seemed to be a rustic farmer, as he smoked his water pipe.
Chen Ze patted the watermelon. Generally, it was acceptable to tap a watermelon to judge its ripeness by the sound.
Chen Ze had also researched how to select a sweet-tasting watermelon.
Usually, one would first look at the watermelon’s stripes; a good watermelon had neat stripes without any forks, and Chen Ze immediately spotted two candidates.
However, Chen Ze did not rush to buy but picked up a watermelon to check the belly button on its underside, finally choosing the one with the smallest navel and greenest color.
"Boss, I’ll take this one." Chen Ze was quite satisfied, as the watermelon’s stem was also curved, perfectly matching the image of a good watermelon in his mind.
Coming over, the vendor couldn’t help but glance at Chen Ze, "Yo, quite the connoisseur, eh?"
Chen Ze just smiled and waved his hand, "Just some little tips I picked up online."
The vendor nodded with a smile, then weighed the watermelon, which cost Chen Ze thirty-six yuan in the end.
"Boss, can you guarantee this melon is ripe?" Chen Ze suddenly felt like being a bit mischievous.
The vendor was momentarily startled, but quickly grasped the situation and pulled a sign from his truck, upon which was Sun Honglei’s classic line.
"Don’t worry, it’s guaranteed ripe. Even if Liu Huaqiang came by, he’d give a thumbs up!" the vendor laughed heartily.
Chen Ze also gave a thumbs up, then carried his watermelon back home.
Chen Ze took out a cleaver, split the watermelon down the middle, and placed it on the table, putting half in the refrigerator while deciding to make juice out of the other half.
Regarding watermelons, there was a rumor that the sweetest part was the center, but having tried it many times himself, Chen Ze felt the sweetness was similar throughout. It was just that the middle had fewer seeds, which made it seem more uniformly sweet.
Chen Ze scooped up a spoonful and swallowed it.
"Indeed, the tips from online are quite sensible; it does taste very sweet," Chen Ze exhaled contentedly.
These little bits of knowledge from the internet weren’t bad, but one shouldn’t use it to check medical symptoms, because doing so almost made one feel like writing a will.
