this chapter is brought to you by mio
as translator, proofreader and editor!
So far, Jiang Ci could manage on her own since there weren’t many people in the shop at the moment.
As soon as Song Jinchuan entered, he noticed that the hotpot restaurant had undergone a significant transformation. It had expanded from a single-story building to two floors, with four tables and chairs set up upstairs.
The floor was now covered with wooden planks, which made no sound when stepped on, indicating that the materials used were ones of high quality.
The hotpot restaurant had grown considerably, and Song Jinchuan could hear the survivors around him discussing it. If Jiang Ci hadn’t prepared him in advance, he probably would have been just as shocked as them.
Jiang Ci was busy in the kitchen. When she saw Song Jinchuan come in, she glanced at him, trying to gauge something from his expression. However, Song Jinchuan’s demeanor was as calm as ever, no different from usual.
When Jiang Ci stepped out of the kitchen, the members of the Cheetah Squad also came in and took a seat in the main hall, their eyes closely following Song Jinchuan as he moved between the kitchen and the hall.
Jiang Ci noticed the look in Huang Mao’s eyes—just like a puppy that had been abandoned, making her want to laugh.
She wasn’t worried that Song Jinchuan would leave with his teammates. If necessary, she could always find another employee. No matter how useful an employee was, she wouldn’t keep them if their loyalties were divided.
After working diligently for most of the day, Jiang Ci was exhausted. In the afternoon, she simply closed the shop to catch up on sleep.
The members of the Cheetah Squad eventually accepted Song Jinchuan’s decision to stay. When they left, they were reluctant to leave and spent some time talking to Song Jinchuan before finally departing, looking back every few steps.
Before leaving, they made a point to find Jiang Ci and sincerely thank her. After all, if it weren’t for her, Song Jinchuan would no longer exist in this world.
pls do not share this anywhere or u will always stub ur toe when u walk past a door frame !! this translation has been stolen from mioscorner.com, pls only read there i’m begging u :kneels:
After seeing everyone off, Jiang Ci quickly closed the doors of the hotpot restaurant, hung up the ‘Closed’ sign, and retreated to her room, falling into a deep sleep.
She had forgotten to bring Hui Hui inside when she closed the store, so on his way back to his room, Song Jinchuan saw Hui Hui lingering at the door of Jiang Ci’s room.
Although Hui Hui looked harmless now, Song Jinchuan hadn’t forgotten how it had trapped dozens of people in just half an hour.
Hearing the noise, Hui Hui turned to look at Song Jinchuan, its bean-sized eyes staring at him unblinkingly.
Song Jinchuan walked towards his room. As he passed Hui Hui, he could still feel her head turning to follow his movements, as if silently expressing something.
He opened the door to his bedroom, sighed quietly, and then stopped, turning to look at Hui Hui. “Do you want to sleep in my room first? You can go back after Boss Jiang wakes up.”
Hui Hui understood and slowly began to move towards Song Jinchuan.
He went to the storage room and found a cardboard box, making a temporary nest for her. Currently, her nest in Jiang Ci’s room had already been upgraded to a wooden one, lined with soft padding.
However, Hui Hui wasn’t picky. She stepped into the box and settled down, becoming so quiet, almost as if she had disappeared.
Song Jinchuan watched her for a while, gradually accepting her presence, and then lay down on the bed to rest.
When Jiang Ci woke up, it was already dark outside. She faintly heard voices outside. After a quick wash, she found Song Jinchuan exercising in the open space of the courtyard.
He had taken off his shirt, revealing his well-defined muscles. He was doing push-ups with one hand on the ground and the other behind his back.
Hui Hui, who rarely left the room, was now by Song Jinchuan’s side. The voices she had heard earlier were from Song Jinchuan and Hui Hui conversing.
It was unclear how the man and the turtle communicated, but their back-and-forth communication seemed quite harmonious.
“Didn’t you sleep?” Jiang Ci walked out of the shop.
The weather was pleasant. The sun had already set, and a gentle breeze blew through, creating a comfortable temperature.
“I did. I woke up around six,” Song Jinchuan stood up, his eight-pack abs clearly visible, but he quickly grabbed his shirt from the side and put it on.
Once the shirt covered his muscles, nothing could be seen anymore. Jiang Ci felt it was quite a pity.
Hui Hui, who had been by Song Jinchuan’s side, slowly made her way over to Jiang Ci upon seeing her.
She walked to Jiang Ci’s feet, then lifted her head to look at her. Although Hui Hui’s face showed no expression, there was always something in her gaze.
“I’m so sorry, I forgot about you. Do you want to go back to your room now?” Hui Hui nodded in response.
Jiang Ci bent down and picked up Hui Hui, carrying her back to her room. Once back in her familiar space, Hui Hui relaxed completely and slowly returned to her nest, snuggling up with the three tortoise eggs and falling asleep.
After leaving the room, Jiang Ci went to the counter to order food. With the upgrade of the hotpot restaurant, the old desktop computer had been replaced with a new, large-screen monitor model.
Jiang Ci ordered two set meals, each with meat, vegetables, and soup.
After placing the order, she opened the task bar. The temporary task had been completed, with the task reward being a seafood hotpot base.
The restaurant had finally added a new soup base: seafood hotpot. Just the name of it was enough to make your mouth water.
[Successfully deliver ten takeout orders to unlock braised food.] The system’s voice chimed in at the right moment.
“Braised food? Like braised chicken feet, duck feet, and duck heads?” Jiang Ci inquired.
After receiving a positive response from the system, Jiang Ci was in high spirits. Braised food was something she really enjoyed eating.
Back when she was still working at the company, she often couldn’t find time to cook on time, so she loved buying some braised food to make do with a meal. There was an elderly couple who had been making braised delicacies for decades, and their flavors were authentic and delicious. She had been wondering when she would get to eat that sort of food again, and now, unexpectedly, her own shop would have it.
After confirming the next task, Jiang Ci started spinning the lucky wheel that she hadn’t had time to spin before.
This time, Jiang Ci’s luck was particularly good, and she once again landed on the orange section. This time, the orange section contained an automatic cleaning machine.
Jiang Ci had always wanted this. With how busy she was every day, finding time to clean was already a hassle. If she had this machine, it would save her a lot of trouble.
When the machine was exchanged, Jiang Ci noticed that this cleaning machine was somewhat similar to the robotic vacuum cleaners she had seen before, but it was smaller, like a small frisbee.
Held in her hand, it was just a thin piece with slight protrusions on both sides.
After setting it up according to the instructions, the machine beeped and started up.
Then the frisbee began to move around the house, visiting every corner as if familiarizing itself with the layout. Jiang Ci looked down and saw that there was no support underneath the frisbee; it seemed to float, but miraculously, wherever it passed, it left the area spotless, much cleaner than Jiang Ci could ever manage.
Even on the second floor, it had no trouble going up and even cleaned the stairs and handrails step by step.
Jiang Ci and Song Jinchuan sat by the wooden table and chairs, eating while watching the cleaning machine come down from upstairs again.
The system said that this cleaning machine didn’t need to be charged. When there was enough sunlight during the day, it could internally process the garbage it had absorbed.
When there was ample sunlight during the day, it would also find a place to charge itself.
There was no need to worry about it being stolen either, as it had an alarm system installed. Anyone other than Jiang Ci and Song Jinchuan trying to move it would activate the alarm, along with a mild electric shock function.
After learning about these features, Jiang Ci found herself liking this little thing more and more, and she even gave it a name: Yuan Yuan1, which had a similar reason for naming as Hui Hui.
From that day on, Yuan Yuan officially became a resident of the hotpot restaurant, attracting countless curious and inquisitive looks.
One day, while Yuan Yuan was charging outside, someone really tried to steal it away, impressed by its powerful functions. Naturally, they experienced the pain of an electric shock and were subsequently blacklisted by the hotpot restaurant.
Besides Yuan Yuan, the most popular item in the shop was the newly introduced seafood hotpot. The seafood hotpot came with a large pot of seafood ingredients, including fresh shrimp, crab, octopus, squid, and more.
Thus, the price was also higher than the regular soup base, requiring five third-level crystal cores.
But because the taste was truly exquisite, people didn’t hesitate much about the price and basically wanted to try it for the novelty.
In the evening, Jiang Ci and Song Jinchuan also cooked a pot for themselves to enjoy.
She rarely ate hotpot when she was running the shop, but this seafood hotpot was exceptionally fragrant, with generous ingredients, making her crave it for a long time.
The moment she tasted it, Jiang Ci finally understood why everyone loved seafood hotpot so much. The palm-sized red shrimp were sweet, crisp, and tender, while the crab, as big as a face, was savory and delicious, packed with rich crab roe.
The octopus and squid were also delightfully chewy, with all these flavors combining to create an exceptionally delicious broth.
Jiang Ci even drank a bowl of the soup, and in the end, she was so full that she slumped in her chair, not wanting to move for a while.
There was still more than half of the ingredients left uneaten, all of which ended up in Song Jinchuan’s stomach. He even used the remaining broth to cook a pot of rice and finished it all, clearly very satisfied.
In short, the newly unlocked seafood broth received unanimous praise from the survivors.
Recently, survivors who came to eat hotpot would receive a few takeout order forms from Jiang Ci, which they could pass on to their friends and teammates.
Jiang Ci had also heard from the system that the takeout orders were prioritized based on urgency. If someone was truly on the verge of starvation, their order would be marked as a high-priority red order and delivered first.
The takeout feature was indeed incredibly convenient for the survivors. Carrying one of these order forms while on a mission meant that even if all their food was eaten or lost, they might not necessarily starve.
At first, Jiang Ci actively introduced and distributed the forms, but people ended up scrambling for them later.
After distributing a batch of five hundred forms, Jiang Ci temporarily stopped issuing more, planning to wait until more than half of these orders were completed before distributing new ones.
Jiang Ci decided to take a day off to close the shop and deliver takeout herself. She specifically informed the survivors who came to the shop the day before that she would be closing the shop the next day, not forgetting to post a sign on the shop door before leaving with Song Jinchuan.
Nowadays, she often had missions outside, so Jiang Ci had already grown accustomed to it.
After locking the door and bringing Hui Hui along, Jiang Ci sat on the back seat of the electric scooter.
She opened the takeout navigation map and was surprised to see so many takeout orders. The screen was filled with dense green dots, with a few red dots scattered among them.
the translator has nothing to add ◡̈
- Literally ‘Round Round’ ↩︎
