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Jiang Ci nodded, urging Aunt Mo Yun to go quickly. After she returned with the anti-inflammatory medicine, Jiang Ci also put down her tools, washed her hands, and followed her to the front.
Sisi was sitting in a private room with her companion. It wasn’t the bloody scene Jiang Ci had imagined, but one of them really did have a bruised and swollen face, with vivid purple marks and dried blood at the corner of their mouth, indicating that they seemed to have an injury inside the mouth as well.
“Boss Jiang,” Meng Sisi greeted Jiang Ci, then took the anti-inflammatory medicine from Aunt Mo Yun.
Seeing that the injury wasn’t as severe as she had thought, Aunt Mo Yun expressed her concern briefly before quickly returning to her post.
Just as Jiang Ci was about to leave, she overheard someone talking about the misfortune this person had suffered.
“Yeah, I don’t know what got into that guy. I just mentioned the hotpot restaurant we have here, and he suddenly went crazy and beat me up.”
Hearing this, Jiang Ci paused her steps and turned around, asking with some confusion, “You were beaten up because you mentioned the hotpot restaurant?”
The bruised survivor nodded, his tone carrying a hint of grievance. “I don’t know what his problem was. I was just being nice and invited him to the hotpot restaurant so I could treat him to a meal.”
“Was he mentally stable?” Jiang Ci asked again.
“He was fine before. We even teamed up to kill a mutated beast together. He’s quite skilled, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to beat me up so badly,” the man said. “When he went crazy, he kept shouting something about a liar who ruined his wife or something. Ugh, what bad luck. I hope I don’t run into him again.”
Jiang Ci felt like something was off about this incident, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
As she was leaving, she instructed the staff to send a plate of braised dishes to their table. “Since you got hurt because of the hotpot restaurant, consider this my compensation.”
“Boss Jiang, that’s not what I meant,” the survivor’s expression changed, looking somewhat embarrassed.
With a hint of embarrassment, he admitted that he truly hadn’t meant anything by it and was merely expressing some of his thoughts.
“It’s alright, take your time eating,” Jiang Ci said before closing the door to the private room.
Since she couldn’t make sense of the matter, Jiang Ci decided not to dwell on it further.
After watering her medicinal herb seeds and vegetable seeds, she headed straight back to her room.
After freshening up, Jiang Ci proceeded to spin the lucky wheel, this time winning a modest barbecue dipping sauce.
Previously, the barbecue restaurant had been using the chili dipping sauce from the hotpot restaurant, but now they could finally switch to a dry seasoning specifically for barbecue.
That evening, after the shop closed, the upgrade process began.
At night, as Jiang Ci was about to sleep, she suddenly noticed a crack in one of Hui Hui’s remaining two eggs.
“Hui Hui, your second baby is about to hatch,” Jiang Ci said happily to Hui Hui.
Hui Hui leaned down to take a closer look at the egg, then glanced at Jiang Ci, her beady eyes seemingly reflecting joy, though it was unclear what she was thinking.
Xiao Lulu also nuzzled his sibling-to-be with his head, then walked over to Jiang Ci on his four short legs, apparently wanting her to pick him up.
Jiang Ci bent down to lift Xiao Lulu, played with him for a while, and then went to bed.
*
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:
The next morning, upon waking up, Jiang Ci noticed that the hotpot restaurant building in front had expanded slightly, and that the backyard had also become more spacious.
Upon entering the shop, she discovered that each floor of the hotpot restaurant had added two more tables and chairs, while the barbecue shop had expanded to three floors, with the third floor now hosting a new teppanyaki section. A large and spacious teppanyaki grill was surrounded by chairs, where diners could sit and watch the chef cook.
The barbecue restaurant’s inventory had also been updated with teppanyaki ingredients like sliced pork belly, beef tenderloin, chicken wings, beef intestines, eggplant, and potatoes, among others.
The menu listed all the ingredients and their prices, with options like fried rice and fried noodles in a separate column.
Jiang Ci used her points to purchase some of each item and stored them in the refrigerator on that floor, including rice and noodles.
The rice and noodles were pre-cooked and sealed, ready to be stir-fried by simply tearing open the packaging.
She then asked the staff who knew how to cook teppanyaki, and several raised their hands.
Jiang Ci had them try it out, eventually keeping the two who performed the best, while selecting two others to help out on the third floor of the barbecue shop.
The teppanyaki fried rice and fried noodles were an instant hit among the survivors.
Jiang Ci and Song Jinchuan also enjoyed a plate of teppanyaki beef fried rice, which was full of smoky flavor, with each grain of rice coated in the savory sauce and beef. Jiang Ci couldn’t help but eat a large plate, ending up so full that she had to walk two laps around the yard to feel better.
After arranging these tasks, Jiang Ci received a new mission from the system, this time highlighted in bold red.
[It’s our duty to defend our shop’s reputation! Take down the counterfeit operation and fraudulent sales den in one fell swoop! Clear the name of our restaurant chain!]
Jiang Ci could almost feel the system’s fury through those three exclamation marks. This time, the system’s mission reward was generous, allowing her to surprisingly unlock a medical clinic upon completion.
However, the term “counterfeit operation and fraudulent sales den” quickly reminded Jiang Ci of the incident involving Mo Sisi’s companion being beaten.
The other party mentioned how they had been attack upon mentioning the hotpot restaurant—perhaps it was because this fake one had aroused public outrage.
However, how could someone counterfeit her hotpot restaurant? Where had the hotpot base and ingredients come from?
With a belly full of doubts, Jiang Ci brought up the mission she needed to undertake with Song Jinchuan.
Song Jinchuan was evidently very accustomed to this, and without a word, he started packing his things, cooperating seamlessly with her.
Jiang Ci handed the keys of the shop to Mao Qianqian and her sister, informing them that she would be going out and asking them to keep an eye on the place.
Mao Qianqian nodded, “Don’t worry, Boss. Have a safe journey.”
Sitting on the back of the electric scooter, Jiang Ci felt the wind brushing against her face. Unlike the previous scorching weather, the wind now carried a noticeable chill.
Recalling the system and the survivors’ discussions about the weather, it seemed that the extreme cold wasn’t too far off now. She hoped that by then, more shops that could help survivors cope with the harsh conditions would be unlocked.
As she pondered over this, Jiang Ci opened the map. The mission location was in City D, and it would take some time to get there by electric scooter.
They had set out early in the morning, but after walking for most of the day, they hadn’t even covered half the distance before they decided to find an open space to have a meal.
Halfway through their meal, Jiang Ci heard a rumbling sound, as if a large number of animals or people were heading their way.
Behind them was a broken wall that provided some cover. Jiang Ci peeked out towards the source of the noise. The first thing that caught her eye was a large cloud of dust, followed by a massive group of dark figures within it.
It seemed like zombies were now migrating in large numbers for some reason.
After all the zombies had passed, Jiang Ci and Song Jinchuan finished their meal and continued on their way.
By evening, they encountered a dozen or so survivors armed with weapons. The shock in their eyes was almost palpable when they saw Jiang Ci and Song Jinchuan. After all, they hadn’t seen anyone traveling by electric scooter since the second year of the apocalypse.
Electric scooters needed to be charged, had limited speed, and offered no protection, making them the type of transportation mode people would consider the least.
Jiang Ci even waved at them. Since they were about to have dinner, they decided to join forces and build a fire together.
During the conversation, Jiang Ci heard their genuine complaints about the hotpot restaurant.
“It’s such a scam, claiming to bring back pre-apocalypse delicacies, but in the end, what do you get? A bland broth and mutated beast meat. It’s disgusting,” one of the survivors said.
“It’s just an easy money grab. I don’t know why it’s so popular. I heard they were advertising in various cities. How could they even have the nerve to advertise something like this?”
“Another survivor I met on a mission told me how good it was. Now that I think about it, they must have been paid off.”
“Weren’t you all going to City D? Be careful not to get scammed.”
Jiang Ci paused for a moment before speaking up, “But isn’t that hotpot restaurant in City C?”
Unable to hold back, Jiang Ci wanted to clear the name of her own hotpot restaurant. After listening to the survivors, she had pieced together the methods of the counterfeit hotpot restaurant.
The hotpot base had a hint of beef tallow flavor, likely from survivors who had visited her restaurant and managed to get a bit of the leftover base. They probably just added a few drops of it to a pot of water and directly called it beef tallow hotpot.
It seemed these people were only in it for one-time business; after all, customers who had visited at least once definitely wouldn’t return to be scammed again.
“City C? That can’t be right,” one survivor said, puzzled.
“Yeah, I’ve been there. The taste is really good, definitely not mutated beast meat. They have both beef and pork.”
As soon as Jiang Ci spoke, the survivors looked at her differently, likely seeing her as an accomplice to the scam.
Without further ado, Jiang Ci directly took out a pack of hotpot beef balls and a portion of braised meat hotpot rice from her space.
“Look, these are new products from the hotpot restaurant, self-heating portable rice. Here, try it and you’ll see.”
Jiang Ci still had plenty of such instant food in her space, so giving out two boxes wasn’t exactly a big deal. She had to restore the restaurant’s reputation, or all their previous advertising would’ve been done in vain.
Seeing the boxes in Jiang Ci’s hands, the survivors hesitated but eventually took them after her urging.
Jiang Ci showed them how to use it, and soon, steam began to rise from the small holes on the boxes, accompanied by a bubbling sound.
What followed was an incredibly rich aroma of beef tallow hotpot, mixed with the natural flavors of the ingredients.
The survivors’ eyes lit up. This was the exact smell they had caught a whiff of outside the hotpot restaurant in City D, though it had been much fainter inside.
Now, this intense hotpot aroma made them feel as if they had been transported back ten years.
Opening the plastic lids, they were greeted by a bright red, oily broth filled to the brim with ingredients. One box even contained a bowl of glistening, crystal white rice.
the translator has nothing to add ◡̈
