Chapter 685 - The First New Dish After Chinese New Year

The astonishment of the girls did not affect the other frequent customers. They merely felt melancholic recalling how they had been shocked like this in the past as well.

For example, in his melancholy, Chen Wei sighed, “Yet another year has passed. I’m getting old.”

It was not enough for Chen Wei to feel like he had grown old alone, he had to go ask Jiang Changxi about it as well.

“Time flies. Yet another year has passed. You feel like you have grown another year older, right?” Chen Wei directly asked Jiang Changxi.

“No, I don’t feel that way. I am still young and beautiful,” Jiang Changxi said grudgingly and glared at Chen Wei.

“Oh, fine. Wu Hai, don’t you feel old?” Chen Wei did not give up and thus, he repeated his question to Wu Hai.

Unfortunately, Wu Hai was still busy eating and had totally ignored him.

“Chen Wei, you won’t succeed,” Jiang Changxi calmly remarked.

Chen Wei did not mind that he had been seen through. He said naturally, “If he does answer me, it will be a success.”

“But Wu Hai will ignore you,” Jiang Changxi expressionlessly said.

“Why?” Chen Wei asked.

“Simple. Because he’s a glutton, an extremely dedicated glutton. He will ignore everyone until he finishes eating and starts snatching the food of others. He’s quite similar to how Boss Yuan is, ignoring everyone when he’s cooking,” Jiang Changxi said.

Chen Wei then thought back to how Wu Hai would normally act. Instantly, he agreed to what Jiang Changxi said.

However, Yuan Zhou was not as ready to acknowledge what Jiang Changxi said. He started cursing inwardly, “My concentration is something necessary for me to become a Master Chef. As for Wu Hai, he is nothing but a pig. The only thing he can do is eat. How can we be compared to each other?”

Yes, in Yuan Zhou’s heart, Wu Hai was a pig. His nature as a pig would grow stronger whenever there was free food. He would be able to eat a lot, also eating very quickly.

An example was the current Wu Hai who was eating with the free meal ticket.

Time passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, the third day of Chinese New Year arrived. Some companies had already started their operations again. Naturally, Wu Zhou’s IT company was one of them as well.

The employees of Jiang Changxi’s company were starting to return to work as well.

As for Yuan Zhou, he was preparing to release a new dish. After all, it was a brand new year.

“Now that I have the complete Chengdu School of Sichuan Cuisine, I have many options.” Yuan Zhou was in deep thought while looking at the long list of dish names.

His eyes scanned through the menu rapidly and abruptly stopped at one spot. Then, he made up his mind.

This was a dish that Yuan Zhou himself had never eaten. Therefore, at noon, he had this dish for lunch.

“Happy new year, boss,” greeted both Mu Xiaoyun and Zhou Jia at the same time with a bow.

“Happy new year.” Yuan Zhou nodded.

“Why are you two here?” Yuan Zhou asked after he double checked and confirmed that they shouldn’t be back for work yet.

“The college opened earlier so I came back early,” said Zhou Jia, sincerity filling her delicate face.

“I don’t have to go visit relatives today so I came here to have a look,” Mu Xiaoyun said, her apple-shaped face was slightly flushed red.

“Ok. Come in then,” Yuan Zhou invited them in without commenting much even though the two were obviously lying.

“Hu.” The two exchanged gazes and heaved a sigh of relief.

In fact, they had arrived so early because they found out in the chat group that Yuan Zhou was going to officially reopen his restaurant after the Chinese New Year today. Therefore, Zhou Jia rushed back to Chengdu, while Mu Xiaoyun decided to not go visit her relatives today. That was why both of them had arrived here.

Of course, they had only arrived when it was nearly noon. It was quite fortunate that they were able to make it in time for the lunch hour.

“We’re releasing a new dish today, the Dongpo Garra Fish,” Yuan Zhou suddenly said while looking at the two.

“This is the first new dish after Chinese New Year. Everyone will be very happy when they find out,” Zhou Jia said cheerfully.

“Yeah. Let me announce this in the group chat.” Mu Xiaoyun immediately took out her phone.

Thud. Yuan Zhou took out a basin with warm water in it. A spotlessly white cloth was in it as well. This was meant to be used to wipe the tables and chairs.

Since winter, Yuan Zhou had been using warm cloths all the time. With this, one would not feel cold when cleaning the restaurant.

“Thank you, boss,” Zhou Jia thanked with a wide smile.

“Um.” Yuan Zhou nodded and returned to the kitchen to start preparing the ingredients.

While Yuan Zhou was busy working in the kitchen, Mu Xiaoyun was busy advertising the new dish. The advertisement this time was rather different as the name of the dish was already known.

Since the name was already known, Mu Xiaoyun was putting even more effort in the advertisement. As for Zhou Jia, she focused on wiping the tables and chairs.

The moment Mu Xiaoyun shared the news about the new dish that had its name confirmed, the gluttons were instantly attracted.

Because of this, these people that were returning back to work on the third day of Chinese New Year all got excited. Everyone was lamenting on how there was still an advantage to returning back to work early. They got to be the first to try Boss Yuan’s new dish.

Among Jiang Changxi’s employees, there were naturally those who were loyal customers of Yuan Zhou’s restaurant among them as well. Among them was a certain person who would visit Yuan Zhou’s restaurant at least once per month. He was naturally paying close attention to the release of this new dish. This person was Geng Xiao.

“Dongpo Garra Fish? Fish? Isn’t this my goddess’s favorite food?” Geng Xiao’s eyes lit up as he immediately thought of the beautiful assistant of Jiang Changxi.

That’s right. In this company, Jiang Changxi was not the goddess. Instead, she was the queen while the assistant named Tang Min was the publicly acknowledged goddess.

After all, Tang Min had a pair of long legs, a slender waist, and a beautiful face. She was also rather gentle in character. Therefore, her reputation as a goddess spread far and wide.

Geng Xiao immediately stood up and headed straight towards Tang Min’s desk.

“Tang Min, thank you for your help with the real estate company. Do you want to have lunch together today?” Geng Xiao was from the marketing department. Therefore, it wasn’t hard for him to look for an excuse to talk to Tang Min. Just look at how easily he was able to find a topic to talk about with her.

“No worries. I’m just doing my job,” Tang Min politely replied with a smile.

When Geng Xiao saw that Tang Min was about to reject his lunch invitation, he immediately interrupted her, “Actually, Boss Yuan is releasing a new dish today. It’s a gray mullet dish. I feel like the dish will be quite nice.”

The moment Tang Min heard about the gray mullet, she paused slightly before nodding in agreement.

After all, she truly loved eating gray mullets. This was a type of fish with very little bones, while its meat was springy and delicate with extremely delicious taste. It was a perfect fish to be cooked as fish fillets.

“Ok, I will have to trouble you then,” Tang Min politely thanked.

“No worries. It’s just lunch between colleagues,” Geng Xiao nonchalantly said.

Looking at how he was behaving, Tang Min eased up and nodded with a smile.

“Ok, I’ll come to look for you again during lunchtime,” Geng Xiao said and directly leave.

When in a courtship, timing and how tactful the person was would be very important. It wouldn’t work if he kept sticking close to her. It was clear that Geng Xiao was rather good in the matters of courtship.

With his back to Tang Min, Geng Xiao smiled. He was extremely pleased with his performance thus far. Inwardly, he was feeling smug, “With this, my first connection with her has been established.”

At the same time, Geng Xiao felt extremely thankful for Yuan Zhou. After all, Yuan Zhou was the one who had given him this chance to ask his goddess out.

At Sichuan, gray mullet was also called the black fish due to its black body, since it was as dark as ink.

However, the Dongpo Garra Fish Yuan Zhou was planning to release was obviously different than the gray mullet Geng Xiao had in his mind. Something interesting was about to happen soon. [1. An explanation here. In Chinese, Garra Fish actually shares the same character as black/ink fish, which is the nickname of gray mullet, hence the confusion here.]