Chapter 90: Could This Be the System’s Inclination?
Today’s haul was 10,789 points.
Excluding the 3,809 from the official order, regular business throughout the day had brought in 6,980 points.
An all-time high.
Customer traffic in the shop today had reached an all-time high as well.
Although the newcomers hadn’t ramped up their spending power yet, the dishes on the second floor had sold briskly, more than doubling yesterday’s turnover.
The Item Exchange Box was ready for an upgrade.
Ling Jing bumped up the unit payout for recycled goods.
Daily Quest: [Standard Restaurant] Tier — Daily Turnover (10,789 / 1,000) (Completed).
She claimed the daily quest reward.
—100 points.
Against a turnover of over ten thousand points, the quest reward was practically negligible.
Casually claiming the points, Ling Jing tapped the one-touch shop cleaning function.
The routine maintenance fee of 100 points for a [Standard Restaurant] was deducted.
It offset the daily quest reward cleanly.
Then, she spent 100 points to recharge the slumbering Caicai.
Last night, Caicai had worked with Ling Jing for several hours, so she had topped off its battery once this morning just to ensure the robot wouldn’t run dry mid-shift while she was too slammed to notice.
From the official opening at eight in the morning until eight at night, Caicai had finally sputtered out of power right after packing the last of the Malatang skewers.
For Caicai’s first day on the clock, the workload had certainly been brutal.
With 100 points deducted, Caicai revived at full charge.
“Recharge complete! Caicai is ready to serve you! (^▽^)”
The robot’s blue indicator flared to life, instantly regaining its bubbly vigor.
Ling Jing patted Caicai on the head, and a familiar system chime rang in her ears.
Ding!
[You have completed the Hidden Quest: Reach [5,000] in total transaction value with the authorities! You are rewarded with one Lucky Draw chance!]
Another hidden quest checked off?
Her completed hidden achievements and quests so far seemed to revolve around how many lives she saved or what level of cooperation she struck with the administration.
Could this be the system’s core inclination?
Still, with such a small sample size, it was premature to jump to conclusions.
No point in overthinking it.
Ling Jing tapped the draw button.
This wasn’t a curated banner, so the reward popped up instantly.
[Congratulations! You have obtained a Heated Foot Spa Massager x1!]
Ling Jing: “…”
Fair enough.
How could soothing and pampering the feet of the head chef and proprietor not count as supporting business operations?
She carried the newly acquired foot basin into the bedroom.
Time for dinner.
Ling Jing didn’t bother cooking anything separate for herself.
Grabbing a plate, she ladled out a sampling of braised meats, braised offal, and braised vegetables, pairing them with a heaping bowl of steamed white rice.
Greens, meat, and rice—it finally appeased an empty stomach that had been starving all day.
Due to price tags, the vegetarian braise had sold the best by far, while the braised meats and offal moved in modest amounts. The offal had sold even less than the choice cuts.
That might be tied to how receptive the locals were to offal.
Ling Jing didn’t know much about the dietary habits of this world. Judging by the available ingredients, many overlapped with her previous world, though there were also plenty of alien additions.
At the very least, patrons had marveled at the sheer concept of “stir-fry.”
Perhaps before the cataclysm, culinary traditions here had been completely different from the techniques she wielded.
Like the divide between Eastern and Western cuisines.
The exact same ingredients could yield vastly divergent flavors under different culinary systems.
Judging by how they handled utensils, the locals were utterly unfamiliar with chopsticks and accustomed to forks.
A cuisine resembling “Chinese food” had likely never existed here.
By analogy, this world’s take on rice might resemble Western dishes from back home… things like cheese-stuffed baked peppers, mushroom seafood risotto, or lemon fish fillets over rice.
The flavor profiles and cooking techniques were worlds apart from Chinese fare.
It was entirely understandable, then, that people here might be wary of organ meats.
Aside from those who bought the braised offal purely for its tactical buffs.
In Ling Jing’s old world, many cultures embraced offal, but there were also plenty of places where people wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.
Sometimes it was because cooking techniques couldn’t fully neutralize the gaminess; other times it came down to religious taboos or personal preference.
Even in her home country, plenty of people turned their noses up at variety meats, especially pig intestines, tongue, and lungs.
To each their own dining habits.
Ling Jing herself, however, was rather fond of them.
She wasn’t a picky eater in the slightest; there wasn’t a single ingredient she genuinely disliked.
As long as it was prepared well, she was game to try any flavor profile under the sun.
It likely stemmed from a pure, unadulterated love for food.
Her own braised creations had steeped in the spiced liquor for an entire day; served piping hot, every bite was saturated with flavor.
Potatoes, lotus root slices, broccoli, cabbage… soaked through with the savory broth, carrying a deep, caramelized umami.
The braised meats were pure satisfaction: rich pork belly, trotters simmered until meltingly gelatinous, and firm, fibrous avian meat with just the right chew.
The offal was a whole other experience. Every trace of gaminess had been driven out during the prep and boil, replaced by the warming pungency of the spice sachet.
The large intestines were tender yet pleasantly springy, the stomach satisfyingly chewy, and the sliced pig ears delightfully crunchy. All were braised to perfection, seasoned to a tee.
The bowl of rice vanished in no time.
When she finished eating and got up to pour a glass of water, she returned to find Caicai had already cleared her used dishes and taken them to the kitchen to scrub.
Now that was an employee who proactively looked for work.
Taking a sip of water, she retreated to the bedroom to brush her teeth and splash water on her face.
Just to refresh herself; she’d take a full shower before turning in for the night.
Stepping back into the dining hall, Ling Jing began adjusting the ground-floor layout.
After Yves and his men departed last night, she had accomplished a great deal: putting up wayfinding signs, adding tabletop menus to every seat upstairs, and buying twenty-four trash bins.
She had placed one beside every table on both floors, one at each end of the long Malatang counter, and one behind the cashier desk.
With the menu constantly expanding, more dishes inevitably generated table waste; she couldn’t just let trash pile up until the closing-time auto-clean.
It looked unsightly and soured the dining experience.
With bins available today, most diners had been conscientious about throwing their scraps away.
Whatever stray refuse was left behind was automatically cleared whenever Caicai glided past.
The little robot wore a dozen hats at once, which was grueling work.
Good thing Caicai had no concept of physical fatigue.
Last night, Ling Jing had also purchased a commercial rice steamer, setting it on the two-tiered stainless-steel prep counter above the automatic skewer machine.
A single run produced twenty-four trays of fluffy rice. Today’s supply had comfortably met demand with plenty to spare.
Factoring in all the miscellaneous restocks—seasonings, disposable trays, bamboo skewers, charging Caicai, and the rest—she had 1,020 points left from the 2,646 points the Commander had dropped off last night.
Adding today’s 10,789—or rather, 10,689, since she had just topped off Caicai’s battery again—she now held 11,709 points of disposable capital.
Alright.
Time to remodel the ground floor.
