"Meat buns are this expensive? How much are your steamed buns, then?"
"Steamed buns are two fen each, vegetable buns three fen, and meat buns and sugar buns are five fen. Take a look at our buns—absolute quality ingredients, heavy in the hand, large in size, and guaranteed to fill you up."
Regular steamed buns cost one fen, but the ones they made were larger, designed specifically to supply the factory workers, so the price was slightly higher.
"Well, I'll just have a steamed bun then." Seeing what the steamed buns looked like, someone was tempted and bought one.
With their very first sale made, Li Xiulan quickly pointed to a box meant exclusively for holding money. Her hands had to touch the buns, so she was very mindful of hygiene.
With the ice broken, even though nobody had bought any rice noodles yet, people saw the generous size of the buns and steamed buns and started buying. They could save them to eat at noon; these steamed buns were bigger than the ones at the cafeteria, and they looked better made, too.
Until this batch of workers left, still not a single person bought the noodles.
"Xiulan, is our noodle price too high? How come nobody's buying any? Should we lower the price a bit?"
"Mom, think about how many ingredients went into those noodles. It's just that everyone doesn't know how delicious the noodles are yet, so nobody's buying them. Let's wait a little longer. As long as one person buys a bowl, I'm sure our noodles will sell out fast."
Li Xiulan wasn't anxious. After all, the rice noodles were only boiled to order, and they used plenty of oil and so many seasonings—if she lowered the price, they would operate at a loss.
Zhang Guifen and Grandma were a bit worried, but seeing that the sales of buns and steamed buns were holding steady, they gradually relaxed. They had tasted the noodles themselves and knew how good they tasted.
Seeing the crowd gradually growing, they busied themselves again.
Before long, a few men dressed a bit more neatly noticed the stall and walked over out of curiosity.
Seeing that they were just selling ordinary steamed buns, they instantly lost interest.
However, catching sight of the pure white rice noodles on the side, their curiosity was piqued once more.
"What are you selling here?" one of them asked, pointing at the rice noodles.
Seeing that someone was finally asking about the rice noodles, Li Xiulan asked her mother-in-law to take over selling the buns and steamed buns while she personally stepped forward to introduce the dish. Judging by his attire, this man looked like a minor official here.
"Comrade, we're selling rice noodles here. Once boiled, they're served with the seasonings over there. They come with meat and vegetables, and the taste is guaranteed. Would you like to try a bowl? Vegetarian is twenty fen, and meat is fifty fen."
"I'll have a meat one, then." The man didn't hesitate. This was a novel way of eating to him; these noodles weren't like sweet potato starch, nor were they like wheat noodles, and he was quite curious about how they tasted.
His companion ordered a bowl as well, and the two of them sat down at a nearby table to wait.
Li Xiulan quickly washed her hands, dried them with a towel, and used chopsticks to pick up a pre-portioned knot of rice noodles. One knot made a bowl, and the portion was generous.
She dipped them into boiling water for a quick spin, lifted them out instantly with a bamboo strainer into a bowl, and then asked the two men if they could handle spicy food and had any objections to scallions and coriander. Finding out they could take all of it, she scooped a spoonful of glistening chili oil, added salt, MSG, soy sauce, and vinegar, followed by a spoonful of tomato paste, a spoonful of minced meat, scallions, and coriander, and finally topped it all off with a ladle of bone broth, a glistening layer of oil floating on the surface.
This elaborate presentation made everyone who had bought buns and steamed buns drool with envy. Just smelling the aroma was intoxicating enough.
The two men who had just ordered the noodles stared in amazement at the overflowing bowls of minced-meat noodles set before them.
Li Xiulan served the bowls to the two men, who couldn't wait to mix everything together and dig in with big bites.
The noodles were quite hot, but in the dead of winter, swallowing such a piping hot bowl of rice noodles instantly made the two of them feel the chill leave their bodies.
"Delicious, simply delicious! I could eat three bowls," the two men said between bites. Before long, the bowls of noodles, down to the very last drop of broth, were completely devoured.
"Gulp." The sound of someone swallowing saliva couldn't be hidden from the surrounding coworkers. They looked over and instantly felt that the steamed buns in their own hands weren't quite as appetizing anymore.
"I'm not eating at the cafeteria at noon today. I'm coming over here for a bowl of noodles."
As one person spoke, the others nodded in unanimous agreement.
The two men who had just finished their bowls of noodles were still craving more and called out to Li Xiulan, "Boss, give me another bowl! It's too good; I feel like one wasn't enough."
"Do the two of you know each other? If you're close, I suggest you buy one bowl together. I can split it into two halves for you so nothing goes to waste. Otherwise, eating another whole bowl right now would make you too stuffed to work properly this morning. What do you think?"
Seeing that both men were rather lean and had already finished a bowl of broth—meaning they were clearly full, and only praising the noodles because they genuinely tasted good—Li Xiulan made the suggestion. Waste was never a good thing, no matter when.
"You can do that? All right, we'll buy one bowl to share between us." The two men thought this was a great idea. Since they worked in the same office anyway, they made the decision on the spot.
Soon, each of them had eaten half a bowl of noodles and felt comfortably full. True enough, this boss was an honest person who wouldn't try to squeeze more money out of them by selling them each another full bowl.
Seeing how much the two men enjoyed their meal, someone else quickly ordered a bowl of vegetarian noodles. To their surprise, the vegetarian noodles were delicious too; this chili oil was truly tasty! After eating a bowl of this, they wouldn't feel hungry all morning.
When the shift bell rang at the factory, everyone finally cleared away from the stall. Luckily, they had brought plenty of large bowls this time, or they really wouldn't have had enough.
The three women then began washing up. An elderly security guard strolled over.
He had noticed Li Xiulan earlier, but with the crowd, he hadn't recognized her right away. Once everyone had gone off to work, however, he realized Li Xiulan looked familiar.
"Aren't you the girl who came asking about jobs the other day? So you were planning to set up a stall here all along?"
The old guard had a sudden epiphany. He had watched the entire morning's proceedings; the business was so good that if he hadn't already eaten breakfast, he would have wanted to buy a bowl of noodles himself.
"Uncle, it's me. Our family is poor, and that day I just wanted to come see if the factory was hiring. After going back, I came up with this idea. Uncle, we're allowed to set up a stall at this entrance, right?"
Li Xiulan didn't deny it; she admitted it frankly and took the opportunity to ask about the situation here.
The old guard looked like an old hand. Li Xiulan had previously asked her second brother-in-law, but he didn't know much about these things. Now that this old man was willing to talk to her, she seized the chance to gather some more information.
"I haven't heard that you can't. Besides, nobody's ever set up a stall here before. The factory cafeteria runs on fixed wages anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem. But if you want total peace of mind, I reckon you could go ask at the factory administration office."
"Uncle, we don't know anyone at the administration office, and we don't even know which way their door faces. Could you please do us a favor and point it out the next time you see someone coming out of the office? We'll go find them ourselves and ask."