Spring Breeze Twenty Years

Chapter 344 Aunt Xia Gets Promoted

After saying goodbye to the disappointed Manager Sun, Xiaowei and Li Wenhe returned to their shop. Li Wenhe laughed and said, "That's just how it is. They're unwilling to invest in equipment, and they don't even think about making the cakes taste better. All they think about is making money and ruining others. That's the mindset of business people from Jiangsu and Zhejiang."

Xiao Wei shook his head and said, "Everyone has their own way of surviving. We just need to do our own thing and not worry about what others do."

Li Wen stared with her bright, big eyes and asked, "Did you buy it? Did you buy it?"

Xiao Wei paused for a moment, then asked, "Why are you so excited?"

Li Wen said, "I'm buying the machines to open a branch store. I'm going to be the store manager."

Xiao Wei and Li Wenhe laughed together. This little girl was obsessed with becoming the shop manager. Xiao Wei said, "It's unusable, it's all broken stuff. We need to open a shop and buy new ones. Oh, right, I bought some knives and they've been sitting in the car." He went to the trunk of the car and took the knives and a small egg beater to the shop.

Li Wen screamed and pounced on the egg beater, snatching it from her and hugging it to her arms, saying, "What a cute machine!"

Xiao Wei was startled by Li Wen's actions. He shook his head, placed the knives on the workbench, and asked Li Wenhe, "Master Li, have you used any of these knives?"

Li Wenhe picked up the folding knife and looked at it, saying, "I don't have this one. I've used all the others, but I've never seen this one before. Is it Swiss made? It's a good knife."

Li Wen, holding the machine, asked, "Boss, what's this for?"

Li Wenhe glanced at it and said, "That's for making plant-based milk powder, and it can also be used to mix milk and cocoa. We don't need it here for the time being. Why did you buy this?" He turned to ask Xiao Wei.

Xiao Wei paused for a moment, his eyes widening, and said, "I don't know, I just bought it because it's a new gadget I've never seen before, so I thought I'd give it a try."

Li Wenhe was also taken aback for a moment, then said with a wry smile, "You just have money in your pocket. Other people are reluctant to buy machines and want to build them themselves, but you have so much money that you buy them regardless of whether they're useful or not. Let's get some cocoa powder and process some cocoa cakes to sell. That's all we can do for now."

Li Wen, listening nearby, asked, "What's 'cocoa'? Is it tasty?"

Li Wenhe said, "Chocolate just isn't that pure."

Li Wen exclaimed again, "Ah, this is good, this is good! Make it quickly, I want to eat it!"

Xiao Wei ignored Li Wen and asked Li Wenhe, "Then can we make a coffee-flavored cake too?"

Li Wenhe nodded and said, "Sure, you can make any kind of cake by putting whatever you put in it, it's all possible."

Xiao Wei pondered and said, "Coffee flavor, tea flavor, mint flavor, milk flavor... then if we add different fruit juices, it becomes fruit flavor. Chef Li, when baking cakes, can we replace the water with fruit juice? We can bake orange cakes, apple cakes, grape cakes? Pear cakes? There are so many things we can make! Can't we make cookies too?"

Li Wenhe smiled and said, "Give it a try! I've never made any of these before, but it should work. Let's try them tonight when we get back. If they're good, we'll have more varieties. I might even make them when I get back to eastern Guangdong, since they're not available in the market right now."

Li Wen finally let go of the machine and asked Xiao Wei curiously, "Boss, can you make meat-flavored ones?"

Xiao Wei patted her on the head: "Can you make it fish-flavored? Want some?"

Li Wen covered her head, pouted, and said, "I don't want to eat it, it's not tasty."

Chef Li said, "You can add dried and crushed meat to cakes or bread. There are meat floss pastries sold in eastern Guangdong, but they don't taste quite the same as eating real meat. You can't put a piece of meat in a cake or bread, can you? Unless you make a sandwich with lettuce, fried egg, and meat slices. Only sandwiches and hamburgers have meat patties that are made from ground meat; you can't put whole slices of meat in them."

Xiao Wei's eyes lit up and he said, "This can be made; someone should be able to buy it."

Master Li shook his head and said, "Not necessarily. It would have to be very expensive. One or two people wouldn't be enough to fill them up. Fengtian is a good place to try. Cakes are Western food, after all. You could open a pastry shop selling cakes, cookies, bread, sandwiches, hamburgers, and the like. The local market probably can't keep up with the demand."

Li Wen pressed a finger to her lips and looked at Xiao Wei. Xiao Wei glared at her and said, "Don't lick your fingers. Are you that greedy?"

Li Wen nodded: "Yes, my mouth is watering. I want to eat it."

Li Bing pushed the door open and came in: "Boss."

Xiao Wei turned his head and looked over: "Here, what's wrong?"

Li Bing said, "Director Wang from the Labor Bureau is here. He came to reserve a table, saying that Boss Xia's aunt has been promoted to some kind of Party Secretary, and he's hosting a dinner here tonight."

Xiao Wei was taken aback for a moment and said, "Promoted to Party Secretary? Oh, that's great news! Arrange for them to be on the third floor, bring out the best dishes, all the finest quality, and Wuliangye liquor. Did you tell how many people are coming?"

Li Bing shook her head and said, "I didn't say anything, I just prepared a table and they're coming over at eight o'clock tonight. That's why I came to ask you."

Xiao Wei asked, "Where's Uncle Wang?"

Li Bing said, "He left, he left right after he finished speaking, in a hurry."

Xiao Wei said, "Okay, then let's do it my way. Prepare a full table of food, and we'll eat the leftovers ourselves."

Li Bing nodded and asked, "How much does this meal cost? Probably a thousand or two? How much will you charge?"

Xiao Wei shook his head and said, "Why would I accept anything? I'll sign it. I'll pay for it. Don't worry about them asking for money. Just put a few packs of cigarettes on the table."

Li Wen pointed a scraper at Xiao Wei and said, "Openly corrupting state officials, you're really, really bad. I want chocolate." Xiao Wei's face fell, exasperated. This girl was too much trouble. He looked at her and asked, "When will you grow up? You think you can be a store manager now? Open a kindergarten?"

Li Wen pursed her lips and glared at Xiao Wei without saying a word. After a while, Xiao Wei gave in and raised his hand, saying, "Okay, okay, I can do it." Only then did Li Wen smile and hum a song triumphantly. Li Wenhe said, "Little Li Wen is almost there now. She's learned how to mix buttercream and pipe it quite quickly, but her handwriting isn't very good yet. She needs to practice more."

Xiao Wei said, "We need to increase the variety of pastries and breads. We don't have enough items right now. Actually, I think pastries can sell just as well as birthday cakes, but I'm not sure what to offer."

Li Wenhe said, "This can't be rushed. We need to try it slowly. It would be best if you could get a batch of transparent hard packaging bags to wrap the food before selling it. It gives people a sense of hygiene, and it won't dry out. Right now, if we just leave it out to sell, it actually gets a bit dry by the afternoon and doesn't taste as good. We also need to make special packaging, such as birthday cake boxes, bread bags, and pastry boxes."

Xiao Wei slapped his forehead: "Oh no, I forgot when I got back. I haven't looked for the printing factory yet. Well, the whole team is going to Fengtian for a day trip in a few days, I'll go back and look for it then."

Li Wenhe said, "Buy a Yellow Pages book. It should have the information for every factory. It should have it in Fengtian and in eastern Guangdong."

Xiao Wei nodded and said, "Okay, I'll go look for it."

(End of this chapter)