The Game of Life

Due to a previous mistake by a front-desk server, they had nearly 60 more orders of Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon to give out. Now only three remained, and the final three customers had all booked private rooms for that evening. Two of them were dining together and had reserved the VIP room for 5:40 p.m., so naturally, Jiang Feng had to start early with the squab.

On such a hot day, even the hard-working Ji Xue wouldn’t come in to work early in the afternoon.

In the empty kitchen with Jiang Feng alone, singing to himself didn’t feel awkward at all.

As Jiang Feng hummed a tune that he himself couldn’t identify, he skillfully used scissors to debone the pigeon in his hands. Just when he was enjoying his singing, Wu Minqi walked in, phone in hand.

“Fengfeng, Ji Yue is calling for you; she rang your phone but no one answered, so she called me directly,” Wu Minqi handed the phone to Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng took off his gloves, wiped his hands, and accepted the phone.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Jiang, trying to reach you is really difficult. I had to call your Minqi to get in touch with you,” Ji Yue’s voice on the other end was quite loud, as there was a lot of noise where she was.

“I don’t bring my cell phone into the kitchen. By the way, when are you coming back? According to the employee handbook, if you don’t come back this month, I’m afraid your salary, performance pay, and bonus will all be deducted. You won’t have much left, not even the base pay.” The capitalist Jiang Feng showed his ugly face.

Ji Yue: “…”

“Be a bit more human, Mr. Jiang. You’re switching from laborer to capitalist too quickly. Let’s not talk about that, I have something important to ask you. Did you finish delivering those Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeons for the Qixi Festival meal?” Ji Yue asked.

“The last three will be delivered tonight, almost done,” Jiang Feng said.

“Do you know who is checking the giveaway list now? I just called Mrs. Wang and Fan and neither of them knew. Who told you when to make how many Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon?”

“Qi Rou told me. Why are you asking about this? Aren’t you on leave?” Jiang Feng was a bit puzzled.

Ji Yue sighed, “Mr. Jiang, as the boss, you should at least know a bit about the division of labor in our lobby, right? I am usually in charge of customer feedback and performance assessments. Even if I’m on leave, I still need to submit the reports and summaries at the end of the month.”

“When do you plan to come back?” Jiang Feng asked.

“It depends, if things go well I might be back in a couple of days. It’s not me saying, my little brother really lacks a good socialist thrashing. Do you know what he said to me when I just got home? He actually blamed their school’s antiquated administrative system for not being updated, making it so easy for him to hack and change the data. He even complained about how bad their school’s administrative system was. He got caught by the school, but doesn’t he realize he should reflect on his lacking skills?”

Jiang Feng: …

Your way of thinking is a bit off, buddy.

“How’s your brother’s transfer going?” Jiang Feng continued to ask.

“Now that the schools in the city have heard of his ‘great achievements,’ they’re not too keen to take him. Paying a lot of money is too much of a loss and not worth it. My mom and I got in touch with a school in the county, planning to first send him there for a year to let him suffer a bit; when my dad’s business picks up, we can transfer him back to his original international school,” Ji Yue said. “If I can get back the day after tomorrow, how much of my salary will be left this month?”

Jiang Feng did some quick calculations, “Less than half.”

“I’ll hurry back, I’ll call Mrs. Wang and Fan once I know for sure when I’ll return. Ji Qiran, you little rascal, you even dare to climb out the window, when did you sneak out, I… beep… beep… beep… beep…” Ji Yue hung up.

Jiang Feng: …

Indeed, true to the nature of a brat, he has even mastered the advanced skill of climbing through windows.

This made Jiang Feng think back to high school when he heard about a legend from their school: someone who would get up punctually at one in the morning, clamber out the window, climb down to go to the internet café, then at four in the morning, climb back just as punctually, rain or shine, for half a year. It ended the day she got caught climbing the wall by a passerby who mistook her for a burglar and called the police, and she was captured by her parents and the local police, making it onto the local newspaper in Z city, thus becoming a school legend.

Yes, this legend was a girl, and apparently, she lived on the fifth floor.

“When is Yueyue coming back?” Wu Minqi asked.

“She said she might be back the day after tomorrow at the earliest,” Jiang Feng replied.

“That’s good,” Wu Minqi replied happily, taking back the phone and starting to book a dessert shop online, “I thought she might miss it. This dessert shop is launching a new product next week, apparently a strawberry flavor, and it’s supposed to be extremely delicious.”

Jiang Feng resumed his task of deboning squab as if it were just routine.

Come to think of it, he felt that his Minqi had been gaining some weight lately; these past few days, holding hands felt a lot better.

Girls should be a little bit meatier; holding hands with them feels more comfortable, something Jiang Feng just couldn’t understand about Ji Gezi’s mentality, this girl with a height of 1.72 meters, flat-chested, weighing just over 100 pounds, who’d frequently diet because she couldn’t fit into certain clothing sizes.

If De and Cheng can find clothes to wear, what do these girls worry about every day?

Jiang Feng was more concerned that he was still over ten thousand experience points short of leveling up, and the progress on his last task was not yet in sight.

Perhaps tonight’s Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon would bring some good news.

At 5:37 PM, two guests who had reserved a VIP room arrived on time at Taifeng Building.

The welcoming hostess to greet them was Qi Rou, who approached the two somewhat familiar-looking middle-aged men with her characteristically sweet and approachable smile, “Hello, do you have a reservation?”

“208,” one of them said.

“Mr. Zhou and Mr. Ouyang, right? Please, follow me upstairs.” Qi Rou led the way ahead, and the two men nodded and followed behind her.

After showing them to their private room, Qi Rou informed the waiter that these guests had been compensated with the Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon and then left.

The moment Mr. Zhou entered the private room, he skillfully picked up the tablet that stood on the table and began to place orders. While ordering, he didn’t forget to complain to his friend, “Ah, the limited Sweet and Sour Yam is gone again. I told you to come at noon, but you insisted on coming in the evening.”

Mr. Ouyang was long accustomed to his complaints, “I’m not here for the Sweet and Sour Yam anyway. If you want to eat it, just come earlier at noon some other day.”

After speaking, he turned to the beautiful waitress still in the room, “Miss, the rules of your establishment are really unreasonable. We’re senior VIPs and still need to come early to get Sweet and Sour Yam.”

“I’ll pass your comments on to our management later,” the waitress said with a smile.

“Can you eat spicy food lately?” Mr. Zhou asked. “Shall we try the Li Hongzhang Hodgepodge? Have we ordered this dish before?”

“It’s just the two of us, the portion for that dish must be quite large. Let’s order it next time when I bring my wife and kids over,” Mr. Ouyang declined, “The weird-tasting soup we had last time was good, let’s start with that one.”

As Mr. Zhou continued to focus on ordering, Mr. Ouyang, bored with sitting and waiting, casually asked, “Miss, when can we expect the Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon to be served?”

“The kitchen is already preparing it, it will be ready shortly,” the waitress replied.

After more than ten minutes, Mr. Zhou was still deliberating over what to order, and Mr. Ouyang, getting impatient, directly questioned, “It’s just the two of us and you still haven’t finished ordering? I’ve come all the way from Guangdong Province to have dinner with you, and are you really planning to starve me?”

Without looking up, Mr. Zhou continued his pondering, “Oh please, you flew all the way here from Guangdong Province not for anything but the Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon. Master Sun hasn’t made that dish in ten years, and it’s made you crave it so much, huh? Just yesterday, Zhao mentioned in the group that this place’s Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon is on par with the ones Master Sun made back in the day, and today you hurriedly flew over from Guangdong Province. How could I not know what you’re after?”

“I’ll be done ordering soon, just wait a bit. Waitress, could you recommend one between the green onion braised sea cucumber and the minced meat sea cucumber?” Mr. Zhou asked.

“Green onion braised… I’m sorry, the Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon is already being served. I’ll serve this dish for both of you first, and then I’ll make a recommendation,” the waitress went to the serving window to get the dishes.

Mr. Ouyang immediately perked up, “That’s enough, Mr. Zhou, just order the green onion braised sea cucumber.”

Mr. Zhou took his advice and ordered the green onion braised sea cucumber and completed the order.

The waitress brought two servings of Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon to Mr. Zhou and Mr. Ouyang.

The cover was lifted, revealing the pigeon’s belly, which was carefully slit open with a small knife.

The aroma was tantalizing.

Mr. Ouyang was intoxicated.

He even felt a tearful joy.

“This is the taste, that old sly Zhao didn’t lie to me, it smells just right, I’m sure it’s the one,” he said.

With an air of resignation, Mr. Zhou shook his head, “You haven’t even tasted it yet. Wait until you’ve eaten before you say that.”

Mr. Ouyang took a small spoon, carefully scooped up a portion, and didn’t forget to dab it with some thickened sauce.

He took a bite.

“Ding, you’ve earned 999 experience points.”

“Ding, main quest [Loyal Customers] completed, reward received: A memory fragment of Jiang Chengde.”

In the kitchen, Jiang Feng smiled slightly.

It seemed that a certain guest in the VIP room was quite pleased with today’s Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon.

However, the game sure was stingy, rewarding another memory fragment. Wouldn’t it be nice to give some…

Wait, whose memory?

Jiang Chengde?!

Great-grandfather?!