Spring comes to the desperate place

Chapter 319 Successful opening

Hearing everyone praising the milk tea, Song Chunlin struck while the iron was hot and had someone send over a smoked ham sandwich, fearing that these people would get sick of eating too much sweet food.

The group of people ate and chatted on the second floor, and before they knew it, they had finished all the food.

One of the ladies couldn't help but cover her mouth and nose: "Wow, we can actually eat so much today."

The others also smiled embarrassedly: "It's because the cakes here are so delicious. The cakes we usually have are too sweet. The cakes here are just right. There are also salty ones. There are a full range of flavors."

Song Chunlin came up at this time. He first saluted to the ladies with a smile. All the ladies present had seen Song Chunlin before, but that was only the last time at the Earl of Anhuai's mansion. They had seen him from afar at the banquet. They could only say that they were familiar with him, but had never talked to him.

Seeing Song Chunlin this time, he seemed a little different from the last time I saw him.

"I haven't seen Brother Song for a long time. How come he seems to have grown taller?"

Song Chunlin touched his head and said, "Really? Am I really taller?"

Everyone gathered around him and looked at him carefully, and finally confirmed that he had indeed grown taller.

"What does little brother Song usually eat? My little brother is two years younger than you and he worries about growing taller all day long."

Madam Meng also said, "It is said that men and women will stop growing taller after they reach a certain age. Little Brother Song is already fifteen this year, and he is still growing taller."

Song Chunlin gestured with his hands and said, "I am already sixteen this year, but I have been drinking a lot of milk at home in the past two years. I guess it's because I drank too much milk."

"Is that so?"

Some people remembered that Mrs. Meng had a farm where she raised cattle for her family, so they asked Mrs. Meng if she could sell them some of her milk.

Madam Meng waved her hands repeatedly, "No, I promised to supply all the milk to this shop. If you want it, you can buy it directly from Brother Song. It's the same as buying it from me."

Song Chunlin took the opportunity to introduce his milk tea to them. Everyone then realized that milk tea actually has so many flavors, and there is also pearl milk tea. Everyone wondered, is pearl milk tea made with pearl powder?

As soon as Song Chunlin saw everyone's expressions, he knew that they had misunderstood, so he explained to them again that this pearl is not that pearl.

"The so-called pearls are actually edible pearls made from tapioca starch, but the raw materials for this product are too scarce, so we have to wait until the opening of the business before they will be available for sale."

When they heard that they had to wait until the opening, everyone was a little disappointed. Then someone asked what cassava was and why they had never heard of it.

Song Chunlin smiled but did not explain. Cassava originated from overseas, so of course it was out of stock now. He had originally planned to let Song Dazhuang grow some, but this thing is only suitable for planting in tropical areas. The capital is not considered tropical yet, so even if it is planted, the harvest will not be much. Song Chunlin thought about going to the south to plant some, otherwise if someone asked him where the cassava came from in the future, he would not be able to answer.

In fact, the kitchen is now cooking pearls, taro balls, taro and tapioca pearls. He will make some taro ball and tapioca pearls to reward the employees later.

In addition to cassava, there is also taro, which is also a specialty of the south. This kind of sweet soup is only eaten by people in the Lingnan area. They have different kinds of sweet soups for three meals a day. He simply makes a simplified version, with only ordinary milk tea, and even the pearls are limited.

When the ladies left, they were carrying souvenirs and special membership cards with serial numbers on them. Only with the cards and serial numbers could they enter the second floor. When they heard that they had to use the cards to go to the second floor, the ladies all smiled with satisfaction, and it seemed that they were very interested in this symbol of status.

After sending the people away, Song Chunlin wiped the sweat from his forehead. Mrs. An Huaibo looked at him with amusement.

"So you get nervous sometimes?"

Song Chunlin chuckled: "No, I'm too nervous. I'm afraid if I don't take good care of them, they won't say good things about our store."

Mrs. An Huaibo did not comment, but raised her eyebrows and pointed at the kitchen with her chin raised.

"Tell me, what are you doing in the back? I heard something cooking over there a long time ago."

Song Chunlin motioned for him and Mrs. Meng to come in. As soon as the two of them walked into the kitchen, Mrs. Meng was attracted by the bright and transparent glass above their heads. She thought of the window frame outside that was covered with cotton paper, and seemed to understand something.

Everything in the kitchen has been prepared. Song Chunlin showed off his skills just now. He made a big basin of ice and put all the ingredients into the ice to chill them. Now the temperature is just right, not too cold, but cool enough to eat.

All the ingredients were put into a bowl, and the cooled milk was added at the end. Mrs. An Huaibo and Mrs. Meng thought it would take a long time to make, but in the end they just put everything together and it was done.

It has to be said that this method was too perfunctory, and both of them expressed doubts about the deliciousness of this bowl of sago.

Song Chunlin demonstrated it to several children and then let them make it themselves. Song Chunlin also made a bowl for himself, and sitting down at the table with a full bowl of sago, he started eating.

After taking the first bite, Song Chunlin narrowed his eyes in satisfaction.

"It's delicious." The taro and cassava were both grown in his space. The products of the space were naturally high-quality and tasted better than modern varieties.

The children were very happy and each took a bowl and sat at the table on the other side, eating in small bites and whispering to each other.

They made these taro balls one by one by themselves, and they felt a great sense of accomplishment when eating them.

Mrs. An Huaibo and Mrs. Meng had just eaten a lot on the second floor, so this bowl of taro balls and sago pudding was just a quick taste for them.

"It tastes good. This one is a little purple. Could it be taro from the south?"

Mrs. An Huaibo carefully identified it and confirmed, "It looks like the taro from there. I don't know where Chunlin got all these strange things from. We have never heard of them before."

Mrs. Meng also laughed: "Young people's brains are more flexible."

The first day of trial operation ended successfully. The children received recognition from the noble ladies and were all full of confidence. Song Chunlin was also happy for them. As long as they were willing to take the first step, he would not have to worry about the rest.

"Okay, now we have to review what has happened. For example, we are still too slow in preparing for today. Are we going to let customers wait for us for so long on the opening day? That is definitely not possible, so we need to clarify the division of labor now."

Song Chunlin held a small meeting with everyone and arranged what to do tomorrow. Seeing that it was getting late, he drove the carriage and sent the children back to the Charity Bureau.

On the way back, Song Chunlin was thinking about whether he should buy a house closer to the shop. The Charity Bureau was too far away from the shop, and it was impossible for him to pick them up and drop them off every day.

Perhaps, I should find some thugs, otherwise if some emergencies really happen, these children will have no power to fight back.

After recording the two matters about the house and the thugs, Song Chunlin went to look for a house without stopping the next day. As for the thugs, Song Chunlin planned to ask Gu Fengyue to borrow a few veterans.

"You want a veteran? How old is old?"

Song Chunlin thought for a while and said, "Then you want an injury? For those who cannot continue to serve in the army due to injuries, your Gu family should have a lot of military salutes."

There are actually quite a lot of them. In ordinary armies, such wounded and disabled soldiers would not be kept. The Gu family is quite kind and will give these soldiers a large sum of severance pay. If these people are willing, they will also arrange some work within their capabilities for them. So after Gu Fengyue ordered his subordinates to do it, they quickly selected several suitable candidates.

Song Chunlin went to meet with those people in person and finally decided on six people. He planned to divide them into two groups, take turns on duty, and leave one person to stay in the shop at night.

After he arranged for the thugs, the house issue was still unresolved. What Song Chunlin wanted was a smaller yard with more spacious rooms. The residents around should be simple and not too complicated. There were all children living in his yard, so their safety had to be guaranteed.

After wandering around for several days, Song Chunlin finally found a suitable one. It was not far from the shop, but he had to walk through two alleys. However, most of the people living in the alleys were ordinary people with clean backgrounds, so their safety could be guaranteed. Moreover, the yard was the largest one Song Chunlin had ever seen, and there were also many rooms inside. Song Chunlin planned to free up two rooms for the bodyguards to live in.

Among the six bodyguards, four of them had families, but their homes were quite far away. When they heard that Song Chunlin provided food and accommodation, those who had originally disliked the long distance no longer had any objections.

There were still two days before the opening, and Gu Fengyun did not forget to bring his colleagues over. While treating them to a meal, he also did not forget to advertise for them. Song Chunlin also stuffed a stack of membership cards into Gu Fengyun's hands and asked him to distribute them.

When General Lin learned that Song Chunlin had opened a pastry shop, he immediately brought his ancestor over to try the new things.

When Song Chunlin heard that General Lin was coming, he thought he was coming alone. He went to the door excitedly, but saw General Lin helping an old man with white hair and beard get out of the car.

Song Chunlin widened his eyes, remembering that General Lin had mentioned his ancestor Lin Xuanshan. He thought that the old man in front of him must be General Lin's ancestor.

Lin Xuanshan also saw him. His loving eyes fell on Song Chunlin. He waved at Song Chunlin, and when he saw Song Chunlin walked over obediently, the smile on his face became even brighter.

Look at other people’s children, they are so well-behaved, unlike this one in his family. Lin Xuanshan glanced at his great-grandson beside him with disdain.

"I guess this must be Grandpa Lin. Hello, Grandpa Lin. I am Song Chunlin, the junior."

"Oh, good, good, you are so good, you must be Brother Song, oh, young people are really to be feared, young people are really to be feared."

The two exchanged greetings at the door and became familiar with each other after a few words. Song Chunlin took the old man's hand and led him into the shop. Considering that the old man was old and could not climb the stairs, he was placed on the first floor. Anyway, there were no customers in the shop at the moment.

Song Chunlin served the two of them a table full of delicious food. When General Lin asked him for tomatoes, he knew that the old man was also a foodie, so the food on the table was basically unique. There were both sweet and salty foods. Even two servings of tea were served, one was sweet milk tea, and the other was plain tea. You could choose whichever you wanted.

Lin Xuanshan was very satisfied with Song Chunlin's service. He pulled Song Chunlin, who was still busy, over and asked him to sit down and chat with him.

Both parties were very happy about this transaction. Song Chunlin did not expect that Lin Xuanshan was such a kind old man. Why did General Lin always say that old men were difficult to deal with?

Before leaving, Song Chunlin packed a lot of delicious food for the old man, filling two large food boxes. Lin Xuanshan smiled so hard that his teeth were showing, and he held the food boxes tightly and refused to let go. General Lin wanted to help him carry them, but he refused and just carried them into the house by himself.

The day before the opening, the shop's fame had already spread, and passers-by were very curious about this shop that always exuded a fragrant smell. When they learned that the shop was not open yet, they expressed their disappointment and hoped that they could open soon.

The children in the shop naturally wanted to open the shop quickly, but Song Chunlin kept saying that it was not the right time yet. Until the morning of the day before, Song Chunlin came to the shop early and had someone pull up a red cloth outside. The entire piece of red cloth almost covered the outside of the shop, which aroused everyone's curiosity. They said that they had never seen a shop opened in such a secretive way.

Song Chunlin did not explain, but asked everyone to get some water quickly so that they could peel off the tissue paper on the glass.

The wet tissue paper was easy to tear. A group of children took a small shovel and easily scraped the tissue paper off. When they saw the transparent glass behind the tissue paper, they all exclaimed in surprise. They only stopped making noises after being reminded by Song Chunlin.

Several children worked hard from morning to afternoon and finally shoveled away all the tissue paper upstairs and downstairs. Looking at the transparent and clean glass, everyone felt a sense of pride.

Scraping the glass is the last step. Seeing all the glass clean, Song Chunlin smiled with satisfaction and asked everyone to clean up quickly. They had to go to bed early tonight because there was a tough battle to fight tomorrow morning.

Song Chunlin stayed at the Marquis' Mansion at night. The whole Song family also came there. Since Song Chunlin's shop was opening, of course they came to support it. Several brothers and sisters were so excited that they could not sleep much all night and almost missed the auspicious time in the morning.

Song Chunlin went to the shop before dawn. When he arrived, it was already busy inside. They had chosen a relatively early auspicious time, so everyone came early to make preparations.

Something was cooking in the kitchen, the children were kneading the dough, and the oven was burning all the time, baking small cakes and breads. After baking these, there were also small biscuits, puff toasts, and some ingredients that were washed, cut, and put aside for later use.