CH 115

Today, they ate soup-filled buns¹. A single bite allowed them to taste the delicious meat and get their mouths and noses filled with the rich aroma of the meat.

“Delicious! So delicious! No wonder Weya packed 10 packages of these to school and said something about eating these while walking,” Anri said as she stuffed a soup-filled bun in her mouth. The sauce dripped from her mouth, and she wiped it with her thumb and licked her thumb.

Nicole looked at Liu Feng with her cheeks slightly red, before saying, “Weya got up early and helped me make soup-filled buns. The ones she took away are the ones that she made herself.”

“Ah? So cunning. I want to taste the soup-filled buns that Weya made,” Anri said, pouting. “I’ve always been eating Nicole’s cooking and want to taste someone else’s cooking occasionally.”

“Oh? Does Miss Anri dislike my cooking?” Nicole asked, her eyes narrowing and glancing at Anri’s ears. “Or are you tired of eating the food I make?”

“Of- of course not,” Anri said, her body stiffening as she hurriedly waved her hands. “I just want to know what other people’s cooking tastes like.”

“So!” Nicole tapped her chin lightly with her fingers as she thought about the rock-hard, soupless “soup-filled buns” that Weya had made in the morning. She smiled lightly, and said, “Then for tomorrow’s breakfast, Anri will just eat the stuff that Weya made.”

“Huh? Is that okay?” Anri asked, her eyes lighting up with anticipation. Weya had been following Nicole in cooking for a few days, so she should be able to make something delicious.²

“Yes,” Nicole said, nodding. She then turned her head to look at Mina, and said, “What about you, Mina? Do you want to eat what Weya cooked for breakfast?”

Mina’s hand, which had been stuffing buns into her mouth, froze, and she shook her head mechanically. “No, I’ll just eat what Nicole made. Weya is a teacher and she must be very busy.” She knew about Weya’s talent- every food that Weya cooked would for some reason become extremely hard.

“Huh? So I’m the only one eating Weya’s cooking for breakfast tomorrow? I don’t know why, but I really look forward to it,” Anri said.

“…” Liu Feng couldn’t help but facepalm and look at Anri pitifully. She got tricked by the black-hearted Nicole. I can imagine what tomorrow is going to look like.

“Young Master, what’s wrong?” Anri asked, tilting her head when she saw Liu Feng’s action.

“Cough cough… nothing.” Liu Feng shook his head and wiped his mouth with a cloth.

“By the way, Young Master. Recently, with the exception of wheat and salt, the sales of all the things in the Shopping Mall have gone down,” Anri said, opening her notepad. “Of course, the sales of lollipops, which I love, went up instead.”

Liu Feng nodded. That was expected. After all, people would use things like tableware for a long time and the commoners wouldn’t really go back and buy more unless the items broke or if they had the money and wanted to replace their old items.

“Don’t reduce the current production. Niu Wu should come back either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Hopefully he will bring some good news back.” If Niu Wu couldn’t bring back good news from North Wind City, then he would have to think of another way, like forming a merchant group and sending them out to other cities.

“Understood! Also, yesterday, the Department of Scientific Research said that they had made the spinning jennies and looms that you want.” Anri didn’t know what spinning jennies and looms were, but she could pretty much guess what looms were just based on their name.³ She looked forward to it a lot because she and Mina had mostly been wearing clothes made from animal hides.

“Very good.” Liu Feng got up immediately. “Let’s go to see them immediately.” Spinning jennies and looms were the two tools that could almost completely solve the problem of clothes being scarce and expensive in this world.

This was also Liu Feng’s first step to making West Sun City prosperous. It was also the most critical step. What attracted merchants the most? It was, without a doubt, cheaper and better goods.

“I’ll go prepare the carriage right away!” Mina said, running out with two soup-filled buns in her mouth.

“Wait for me!” Anri said, chasing after Mina with a soup-filled bun in her hand.

“Young Master, there is a restaurant in Commercial Street that has finished decoration. When are you going to take a look?” Nicole asked.

“Oh? This fast?” Liu Feng said, surprised.

“It’s only missing a few key places that need your ideas,” Nicole said, flipping through her notepad.

“Okay! I’ll go over later,” Liu Feng said, nodding. That restaurant was also a key place in West Sun City.

Liu Feng had pretty much finished his initial setup. Now, it was just short of commercial attraction, which would be solved in a few days.

Soon, Liu Feng took Nicole in the carriage. As Liu Feng got on, he saw Anri rolling around on the cushion, and Mina was glancing at him with slightly red cheeks. This made him a bit distracted. Both of them were thinking about the scene that had happened previously.

“Cough cough…” Liu Feng coughed lightly and pulled on the rope inside the carriage, and the carriage soon started moving. They headed for the Department of Scientific Research under the escort of the War Wolves.

“By the way, Anri. Have you issued the construction plan for the dock?” Liu Feng asked.

Anri took out a lollipop from her backpack. As she took off the wrapper, she said, “Yes! I saw the construction plan on my desk this morning, and I passed it down since I saw that you had already signed it.” She was eating the lollipops that she had bought from the Shopping Mall. She was reluctant to eat any of the lollipops that Liu Feng had gifted her and hadn’t eaten a single one of them.

“Tell them that they can postpone the construction of the houses first. That dock is more important. They should first build a big enough part of the dock that will allow big ships to dock,” Liu Feng said, grabbing Anri’s hand and putting her lollipop into his mouth.

“O- okay,” Anri said, hurriedly nodding her head before she glanced at Mina proudly and stuck out her tongue.

“…” Mina’s eyebrows’ twitched. This cunning fox girl.

Liu Feng still thought that there were too few people. If only there are tens of thousands of people that I could use. Constructions were very labor intensive. This was, after all, a world without trucks or excavators.

Translator’s Notes:

¹ 灌汤包. Also known as tangbao, guantang bao, or soup buns. They’re basically what their name suggests, steamed buns filled with soup.

² Author wrote it so that Anri had said that, but I feel like it wouldn’t make sense so I decided to put it as her thoughts.

³ 织布机. Translated more literally, looms would be “cloth-weaving machine”.

Today is not a good day to translate. Had motion sickness while trying to translating in the morning and fell asleep on the bus while trying to translate in the afternoon.