"Whoever is willing to be the manager won’t just have endless instant noodles. Every year on their birthday, I’ll bake them a luxurious cake and prepare a whole table of dishes based on a menu they choose. Plus, whenever I cook, they’ll get double portions!"
Gan Lan held up two fingers and looked at her friends, whose eyes flickered with interest but who hadn’t spoken up yet. "If my Huaxia Cuisine Star is truly built one day, the manager will be the Vice Star Captain. They’ll enjoy exclusive privileges and definitely live in the prime location on Food Street. Every morning, they’ll wake up to a variety of delicious aromas, and the moment they step out the door, there’ll be countless delicacies to eat..."
Gan Lan began painting a grand picture for them. Anyway, there was no rule saying a planet could only have one Vice Star Captain; she could arrange the title for all of them.
So far, her grand promises were working perfectly. Seeing them getting antsy to step up, Gan Lan added more fuel to the fire. "You can also live right next door to me. I don’t need to explain the benefits of being my neighbor, do I?"
"Since you put it that way, I’ll reluctantly take on this management role. After all, who else could compare to someone like me, born into a family of merchants!" Wu Mingyu stood up, his chin held high, looking incredibly smug and proud. He admitted he was tempted!
"We don’t know how right now, but who are we? We’re top-tier geniuses. It’s just management—a piece of cake!" Gao Haiyang was the second to stand up, mimicking Wu Mingyu’s confident and proud demeanor.
"I can give it a try too." Yan Yifei nodded. At worst, he would just have to squeeze out some time to manage it. It was only a small factory anyway. The main thing was living next door to her—he liked that perk.
"Me, me, me, me! I can transfer majors to learn. Look at me!" Wen Ningyue had just been called over by Wang Bin. Originally, she had zero interest in management—sleeping sounded much better. Her drowsy mind had instantly cleared the moment she heard Gan Lan mention waking up to the aroma of food every day. Just imagining the scene filled her with excitement.
"Alright, alright, there’s a share for all of you. We’ll definitely have many, many more factories in the future. When that time comes, everyone can be a manager, and you’ll all get those perks!" Gan Lan was delighted. She finally understood the importance of making grand promises. "For now, how about we leave this small factory to Senior Wu?"
"Yeah, let him try it first. If he’s no good, we’ll replace him," Yan Yifei agreed.
After Yan Yifei spoke, the rest of the group agreed. There was nothing else they could do; their coursework was heavy, and they hadn’t studied anything related to this field. However, this was only temporary.
Wu Mingyu scoffed. There was no way he’d let them replace him. That would be too humiliating. Didn’t he have his pride to protect?
"Since everyone agrees, I’ll go make a hearty breakfast to celebrate the birth of our first manager!" Gan Lan stood up and walked toward the kitchen in a joyful mood.
"By the way," Gan Lan paused and turned to Wu Mingyu as if remembering something. "Senior Wu, is there anything you want to eat? I’ll allow you to order one dish."
"There’s such a good deal!?" Wu Mingyu had initially felt his leisure time would decrease after taking on this task, but hearing Gan Lan’s offer made it instantly worth it. He quickly said, "I want soup dumplings!"
Gan Lan nodded, indicating she understood.
"Junior! Do we not get this kind of treatment!?" Gao Haiyang shouted at Gan Lan’s back.
"No!" Gan Lan replied firmly without even turning her head.
Hmph, if she hadn’t made grand promises, none of them would have been willing to do it. She had completely seen through this group of friends today. They had truly disappointed her.
Even though she promised a luxurious breakfast, Gan Lan momentarily didn’t know what to make.
Making large crab roe soup dumplings, regular soup dumplings, fresh meat buns, and vegetarian three-delicacy buns, boiling some mushroom and chicken congee, blending fresh soy milk, making shredded three-delicacy spring rolls, and frying a plate of shrimp nuggets—that should be luxurious enough, right?
Besides the regular soup dumplings and the crab roe ones being a bit tedious, the rest were very easy to make.
Having decided on the menu, Gan Lan opened her stream and started working. After all, streaming was currently her main source of income. She really hoped the instant noodle factory would be finished soon, bringing her closer to her goal. Although the Credit Points she had saved up hadn’t even reached one trillion yet, she was getting closer and closer.
"Good morning! Have you eaten today? I’m currently on a spaceship heading to the Red Demon Star. Since there’s nothing much to do on board, I decided to stream some cooking." Gan Lan greeted the viewers flooding into her livestream with her daily question.
She soaked the soybeans, boiled the pork skin, and left the dough to rest. She couldn’t help but marvel at the benefits of having senior assistants. For the dough and fillings, all she had to do was move her lips and let them do the work. Gan Lan only needed to handle the final seasoning step, which was simply too easy.
Gan Lan felt delighted. The moment she arrived in the kitchen earlier, the three senior assistants were already waiting there, saying they came to help and learn. It made her so happy; they would definitely get a share of the breakfast later!
[Barbecue Bibimbap: I see pork skin! Are you making soup dumplings? I still remember the broth inside those buns vividly. I was secretly feeling disappointed before because you rarely repeat dishes on stream, and I didn’t know when I’d get to eat them again. My smile is as bright as yours right now. Ah, soup dumplings, I love you.]
[Love Ugly Shellfish, Love Kale: You sure love a lot of things, you player! I only love Choubei! When will you make Choubei again? I miss it so much, so much that I can’t sleep or eat!]
[Immortal Barbecue: Hypocrite! What do you mean you can’t eat or sleep? I’ve already seen you eat two bowls of rice noodles today—one bowl of pork trotter noodles and one bowl of snail rice noodles. You even took away a bowl of pickled cabbage steak noodles. Heh, women!]
...
"There are so many delicious foods. It’s indeed hard to stay loyal to just one. It’s okay to be a little fickle. If we’re all fickle together, then no one is," Gan Lan joked as she scooped out crab roe and peeled crab meat. She then had the robots take the crabs out to the dining room and hand them over to her idle friends so they could help peel them.
Today was her most relaxing day ever. Gan Lan just peeled one crab as a demonstration and left the rest to her assistants.
The rice had already been soaked in clean water. She poured water into a clay pot, added the rice, brought it to a boil over high heat, and then turned it down to a simmer.
She added appropriate amounts of salt, light soy sauce, white pepper, and cooking wine to the diced chicken thigh meat and mixed it well. Then, she poured in a little cooking oil and continued stirring to marinate it.
Since she had made the soup dumpling filling before, Gan Lan didn’t explain the steps one by one, which sped up the process significantly.
With everything that needed marinating set aside and the boiled pork skin starting to freeze, all the prep work was done.
The shredded three-delicacy spring rolls were simple, so she left them for last. For now, she began wrapping the fresh meat buns and the vegetarian three-delicacy buns.
The main ingredients for the vegetarian three-delicacy buns were wood ear mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, scrambled eggs, and minced green onions. She then added a pinch of salt, light soy sauce, pepper, sugar, and sesame oil before mixing it all together.
Naturally, the most important ingredient for the fresh meat bun filling was the fresh meat itself!
Gan Lan poked her head out the kitchen window and shouted to her friends outside, "Come over here and help wrap these buns! I need your help right now!"
The group, who were all doing their own thing at the dining table, were startled by Gan Lan’s loud shout.
The friends, who had never known the petite Gan Lan had such a large lung capacity, were speechless. "..."
They only knew how to eat. Wrapping buns... they didn’t want to move a muscle...