"Boss, a bowl of cold noodles."
A low voice interrupted He Ao's thoughts.
"Sure," He Ao replied. As he deftly opened the cabinet, he looked up at the customer. It was a familiar face—the man who had brushed past him at the police station earlier that day. He did not ask any questions, merely asking softly, "Big bowl or small bowl, handsome? Sweet and sour or spicy?"
"How much?"
The man glanced at He Ao, but his gaze did not linger on him. Instead, he looked into the depths of the night.
"Eight yuan for a big bowl, six for a small one. Sweet and sour or spicy, same price."
He Ao lowered his head and answered slowly.
"Big bowl. Sweet and sour. I'll eat here."
The man said it casually, then walked over to one of the Small Folding Tables set up nearby.
There were not many of those folding tables, only five or six. Several cylindrical plastic stools were scattered around them, and some young people sat around the tables eating cold noodles and chatting. They were night-shift workers from the nearby Industrial Area.
The night shift started at eleven thirty, so they generally came here before eleven to eat something and fill their stomachs.
The young people looked up at the man, curiously examining his outfit before lowering their heads and resuming their conversation.
He Ao took out a wide-mouthed stainless steel ladle. Holding its handle in one hand, he lifted a large chopstickful of cold noodles with the other and dropped them into the ladle. Then, with practiced movements, he added salt, MSG, chicken seasoning, sugar, light soy sauce, vinegar, chili oil, minced garlic, sesame oil, oyster sauce, and toasted sesame seeds.
The key to Sweet and Sour Spicy flavor was getting the balance of sourness and sweetness just right. Too sour, and it would ruin the taste; not sour enough, and it would fail to stimulate the appetite. Sugar could temper the vinegar's acidity, creating sourness first and sweetness afterward, like sweetness after bitterness. It was delicious and appetite-whetting.
Sweet and sour noodles generally did not include chili, but He Ao liked to add just a tiny bit. The fragrance and heat brought by the chili and minced garlic could stimulate the taste buds and drive away the chill accumulated in the body during the night. But he could not add too much; even a little extra would overpower the dish and mask the fresh fragrance of the sweet-and-sour flavor.
After adding the seasonings, He Ao rapidly mixed the noodles. He even tossed the ladle in the air, sending the cold noodles flying along its inner wall and flipping them one hundred and eighty degrees in midair.
One key factor affecting cold noodles was whether they could be mixed evenly.
Anyone who had eaten noodles knew that whether the seasoning—especially with dry noodles—could coat every strand evenly determined whether a bowl of noodles would be fragrant and delicious or somehow both too salty and too bland.
Once every noodle strand was coated in bright red, evenly distributed seasoned oil, He Ao stopped. He opened the side-dish container and added cooked kelp strips, fresh bean sprouts blanched in water, chopped scallions, and fried soybeans with crispy skins.
The moment the side dishes and scallions fell into the ladle, they were swiftly mixed into the noodles.
This time, however, he did not stir as vigorously as before, because the noodles now contained bean sprouts.
Some people liked adding shredded cucumber to cold noodles. Shredded cucumber was refreshing and crisp, cutting through the richness.
But He Ao preferred bean sprouts. They were equally refreshing and crisp, yet unlike cucumber, which remained hard all the way through, they were firm outside and tender inside. One bite released a flood of juice.
The boiling water He Ao used to blanch the bean sprouts had been simmered with lemon slices. Lemon not only cut through the richness, but also brought a distinctive faint sourness unlike vinegar.
When those prepared bean sprouts were mixed with the noodles and sent into one's mouth, the moment the teeth bit down, the soft yet springy noodles, fresh and crisp bean sprouts, sweet-and-sour freshness, and faint tartness of lemon blended together. Stirred by the tongue and crushed between the teeth, they were like an innocent first love—shy and charming, seeming to refuse while secretly inviting.
It was unforgettable.
Of course, bean sprouts were not without drawbacks. Once blanched, they spoiled very easily, so anything that could not be sold had to be thrown away. They were also troublesome to prepare, which was why fewer and fewer people used them now.
Despite that dazzling series of actions, only two or three minutes had passed. He Ao took out a small paper bowl, packed the cold noodles, inserted a pair of disposable chopsticks, and carried it to the small table in front of the man.
"Boss, your business is doing pretty well."
After hesitating for a moment, the man suddenly asked stiffly.
"Yeah, it's not bad." He Ao could not figure out what he was trying to say, so he held the payment code in front of him. "Eight yuan."
"This looks really hard," the man said as he took out his phone and scanned the code to pay. He seemed unaccustomed to doing this sort of thing, and his tone was awkward and stiff. "And you're selling it so cheaply. Your income probably isn't very high either..."
"Payment received: eight yuan."
A voice notification came from the phone.
"You're still in school, right? I have a part-time job here..." the man continued. As the conversation went on, he seemed to find a little confidence and was about to continue when He Ao interrupted him.
"It really isn't that high. I set up my stall thirty days a month and sell seventy or eighty bowls every night. I make six or seven hundred yuan a day, so around eighteen or nineteen thousand a month, less than twenty thousand. Then all kinds of costs take most of that away, and there isn't much left. It's all hard-earned money..."
As He Ao spoke, he suddenly realized that the air had gone quiet. He looked at the man in front of him. At some point, the man had begun silently eating his noodles, seemingly right when He Ao mentioned "twenty thousand a month."
After thinking it over, he continued asking,
"Um, handsome, you mentioned a part-time job just now..."
"No, no such thing." The man hurriedly waved his hand. "That job doesn't suit you."
"Oh."
He Ao returned to his stall somewhat puzzled. But since the man did not want to say anything, it would not be appropriate to press him. Besides, his long experience looking for part-time work had taught him that when a stranger approached and said, "I have a part-time job," they were usually either a shady agency or a scammer.
He Ao had been scammed by someone in high school. They had promised "high pay and stability," "work from home," and "earn over ten thousand a month," but required a 399-yuan deposit.
He Ao had paid it, and then there was no afterward.
That month, he ate cold steamed buns for an entire month.
There were many good people in this world, and many bad people as well.
He Ao sat on the small stool in front of his stall, looking at the Character Panel's Martial Arts: Qi Induction (F-rank), while his mind replayed the book 30 Days to Sword Immortal that he had seen in the Copy World.
That book might have been exaggerating. It might not make someone immortal, but judging from the system's label, it seemed to belong to something called "Martial Arts."
After all, the words "Martial Arts" were followed by "Qi Induction." He Ao felt that the "qi" generated using Vermillion Fruit energy was the "qi" in Qi Induction.
But though it was called Qi Induction, his body was currently as empty as a rice bin that could starve a mouse to death. Let alone qi, he did not have even a trace of energy.
Was there some way to generate that energy? Did that little book contain a method for naturally producing energy?
Just as He Ao began studying the contents of that little book in his memories—whose pictures he could barely understand, while its words looked like heavenly script—
Hurried footsteps suddenly came from the night, followed by a somewhat familiar voice. "Boss, a bowl of cold noodles."
He looked up and saw a familiar face—the Youth who had nearly torn down his home that afternoon.
The Youth saw He Ao, froze for a moment, then turned and ran.
He Ao did not move, because someone moved faster than he did. It was the man in the trench coat. He flashed past He Ao's stall like a streak of light and chased after the Youth.
"If you need anything, contact us."
His words were cold and composed, far smoother than his awkward attempt to pitch a part-time job earlier.
Along with those words, a white business card with black lettering landed in front of He Ao. Well, the cheapest kind available on the market. It bore a simple organization name.
[Central Land Civilian Abnormal Human Research Institute (West Capital Branch)]
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