Milk tea? Milk tea!

Bai Zhantang wanted to cry but had no tears. Still, there was nothing he could do but get to work.

He advanced with tiny steps, bowing slightly toward the customers swarming in as he called out in a ringing voice, "Come on inside, honored guests! There's plenty of room inside!"

"Phew..."

After taking a deep breath of fresh, free air, Lin Ke remembered he was in the latrine and promptly breathed it back out.

After squatting inside for about a quarter of an hour, Lin Ke emerged with a hand braced against the wall.

His legs had gone numb... He planned to lean against the wall for a while and let them recover.

Two days earlier, he had squatted there for at least an hour by the local reckoning-two hours-to hide from a female fan.

That day, he had nearly been marinated through and through in all that filth.

He had had no choice. Over those two days, that female fan had nearly abducted him and taken him home to become her live-in husband or some peerless household servant. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't a respectable occupation.

Fortunately, he had managed to hide from her.

Today wasn't so bad. He had only squatted for a little over ten minutes; a short rest would do.

After taking a few steps along the wall, Lin Ke spotted the shopkeeper busy in the kitchen nearby.

The back courtyard had tea leaves and milk jars, everything he needed.

Lin Ke looked at the tea leaves laid out to dry, then turned to look at the milk jars. Slowly releasing his hand from the wall, he laboriously lifted his feet and made his way over to a milk jar, one step at a time, before leaning against it.

He lifted the lid and looked inside. A rich, milky fragrance wafted into his nose.

Lin Ke smiled for no particular reason, remembering how, shortly after arriving, he had asked Shopkeeper Tong why the Tongfu Grand Restaurant had no wine.

Shopkeeper Tong had answered that tea leaves could be reused, while the milk was collected from poorer villages around the Imperial Capital and was cheap as well. That saved a great deal on costs.

And wine?

Shopkeeper Tong had said wine wasn't profitable.

But Lin Ke suspected that the Tongfu Grand Restaurant didn't sell wine not because of the profits, but because Shopkeeper Tong hated it.

Of course, that was only a guess.

Perhaps Shopkeeper Tong had ended up on the "pardoned" register because drinking had caused some disastrous mistake back then?

"Wine..." Lin Ke shook his head with a smile.

As he passed the rack where the tea leaves were drying, he casually picked up a leaf and popped it into his mouth to chew.

Chewing tea leaves perked him up much faster than brewing and drinking them.

The moment he put it in his mouth, he stopped.

"Whoa... these tea leaves!"

Wait a minute!

He suddenly remembered the tea flavor in the cup of "milk tea" Bai Zhantang had handed him that day while he watched Wang Lin arguing with Shopkeeper Tong and the others.

Lin Ke had tried mixing a few cups himself afterward, but they hadn't tasted the same.

He had asked Bai Zhantang about it then. Bai Zhantang said he had simply added some milk to tea brewed from leaves Li Hanlin had brought himself and given it to him.

Once Li Hanlin became familiar with the people on Chaoyang Street, he naturally learned about Shopkeeper Tong's eighth-hand tea leaves.

So he had brought some tea leaves along when he visited.

That explained why Lin Ke couldn't get the flavor right, but someone had poured out that tea in the end, and he hadn't been able to find it.

Yet now, he had actually tasted tea leaves with almost the same flavor.

Lin Ke stepped back and examined the leaves on the rack, finding that they were a little larger than the ones usually served to customers.

"This is... black tea!"

He only drank tea here to perk himself up and quench his thirst, not to savor it. The eighth-hand leaves here were hardly any different from plain boiled water.

Naturally, he couldn't taste whether it was black tea or green tea.

But now he could.

"Damn it, so that's what it was!"

Lin Ke muttered to himself, realizing that Shopkeeper Tong had probably prepared different tea leaves especially because more people would be coming to Chaoyang Street.

He grabbed a few black tea leaves and stuffed them into his mouth, then walked over to the milk jar, picked up a ladle, and poured a mouthful straight into his mouth.

Rather than swallowing immediately, he chewed the black tea leaves together with the milk.

"Gulp, gulp!"

Two swallowing sounds came from Lin Ke's throat.

"Not bad!" Lin Ke's eyes lit up.

He hurried inside, fetched a teacup, and filled it halfway with hot water before returning to the back courtyard.

Next, he added the leaves and let the black tea steep for a while, then filled the cup to the brim with milk and stuck his right index finger inside to stir.

Then he lifted the cup and took a sip.

That's it. That's the flavor!

He gazed at the freshly made milk tea in his cup and pondered briefly. "Milk tea..."

In his previous life, there had been all sorts of beverages: alcoholic drinks, dairy drinks, carbonated sodas, and so on.

Alcoholic beverages had a very long history. They had probably existed since the days of ancient tribes.

Setting those aside for now, carbonated drinks had taken a few hundred years to sweep the globe, yet some people still didn't like them. Lin Ke, for one, didn't like soda.

But what else was there?

Milk tea!

Whether it was fruit tea, pearl milk tea, lemon tea, or fresh milk tea brewed with whole leaves, they had risen in just ten or twenty years and swept north and south of the great river.

Brands like Mixue Bingcheng, Xicha, and the rest all commanded considerable market valuations.

Lin Ke had loved drinking milk tea in his previous life.

He had even endorsed a milk tea brand because of it.

It had been called Cloud Dance Rainbow Tea.

Its milk tea had sold better and better. Before he transmigrated, it could even rival brands like Mixue Bingcheng, though it had remained a small brand right up until his transmigration.

Of course, as a small shop, the milk tea brand he endorsed couldn't compare with the likes of Mixue Bingcheng and Xicha. Those businesses were enormous.

But he had loved drinking Cloud Dance Rainbow Tea.

Why?

Because its milk tea was made by adding fresh milk to tea leaves!

Black tea, green tea, white tea, oolong tea, Pu'er tea, and the like became delicious with the addition of fresh cow's milk and a little sugar.

Their teas also had distinctive flavors, such as White Peach Oolong, Peach Pu'er, and Orange-Scented White Tea.

Unlike other milk teas made from assorted powdered mixes, milk tea made with fresh milk and brewed tea was not only delicious but healthy!

Tea plus milk. What a wonderful combination!

Originally, he hadn't known their recipes or production methods. Those were trade secrets, after all.

But after endorsing the brand, he naturally learned a great deal, and that handsome devil of a founder had shared a few things with him during their chats.

So... he knew how to make milk tea!

"Milk tea..." Lin Ke thought of the abundant milk supply around the Imperial Capital and the even greater variety of teas available.

Most importantly, the buzz surrounding his title of "Young Master Lin, Divine Detective" would probably last quite a while longer.

What was buzz?

Traffic!

What was traffic?

A business opportunity!

If a thousand people came here every day to check the place out, and just ten percent were willing to buy a cup of milk tea, that would mean a hundred cups.

Even if each cup earned only one copper coin, that would still bring in a hundred copper coins.

No wonder those milk tea brands in my previous life had theme songs, advertisements, and everything else... Lin Ke did a few rough calculations, and an idea immediately formed in his mind.

Besides, milk tea appealed most to young people, who were particularly fond of its sweetness.

Especially girls.

Why not give it a try?

Holding his cup of milk tea, he jogged toward Shopkeeper Tong, who was still busy in the kitchen.

"That Bai Zhantang! I'm worked to death in here, and he still hasn't come to carry out the dishes. You're much more diligent, Judicial Commissioner Lin." Shopkeeper Tong had just finished a dish. Seeing Lin Ke come in, she casually handed him the plate. "Sorry for the trouble, Judicial Commissioner Lin. Please take this out."

Lin Ke accepted the plate, but instead of hurrying off to serve it, he leaned closer with a mysterious smile:

"Shopkeeper, want to make a big deal?"