Dong Zhichao introduced her to everyone at the table:
"Lanlan is my niece. She insisted on coming along this time to see more of the world... She graduated from high school, didn't get into university, and doesn't want to try again. The factory belongs to our family, so I think working with us is a good option."
So it was a family business.
Li Long nodded and said with a smile:
"Reading widely and traveling widely are both good ways to learn. As long as you go about them properly, you'll gain something from either."
"Ha, well said, Comrade Xiao Li!" Dong Zhichao said with a smile. "You're an educated man too..."
"No, no, I'm just a rough fellow." Li Long hurriedly waved his hands. "Come on, please, help yourselves. Try some Northern Xinjiang specialties."
Although it was the height of summer, his guests had come a long way, so Li Long still ordered strongly flavored local and traditional dishes.
Hand-pulled meat, a large platter of sheep offal, spicy chicken, and red-braised pork. Restaurants at the time hadn't yet introduced innovative dishes like stir-fried kebab-style meat, so he could only stick to traditional fare.
"This mutton tastes wonderful." Dong Zhichao knew good food. After gnawing the meat off a small rib, he wiped his hands with some paper and praised it. "It's been a long time since I've had mutton this good."
Everyone said sheep raised on grasslands were good, but plenty of those sheep still had a gamey smell. For a milder flavor, they had to be sheep that grazed on saline-alkali flats.
So there was no need to romanticize grassland sheep-the meat really was good, but whether you could get used to it was another matter.
Since they still had business to discuss, they didn't drink. Li Long