Boss Shen, Are You Sure You Can Close Up?

Huh? Huh???

The university students had been chatting and laughing just moments ago, but when they heard Shen Chuan say he was closing up, they froze one after another.

What did he mean, he could close up after finishing this batch?!

There were still so many of them who hadn't eaten any!

Some students instinctively glanced at the sky. It wasn't even completely dark yet.

Then they turned to look at the queue snaking back and forth four times behind them before looking at Shen Chuan in bewilderment.

"Boss Shen, are you sure you can close up? Look at this endless queue. Won't your conscience hurt if you close up now?!"

The students couldn't accept this reality. After waiting in line for so long, their turn was finally coming, only for the scallion pancakes to run out. Just thinking about it hurt too much!

"Exactly, Boss Shen! Can't you sell a few more? There aren't enough to go around!"

"Boss Shen, you're still so young! This is the age when you should be working hard. How can you close up and clock out so early?!"

The student speaking sounded utterly exasperated with him. If he had those skills, he could even quit school. He would make scallion pancakes every day from the moment he opened his eyes. Wouldn't he get filthy rich?!

As Shen Chuan listened, he calmly flung the pancake dough in his hands into the air and nodded perfunctorily. "There's only so much in the way of ingredients. Once they're sold out, there's nothing I can do!"

Seeing that there were only a dozen or so pancakes left, a student whose turn would definitely never come leaned urgently against the serving window and said in anguish, "Boss Shen, all these customers in line are money! One scallion pancake costs fifteen yuan. Even if each person only bought one, you could make one or two thousand yuan. If you just sold more every day, making over ten thousand a day wouldn't be a problem!"

"Are you really going to let all that money slip away right in front of you?"

Shen Chuan's hands paused over the griddle. Those words really hit where it hurt.

They made his heart ache a little. What he was losing really was money!

He had just spent almost all the money he'd earned over the past few days, and now he was short on cash. Did they think he didn't want to sell more?!

If he kept making pancakes for money, never mind whether his body could take it, the system wouldn't let him get away with it. It would say he had lost the swagger befitting a God of Cooking.

Besides, once he started running his stall and cooking endlessly just for money, his God of Cooking persona would collapse, making it hard to rack up large amounts of Show-off Points later.

Show-off Points weren't just for redeeming recipes in the system. His level was too low right now, so the system shop had only unlocked simple recipes. Plenty of products were still locked.

Though his heart ached, Shen Chuan still had to act as if nothing was wrong. "If I were doing this for money, I wouldn't have come out here to run a stall!"

With that show-off line paired with an expression he had deliberately practiced, plus a touch of disdain for money in his tone, Shen Chuan gave this performance eighty points!

[Ding! Show-off Points +100!]

[Ding...]

The anguished student was so crushed that he nearly coughed up blood.

He silently clutched his wounded chest and withdrew from the battlefield.

He signaled that he was out of options and couldn't persuade Boss Shen.

The students behind him had no comeback for that either.

They were so thoroughly shut down that they were almost starting to resent the rich.

What a show-off thing to say. How was that any different from rich people saying they didn't like money?!

Was Boss Shen really not afraid someone would throw a sack over his head on his way home at night?!!!

Soon, the last batch of scallion pancakes came off the griddle.

Ten scallion pancakes. Even if everyone only bought one, they would only be enough for ten people to get a taste.

There simply weren't enough to go around!

Yet Shen Chuan looked utterly relaxed now that his work was done. "Today's scallion pancakes are sold out. You can all head off now."

"They're... they're gone?"

A student who hadn't managed to buy any stared blankly at the empty ingredient containers, so devastated that he could barely stand.

Clutching his chest, he slowly toppled backward. All the other customers who hadn't managed to buy any could feel every bit of his pain.

"What? That's it?"

"How are these scallion pancakes selling out faster and faster?"

"How many people even got served before the scallion pancakes ran out?"

Shen Chuan had already started washing his hands with the remaining water. Making scallion pancakes involved shaping and tossing the dough the entire time, leaving his hands constantly covered in oil. They felt sticky and thoroughly uncomfortable.

Seeing the customers in line swarm around him, he said evenly, "They're gone."

Seeing how crushed his fellow students were, Jiang Wenyan comforted them. "Come earlier next time. Every time I send a message telling Zhang Jiale and the others to push the cart over, that's when you leave. You'll never get anywhere cutting it that close. The other customers will only keep coming earlier."

Luckily, he was Boss Shen's personal lackey and got to buy first. Otherwise, having to jostle through the queue every day without even being guaranteed a pancake-that life was unbearable just to imagine.

Spotting Shen Chuan reaching for his cup, Jiang Wenyan immediately bent down, picked it up, and handed it to him, then dragged a chair over in front of him.

"I just added some ice, Boss Shen. Have a drink and rest. I'll clean up."

When the students saw that Boss Shen really had sat down to rest and wasn't making any more pancakes, their hearts died completely. Their sorrowful hearts needed comfort, yet when they turned around, they saw students they knew or their dormmates crowded around the flower bed, happily savoring their pancakes.

That wasn't all. They were eating pancakes while carrying more in their hands. The sight made their eyes turn red with jealousy.

"How can you eat so much?! You bought up all those pancakes! Couldn't you eat a little less?"

With someone taking the lead, the other students seemed to find an outlet at once, all pointing at their classmates and friends up ahead who were already enjoying their delicious scallion pancakes.

"Hey, you! You bought six just now, didn't you? How can you eat so many all by yourself? If you eat them, what are we supposed to eat? Doesn't your conscience hurt?"

"Other people bought three, but you lot bought five or six! Are you animals? Eating so much you've finished off our rations!"

"Just wait. Next time it's my turn, I'm buying ten in one go!"

"..."

The friendly conversation and cheerful atmosphere from moments earlier vanished without a trace.

The students who hadn't gotten any hurled all kinds of complaints at those who had, itching to snatch the pancakes from them. Those who had bought some responded by burying their heads in their food, their expressions saying, go on, say whatever you want. I'm eating my scallion pancakes anyway.

Their lip-smacking and food-guarding were more cutting than any reply.

Didn't that just make it even more infuriating?!

"Hah! I'll take you on!" One student lunged at his friend, opened his mouth wide, and tore a huge chunk off the scallion pancake in his hand.

His friend looked at the pancake with a huge chunk missing, let out a scream like a groundhog, then turned and ran.

The others who hadn't bought pancakes also hurried off to find friends they knew well.

Sensing the approaching danger, those who were eating took a bite out of every pancake they hadn't gotten around to yet, declaring that the pancakes were no longer clean. Unfortunately, that couldn't stop the students whose cravings had gone to their heads.

The scene descended into chaos for a time, drawing stares.

The university students' world had come crashing down, and the customers behind them in line were even more distraught.

They weren't as rowdy as the students, but seeing that the pancakes were gone, they couldn't calmly walk away either.

They had waited in line for so long and stood in the sun for so long. Finally, the sun had set and it wasn't hot anymore, but the scallion pancakes were gone too. Who could accept that?!!!