“Jianman ah, this is really nice porridge!” on the dinner table, Shawn’s grandmother, Nan, was really appreciative of the food: “How did you do it?”
“I cooked the rice with some chicken broth, and then I made the chicken soup with the chicken broth.” Jianmen smiled and explained: “And I minced the beef, mixed it with garlic and white pepper and light fried it so that it could have a nice taste.”
“So Shanyi totally made the right choice hiring you.” Nan also smiled: “And you let me know if he bullies you. I’ll teach him a lesson with my bamboo stick.”
“Grandma, how come you never got my back?!” Shawn whined.
“What did you say!? I brought you here and got you the store! How could you be so heartless and say I never got your back?!” Nan raised her chopsticks like she was about to hit Shawn with them.
“Alright alright! Grandma’s the best! ” Shawn flinched and raised his hands up to protect his head: “How’s the steamed fish from Chef Yuan’s? Don’t you love it? That’s how much I respect you!”
“Hff, that’s more like it.” Nan retracted the chopsticks and picked up a piece of steamed fish from the plastic takeout box: “Jianmen, eat some fish, it’s good for you.”
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“Thanks! ” Jianmen also picked up a small piece of the fish.
“How’s the shop today? Is everything okay?” Nan looked at Shawn and Jianmen then asked: “How much stuff did we sell today? The canned beans in the inventory - they better go as fast as possible. There’s only a few months on them before they expire.”
“I think we sold more than half of them already.” Shawn gave Jianmen a “cover me” look and said: “And we had quite a lot of customers today. So business is good.”
“Good, good. I heard Yewei and Yedong’s car repair shop went in some trouble.” Nan shook her head: “Apparently some people were directly looking for trouble in their shop, smashed a lot of car windows and slashed a lot of their tires.”
“Oh my god, what happened?” Shawn did not appear to be too surprised, but still asked in a surprised tone.
“I heard they owed some money.” Nan shook her head and sighed: “Luckily we don’t owe any loan shark or any other shady people.”
“Yeah of course.” Shawn lowered his head and continued with the food in his bowl: “Lucky us. Our store is doing quite well.”
“Can you tell me what the hell happened today now?” Jianmen asked Shawn when he was cleaning up the dishes in the kitchen with Shawn: “What are in those cigarette boxes? Are they drugs?”
“What did you say? Of course not!” Shawn immediately went into denial mode: “Who told you that? Did Yedong tell you that?”
“Well, what those two men said and what you and Yedong said at the store - that sounded awful like you were talking about drugs! It’s not cigarettes in those boxes right?” Jianmen asked with a stern tone: “What’s in them?”
“It’s not drugs!” Shawn insisted but then lowered his head: “It’s prescription grade meth.”
Jianmen frustratedly rubbed his temples.
“... and an antique scroll some underground buyer in the old part of Chinatown is asking for a ridiculous price.”
“... what antique scroll?”