Chapter 24: Priceless Two-Head Abalone

The red-braised abalone arrived on Boss Li’s office desk, still steaming. His secretary, who had just walked in, was dumbfounded. His unconventional boss has learned how to order takeout? And it was delivered by a robot?! He didn’t even see a delivery boy.

Seeing the look of pure bliss on his boss’s face, as if he hadn’t eaten in eight hundred years, he wondered if it was really that good. Oh, it was. The smell alone made him hungry. Having eaten many fine foods, Boss Li was now a connoisseur. Just from the presentation, he knew that the “Big Boss” was being modest. It wasn’t just “30% technique”; in Shandong cuisine, the sauce was everything, and the Big Boss’s thickening skills were absolutely perfect.

The thin, delicate glaze was created by using the braising liquid with a little soy sauce for color and adding water and cornstarch. It added both flavor and aroma to the red-braised abalone, making it irresistible. He picked up an abalone with his chopsticks. The braising time was perfect, and the meat was as soft as homemade noodles. The savory flavors of the pork and chicken enhanced the seafood, making it even more delectable. Cooking a two-head abalone to this level was a true mastery. A chef was always a chef.

“Why are my eyes often filled with tears? Because I always get to eat the most amazing delicacies lately,” Boss Li posted cheerfully on his social media, his excessive bragging bringing a wave of criticism.

The comments in the live stream, however, were surprisingly consistent. The fans’ envious drool could fill ten miles.

In the live stream, Zeng Yan laid out a few rules for everyone.

1. Barring any unexpected situations, a new video would be posted every day around 7 PM.
2. Live streams would be held at her discretion around noon, but from today on, she would not accept any donations.
3. Every live stream would have a lucky fan who would receive a free sample of the dish she had cooked that day.
4. Considering the time it took to cook, seafood would be listed for sale every day at 4 PM. The quantity would be small but the quality high, so buy quickly. Besides sea urchins and abalone, there would be other affordable seafood available as well.
5. She would add more rules as needed.

The announcement of affordable seafood was met with overwhelming approval from her fans. Some, worried they wouldn’t get any, suggested she increase the quantity. They figured it was better for foodies in a parallel world to enjoy the seafood now than for it to be wiped out by modern fishing nets later.

Zeng Yan, however, was firm in her refusal. “I still have to earn work points, so I don’t have time to go foraging.” What era was this? If she went out fishing so openly in front of the villagers, did they want her to get into trouble?

The comments were filled with schadenfreude. They were no longer envious of the “Big Boss.” After all, she couldn’t even spend the money she earned. Not only was her house bare, but she also had to cut grass every day and get bitten by mosquitoes. Just look at how rough her hands were from all the work!

These horrible people!

Angrily, Zeng Yan went offline. She wondered if she should still give them a 30% discount on the two-head abalone she’d be listing this afternoon.

After the broadcast, Zeng Yan quickly prepared a plate of stir-fried lettuce with garlic. She had already made rice in the morning. With the fresh-out-of-the-pot red-braised abalone, she had a well-balanced lunch with both meat and vegetables. She had to replenish her body’s nutrition gradually and avoid binge eating.

After a short nap, she got up to work again. While the sun was still bright, she took apart the quilt she got from the family split. She put the quilt cover and sheet into the washing machine in her space and hung the cotton stuffing on the bushes in front of her yard to sun and sanitize. Sun Jiazhi had never been a good wife or mother; she only cared about her own cleanliness and never did any other housework. The cotton padding in the bedding she was given was stained like a road map. After drying it, Zeng Yan had no intention of using it again. With the money she earned today, she would buy new ones from the sellers on the platform.

She was glad that the uncles who helped fix her house had added something to the plaster. It had a diatomaceous earth-like effect, and since the walls weren’t crumbling, she didn’t need to go through the extra hassle of putting up newspapers. The simple beauty of the earthen-colored walls paired with the wooden frames was a look people would pay for in the future.

She cleaned the cobwebs and dust from the rafters, wiped the heated bed with disinfectant twice, swept the packed-earth floor clean, and then sprayed every corner with insecticide. She sealed the doors and windows tightly and left the house again.

She only had two bundles of firewood from Grandpa Zhao. In the countryside, cooking and heating in the winter all depended on firewood. After the typhoon a few days ago, many branches had broken off, and industrious families had already started collecting firewood. The desolate mountain to the northwest of her little stone house was rarely visited by villagers because it was so far away, which was perfect for Zeng Yan.

She used her grass-cutting sickle to chop off branches still on the trees and put the larger broken branches directly into her space. She foraged for two hours, and the live-stream area in her space was piled high.

She still had to take her third load of grass to the livestock shed. Zeng Yan decided not to pick up any more branches for now and carried a small bundle of firewood back to her house. The firewood she collected had to be dried in the yard, but since no one was around, Zeng Yan laid out all the branches from her space in the yard.

The house had been fumigated enough. A lot of insects, a creepy-crawly mess, were swept out of the corners. Even Zeng Yan, who was not afraid of anything, got goosebumps. Sharing was caring, so she had to record this for her viewers. She was a “fan-loving” blogger, after all.

After a sip of water, Zeng Yan continued her way to the brigade headquarters with her grass. She had been busy from morning until afternoon. If she counted her steps, she must have taken over thirty thousand, not to mention the scorching weather. With this level of physical labor, no matter how much she ate, she wouldn’t gain any weight.

She reminded herself to be more efficient with her time in the future and not to overwork herself like this.

All her hard work felt worth it when she saw the money she made from the sea urchins and abalones. Today’s big earner was the two-head abalone. The larger the abalone, the better the quality, and the higher the price. There was a saying: “It’s hard to buy a two-head abalone with a thousand pieces of gold.” At their most expensive, they could sell for 2,000 yuan a pound, although prices varied greatly between coastal and inland regions. Abalone was much cheaper in coastal production areas.

Zeng Yan wasn’t so greedy as to only think about money. She set a middle-ground price and didn’t hold a grudge against her fellow countrymen by taking away their discount. The listed two-head abalone was priced at 1,200 yuan a pound.

That was still much higher than the sea urchins. Many of her fans knew their stuff, and to them, this price for wild-caught abalone was a bargain. Their fingers were going numb from clicking “buy,” but many still couldn’t get one.

Including the live-stream donations, her total income for the day was 63,000 yuan. After the system’s service fee was deducted, she had 42,210 yuan left. Money was for spending. Besides buying a straw hat, a portable fan, a camera, new bedding, snake repellent powder, and mosquito coils, Zeng Yan found that the crab pots and shrimp pots on the platform were very cheap, 30 yuan each. She bought twenty of them, along with a small fishing net, fishing line, fishing gear, a kayak, an underwater light, and a diving suit. While she couldn’t fish openly, she could still slowly build up her supplies when the time was right.

How did the seafood in the Xiangyang Brigade become so scarce? Heaven knew, the earth knew, the netizens knew, and Zeng Yan knew.