So Wen Jiajia turned over and fell asleep again. Director Gao said yesterday that they just had to get up at 8 o’clock.

Silence returned to the room, and Wen Jiajia’s breathing soon became steady.

The biological clock is Wen Jiajia’s invisible alarm clock. She woke up again at around 7:50.

After taking a nap, Wen Jiajia felt her head was much more comfortable, and the pain caused by lack of sleep disappeared completely.

After washing and changing clothes, at about eight o’clock, she went to knock on the door of Director Gao’s room next door.

Wen Jiajia knocked for a while before there was a movement from inside.

“Director, it’s already 8:05,” Wen Jiajia said. “You said yesterday that you would call you if I got up early.”

Director Gao patted his head and said, “Thank you. Go wake up Liang Mu and then go downstairs to eat.”

“Okay!” Wen Jiajia was so hungry that her heart was burning. She had done too much exercise after dinner last night, so she was hungry when she came back.

She knocked on Liang Mu’s door with much more force, but it was obvious that Liang Mu was still not awake.

“Here it comes!” the person inside shouted.

“Hurry up,” she shouted back.

It turns out that she was the first to wake up! Wen Jiajia suddenly felt that she was quite reliable.

“Director, I’ll go to the hotel first and take a look. If I need to queue, I’d better queue in advance,” she ran to the door of Director Gao’s room and said.

“You can go ahead… but it’s already past eight, so there shouldn’t be a line.”

Wen Jiajia said that she only heard the first three words and went downstairs hurriedly.

Sure enough, there was no queue in the state-owned restaurant, and it was even quite deserted.

But that’s right, most factories have already started working now! Even if not, it’s time to go to the factory.

But there were still people inside; after all, it was a hotel next to the train station.

And because the restaurant is located next to the train station, there are a lot of breakfast varieties inside, including the fried buns that Wen Jiajia wants to eat.

What made Wen Jiajia particularly happy was that these were leavened dough pan-fried buns, which were somewhat similar to the ones from Dahuchun.

Oh, I don’t know if Dahuchun^[1]is a traditional Chinese dessert. It is a type of glutinous rice cake (also known as “mochi” in Japanese or “tongyuan” in some Chinese regions) made from glutinous rice flour … Continue reading is still blooming at this moment.

But the fried buns nowadays taste pretty good; the flour and meat are of good quality, and the chef who makes the fried buns is also an experienced chef. The smell is even more tempting than the fried buns she ate decades later.

Wen Jiajia waited at the door for a while, and Director Gao and Liang Mu finally arrived.

“Have you ordered?” asked Director Gao.

Wen Jiajia: “I don’t know what you want to eat, Director, so I’ll order it when you come.”

Director Gao waved his hand and said, “I don’t have any dietary restrictions.”

Then he looked at the menu on the wall and said, “One order of wontons^[2]a type of Chinese dumpling that typically consists of a seasoned filling wrapped in a thin dough. and one order of fried pork buns.”

What a coincidence! Wen Jiajia also wanted to eat these two things. So she agreed with what the waiter said.

What about Liang Mu? His boss and colleagues were already so late, and he thought he couldn’t stand out from the crowd, so he said, “Me too.”

“……” How to say it, Wen Jiajia suddenly had a vision of Zhang Fei saying, “Me too.”

I held back my laughter until breakfast was served.

The breakfast portion was large, with 16 wontons in one bowl, each of substantial size.

The wonton skin, cooked to be almost transparent, wrapped the pink meat and floated on the slightly thick white bone soup with a little chopped green onion on top.

It looked quite light, but the aroma of the bone soup kept rushing into her nose.

Then there were the fried buns.

The fried buns were about half the size of her fist, and because they were made from leavened dough, they were naturally bigger.

The fried buns were very neatly wrapped, with beautiful pleats, and the bottom was slightly burnt. You could hear a crispy sound when you bit into it.

They smelled amazing.

The fresh meat filling was juicy and full of a meaty aroma, and the wontons with bone soup were so soothing from mouth to stomach.

The three of them were extremely satisfied with the meal. After finishing, Director Gao even touched his stomach and sighed, “I haven’t had a meal like this since graduation.”

Wen Jiajia was curious, “Director, did you go to college here?”

Director Gao nodded, “Teacher Yue’s wife was my teacher in college.”

Wen Jiajia thought to herself, no wonder he pulled me over and called me “master” yesterday.

After breakfast, the group went to Dongda again.

This time, they were there to talk to teachers, not students.

Director Gao did not explain the details to them and even sent them away at times.

Liang Mu was puzzled, “What is this for?”

Wen Jiajia could guess something. Director Gao probably wanted to send the professors who were in a more dangerous situation to the factory. At present, it seemed that these professors would play a much greater role than students.

However, students are the foundation. They are young and can work for the factory for decades. What Director Gao values most is how many students he can recruit.

The conversation lasted until noon. Wen Jiajia knocked on the door and asked Director Gao, “Director, do you want to order food?”

Director Gao nodded, “Go ahead… go to the hotel over at Ximen and make a reservation.”

Wen Jiajia understood. Yesterday they went to the restaurant next to the North Gate, so today they would change to the West Gate.

She quickly counted the number of people in the room. There were six of them, so she booked a room for 8 to 10 people.

The state-owned restaurant near Ximen is smaller, but the food seems more refined.

The portions of the dishes were quite large at this time, so Wen Jiajia ordered six dishes after some thought.

The rich and greasy braised pork was a must-order. Wen Jiajia had been craving it since yesterday, so she had to take this opportunity to have it.

Then there were the pickled duck and shredded eel in oil, which were also local specialties.

Finally, she ordered two plates of vegetables: wine-braised chives and stir-fried vegetables, and a bowl of fish head soup.

Wen Jiajia actually wanted to order fried rice cake with hairy crab, as it was crab season and the crabs were meaty and yellow, but she gave up thinking that it would not look very elegant. This dish is more suitable for eating privately at home.

She managed the time very accurately and asked the chef to serve the dishes at one o’clock. Sure enough, Director Gao and his entourage arrived just after one o’clock.

It was time to eat and drink, and Wen Jiajia and Liang Mu were finally able to sit at the table.

The dishes she ordered were all her favorites.

Director Gao still had to chat and laugh with people from the school, but Wen Jiajia and Liang Mu, as minions, only needed to focus on eating.

Occasionally, she would check if someone’s bowl was empty and would be responsible for serving rice. The rest of the time, she focused on eating.

Braised pork is cooked without any spices or water, only soy sauce, wine, and sugar.

It is fat but not greasy, crispy but not mushy, and the key is that the meat quality is good. It is sweet and you can clearly taste the fragrance of the meat itself.

There is also pickled duck. The pickled duck is slightly sweet, chewy but not dry. The skin is its soul, a thin layer with almost no fat, only caramel-colored skin. Dip it in the soup and rub it on the rice. Wen Jiajia tried hard to control her eating speed.

Ah, Wen Jiajia is simply in love with the food.

At this moment, she thought that now that the college entrance examination had been resumed, she must take it and get into Haishi University.

No reason, just for a bite to eat.

After lunch, the group returned to school and talked for a while before parting at the school gate.

In the afternoon, Director Gao took the two of them to another school without stopping.

It’s impossible for such a big city to have only one university. To be on the safe side, of course, they had to visit all the schools.

No wonder Director Gao planned a three to five day trip.

The next few schools were not as good as Dongda University. In order to save time, Wen Jiajia even took on the heavy responsibility of being arranged by Director Gao to go to a technical college to communicate with the school leaders.

She went out early and came back late, rushing here and there, sometimes not even having time to eat. One day she was so busy that she worked until 10:30 and almost missed the last night bus.

Looking back after a few days, she realized that the first two days were the most comfortable.

On Saturday, the three of them finally visited all the schools they were supposed to visit.

At night, the starry sky was bright.

Looking up, you could still see bright stars and the occasional shooting star in the Magic City at this time.

Director Gao seemed to be exhausted and drained of energy. After returning to the guesthouse, he said to the two of them, “The bus will be at 2 pm tomorrow. We will have free time in the morning.”

Wen Jiajia’s eyes lit up, and she immediately replied with full energy, “Okay, Director!”

Free time meant being able to go shopping, and she thought she had no chance anymore.

Director Gao sighed, “After all, she is still young.” Unlike her, he now has no desire to go shopping in department stores.

Wen Jiajia went back to the room like a happy bird, took off her clothes, took out the money from her inside pocket, and counted it again and again, without even taking a shower.

Then she took out her almost used-up notebook.

It’s hard to imagine that she brought an unused notebook with her before she went on a business trip, but now she had only used the last two pages, and she even bought a pen twice!

In the past few days, not only did my legs almost break from running, but even my hands were almost broken from writing.

But it doesn’t matter; shopping can heal everything. Wen Jiajia excitedly picked up her pen and started making shopping plans for tomorrow.