Chapter 7: The Video Ferments

Honestly, the stats were even better than he’d expected.

After all, he had fewer than 3,000 followers, yet the video had already garnered nearly 100 comments.

It had been less than twelve hours since he posted it, and as the likes and comments continued to roll in, the video’s stats would only improve.

Curious, he opened the comments to see what people were saying.

"To be fair, I also think the noodles at Yun Ji have way too much of that lye water taste!"

"Have you ever even had wonton noodles? All wonton noodles have a lye water taste!"

"To the person above, did you flunk reading comprehension? He already said it! It’s fine for wonton noodles to have a lye water taste, but if bamboo-rising wonton noodles have too much, then they’re not authentic!"

"Streamers these days are so shameless, doing anything for views! Yun Ji has been open for 26 years, and you’re saying it’s not authentic? Then who is?"

·······

He gave the comments a quick scan. The general vibe was actually pretty good.

Some people agreed with his points, while others didn’t.

He wasn’t too surprised by this.

After all, everyone has different tastes and seeks different things from their food.

It was only natural that some would like it and some wouldn’t. That made perfect sense.

He also figured out why the video was getting decent traffic.

The reason was simple: viewers who agreed and disagreed with him were starting to argue and debate in the comment section.

Their back-and-forth arguments would continuously drive up the video’s replay rate and view count.

A higher replay rate and engagement would be flagged by the platform’s algorithm as a sign of a quality video with growth potential, which would then get it pushed to more users’ feeds.

This was why so many content creators loved to use controversial topics as their themes—men versus women, capital versus labor, or conflicts between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law.

Videos like that could attract a huge audience to the comment section for discussions, which could even escalate into full-blown flame wars, all of which fed the video into a larger traffic pool.

That was what had caused this video to get a much better response than he’d anticipated.

·······

While Li Xiao was getting ready to make wonton noodles for twenty of his fans the next day, the folks at Yun Ji Bamboo-Rising Noodles, the very shop he had reviewed, discovered his video.

The cashier at Yun Ji Bamboo-Rising Noodles happened to come across Li Xiao’s video while slacking off. He immediately told his boss what was happening.

"Boss, we have a problem! A food blogger came to the shop, ate our food, and then posted a video online saying our noodles aren’t authentic. A ton of people are talking about it now!"

The owner of Yun Ji Bamboo-Rising Noodles was a lean, gaunt, 35-year-old man named Yun Hongquan.

The shop had originally been run by his father, Yun Guohao.

However, worn out by years of hard work and getting on in years, Yun Guohao had stepped back from running the business a few years prior, leaving the shop in his son’s hands.

Honestly, Yun Hongquan had no sentimental attachment to the noodle shop.

’In his eyes, if the shop didn’t have a decent reputation in Yangcheng and make him a good chunk of money every month, he would’ve sold it off long ago.’

A businessman through and through, Yun Hongquan was always thinking about how to increase the shop’s profits, not about preserving his father’s traditional craft.

Within half a year of taking over the shop, he had fired every last one of the noodle-making masters, who were each earning over 10,000 a month.

After all, the combined salaries of the three noodle masters already exceeded 40,000 a month.

That wage bill was higher than the combined salaries of all the other employees in the shop.

’In his eyes, making noodles couldn’t be simpler.’

’This was the modern age; there were countless machines on the market that could make noodles.’

’A single noodle machine cost just a little over 10,000.’

’He could just buy two of them, make a few simple adjustments, and they’d be churning out noodles for him 24/7.’

’Compared to that, the monthly salary of a noodle master was simply astronomical.’

For a businessman like Yun Hongquan, this was completely unacceptable.

Having grown up in a noodle shop, he quickly figured out how to calibrate the machines after buying them. He was pleasantly surprised to find that when using the machines, as long as he added enough lye water, not only could he produce noodles that were more springy and smooth, but the cost was also lower.

For him, it was a classic case of killing two birds with one stone.

After all, lower costs meant higher profits.

Yun Hongquan was no old-timer; he was well aware of the power of online public opinion.

If he didn’t handle this properly, his wonton noodle shop could be instantly engulfed in a storm of controversy, causing revenue to be slashed in half, or even forcing him to close down completely.

He quickly took the cashier’s phone and hit replay.

"What I’m actually trying to say is, if this were just an ordinary bowl of wonton noodles, then these noodles would be rated ’good,’ or even ’excellent.’"

"The texture is indeed very crisp and springy..."

"But unfortunately... this is supposed to be a bowl of bamboo-rising wonton noodles."

"Authentic bamboo-rising noodles are all-egg noodles, made with duck eggs and flour, without a single drop of water."

"Through..."

"And to compensate for that flaw, the shop added lye water to enhance the noodles’ crisp texture."

At this point, Yun Hongquan’s brow was deeply furrowed.

As the one responsible, he knew perfectly well that the streamer was spot-on.

Their wontons were, in fact, excellent.

After all, making good wontons was actually quite simple.

All you needed was a recipe that suited the local palate; from there, it was just a matter of following the proportions to prepare and season them.

The recipe they were using was one his father had painstakingly perfected years ago. It had been in use for over twenty years, so of course there was nothing wrong with it.

One might wonder: why would someone so willing to cut costs on the noodles hold back from altering the wonton recipe?

Anyone with a shred of business sense knew that the cost of making wontons was certainly higher than the cost of making noodles.

The truth was, it wasn’t that Yun Hongquan didn’t want to reduce the cost of making the wontons; it was that he couldn’t.

He had, of course, considered meddling with the wontons.

Unfortunately, making wontons didn’t require a master craftsman to begin with.

Hiring a few older ladies was enough to get the job done easily.

Therefore, there was simply no way to squeeze the labor costs for the wontons.

If he wanted to change the wontons, his only option was to tamper with the ingredients.

However, after several attempts, he gave up on the idea.

The reason was simple: the wontons made with the new recipes were far inferior in both taste and texture to the one his father had painstakingly perfected.

Yun Hongquan was no fool. He knew perfectly well that if the quality of the product dropped too much, the shop’s business would take a major hit.

And so, the wonton recipe was preserved.

As for the lye water in the noodles, most customers didn’t really care.

But now that this streamer had specifically called it out, he felt extremely uncomfortable, as if he’d been stripped naked in public.