The Gourmet Customizer

Chapter 100: Chapter 76: This Place is Great, You Can Even Lie to Your Wife About Working Overtime

Four eggs. That’s not easy to split.

As the saying goes, the problem isn’t having too little, but distributing it unfairly.

So, to keep things fair for everyone, Su Chen scooped all four eggs into a small bowl. "These are mine."

Humming a little tune, he picked up the bowl of eggs and started to leave.

’Time to recharge my energy and get a good night’s sleep, right?’

As he passed the office area, he noticed that the two evening customers hadn’t chosen to eat in the cafeteria. Instead, they had found an empty workstation and sat down to eat there!

"Dude, I owe you one. How else would I have found such an awesome spot!"

Zhan Yang clapped the man next to him on the shoulder. "Don’t worry about it. We’re good brothers. If I find a good place to eat, of course I’m gonna share it."

The man beside him was dressed for the summer heat in a pair of rather simple baggy shorts, flip-flops, and a faded gray short-sleeved shirt on top.

"Shh! Here it comes, here it comes!"

The man grabbed his phone, wiped his mouth clean, and forced a smile before finally pressing the answer button on the screen.

"Hello? Honey? Yep, yep, working overtime~"

"For real, look if you don’t believe me! See? The boss sent us to help out at another company today. Looks like we’ll be working a little late, so you should go to bed early!"

"Love you~~ Mwah!"

After hanging up the video call, the smile instantly vanished from the man’s face. He lowered his head and went back to furiously slurping his soupy noodles. "Zhan Yang, this place is the real deal. The food is amazing, not to mention I don’t have to worry about my wife calling to check up on me anymore. In a few days, let’s get the guys together and come back here!"

Su Chen had witnessed the whole thing and was utterly shocked.

’You can actually get away with that?’

Zhan Yang wiped his mouth clean too. "I already had a serving of that spicy chicken this afternoon, and now I can still wolf down two bowls of noodles. It’s so damn good. Let’s do what you said. We’ll have a get-together here in a few days and grab some beers!"

"Yeah, yeah, no problem!"

Zhan Yang finished his meal and waited for his buddy to finish his third bowl of noodles. Just then, he saw Su Chen walking toward the office with a small bowl in his hands.

"Are you the owner?"

Su Chen stopped. "What’s up?"

"What’s in the bowl?"

Su Chen held it out. "Tea eggs."

"Tea eggs this late at night?" Zhan Yang said, but his hands were already reaching for Su Chen’s bowl. "Let me try one."

Su Chen quickly pulled the bowl back. "The tea eggs are five yuan each."

Zhan Yang’s brow furrowed instantly. "Boss, your half-portion of spicy chicken at 88 is already a bit pricey. Why are the tea eggs so expensive too?"

Su Chen smiled. "Just tell me, was that spicy chicken worth 88 yuan or not?"

"It was!" Zhan Yang was a straightforward guy who said what he thought. "But isn’t selling a tea egg for five yuan going too far?"

Su Chen was a little speechless. "Then you don’t have to eat one."

Jeez! In all his years navigating the Jingzhou food scene, Zhan Yang had never met such an arrogant owner.

"No way. Now that you’ve said that, I have to try one. Give me one!"

"Pay first."

Speechless, Zhan Yang took out his phone, scanned the QR code on the cafeteria door, and paid ten yuan. "One for each of us. Is that good enough for you?"

Only then did Su Chen grab two eggs with his hand and place them, bowl and all, on their workstation table.

"Zhan Yang, are you stupid? Paying five yuan for a tea egg? The convenience store downstairs from my apartment sells them for one-fifty. If you really want some, I can bring you some next time."

"It’s not the same. Just try it." Zhan Yang refused to believe it. How could a stupid tea egg possibly be worth five yuan?

But when Zhan Yang saw that the shells on the eggs in the bowl were completely intact, he couldn’t help but laugh. "I guess I really am a bit stupid. I thought since the spicy chicken was good, the tea eggs would probably be good too. Forget it, you can have this egg. I’m too full to eat it anyway."

This buddy of his was named Zhang Yi, his old college roommate. Not many men can stay in close contact with friends once they hit their thirties.

But the ones who do are, without a doubt, true friends worth keeping!

Zhang Yi sighed repeatedly. "It’s not my place to say, man, but you need to be saving money right now. You can’t just spend it wildly like this. You’ll understand when it’s time to get married."

"I can’t be bothered with that whole marriage business. Look at you now, you practically have to ask for permission just to go out for a meal. Out of five meals, I end up paying for four. I don’t want to live like that."

Zhang Yi chuckled. Brothers like them didn’t get angry over jokes like that. Back in college, Zhan Yang was always bumming cigarettes off him. "You don’t understand my happiness, my friend."

As he spoke, Zhang Yi casually peeled an egg. Seeing that Su Chen had already gone back to his office, he lowered his voice. "These tea eggs are a total rip-off. The flavor hasn’t even soaked in."

Looking at the flawlessly white egg, Zhan Yang nodded. "Looks like not everything here is good. Next time, we’ll just stick to the spicy chicken and nothing else. I’ll have to tell Brother Fang Chang to hold off on that thing with his mother-in-law’s visit."

"Mhm." Zhang Yi nodded vigorously and popped the whole egg into his mouth. His expression was casual, but after a single chew, his eyes suddenly shot wide open. "Holy shit!"

"What’s wrong?"

Zhang Yi chewed the egg in his mouth furiously. His wide eyes slowly closed, and his shocked expression transformed into one of pure enjoyment. He swallowed the entire egg but was reluctant to speak, as if not wanting to let the sensation go.

He kept his eyes shut, frantically savoring the faint, elegant aroma that lingered in his mouth.

"This egg... there’s something to it!"

"A lot?"

"A lot!"

"Let me try!" Still skeptical, Zhan Yang picked up the other egg and began to peel it.

Meanwhile, Zhang Yi stood up and started walking toward the cafeteria. "I’m going to go get a few more. That was so good."