Chapter 78: Charity Sale

The soft and squishy piece of meat was coated with vermicelli and its fragrance. After taking a bite, it was fragrant, sweet, and soft.

Ms. Li widened her eyes and praised generously, “It’s too delicious. My family has also cooked vermicelli steamed meat before, but it’s very greasy. I couldn’t take another bite after eating two mouthfuls. On the other hand, your fatty meat is fragrant and doesn’t smell. The lean meat is chewy and not dry. It’s amazing!”

The combination of lotus leaf pancake served with steamed meat was excellent. Lu Yuxi ate two pieces in a row before putting down her chopsticks reluctantly. “The charity sale will begin in the afternoon. It’s almost time, right?”

“Yeah.”

Ms. Li nodded. “Let’s go. I’ll drive there, let’s take my car.”

They brought along the prepared sour and spicy lemon chicken feet, tiger skin chicken feet, as well as the oden ingredients and set off for school.

Ms. Li was driving in the front and Xu Le was sitting in the front passenger seat, listening to her introduce the rules of that day’s sale.

“All the cost is covered by the school. They will give out cards to every student. Each card is worth 100 yuan. In the end, we will see which stall receives the most money and they will win the prize. In the entire kindergarten, I think you are the most likely to win!”

She said happily. Xu Le was worried that if he was overconfident, things might go wrong. Hence, he humbly added, “That might not be the case. There might be other parents who are more capable. Anyway, we will just sell our things and earn money. In the end, the school will just pay for the donations.”

“Yes!”

When they arrived at the site, they found that the school had built a temporary stall for each class to process the ingredients. There was a portable gas stove and an induction cooker, as well as basic condiments such as oil and salt.

On one side of the lawn, there were beautiful flowery floor mats. All the snacks prepared by the parents were displayed.

Xu Tian happily greeted her classmates and went over to investigate the rival’s situation. “What are you selling?”

“I fried my own rice crust, chips, and homemade milk tea. Do you want some jelly?”

“Alright, thank you Auntie.”

Xu Tian took the jelly from her. It was strawberries wrapped in gelatin pieces. She ran over to Xu Le and said, “Brother, look, this is jelly!”

“Hmm?” Xu Le was heating the pot on the stove. He looked down and said, “You can eat it.”

“No, what if the kids prefer jelly and fries?”

Xu Le instantly understood that she was afraid of losing the competition. Hence, he smiled and leaned over to pat Xu Tian’s shoulder. He comforted her softly, “Don’t be afraid, we won’t lose. Moreover, this competition is to win more money to help other children and not to compete with our classmates.”

Lu Yuxi added, “That’s right. Your brother is amazing. Don’t doubt his skills.”

The signboard for oden was set up. The principal stood on the stage and read out the rules of the competition. After cheering everyone on, he distributed the cards that the school had customized.

“Every kid has ten pieces, which means that he and his parents can only buy ten portions of food.”

Lu Yuxi squatted down and explained to Xu Tian, then asked her, “How do you plan to use them?”

She followed the principle of respecting a child’s opinion. Before Xu Tian could speak, a cute little boy beside her said, “Mom, we’ll use this to buy from our own store so that we’ll definitely win an award later.”

Xu Tian was stunned when she heard this. She looked at her brother. Xu Le waved his hands to reject her idea. “Look at the delicious food over there. Don’t you want to try it?”

“…I want to.”

In the end, Xu Tian still followed Lu Yuxi to the other stalls. In order to win the competition, the parents went all out. There were skewers, grilled sausages, milk tea, jelly, chips, biscuits, cupcakes… and someone even brought an ice-cream machine over.

Lu Yuxi and Xu Tian looked at each other. They were both interested in the ice cream. Xu Tian lowered her voice and said, “Sister Lu, let’s just buy one and not let brother know, okay?”

“Yeah, I have the same idea too.”

The two of them exchanged their cards for a matcha ice cream. They took one bite at a time and started walking around.

About 20 minutes after the auction started, the popular stalls were already revealed. It was a shop that was selling instant noodles.

That parent did not know how to cook at all. That day, in order to take advantage of the situation, after sending the child to school, he bought a huge pile of instant noodles at the convenience store. Who knew that it actually became the most popular dish.

He looked at the long queue and knew that he was about to win. He could not hide the smile on his face and said, “Everyone, don’t be anxious. You will get a share.”

Xu Tian turned around to look at her brother’s stall. No one had tried it yet, so she pouted and said, “What? What’s so good about instant noodles?”

She did not understand why no one went to buy oden, so she took out her own wallet and handed over a card. She shouted in a childish voice, “Boss, I want a serving of oden!”

Before this, Xu Le had already prepared 50 servings. He strung each type of ball on the skewer, followed by radish and dipping it in soup. It was a full and affordable portion of oden.

He saw that his sister was very anxious and consoled her, “It’s alright, there will be people coming here soon.”

Xu Tian said angrily, “They don’t know what’s good for them. I’ll go get some customers for you!”

Her serious look amused Lu Yuxi, as she said, “I’ll go with you.”

Seeing that the two of them were fighting for injustice for their stall, Xu Le wouldn’t sit still and do nothing. He picked up some lemon chicken feet and tiger skin chicken feet with a disposable lunch box and brought toothpicks for the people around to taste.

He didn’t forget to shout out, “Everyone, come and have a taste. These are all freshly made this morning. The raw ingredients were bought on the spot. They are clean and delicious. Don’t worry about tasting them.”

A few parents were queuing up with their children and couldn’t help but complain that all the food were fried and high-calorie junk food, yet their children liked it. Moreover, the decision was in their hands, so they couldn’t do anything about it.

When they saw Xu Le shouting, they turned around and looked at him in surprise. “Are you still going to kindergarten at this age?”

At eight years old, he should be studying at a primary school. Xu Le was a lot taller than the children around him. He laughed and replied, “No, I’m here on behalf of my parents for the charity sale.”

The parents were even more surprised. They widened their eyes and said, “Don’t tell me you made all these chicken feet.”

“Yeah.”

“Gosh, you can cook at such a young age?”

“Then I must try it. Please give me one.”

“Why do I feel like you look familiar? Did you set up a store at the school gate before? Were you the one who sold that Oil Doused noodles?”

“That’s right.” Xu Le handed the lunch box over. “Try it. It’s all fresh and clean.”

The bitterness of the lemon in the sour and spicy lemon chicken feet soaked in the soup had already been replaced by the fragrance of passionfruit. It was chewy, and the chicken feet became more and more fragrant as one savoured it. A few people couldn’t bear to swallow it..