She Only Cares About Cultivation
Chapter 65: 【065】90s cook 65

Chapter 65: 【065】90s cook 65

My daughter had already turned five, and all of this was decided after consulting with her. I even took her to a training institute for a trial lesson, which she liked, so I went ahead and enrolled her. The fees were relatively expensive for instruction.

The choice of institute was very formal, with transparent pricing. Although it was located near the kindergarten and within walking distance, I opted for an after-school care service because I didn’t want to be disturbed while working.

If not for that, I might not have been able to outline the novel in such a short time – both the broad and the detailed outlines. What remained was to express it in words and record it.

The palace intrigue tropes I’m drawing from are all the ones I’ve come across in the future. As for what Meng Xiuying will end up writing, to be honest, I’m quite looking forward to it.

The title is "Daqing Concubine", which chronicles the evolution of palace conflicts. It tells the story of a lowly concubine who eventually rises to become one of the Four Concubines.

When conceiving the idea, I had already imagined a television drama’s scenes. Regardless of success, I felt that we should at least try – who knows, it might work out?

Currently, my daughter’s monthly expenses of one thousand yuan pose a significant challenge for me. But no matter how poor I might become, I will not skimp on education. I can live without savings, but I absolutely cannot let my daughter’s education lag behind – especially since we’re just getting started.

Writing novels with Meng Xiuying is only the second step. My primary job may be as a cook, but for the sake of survival, I must find ways to make use of my identity from the future to discover more avenues to earn money.

I don’t understand music, but I can sing. All I need are two songs a year.

Since this is a parallel universe, different from the original world, creating a song involves many stages. The results produced by different people are naturally distinct. If the tones and rhythms are different, so too will the resulting feelings differ.

With that in mind, I emulated a scene from a movie where I took songs from the future and recorded melodies on a tape without adding lyrics, since they needed to be adapted by people from this world.

Then I sent it off to a well-known record company. Whether I would receive a reply or not, I wasn’t sure, so I approached it with a ’let’s just try’ attitude.

This was relatively simple and didn’t consume much brainpower, so Gong Mingxia promptly finished it and mailed it off. In this era, we are still in the age of letters. There are telephones, but we don’t have one at home, so I only provided a postal address for communication.

After entering September of ’97, my boxed meal business seemed to be doing a bit better than before. On average, I was netting one hundred and fifty yuan a day. However, I was starting to sell meals as early as ten-thirty in the morning, and to attract more customers, I even made seaweed rice rolls as a bonus for those who ate five times. After noticing leftover vegetable and tofu soups each time, I switched to selling multigrain soy milk, which turned out to be more effective. Prepared at home and well sealed, it could be sold on-site at any time, more convenient than soup.

Each month, the bonus for eating five times would be different. Last month, I offered a choice between a cold dish or the soup of the day. Come September, I decided on seaweed rolls, and customers who tried the seaweed rolls even expressed a desire to buy them separately.

Gong Mingxia wanted precisely this effect, so afterwards, she decided to forgo one cold dish and make a pot of triangular seaweed rolls instead. Wrapped in cling film and priced at 50 cents each, they included original ingredients like egg, cucumber, and minced meat, and they sold quite well.

Occasionally, I’d make a spicy stir-fried rice cake dish sold separately. It was filling without needing any staple food, so I priced it at one yuan a serving. It was particularly popular with those who favoured sweet and spicy flavors.

Offering a Korean dish unexpectedly one day livened up everyone’s palette, because all of Korean culture is ours. Thus, the marketing strategy emphasized Northeastern dishes. Even though my boxed meal stall wasn’t in the best location, because many of the foods weren’t sold by anyone else, it opened up new avenues and gradually built a good reputation in the area.