Chapter 488 - 322: Random Blind Box

Wang Jun quickly finished the headcount. Including the driver responsible for hauling the goods and himself, there were twenty-three people in total, which came out to 345 dollars.

As soon as Lin Chen received the food money, he immediately called Zhao Pengfei and gave him a brief rundown of the situation.

Although this was just a trivial little order for his trading company, no different from a simple delivery job, Zhao Pengfei agreed in a heartbeat. He didn't even ask Lin Chen to cover the gas.

His only request was that Lin Chen feature their company's truck in his video and guarantee it would appear on screen.

The trip from Victoria to Albion Port was three hours one-way, making it a six-hour round trip. Factoring in breaks, it would take about seven hours. The driver couldn't possibly make the entire drive in one go; he would definitely need to eat.

Thus, another freeloader was added to the group, which they could consider a perk in exchange for not having to pay for gas.

After a brief discussion over the phone, the two of them came up with a very simple and interesting system.

A blind box.

It would be a drain on the already-busy Lin Chen to have to think about what to cook every day, especially since he had no way of knowing what produce was available in Victoria's local markets, farms, or supermarkets.

So they decided to have Wang Jun transfer the money directly to Zhao Pengfei, who would then give it to the driver and let him do the shopping himself.

As a working man, the driver would know what was tasty, filling, and cheap, so he definitely wouldn't buy anything too expensive.

This would save money and everyone's time, plus it added a fun sense of mystery.

After the ingredients were delivered each morning, the driver could catch up on sleep, and Lin Chen could improvise based on whatever was purchased that day.

When Erica found out that Lin Chen was going to film videos of himself cooking for the construction workers, her interest was immediately piqued. She threw her hands up, declaring that she wanted to freeload on the meals too and, while she was at it, learn how to cook Daxia Cuisine.

So far, she hadn't tried many Daxia dishes, and the ones she had tasted were all during filming, consisting mostly of snacks and staple foods.

Now that she finally had a chance to try home-style cooking, her anticipation was every bit as high as it had been for the hot pot.

Eating hot pot was like going out to a steakhouse—it was a restaurant experience, a refined meal. Only home-style cooking truly reflected the most authentic side of a country's culinary culture.

To make cooking more convenient, they would have to build a few stoves and set up a water line at the construction site. The most suitable location would be near the dining area.

However, this wasn't a project that could be finished in a day or two. Until the stoves were built, he would still have to cook at home.

"The driver will be delivering the ingredients to our door around six tomorrow morning. I asked him to help me pick up a batch of kitchenware and seasonings, too. You'll need to get up and help me, so go to bed early tonight. Don't stay up late."

"Okay! I'll wash up and go to sleep as soon as I finish these two pages!"

"Still writing? Let me see how you're doing."

Lin Chen, who had just gotten home, leaned over curiously. He was stunned to find that in just a few short days, Erica had nearly finished all three of her calligraphy practice books!

Beside them lay her Chinese study notebook, filled with densely packed simple characters and pronunciation tricks, mostly using English phonetic annotations.

He flipped through it briefly and saw that the most recent page already had basic conversational sentences.

"Holy shit?"

He pointed at the highlighted sentences in disbelief. "You've learned all these already? It's only been, what, three or four days? Are you using a cheat code or something?"

"Who are you looking down on? I was top of my class back in the day, you know~"

Erica scrunched her little nose and puffed out her chest confidently, her eyes filled with pride.

"Anyway, the video editing is almost done, so I have more time to study. I feel like I'll be able to hold simple conversations in just a few weeks."

Lin Chen's mouth fell open. For a moment, he didn't know how to react and could only silently give her a thumbs-up.

"...You're a beast."

'He couldn't remember clearly, but didn't it normally take a child one or two semesters to progress to learning daily conversation?'

'For a foreigner—one who had barely even eaten Daxia Cuisine—to master the basic pronunciation of a new language so quickly was just ridiculous.'

'Guess the genes of the strong really do get passed down. Her mom's success in business was probably no accident. Who knows, maybe her ancestors had similar track records of success.'

「The next morning.」

The alarm hadn't gone off yet, and the sky was still dark.

In the darkness, Lin Chen's eyes snapped open. He tapped his phone screen.

Five-thirty.

'Great,' he thought. 'Another day I've set an alarm for no reason.'

After quickly washing up, he went out and stood on the street in front of his house at five minutes to six.

The early April morning air by the sea was still a bit cool, and the breeze carried a slight chill.

CLICK.

Six o'clock on the dot.

Erica came out of the house, yawning and stretching as she walked toward the door.

"Morning~"

"Morning. Not fully awake?"

"I'm okay. I went to bed early, but I couldn't fall asleep. A little fresh air will wake me up."

She pulled out her phone to check the time, then looked up and down the empty street. "Didn't you say six o'clock?" she asked, confused. "He's not here yet?"

"He probably got lost. It's his first time coming here, after all. Remember how we drove in circles trying to find this place, and that was at night, too."

Just as they were talking, two yellow beams of light cut through the darkness in the distance, heading straight toward them as if they had been spotted.

Before the truck had even come to a complete stop, the driver's accented voice floated out from the window.

"Aiya, sorry, so sorry, boss! It's my first time comin' here. How come all these neighborhoods look the same? Took a wrong turn twice."

Caught off guard by his Mandarin, which was thick with a distinct regional flavor, Erica let out a snort of laughter.

"What is that? A dialect? The intonation is hilarious! It sounds so interesting, I want to learn it!"

It was only then that the driver noticed the foreign girl standing next to Lin Chen. The moment her delicate features broke into a smile, it was as if the sky itself had brightened.

"Hey! This gal is a real looker, boss. Is she yours?"

"?"

Lin Chen was dumbfounded. He stood frozen, subconsciously scratching his head. The accent felt very familiar, but for the life of him, he couldn't recall which region's dialect it was.

'The main problem is that I can only understand half of what he's saying,' he thought. 'How are we supposed to have a proper conversation when the key words are basically censored?'

"Sir, do you speak Mandarin?"

"I do, I do! Just not very well. Please don't mind me, boss!"

The driver seemed to realize he'd been a bit too talkative. He quickly shut off the engine, got out of the truck, and hurried to the back to open the cargo doors and start unloading.

Only then did Lin Chen reply to Erica, "It is a dialect. But in Great Xia, every province's dialect is different because we have 56 ethnic groups, and many of them have their own languages. In some provinces, even the dialects between cities are different. That's why Mandarin was established as the common language for communication. It's the language of the Han ethnic group."

"Oh, I see. It seemed like you didn't understand what he just said to you, though?"

"...You don't have to be so observant."

"Then what's the dialect from your hometown like?"

"I can't speak it."

"Ha! Then I'm going to learn this one. That way I can curse you out in words you can't understand~"

"? Your motivation for learning a language is to curse people out?"

"Didn't you know? The first words you learn in a new language are always the curse words. I learned some a couple of nights ago. For example, 'cāo'—"

"Stop!"

With lightning-fast reflexes, Lin Chen clapped a hand over her mouth, forcing back the rest of the word.

"Someone else is here! Don't just start randomly spouting profanities."

After just two minutes, the driver, having finished unloading all the ingredients, called out cautiously.

"Boss~ Should I carry this stuff inside for ya?"

"Ah, sure. I'll help carry things. Follow me."

He hurried forward, grabbed four heavy bags, and led the way. Erica, ever perceptive, helped out by grabbing two bags and following behind.

After they put everything in the kitchen, moved in all the cookware, and parked the truck in the backyard, he patted the driver's shoulder.

"Sir, why don't you go lie down on the sofa for a while? It was a long drive, you must be tired. That sofa is a pull-out, so it can be used as a bed."

"No can do, no can do!"

The middle-aged man waved his hands dismissively, pointing to the backyard. "I'll just rest in the truck for a bit. Don't want to get yer sofa dirty."

The moment he heard that "zhòng" sound, it clicked. Lin Chen finally realized where the accent was from.

Since the man was insistent, Lin Chen didn't press the issue. "Alright then. I'll call you when the food is ready. The bathroom is over there if you need it. You can take a shower, too. It's the guest bathroom, and no one's using it at the moment."

After sending the driver off to rest, he returned to the kitchen and rummaged through one of the bags to find the shopping list.

He had expected a printed supermarket receipt, but it turned out to be a handwritten list.

The handwriting was quite elegant; it definitely wasn't the driver's.

"This must have been bought at a farm," Erica said, pulling a very fresh, plastic-wrapped package of beef from a bag and pointing to the logo on the film.

"The meats are all packaged nicely, but the vegetables were just tossed casually into bags. They definitely weren't bought at a supermarket."

He wasn't particularly concerned about where the ingredients came from; he was more interested in how much was spent.

After all, 345 dollars wasn't a lot for more than twenty people, and beef was a relatively pricey item.

After he had unpacked all the ingredients and checked them against the list, he nodded in satisfaction.

"I don't see any specific prices, but judging by the quantity, it should be fine."

There was a ten-kilogram bag of Northeast rice and a ten-kilogram bag of flour, plus a pile of basic ingredients like scallions, ginger, garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, and eggplant—all the cheapest varieties.

The meats were also cheaper cuts from the Canadian market, but they were common and popular ingredients for Da Xia People: things like pig's feet, pork hock, pork belly, pig's tail, beef rump, and beef tendon.

Since this was the first shopping trip and included staples, less of the budget was spent on other ingredients, so there was nothing particularly fancy.

Gazing at these utterly ordinary ingredients, Erica's eyes filled with curiosity.

"What are you planning to make?"