Chapter 118: Pass, Good, Fail, and...

Chapter 118: Chapter 118: Pass, Good, Fail, and...

"Visiting Fast Food Restaurant" certainly lived up to its name as a special documentary jointly produced by the Food Inspection Department and Hai City’s local TV station. The promotional push began the day after filming wrapped, and it aired on the third day at 8 PM sharp on Hai City’s local station, with a runtime of forty minutes.

When the news broke, most of the villagers had gathered at Aunt Hong’s house by 7:50 PM.

Aunt Hong’s 52-inch LCD TV, along with its stand, had been moved out into the courtyard. Rows upon rows of long benches were arranged in front of it.

The villagers sat on the long benches in small groups, clutching handfuls of peanuts or sunflower seeds, snacking and chatting as they waited for the documentary to begin.

Xu An and Granny Xu were given seats right at the front. Second Grandpa sat next to them, holding a thermos of goji berry tea. The two little ones, Xu Kang and Xu Le, were happily playing a game of flicking stones with the other village children under a nearby tree, letting out high-pitched, excited shrieks every now and then.

Originally, everyone had planned to watch at Xu An’s house, but upon arriving, they remembered he had no TV, no internet—nothing. They made a last-minute change of venue to Aunt Hong’s place.

Aunt Hong’s TV was the biggest in the village and also had the highest resolution...

Ten minutes passed in a flash. The Hai City local station’s logo filled the screen, followed by the title leaping into view: "Visiting Fast Food Restaurant."

The documentary had officially begun!

The opening sequence showed recent news reports about food poisoning and expired food incidents. Then, the camera cut to a conference room.

Staff from the Hai City local station sat on the left side of the room, while law enforcement officers from the Food Inspection Department sat on the right. At the head of the table, a director was giving a speech, announcing the formation of the "Visiting Fast Food Restaurant" documentary film crew!

Following that, a veritable sea of fast food restaurant photos flashed across the screen, the pace accelerating until finally, only six photos remained.

One of them was a photo everyone in Xu Family Village knew well—a picture of Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant.

Woohoo! It’s really on! They included Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant!

Everyone in front of the TV cheered. Xu An couldn’t help but clench his fists. ’Whether or not I can make a name for myself in Hai City all comes down to this!’

Unfortunately, Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant was scheduled to be shown last. The first segment was about a place called "Eat Well and Drink Well Fast Food Restaurant."

This restaurant had been in business for eight years. Like Xu An, it had also started as a roadside stall, but it had taken them three years to get their first storefront.

The crew filmed the back-of-house environment, the ingredients, and the cooking process. They interviewed customers inside the restaurant. They filmed the ingredient procurement locations and procedures, and they checked the suppliers’ various credentials...

Each inspection was carried out methodically.

Combined with the sharp editing, the segment created an unspoken sense of pressure. The villagers’ chatter gradually subsided until they all fell silent, their eyes glued to the screen, unwilling to look away for even a second.

Only at the very end, when the word "Pass" appeared on the screen, did everyone let out a collective sigh of relief and resume their cheerful chatter.

A few villagers who had eaten at this restaurant immediately began recounting their experience to their neighbors.

But soon, the segment for the second restaurant began, and the atmosphere grew quiet once more...

The third and fourth restaurants followed. All four passed the inspection, with the third even receiving a "Good" rating.

The fifth restaurant was Yipin Xiang Fast Food Restaurant.

The storefront for Yipin Xiang Fast Food Restaurant looked familiar to Xu An. After a moment’s thought, he realized where he’d seen it. ’Isn’t that the one near Aisha Clothing Company?’

He saw it every day on his way to and from delivering boxed lunches to the Aisha Clothing Company.

He just wondered if the film crew had chosen this specific location to represent the Yipin Xiang chain, or if they had filmed all twelve of its restaurants.

But considering the enormous workload involved in filming twelve separate locations, Xu An figured they had most likely just chosen this one to film.

Recalling the branch manager’s behavior he’d observed during his deliveries, Xu An offered a silent prayer for Ren Peng in his heart.

As the camera moved inside the Yipin Xiang Fast Food Restaurant, the place was packed with customers, all talking and laughing while eating lunch.

The manager was sitting behind the cash register, playing on his phone. He looked completely bewildered when the film crew walked in and it took him a moment to react, put down his phone, and come over to speak with them.

The next second, the scene cut to Yipin Xiang’s kitchen, where some semi-prepared dishes were sitting brazenly on a prep counter, completely uncovered.

The cooks were all wearing chef hats, but not properly, allowing strands of hair to fly about.

The employee dishing out the food was chatting as he worked, and when he got excited, visible droplets of spit flew from his mouth and landed on the meals...

The camera cut again, this time to close-ups of several different pairs of hands. They were all different, yet they had one thing in common: long fingernails with dirt caked underneath.

It was these very hands that were chopping ingredients, adding seasonings, and packing the meals...

Xu An could faintly hear someone in the crowd gag, followed by a continuous stream of disapproving clicks of the tongue. Some parents even started lecturing their children, "Don’t just eat anywhere outside, it’s so dirty..."

As a native of Hai City, Ren Peng, the owner of the Yipin Xiang Fast Food chain, was of course also on his sofa watching the local station.

When the photo of the Yipin Xiang storefront first appeared in the montage, Ren Peng didn’t think much of it. Plenty of restaurant photos had flashed by, so it wasn’t strange that one of his was among them.

He then settled in to watch with great interest. Through the first, second, third, and fourth restaurant segments, he still didn’t sense that anything was amiss.

It wasn’t until the fifth segment began with a lingering shot of a Yipin Xiang storefront that he realized something was wrong.

’One of my own stores was actually chosen for filming?’

’When did the TV station film this? Why didn’t anyone notify me?!’

Ren Peng pulled out his phone to check his messages and call log. He finally found it: a call from three days ago, at 11:07 AM, from the manager of the branch near Aisha Clothing Company.

Thinking back carefully, he recalled what the manager had told him: "Boss, there’s a food safety inspection. They brought a few cameramen with them."

Ren Peng wasn’t worried about a food safety inspection in the slightest. His procurement channels were completely legitimate with all the proper paperwork; there were no issues there.

Besides, with the recent scandals involving food poisoning and expired products, it was perfectly normal for the food inspection department to be more active. That’s why he hadn’t paid it any mind.

But! This wasn’t just a food safety inspection! This was a documentary shoot!

As the footage continued to play, the hand Ren Peng was holding his phone with began to tremble, and he started grinding his teeth.

This branch manager was one of his earliest employees. His personality had always been on the lazy and undisciplined side, but he was competent, so Ren Peng had let it slide.

But he never imagined the manager’s laziness would extend to a complete failure to enforce hygiene standards among the kitchen staff.

If it were just one person, that would be one thing, but the entire kitchen staff was like this. That man was undeniably to blame!

He had to remember, Yipin Xiang Fast Food was a chain with twelve locations! A problem at one branch would affect the business of the other eleven.

Ren Peng could already picture it: tomorrow, business across all twelve of his restaurants would be abysmal...

’No! This guy has to go. He must be fired! Immediately! Right now!’

Ren Peng’s right hand trembled as he dialed the manager’s number. The moment the call connected, he took a deep breath and let out an earth-shattering roar: "You’re fucking fired!"

Watching the footage from Yipin Xiang Fast Food Restaurant, Xu An’s heart filled with anxiety, apprehension, and a deep sense of worry.

The ratings for the first five restaurants had been Pass, Pass, Pass, Good, and Fail, respectively.

Yipin Xiang had just been rated "Fail." So what did that mean for Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant, which was scheduled to air after it?

’Could it be that my restaurant has a problem? A problem even more severe, more disgraceful, than Yipin Xiang’s? Is that why they saved it for last?’

Xu An wasn’t the only one with this fear; most of the villagers from Xu Family Village had also sensed that something was wrong.

Suddenly, everyone stopped cracking sunflower seeds, eating peanuts, and chatting. They all stared at the television with rapt attention.

Even the children playing nearby were affected by the tense atmosphere, their playful noises gradually fading away. The only sounds left in all of Xu Family Village were the rustle of leaves in the wind, the villagers’ own breathing, and the audio from the television.

Amidst the crowd’s mounting anxiety, the image on the screen changed, cutting to a picture of the Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant storefront.

The documentary’s segment on Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant had officially begun.