Chapter 270 - 1144: Fat Year

Chapter 270: Chapter 1144: Fat Year

"..." Dong Tianrui had half a bag of Morchella thrust upon him, an awkward, speechless smile spreading across his face.

The main reason he didn’t want to take it was that he never quite understood the complex social rituals of adults. Whenever Zhao Xinyan brought something to their house, his mom would frantically try to give it back. Then, after a bit of a struggle, she would just end up accepting it again.

And if he was the one who accepted the gift, she would lecture him about accepting things so carelessly.

The whole ordeal left Dong Tianrui speechless.

’Can’t they just be more straightforward?’

Sure enough, when he got home with the delivery and the bag of Morchella...

"Tianrui, what did you buy? Wasting money again," his mom, Li Yinghong, blurted out the moment she saw the package in his hand.

"Clothes! Don’t I need new clothes for the New Year?" Dong Tianrui handed the bag of Morchella to his mom. "Sister Zhao just dropped these off. Some friends invited me out, so I won’t be home for dinner tonight."

The words were barely out of his mouth before Dong Tianrui tossed the package with his new clothes onto the sofa, then beat a hasty retreat out the door, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

"That boy. What’s the big rush?" Li Yinghong then noticed the Morchella in her hand. ’Honestly, that boy... accepting such an expensive gift so casually. Ai! Xinyan is just too generous. I’d better take it back to her!’

A little while later, she was knocking on Zhao Xinyan’s door.

When Zhao Xinyan saw it was Li Yinghong, and the Morchella in her hands, she knew exactly why she had come. "Sister Hong," she said quickly, "those were a freebie from an online order. The shop sent me two whole pounds of them! This stuff is best eaten fresh, and with only four of us in the family, we can’t possibly finish two pounds at once. Just take them! Don’t be so formal with me."

"Xinyan, don’t try to fool me. I shop online all the time too. I just looked it up—fresh Morchella costs over two hundred yuan a pound. What kind of shop is that generous?" Li Yinghong didn’t believe her for a second. She was convinced Zhao Xinyan was just making it up so she would accept the bag of Morchella.

"Haha..." With a helpless sigh, Zhao Xinyan took out her phone. "Sister Hong, see for yourself. Wasn’t it a free gift?"

After looking for a moment, Li Yinghong was finally convinced. Then, a touch of opportunism sparked within her. "Xinyan, is the store still giving them away?"

Zhao Xinyan shook her head. "Sister Hong, the promotion is only for returning customers. Since you’ve never bought from them before, you’ve definitely missed it for this year. Maybe you can try again next year."

"It’s called the Hailufeng Specialty Store, right? I’ll go follow them in a bit."

"Yep, that’s the one."

Li Yinghong looked down at the bag of Morchella in her hands again. She’d never cooked this kind of mushroom before and had no idea how to make it delicious, so she asked, "Xinyan, what’s the best way to prepare this Morchella?"

"I’ve never had it either. Let me check on Xiaohongshu."

The two of them snacked on sunflower seeds while scrolling through Xiaohongshu.

"Morchella and chicken soup sounds like it would be delicious..."

"Speaking of chicken soup, my brother brought me two black-boned chickens from back home. I’ll give you one in a bit."

"Sister Hong, you don’t have to do that."

"Don’t be shy. Besides, Tianrui and Yingying don’t like black-boned chicken anyway..."

Before they knew it, they had been chatting for over an hour.

Zhao Xinyan’s husband came through the front door, carrying several bags. "Oh, Sister Hong! Happy New Year! Why are you being so formal? Did you bring us Morchella?"

"Dingxin, you’ve misunderstood. Xinyan gave these to me," Li Yinghong explained with a laugh.

"Oh... so that’s how it is!" A flash of embarrassment crossed Dong Dingxin’s face. He put the bags on the coffee table and started unpacking them. "The company let out for the New Year holiday today, so I went and bought a few things. Everything’s gotten so expensive this year, although at least pork, fish, and shrimp haven’t gone up too much."

"What did you get?" Li Yinghong asked, peeking curiously into the bags.

Dong Dingxin grabbed a bottle of Fanta, twisted it open, and took a swig. "Just some New Year’s snacks. Macadamia nuts, pine nuts from Brazil, sunflower seeds, almonds, Pistachios, chocolates, and candy. This stuff all got a lot more expensive this year."

"I’ll let you two talk. I don’t want to be a third wheel."

Li Yinghong quickly grabbed her Morchella and headed home, ready to get the black-boned chicken from her fridge to bring over to Zhao Xinyan.

"Take care, Sister Hong." Rummaging through the bags, Zhao Xinyan spotted several pouches of kabayaki eel and asked in surprise, "Why did you buy eel?"

"Oh, this?" he said. "My colleague, Xiaoli, recommended it. He said a lot of Japanese restaurants just use this pre-cooked stuff for their kabayaki eel. Remember how you ordered eel rice for takeout a few times and complained there was barely any eel?"

"How much was one of these packs?" Zhao Xinyan asked.

"It was 499 yuan for five packs."

Seeing that each pack had a net weight of 1.2 kilograms, Zhao Xinyan didn’t think it was too expensive.

Besides, she thought, ordering takeout during the New Year was too expensive, cooking from scratch was a hassle, and eating out wasn’t worth the cost. Using this pre-cooked kabayaki eel to get through a few meals seemed like a much better option.

As domestic eel production had been steadily increasing all year, the price of these pre-prepared, ready-to-cook kabayaki eel products had been on a steady decline.

This was especially true after Hailufeng Company introduced its new feed formula, which shortened the eel farming cycle to about seven months and further cut down on costs.

Currently, the wholesale price for pre-cooked kabayaki eel had dropped to around 70 to 80 yuan per kilogram, with the retail price hovering between 80 and 90 yuan per kilogram.

Suddenly, Zhao Xinyan noticed that the kabayaki eel was also produced by Hailufeng Company. "Honey, this eel is from Hailufeng Company too! They’re the ones who sent me that bag of Morchella today!"

"They sent you Morchella? The ones you just gave to Sister Hong? That company gave away that much?" Dong Dingxin was astonished.