After about another month, Shen Shaoguang finally found a suitable shop. Not far from the ward gate, it had a front shop and back living quarters layout. The small storefront was only about ten square meters and had been a mutton shop. The elderly owner had fallen and injured his leg during rainy weather, and even after recovery couldn’t manage this work anymore. Having no children or grandchildren, he thought to rent out the front shop to earn some living expenses.

Most shops in the ward rented both front and back quarters together. Renting just the storefront wasn’t common, but it happened to suit Shen Shaoguang, who already had a place to live and limited capital—the two parties quickly reached an agreement.

After several potential tenants had rejected it, the old man had given up hope of charging high rent. He charged Shen Shaoguang five hundred copper coins monthly for the small shop. Shen Shaoguang agreed immediately, signed the contract, paid a year’s rent in advance, and began renovating with A-Yuan.

The walls were covered in years of accumulated fly droppings, grease, and even mutton blood stains. The floor was packed earth with various holes and dips, and there were two greasy, moth-eaten broken tables—truly unsightly.

After initial cleaning and throwing out the broken items, Shen Shaoguang hired workers to whitewash the walls, made the effort to travel to suburban brick kilns to buy some imperfect blue bricks for flooring, and ordered custom-made work counters, dining tables, and folding stools from carpenters. She also bought cups, plates, bowls, and chopsticks from the West Market. Renting the shop cost five taels of silver, and all this renovation used another five taels, making Shen Shaoguang’s heart ache at the expense. Well, it’s an investment—it would all be earned back eventually.

Without choosing an auspicious date, Shen’s Food Shop quietly opened for business.

Having advertised by word of mouth while selling pancakes at the ward gate the previous two days, some regular pancake customers found their way there, including that breakfast-buying proxy, Master Liu—who surprisingly brought a small pot of peonies as a congratulatory gift.

“Congratulations on opening your food shop, young lady.” Liu Feng smiled shyly, placing the flower pot on the windowsill.

This went beyond the relationship between a vendor and a regular customer. Just as Shen Shaoguang was about to refuse, Master Liu gave a slight bow and hurriedly left, not even taking the double-egg pancake she’d just made for him.

“Ah—” Shen Shaoguang pressed her lips together, smiled helplessly, and handed the pancake to A-Yuan.

A-Yuan had already eaten three zongzi, one pancake, and a bowl of porridge that morning, but when Shen Shaoguang offered her the pancake, she took it without hesitation and started eating.

“Young lady, could it be that Master Liu has taken a liking to you?” Halfway through eating, A-Yuan suddenly whispered.

Shen Shaoguang quickly glanced outside, but the customer who had bought zongzi earlier had already gone far.

“Don’t say such things carelessly in the future,” Shen Shaoguang admonished. Nothing was more embarrassing than presumption.

A-Yuan thought for a moment. “That’s true—if he were interested, he should send a matchmaker. What kind of gesture is this?”

“…” Shen Shaoguang raised an eyebrow at A-Yuan—that was quite a perspective! Could this little girl be one of those who appeared simple but were quite shrewd?

A-Yuan smiled, “The double-egg is tastier than single-egg.”

Shen Shaoguang smiled, “If we earn more than three thousand copper coins this month, I’ll make you double-egg pancakes every morning.”

But A-Yuan waved her hands, “No need, no need, let’s save money first. Doesn’t the young lady want to buy a house?”

Surprised that the girl had remembered her casual mention of this, Shen Shaoguang patted her arm, “We can afford to feed you properly.”

Having her own space allowed Shen Shaoguang to diversify her food offerings. Mornings were busy, mainly selling pancakes and the previous night’s zongzi and rice cakes, along with fresh soy milk bought from the tofu shop and warmed on a small stove as a ready beverage.

During the day, there was plenty of time to leisurely prepare fillings and make various pointed steamed buns, or seasonal flower cakes.

The pointed steamed buns, known in the palace as “jade-pointed bread,” were just uniquely shaped buns—pointed on top with a bit of filling showing through.

The shop’s pointed buns naturally couldn’t compare with the palace versions, where they made elaborate “bear-consuming” and “deer-storing” styles, and even common ones were shaped like “quail wings” or “crab roe.” Shen Shaoguang made a common food—pork buns.

Though mutton was popular in the current dynasty, Shen Shaoguang was a pork enthusiast, believing it was the most “sweetly rich” meat in the world—and, of course, because it was relatively cheap.

Making ordinary large meat buns wouldn’t satisfy Shen Shaoguang’s perfectionist eating habits, so she decided to make xiaolongbao (small basket soup dumplings).

In the future world, many places in both North and South will make good xiaolongbao, particularly famous in the Huaiyang cuisine. But regardless of origin, the secret to the soup always lay in the meat aspic. When the soup would come out, whether it tasted good depended on the skill in mixing fillings and making dough.

Shen Shaoguang wasn’t a trained chef and had an easy-going personality that didn’t obsess over authenticity. She cared only about taste and followed her preferences. Besides making the most common pure meat filling, worried about it being too rich, she also made versions with bamboo shoots and mountain mushrooms.

She first tasted them with A-Yuan.

When biting one open, the soup immediately flowed out. A-Yuan quickly tried to suck it up, and though Shen Shaoguang hurriedly called out “Be careful,” it was too late—the simple maid had already burned her tongue.

Even burned, A-Yuan didn’t spit out that mouthful of soup, still swallowing it down, leaving Shen Shaoguang helpless.

After eating a basket of each variety, under Shen Shaoguang’s assurance that “there would be plenty more in the future,” A-Yuan reluctantly put down her chopsticks. When Shen Shaoguang asked which was best, A-Yuan blinked her eyes, looking troubled, “How can I compare them?” She had been too busy eating.

Well, just like Zhu Bajie eating the ginseng fruit!

Shen Shaoguang personally preferred the bamboo shoot version, with its subtle bamboo fragrance and less richness, but reality proved her taste was a bit off—the pure meat version sold best.

The soup dumplings looked beautiful too. Though not perfectly folded with eighteen pleats, they were still quite presentable—this was a childhood skill, taught personally by her grandmother from her previous life who had run a bun shop in Tianjin. In terms of appearance, they looked much better than the current popular jade-pointed buns and regular meat buns.

Moreover, the filling was fragrant, and the soup inside was a delightful surprise.

Once Shen Shaoguang’s soup dumplings became popular, at mealtimes they couldn’t steam them fast enough to meet demand. Customers crowded the shop and queued outside, forcing Shen Shaoguang to make numbered waiting tickets from small bamboo strips to prevent disputes over queuing. She hadn’t known there was such high demand for buns in this ward.

Later, hearing customers talk, she learned some came from other wards. Shen Shaoguang felt somewhat dazed—at this rate, could she get rich selling buns and even go public on the New Third Board?

It wasn’t surprising that Shen Shaoguang had such wild dreams. Being pure meat, the soup dumplings were positioned as mid-to-high-end pastries. Each dumpling had about four copper coins net profit, and since they were so small, a normal adult would eat at least one basket of six, making twenty-four copper coins—enough to buy seven or eight flatbreads!