I Have a Countryside Gourmet Restaurant

Chapter 246: Chapter 242: I’ll Come Help You Clear the Land

After that, Chen Wen continued eating his noodles.

Li You, Ye Shengge, and Ling Xiaoru also started eating their fermented rice with poached eggs.

After they slowly finished their meal, Li You went back to the kitchen to put the braised dishes in the pot.

Then, he got ready to go to the wild fruit orchard to continue clearing the land.

He had another full day of work ahead of him.

Chen Wen hadn’t left yet. He originally planned to return to the provincial capital after breakfast.

But now, he had changed his mind.

He wanted to stay for two more meals to try all the dishes he hadn’t eaten yet: spicy crawfish, twice-cooked pork, stir-fried shredded potatoes, braised chicken, and so on.

He would spend one more night in Wenxian Town and head back tomorrow.

Seeing Li You bring out tools like a hand hammer, chisel, sickle, hoe, and gloves from the restaurant, he couldn’t help but ask in confusion, ”Owner Li You, what are you about to do?”

Li You smiled. ”Clearing land.”

He then explained his plan to create a wild fruit orchard.

Chen Wen found this novel and quite interesting.

A restaurant that had a vegetable garden and a Hundred Fruit Garden was now going to build a wild fruit orchard. His Jincheng Hotel didn’t have any of these ”gardens.”

It seemed that opening a restaurant out in the mountains had its own unique, significant advantages.

A wild fruit orchard would surely be incredibly appealing to guests from the city, adults and children alike.

Chen Wen was very interested in the wild fruit orchard. He said, ”Owner Li You, I don’t have anything else to do right now anyway. How about I help you clear the land? What do you think?”

Li You was very surprised. ”Master Chen, aren’t you in a hurry to get back to the provincial capital?”

Chen Wen replied, ”No rush. I’ll go back tomorrow. For today, I want to enjoy a couple more good meals at your restaurant.”

Li You smiled faintly. ”Even so, Master Chen, you should just rest or go see the beautiful scenery at Jiulong Gorge. There’s no need for you to help me clear land.”

Li You felt a little awkward about letting Chen Wen help.

Chen Wen said, ”Compared to resting and sightseeing, I’m most interested in your wild fruit orchard right now, Owner Li You.”

”Is that so!” Li You nodded. ”Then I’ll have to trouble you, Master Chen.”

Since Chen Wen was genuinely offering to help, Li You no longer refused.

Chen Wen was very happy and smiled. ”Then let’s go. I’ll grab some tools.”

Li You nodded and said again, ”Thank you for your trouble, Master Chen.”

After that, the two men picked up their tools and, with Li You leading the way, headed toward the wild fruit orchard.

Ye Shengge and Ling Xiaoru followed them.

Chen Wen asked, puzzled, ”Miss Ye, Miss Ling, are you two also going to help clear the land?”

”That’s right! We already worked on it all day yesterday,” said Ye Shengge.

Chen Wen was surprised yet again. He truly hadn’t expected two young women with such delicate, flawless skin to be helping clear land.

Even with gloves, it was still easy to injure your hands doing this kind of work.

Especially with soft, tender hands.

But the two young women clearly didn’t mind.

’Owner Li You is really something else!’

Chen Wen was once again filled with admiration.

As he was thinking this, the group of four arrived at the wild fruit orchard.

By now, the rough outline of the orchard had taken shape.

Chen Wen asked, ”This must be about half a mu, right? Owner Li You’s restaurant has it good. If you want half a mu of land for a wild fruit orchard, you just clear it yourself. You can even expand it whenever you want in the future. In the city, that’s something you couldn’t even dream of.”

Li You smiled. ”We’re far from the hustle and bustle of the city, so we miss out on countless walk-in customers. We have to have some advantages, don’t we?”

Chen Wen said, ”For a restaurant like yours, Owner Li You, walk-in customers don’t even matter. Even without a single one, this place would still be packed.”

Li You waved his hand. ”We haven’t reached that level yet.”

Chen Wen replied, ”You definitely will soon.”

Li You smiled. ”I hope so.”

The two men started working as they chatted.

Ye Shengge and Ling Xiaoru had also already begun their work.

”By the way, Owner Li You, what kinds of wild fruits will you have in this orchard in the future?” Chen Wen asked.

Li You said, ”I don’t have a plan for that yet. We’ll see in the future. As long as it’s a wild fruit, any kind will do. Ficus tikoua, physalis, wild raspberries, melastoma, cowberry, elaeagnus, kadsura, August Bomb, stauntonia, roxburgh rose, Japanese raisin tree, Solanum nigrum... and so on.”

Chen Wen said, ”I’ve never even heard of many of those you just mentioned.”

Li You smiled. ”You may not have heard the names, but you’d probably recognize most of them if you saw the fruit. Wild fruits have too many names; they often change from place to place.”

Chen Wen nodded. ”That’s possible. I do know a fair bit about wild fruits.”

After a while, Chen Wen discovered the patch of Ficus tikoua and exclaimed in pleasant surprise, ”Owner Li You, there’s a lot of ’ground pomegranate’ over here!”

Li You smiled. ”That’s the Ficus tikoua I was just talking about. That’s what we call it around here. We found it yesterday. It was already growing here, so we decided to keep it. You could say it’s the first wild fruit in our orchard.”

Chen Wen said, ”So the names really are different. This should be about the right season to eat them, right? Let me see if there’s any fruit.”

Saying that, Chen Wen crouched down and parted the Ficus tikoua vines with his hands. Soon, he was pleasantly surprised again. ”There are so many! But it looks like they aren’t ripe yet.”

Li You said, ”They need a little more time. They should start ripening in about another 20 days or so.”

Chen Wen said, ”That sounds about right. This fruit has an excellent texture. It’s one of the best-textured wild fruits.”

Li You nodded. ”It certainly is.”

The two of them continued to chat about wild fruits. Time slowly passed, and soon it was 11:30 AM.

Customers started arriving for lunch.

So, it was time to wrap up and take a break.

On the way back to the restaurant, Li You said to Chen Wen, ”Master Chen, let’s all have lunch together today, my treat. Just tell me what you’d like to eat.”

Chen Wen quickly refused, saying he didn’t help clear the land just to get a free meal.

Li You said that of course he knew Chen Wen wasn’t trying to scrounge a meal, but treating him was a gesture of his gratitude. How could he let someone help with work, without pay, and not even treat them to a meal?

Seeing that Li You was sincere in his offer, Chen Wen stopped refusing and said with a smile, ”In that case, thank you very much, Owner Li You. I’d like to have the spicy crawfish and the twice-cooked pork with garlic sprouts.”

He would try two more new dishes for lunch today.

Li You nodded. ”No problem.”

By this time, they had reached the restaurant entrance. Li You told Chen Wen, Ye Shengge, and Ling Xiaoru to get some rest, while he went into the kitchen to start cooking for the customers.

Ye Shengge and Ling Xiaoru went upstairs to rest, while Chen Wen went into the Hundred Fruit Garden.

He wanted to use this time to take a good look at the Hundred Fruit Garden.

The more he looked, the more envious he became.

’How wonderful would it be if our Jincheng Hotel could also have a Hundred Fruit Garden like this, along with a wild fruit orchard and a vegetable garden?’

Unfortunately, that was unrealistic.

It seemed even a five-star hotel in the city had reasons to be envious of a restaurant in the mountains.

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