Divorced and Determined: The CEO's Ex-Wife Fights for Love-Chapter 213

Chapter 213

In Jiangcheng, between districts, a commercial food street project worth over 200 million yuan finally landed in the An’nan District. The news quickly spread. Nie Guoqiang’s smile almost reached his ears. This was absolutely a counterattack, but An’nan District didn’t really put in much effort. It was all due to luck.

The key person, Boss Lu, was from An’nan District. Since the investors were specifically attracted to Lu Qin’s snack stall, the outcome was already decided.

Nie Guoqiang even called the leaders of Lianhua District, offering polite greetings while secretly mocking them. The people over at Lianhua District almost slammed the phone down, angrily cursing Nie Guoqiang for having incredible luck.

It was Lianhua District’s fault for not having a popular stall like Lu Qin’s that could attract those investors from Kyoto. Otherwise, An’nan District wouldn’t have had a chance!

After inviting Lu Qin and Shen Muyan for dinner, Nie Guoqiang went on to contact those investors from Kyoto. But they were all standing in line at Lu Qin’s snack stall, buying snacks. Before heading out for the afternoon shift, Lu Qin installed the electronic menu display screen on the top right corner of his snack cart. A 21-inch large screen, visible to all customers unless they had poor eyesight.

Today’s menu featured garlic pork, boiled fish fillets, and Kung Pao chicken. Prices were 36 yuan, 28 yuan, and 30 yuan, with meat portions ranging from 150g to 250g. There were also some pastries—ice crystal cake, crystal shrimp dumplings, and Bo Si oil cakes.

Additionally, there were cold mung bean soup, osmanthus oolong milk tea, pickled vegetables, and spicy chicken feet. Three Lock-Fresh Thermoboxes, five foam insulation boxes, and eight regular plastic storage boxes were packed full with ingredients.

Lu Qin thought Xiaomi might struggle to carry the heavy items, but her small arms managed to lift the heaviest medium-sized Lock-Fresh Thermobox with ease.

At 140L capacity, when filled with food, it weighed around 80-90 kg, yet Xiaomi moved it onto the cart without breaking a sweat. At 3:30 pm, with the sun getting stronger, Lu Qin took a break and went to buy an ice cream machine—a fully automatic, 12L capacity machine.

When he bought the snack cart, it originally had an ice cream machine, but it was small and couldn’t handle the volume of customers at Lu Qin’s stall.

Now, the machine Lu Qin bought had dual compressors, a 304 food-grade stainless steel interior, professional expansion technology, one-button cleaning, quick setting, and 12 levels of hardness adjustment. It was well equipped.

Lu Qin got it through Boss Zhao from a dinnerware shop for 3,300 yuan, which was a great price for such value. Lu Qin had max-level ice cream-making skills, and from his unrivaled experience, he knew that the best-tasting ice cream must be made by hand, 100%. But this wasn’t practical for street vending, so he had to rely on the machine.

Nevertheless, the proportions of ingredients were key. Lu Qin could make ice cream that was far tastier than anything on the market. Even the more expensive Haagen-Dazs was like a little brother compared to this.

Global top-tier ice cream brands like Italy’s LaPerlaGelato, Sweden’s Mövenpick, and Japan’s Sake Brewery Ice Cream couldn’t compare either.

After buying the ice cream machine, Lu Qin also bought ingredients—red beans, mugwort, glutinous rice flour, cream, fermented rice, mint, watermelon, yam, platycodon, and even medicinal herbs.

Lu Qin’s ice cream wasn’t conventional, it was a new type of Chinese-style ice cream, incorporating traditional Chinese medicinal herbs to reduce the coldness of the ice cream and ease the strain on the stomach.

Over an hour later, Lu Qin brought in the ice cream machine. When customers saw it, their eyes immediately lit up.

“Boss Lu, is this an ice cream machine? Are you going to make ice cream?”

“The afternoon heat kicked in, and Boss Lu went right to get an ice cream machine, awww, so thoughtful!”

“Moved! I’ll follow Boss Lu forever!”

“Looking forward to the ice cream, I’m already drooling!”

“Boss Lu is awesome! What flavors are you making? I love avocado!”

The customers also noticed the ingredients Lu Qin had bought, and the bags were bulging. But when the ingredients were taken out, everyone was dumbfounded.

Mint? Glutinous rice flour? Fermented rice?

Yam? Platycodon? Poria cocos?

Is this even for making ice cream?

Amid the confusion, Lu Qin wrote three ice cream flavors on the whiteboard. Red Bean Mugwort, Mint Watermelon, Fragrant Milk Fermented Rice.

Lu Qin smiled and said, “You’ve probably had your fill of Western-style ice cream, with flavors like chocolate, mango, vanilla, and so on. Today, we’re making something different at Lu Qin’s stall—a more Chinese-style ice cream.”

The customers in line immediately reacted.

“Chinese ice cream? That sounds fancy!”

“Red Bean Mugwort? Will it even taste good? Feels like dark cuisine!”

“Platycodon in ice cream? My brain can’t process this!”

“Boss Lu, I think you should just make the common Western flavors. The weird ones might flop.”

“Boss Lu, what if we get a stomach ache from this?”

“I trust Boss Lu, Chinese ice cream will totally outdo Western ice cream!”

Under everyone’s watchful eyes, Lu Qin started making the ice cream.

Grinding, measuring, stirring, whipping, and filtering… Lu Qin’s skilled operation eased the nerves of those customers who were initially skeptical.

“Watching Boss Lu make ice cream looks so professional. I hope it tastes good.”

“Chinese medicine in ice cream… my mouth feels a little bitter.”

“Boss Lu, can I ask why you’re adding Chinese medicine to the ice cream?”

Lu Qin explained, “Some Chinese medicinal ingredients are warming and can counterbalance the coldness of the ice cream, reducing the strain on the stomach.”

“I grind the medicinal herbs into powder, mix them with glutinous rice flour, unsweetened soy milk powder, and other ingredients in specific proportions, replacing the artificial flavoring commonly found in regular ice cream. It’s healthier and tastes better.”

After Lu Qin’s explanation, the customers were shocked.

“Wow, Boss Lu is a true humanitarian! Making ice cream with the intention of reducing the coldness is amazing!”

“Boss Lu’s ice cream has no additives, it’s awesome!”

“But with Chinese medicine, will it really taste good? I hope it’s sweet and not bitter.”

Lu Qin also reminded them.

“Even though the ice cream contains some medicinal herbs, don’t think of it as a health product. It’s just to alleviate some of the coldness that affects the stomach. Eating too much ice cream still isn’t healthy, so please consume in moderation.”

As Lu Qin poured the three ice cream bases into the machine, the customers stared at the machine without blinking. The machine was powerful enough to produce around 500 ice creams an hour. A few minutes later, the ice cream started to take shape.

“I’ll take one red bean mugwort flavor! I’ll try it first!”

“I’ll have a mint watermelon one!”

…

The ice cream cones were specially made, with Lu Qin adding malt syrup instead of white sugar to the egg mixture, and using the highest quality tapioca starch. Through a perfect ratio, the cones made with max-level skills had an excellent texture and taste.

Since time was tight today, Lu Qin didn’t specially buy paper for wrapping the ice cream, so he used the leftover aluminum foil from before.

The foil was cut into 10×10 cm squares, and after wrapping the crispy cone, the machine pressed the ice cream out slowly. Lu Qin looked at it and saw the expansion was perfect, and the shape was fine—everything was working well.

“Here, take it! This is the red bean mugwort one.”