The sun set to the horizon, casting a red glow across the sky. The slight drop in temperature brought a rare coolness to the city that had been baking under the scorching sun all day.
"Forty-second number on Fumin Street... Damn, so this is Fumin Street..."
Following the navigation map, Lei Ting arrived at this old city street that was both familiar and a bit strange to him.
It was familiar because he had heard of it from the people around him and often mentioned it himself; it was strange because he had never actually entered this street before and had mostly just passed by.
It was said that this place was a village and town on the outskirts of the city thirty or forty years ago. This street was the commercial street of that village and town at that time, the only street that could be considered decent. Therefore, there were small buildings five or six stories high on both sides of the street. And these tall buildings were now at least fifty years old, and there were even several that were over a hundred years old. Later, when the city expanded, the village and town were demolished, but this street was left behind for some unknown reason.
But that didn't mean this was a dilapidated place that no one wanted. On the contrary, the asking price per square meter of the houses here was not much lower than that of those high-end residential areas, and they could even barely meet the threshold.
As for the reason, one important factor was that just two streets away from here was a very famous commercial pedestrian street in Shanglu City. Various well-known major brand merchants that young people were familiar with all had offline physical stores here, and there were large shopping malls one after another, making the daily pedestrian flow reach a terrifying level.
Benefiting from the pedestrian flow of the adjacent commercial pedestrian street and relying on its own "antique charm", this old city street, just two streets away, had also transformed into a well-known tourist street in Shanglu City. It could receive countless tourists every day, and the passenger flow was not much less than that of the adjacent commercial pedestrian street. The prices and rents of the shops on both sides of the street had also skyrocketed to a terrifying level. Even the shop in the deepest and most corner of the street required a monthly rent of at least over a hundred thousand yuan, not including water and electricity fees.
Lei Ting finally had a sudden realization about this famous street in the whole of Shanglu City after he walked here.
As a local who was born and raised in Shanglu, influenced by the elders around him, he generally wouldn't come here for no reason. After all, which local didn't know that in a place like this that specifically served out-of-town tourists, the things inside were extremely expensive. There was nothing interesting to see, there were too many people, and no one would come here to buy things. Did they have too much money?
Therefore, he had always followed the elders' example and called this street the "Old City Street", and he also referred to it as such when talking with the people around him. Anyway, everyone knew which street he was talking about.
It was only today, after following the navigation here, that he learned that the official name of the "Old City Street" was "Fumin Street". No wonder when he saw the name "Fumin Street", he felt a bit familiar but just couldn't remember where he had heard it.
"This is the first time I've gone in and had a look around." Lei Ting put away his phone and squeezed into the dense crowd.
After a long time, in a not very conspicuous corner of the Old City Street, Lei Ting finally found his target.
It was an ordinary home-style restaurant, and its name was also very ordinary, called "Little Xu's Home-style Dishes", just like many husband-and-wife small shops hidden in alleys but with very good food.
When he saw this restaurant, Lei Ting's first reaction was that he had found the wrong place. However, the "Number 42" marked in the lower right corner of the signboard and the "Destination Reached" displayed on his mobile phone map proved that he hadn't made a mistake. This was Number 42, Jianye Road.
There was no other way. With the thought of "Anyway, I haven't had dinner yet, so I might as well solve it here", Lei Ting pushed open the glass door and walked in.
The restaurant wasn't big. The entire dining area was rectangular. On the left side, there were two large round tables with turntables, and on the right side, there were four square tables for four people.
There weren't many customers in the restaurant at this time. There was only a pair of young sisters and a middle-aged man.
The pair of sisters were sitting beside a large round table inside. The elder sister was dressed in a classic black-and-white corporate professional OL outfit. Her long hair was like a waterfall, she was tall, and her temperament was outstanding. Especially her long legs in black silk were the most eye-catching. But there was a hint of tiredness in her eyebrows and eyes, looking like she had just gotten away from busy work.
The younger sister was wearing a middle school student uniform, but it wasn't the traditional conservative outfit of long pants and short sleeves that was common for both boys and girls. Instead, it was a sailor suit mainly in pink and white. With two ponytails tied up and a trace of innocence still on her small face, she was enjoying the delicious food while gently swaying her body, showing the youth and cuteness that a girl of her age should have. [Some unrelated novel titles here: The Rise of a Basketball Legend, The Cultivator Who Walked Out of the Women's Prison, The Little Business Sage of the Great Song Dynasty, Mr. Sheng, Busy Spoiling His Wife Every Day]
The middle-aged man was sitting alone at the position closest to the restaurant door. He was wearing cheap short-sleeved clothes and shorts that you could tell at a glance were bought from a roadside stall. His hair was a bit messy, and there were stubbles on his chin. He was silently scooping a plate of rice with a topping into his mouth spoon by spoon. He didn't even look at his phone, looking completely like a down-and-out person.
Deeper inside the dining area, there was a simple wooden counter that looked quite old. There were blue and green payment codes pasted on it. A young man of similar age to Lei Ting but much more handsome than him was slouching boredly behind the counter, idly scrolling through his phone.
Behind the counter, there was a narrow staircase only wide enough for one person, and there wasn't even a handrail. Just from the sound of the fire and the clatter of pots and spoons coming from above, it was clear that the kitchen was located upstairs.
It was only after hearing the not-so-soft sound of stir-frying that Lei Ting let out a sigh of relief.
"At least the dishes here are freshly cooked, not pre-made dishes." He thought to himself.
As he walked into the restaurant, the young man behind the counter immediately stood up, picked up a menu casually, and greeted him with a professional fake smile. There was a strange glint in his eyes.
Lei Ting sat down at a nearby square table, reached out to take the menu handed to him by the young man, and started flipping through it.
The young man also took out a notebook and a pen, pressed the pen tip out, and prepared to take down the order.
After flipping through a few pages, Lei Ting raised his eyebrows slightly, a bit surprised.
He found that the dishes here not only hadn't increased in price but were even quite cheap. Many dishes were two or three yuan to more than ten yuan cheaper than those in other restaurants he had eaten in before. Besides, this menu was much thicker than he had expected. He had already flipped through more than ten pages, and he still hadn't reached the halfway point.
As a result, there were so many pictures of various dishes on it that Lei Ting was a bit dazzled. Among them, there were not only the local cuisine of Shanglu City but also Sichuan cuisine, Guangdong cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine, and even Inner Mongolia cuisine. It was truly a hodgepodge, making Lei Ting, who already had a bit of a choice difficulty disorder, even more torn.
After all, every dish in the pictures looked very delicious.
The young man beside him seemed to be used to this kind of situation and wasn't in a hurry. He just stood there with a faint fake smile, watching Lei Ting struggle back and forth.
After hesitating for almost five minutes, Lei Ting finally decided to go back to the basics and chose several dishes that he often ordered when going out to a restaurant with his parents.
"Chairman Mao's Braised Pork, and then... Dry Pot Thousand-layer Tofu, and Deep-fried Mushrooms. That's it."
After making his choice, the young man wrote it down and turned to leave. He walked behind the counter and went upstairs. He didn't take back the menu but left it on the table for Lei Ting to continue flipping through.
Upstairs, when the young man reached the second floor, the chubby chef who was in charge of stir-frying had just finished cooking a dish, put it on a plate, and placed it in the nearby simple food delivery elevator.
He wiped the sweat off his face with the towel hanging around his neck and turned his head to say to the young man who had just come upstairs, "He's here, right?"
"Yeah." The young man nodded and showed a genuine smile:
"He even ordered dishes. Come on, Second Brother, let him have a taste of your cooking skills!"
"Okay." The two people who had been watching Lei Ting's "live broadcast" on the tablet just yesterday looked at each other and smiled, seemingly having some plan in mind.