The Miserable Shop Manager

"Huh?" Ye Shuang also froze for a moment, suddenly feeling that this girl wearing a hat looked familiar. Even with a mask, she was not difficult to recognize at all.

"An Shiyu?"

"You've got the wrong person. I am the chief noodle-pulling master at this Old Yang Hotpot restaurant, with a practice duration of two and a half years." An Shiyu said, even tossing the noodles in her hand.

Ye Shuang: "..."

Your professions are truly diverse, always appearing in all sorts of strange places.

"An Shiyu, you can pull noodles too?" Tang Keke also hadn't expected to run into An Shiyu here, but once she thought it was An Shiyu, everything made sense again.

Any strange occurrence, as long as it involved An Shiyu, suddenly didn't feel so out of place.

"I'm the most skilled in our shop," An Shiyu said.

"Wow." Tang Keke was a bit surprised. "Please begin your performance."

An Shiyu then began her demonstration.

She first swung the noodles, the thick noodles visibly becoming thinner and longer. Then, An Shiyu performed a helicopter-like swirling motion with them. "This is... Crow Takes Flight."

"Oooh, oooh." Tang Keke, Bai Yuyou, and the others couldn't help but applaud.

Then, the girl began spinning in place, the noodles whirling along with her movements, smooth and graceful.

"Oh, oh, oh!"

The next second, An Shiyu started jumping rope with the noodle.

Tang Keke: "Oh oh oh... Hey, is it still edible?"

Though it didn't seem to touch her shoes or the floor.

"And then, this is Ten Thousand Arrows Firing as One, Taking a Dog's Head from a Thousand Miles Away." An Shiyu began whipping and shaking the noodle. But just then, an accident happened—the noodle suddenly snapped, and the end flew off and hit Tang Keke on the head, even knocking her hat off!

"Eeek?!" Tang Keke touched the flour mark on her cheek.

"Aren't you the most skilled in the shop?" Tang Keke immediately asked.

Hearing this, An Shiyu slowly averted her gaze. "Well, since I'm the only one performing in the shop, of course I'm the most skilled one."

Tang Keke: "..."

"No problem, I have more noodles." An Shiyu said, pulling out another one.

"Your performance is great, but maybe just don't perform anymore." Tang Keke was scared.

"No." An Shiyu said righteously, "You are insulting my artisan spirit."

"I'm the customer here, hello!"

In the end, An Shiyu reluctantly pulled a noodle and put it into the pot. It wasn't that she was being obedient; it was because the few more she tried to swing afterwards all broke, and with pinpoint accuracy, hit Tang Keke's face and backpack.

"Quite a waste of noodles," Ye Shuang couldn't help but sigh. He was the type who disliked wasting food.

"It's fine. The boss has a dog at home; it can eat them." An Shiyu gathered up the broken noodles, then waved a hand. "Gotta bounce."

"Why not eat with us?" Ye Shuang suddenly called out to stop An Shiyu.

"Got work." An Shiyu sighed. "Not like you guys, able to sit and eat together on holidays. I can only work multiple jobs to help out at home. Later, I'll even have to eat from the slop bucket for the staff meal."

Life isn't easy, Yu Yu performs for money.

The shop manager who happened to be passing by: "?"

Wait, do we treat you that poorly in this shop?

An Shiyu then went to perform for other customers. Watching from afar, Ye Shuang noticed her failure rate was almost 100%; every single noodle ended up smacking a customer in the face.

A 100% noodle-to-face rate...

What kind of strange passive skill is that?

But after the customers saw An Shiyu take off her mask and apologize with a pitiful, charming look, they quickly forgave her.

This counts as getting by on cuteness, right?

Ye Shuang even started suspecting if An Shiyu was doing it on purpose.

"Alright, let's start eating first." At that moment, the server also brought up the ingredients, mostly common items like lamb slices, beef slices, shrimp paste, and the like, and the portions were huge.

"So much... we should be able to finish it, right?" Taozi looked at the plate after plate of ingredients and couldn't help but stare for a few seconds.

But thinking of Bai Yuyou's combat power, it didn't seem like a problem?

After all, Taozi often ate with Bai Yuyou at the academy. Bai Yuyou ate mountains of rice every day and never seemed full.

Ye Shuang put ingredients into the tomato broth pot and then served some for everyone. Taozi said they could help themselves and that Ye Shuang was being too polite.

"Oh oh oh, so spicy, so spicy." Tang Keke was eating meat slices from the spicy pot and soon started feeling hot, despite the air conditioning in the shop.

The girl unzipped her down jacket, and her fluffy slime almost bounced out. This scene instantly stunned the few petite girls sitting across from them.

"So impressive."

"Big city girls have good nutrition?"

"Shh, that older sister earlier didn't."

In the distance, An Shiyu, who was swinging noodles, suddenly sneezed without warning, sending a noodle flying onto a bald uncle's head.

Bald Uncle: "..."

"This hairstyle really suits you." An Shiyu looked at the uncle's noodle-hair and couldn't help but give a thumbs up.

Bald Uncle: "..."

In the end, unsurprisingly, the shop manager came over to apologize.

"That manager has it tough too." Watching from afar, Ye Shuang couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth.

After lunch was over, Ye Shuang got up to pay the bill.

Taozi jogged over. "Brother Ye, this meal is on me."

"Huh? No need, how could I let you pay?" Ye Shuang smiled.

"There are more of us."

"It's just one more person. How much can you kids eat?" Ye Shuang shook his head. Besides, Bai Yuyou ate most of it, piling up a small mountain of plates.

"If you argue with me about this, I'm going to get angry."

"But..." Taozi lowered her head.

"Didn't we agree last time to find a time to visit your home? Next time, just cook us a delicious meal from your hometown." Ye Shuang suggested.

Hearing this, Taozi's eyes lit up. "Okay."

"That's settled then."

As he spoke, Ye Shuang also took out his phone and scanned the QR code to pay.

After tidying up a bit, the group left the shop. However, they saw An Shiyu standing at the entrance holding a signboard, now changed into a server's uniform.

"Aren't you pulling noodles?" Seeing An Shiyu handing out flyers at the door, Ye Shuang asked.

"The manager said I'm not cut out for that line of work." An Shiyu spread her hands. "And told me not to come back after today."

Ye Shuang: "..."

That's understandable. He had seen the manager apologizing several times earlier.

"So mean. He even said I'm useless except for being cute." An Shiyu crossed her arms. "He actually yelled at me. Maybe I should just raise the rent for this shop."

"What rent?"

“Oh, nothing. It's just that this whole commercial plaza belongs to my family,” An Shiyu said with her big eyes.

Ye Shuang fell silent.

That manager is so unlucky, just minding his own business and now facing a rent hike from you.