Unparalleled Double Harmony

Chapter 532: Clown War (Part )

"Borrow, borrow, borrow!"

In the bustling venue, a sturdy man walked through the crowd carrying a steaming pot for the umpteenth time.

His loud shouting and the aroma of the food in the pot easily attracted the attention of everyone along the way.

Soon, dozens of people were attracted to a snack stand by his actions.

This snack stand was naturally also set up by the circus, and the person in charge of "carrying the pot and directing the flow" was the British chef in the troupe.

Since this guy didn't need to take part in the performance and the troupe's security staff was well-off and didn't need another one, Sun Huang came up with another idea - let this English guy lead a team of idle people in the troupe to do some "side jobs" before the performance.

In a nutshell, what this "snack stand" sells is "fried pre-prepared dishes."

Some of you readers may have eaten similar things when you were young... There were many similar stalls on the roadside near primary and secondary schools. The stall owner was usually alone, pushing a small cart with a gas tank on the cart and an oil pan on the tank. The oil in the pan was always full, as if it would never run out, and no matter what was fried or how long it was fried, the oil would never be replaced.

Then depending on the region, the fried things on these stalls are also somewhat different. Generally speaking, small skewers of meat of unknown origin are standard, and there are also fried dumplings, squid tentacles, rice cakes, crispy chicken, etc. I have even seen "fried wonton skins", which are simply a rectangular flour skin for wrapping wontons, which are put on wooden sticks and fried, and they still sell well.

In the final analysis, as long as you put enough chili powder, cumin powder, sweet bean sauce, sweet and spicy sauce and other heavy-flavored condiments on the side that can be sprinkled or spread, then you can fry anything and after it is fried... customers can wrap the food with the condiments while it is still hot and it will taste delicious.

If you carry a schoolbag and eat with a few classmates while standing or squatting on the curb, the taste will be even better.

At the moment, this stall in the circus is also following this route; unlike most fried dishes in Europe at the time, which were "fried sweet dough (French beignets, Dutch oil balls, British fried pastries, etc., mostly fried dough with processed fruits to make desserts)", Sun Huang's fried food was more savory and fragrant.

As for why it is a "prepared dish" instead of just frying the simple ingredients as mentioned above... it is mainly because at that time chili and pepper were expensive and scarce high-end condiments in the local area. You might not be able to buy them even if you had money, so it was impossible to coat them with spices after frying. Sun Huang could only use other methods to increase the flavor during the processing.

Although this method is more troublesome and the effect may not be as good as the former, it is novel and delicious enough for the local people, and it also provides a new marketing method... that is, deliberately let the chef move pots of fragrant semi-finished pre-prepared dishes from the backstage to the stall, and move one pot after another after selling them... In this venue filled with the stench of sweat and horse manure, every time he moves something, it is like fishing and attracting a large group of new customers.

At the end of the night, the revenue from this stall almost caught up with the box office revenue of the show, and Coman, who was hiding backstage to do the accounting, had almost doubled his workload.

By the way, I have to mention here that although Coman is a "country bumpkin lord" who seldom leaves his territory, he did move around in high society in his early years. So after coming to such a larger town, in order to be prepared for the possibility of being recognized by a local noble, he seldom goes out to see people; if he has to... then he has to disguise himself a little and use the fake name "Code".

Fortunately, generally no one would insist on seeing him. After all, there were so many people in this circus, so it wasn't difficult to get in.

Furthermore, judging from the current situation, Coman has no time to show up in public. Just settling the accounts is enough to keep him busy.

But as luck would have it, today he didn't go out to meet others, but others came to disturb him...

hiss--

As the curtain beside him was drawn open, the "small office" where Coman was located was revealed.

He impatiently stopped writing and turned to stare at the man who opened the curtain: "What are you doing?"

The person was also stunned by his question.

"Uh... I..." At this moment, Dumitru, who had already dressed up as a clown and sneaked into the backstage, just wanted to find an empty corner to hide for a while, and then secretly observe the situation backstage from this corner.

But he didn't expect that there was already someone in this corner, which he thought was very nice and half-hidden by a curtain.

Dumitru was startled by Coman's unexpected appearance, but he quickly came up with a clever idea and said, "...I...I'm looking for something."

"What?" Coman asked again.

Dumitru knew that he had to answer the second question quickly, at least faster than the first question, otherwise it would be more suspicious than saying nothing: "I... I want to find a... uh... spring... spring fist."

"Are you a stutterer?" Coman asked suspiciously.

"Yes... yes..." Dumitru thought about it and thought that he could use this opportunity to back off. This would explain why he was so hesitant in speaking every word. Secondly, he could pretend to stutter and buy time when he was asked a difficult question in the future. "...I...I get anxious...then...then..."

"Okay, okay..." Coman was too lazy to wait for him to squeeze the toothpaste. He turned sideways, opened a box, rummaged around for a while, and took out a "spring fist" and handed it to the other party, "Here it is, take it."

Coincidentally, the corner where Coman was now was where all sorts of miscellaneous props that were not usually used were piled up... The "stool" he sat on and the "table" he used to pad paper were all prop boxes of different sizes, so it made sense for Dumitru to say that he was here to look for something.

"Thank...thank you..." Dumitru was still pretending to stutter as he took the prop.

But Coman ignored him. He just turned around slightly, reached out to pull the curtain back shut, and went back to his work.

Seeing that nothing was wrong, Dumitru heaved a sigh of relief and ran away with the prop he had made up but actually existed.

"Eh? There's a new clown in the group?" Several minutes after he left, Coman was turning pages in his account book when he belatedly remembered - aren't there only two clowns, Sun and Huang, in our group?
But he did not think about "impersonation and infiltration" afterwards. After all, there were still a lot of people in the circus, and he was not familiar with all of them. In addition, the props that the other party asked him for just now did exist, so he naturally thought that there would be a few more clowns in today's performance, and then continued to keep accounts.

on the other hand……

"Hey! Didn't I tell you to find a place to hide first..." Dan, who was looking around, happened to see Dumitru's wandering back. He immediately stepped forward, patted the other's shoulder, and questioned him in a low voice and stern tone.

But unexpectedly, when the clown who was patted on the shoulder turned around, Dan realized... he had recognized the wrong person.

The person he photographed was not Dumitru, but "The Trickster Sip", the older brother of the Popescu brothers, who happened to be wearing almost the same clothes and the same clown wig as Dumitru.

So, realizing that he had recognized the wrong person, Dan quickly held back the second half of his sentence, fearing that the other party would hear something.

As for Sip, he felt very nervous. When he turned around and saw another clown patting his shoulder, he naturally thought that the other person was from the circus and had mistaken him for the other person.

"Ah... Sorry, I can't find a suitable place for the moment." Xipu's first reaction was to say what the other person said.

"Is that so? Well... I can't blame you. Just keep looking for it. I won't push you any further." Dan thought that the other party mistook him for someone else, so he quickly said a few polite words to him, trying to get away.

"Okay, I'll go take another look." Xipu had a similar mentality, so after the two of them said these two sentences, they quickly dispersed in two directions.

Dan let out a sigh of relief, turned around and walked a short distance before he saw another clown. This time he clearly recognized the other person as Dumitru from the front, and then he stepped forward and said, "Hey! It's me. You don't know how dangerous it was just now. I met a clown who looked almost like you from behind... Eh? What is this?"

"Spring fist." Dumitru replied.

"Hmm..." Dan was confused now. "I understand that you want to steal something, but why did you choose this thing?"

"I..." Dumitru felt that it was troublesome and embarrassing to explain this, so he simply replied, "I was thinking... in case I need to perform a show on stage, I would like to have a prop with me."

"Why are you going on stage? We sneaked in, and you're not on the program. What are you thinking?" Dan said, and walked behind the other person, "Okay, okay, don't move..."

"Ah? What?" When Dumitru asked this question, he felt an itchy feeling on his back, as if Dan was gently scratching his clothes with something on his back.

"Something that happened just now reminded me that we'd better make a mark on the back of our clothes that only we know, to prevent accidentally recognizing the wrong person..." When Dan finished speaking, he had already drawn a palm-sized cross on the back of the other person's clothes, near the heart.

What he said made sense. At that time, indoor lighting mainly relied on candles and oil lamps, which were certainly much less bright than modern electric lights. The backstage was chaotic, and the clowns' costumes and makeup were similar. Without knowing how many clowns there were in the circus, it was easy to mistake someone for someone else.

So Dan picked up a piece of charcoal from the ground and made a mark on Dumitru's back.

After finishing the drawing, Dan asked Dumitru to draw a cross on his back as well, so that they could know they were on the same side even if they saw each other's backs.

Meanwhile, at the snack stand.

"Hey! What are you doing?" After walking around and failing to lock on his target, Xipu met his brother again in the outfield.

You can probably guess from the place where they met... Ion was squatting there eating skewers.

"Brother, these fried skewers taste really good, would you like to try some too?" Although Ion had a very stern face and fierce eyes, in fact, he only looked brave and resourceful... In essence, he was just a reckless man with low intelligence, and could even be said to be a little mentally retarded.

"You kid... I asked you to search with me separately, but you just started eating... um..." Xipu had just started to lecture him when Ion raised his hand and stuffed a string of meat into his mouth, "Hmm? Tsk... This is really good..."

"Haha... Brother, don't be in a hurry. We still have a while before we leave. Let's fill our stomachs first." Ion said while sucking his greasy fingers.

"Hmm..." Xipu ate a few bites of fried skewers, and his mood improved a little. His tone also softened. "Well, anyway, I looked around backstage and couldn't lock the target. I only encountered a clown that didn't fit the description (one had no eyes and the other had no neck)... Oh, by the way, this incident reminds me..."

As he spoke, he bent down and picked up a piece of charcoal slag from the ground...