Food: Senior year internship, you take over the university cafeteria

Chapter 47 This is a robbery!

As Su Mingyuan and his wife looked at the steaming hot lunchbox in their daughter's hand, the aroma of rice noodle rolls and spicy sweet rice cakes wafted up. They exchanged a glance and said in unison, "Weiwei, what a coincidence—Mom and Dad are here to queue up."

Shen Jing's eyes lit up as she stared at the lunchbox: "Daughter, what did you buy? It smells so good. The line is so long, Mom and Dad have been waiting for ages and it's still not our turn. How about—we let Mom and Dad try some first?"

Su Weiwei was taken aback, and took a half-step back while protecting the lunchbox: "Mom, this is for my roommate! You guys line up yourselves!"

Su Mingyuan chuckled and stepped forward: "Daughter, your parents have come all this way to see you at school, and you're being so stingy? Besides, Dad's a connoisseur; I can tell this aroma is extraordinary just by smelling it. Come on, let Dad check the quality for you."

"Dad! This is robbery!"

Su Weiwei stomped her foot angrily, watching helplessly as her father, Su Mingyuan, swiftly "confiscated" the still-steaming lunchbox. The action was fluid and smooth, carrying an unquestionable "for your own good" robber's logic.

The moment the lid of the lunchbox was lifted, the aroma of rice noodle rolls, a blend of the fresh scent of rice and seafood, combined with the intensely sweet and spicy fragrance of stir-fried rice cakes, exploded out like an invisible shockwave. Behind them, in the long queue craning their necks and eagerly waiting, a suppressed, rhythmic murmur of swallowing filled the air.

Shen Jing smiled, her eyes crinkling into crescents. She grabbed her daughter's wrist, her grip light but filled with an irresistible affection, and firmly pressed Su Weiwei down on an empty seat on the bench. "My dear girl, Mom and Dad will just try a little bit! Good things should be shared, right? Come on, sit down, don't tire yourself out."

Her movements were astonishingly fast. Before she could finish speaking, her chopsticks had already flashed into the lunchbox, precisely picking up a piece of spicy stir-fried rice cake coated in a bright red sauce. The sauce was just the right thickness, slowly dripping down the soft, chewy edges of the rice cake, creating enticing strands.

"Mmm!" Shen Jing couldn't wait and took a bite. Her teeth sank into the chewy rice cake, first experiencing the perfect sweetness of the outer sauce, with a hint of caramel. Then, a powerful spiciness exploded on her tongue like wildfire, spreading rapidly. The spiciness wasn't a simple burning sensation, but rather a layered, sweet and spicy blend that aggressively assaulted her taste buds, even making her scalp tingle slightly. The rich aroma of rice layered and burst in her mouth with each chew.

"Hiss—ah!" Shen Jing gasped, her eyes widening instantly with disbelief. "Wow! This rice cake—it's amazing! The chewiness! The sauce! The sweet and spicy flavor is just right, it doesn't hurt my throat at all, and the aftertaste is wonderful! It's even better than the dumplings we had at noon! Honey, you have to try it!" She urged him eagerly while sucking in the cold air to relieve the spiciness, as if she had discovered some incredible treasure.

Su Mingyuan could no longer contain himself. He snatched the chopsticks from his wife's hand, his target clear: the translucent, paper-thin rice noodle rolls. With a gentle flick of the chopsticks, the slippery rice noodle skin seemed to come alive, trembling slightly to reveal plump, pink shrimp inside. He carefully picked up a whole piece; the rice noodle skin, almost transparent, wrapped around the bouncy, plump shrimp, trembling precariously, and dipped in a deep, glossy, and fragrant soy sauce.

He popped it into his mouth in one gulp.

With a gentle touch of the teeth, the thin, smooth, and resilient rice noodle skin easily breaks apart, revealing the shrimp inside with amazing elasticity and a burst of sweet freshness that instantly explodes between the teeth. The complex and mellow savory flavor of the soy sauce, like the most exquisite penetrating agent, has already permeated every inch of the rice noodle skin's texture. The unique sweetness of the seafood, like an electric current, shoots straight from the tip of the tongue to the top of the head!

"Mmm—!" Su Mingyuan let out a long, satisfied sigh, as if squeezed from the depths of his soul. Forgetting to speak, he raised his other thumb high and waved it frantically at the girl, his eyes practically overflowing with amazement. He quickly swallowed the incredibly delicious food before opening his mouth, his voice trembling with excitement: "Daughter! Amazing! This rice noodle roll is simply divine! Smooth! Tender! Fresh! Fragrant! The sauce is absolutely the soul of it! Divine skill! I tried something similar at Jin Yu Man Tang before, but compared to this, the freshness was like dishwater!"

The couple instantly transformed into the most tacitly coordinated comrades (or rather, the fiercest rivals) on the culinary battlefield. They jostled and fought, their chopsticks flying across the small space of the food container. Just as Shen Jing picked up a piece of rice cake coated in sauce, Su Mingyuan's chopsticks intercepted it with a sharp "snap," snatching it away mid-way and shoving it triumphantly into his mouth, grimacing from the heat but unwilling to spit it out. Su Mingyuan picked up a glistening piece of rice noodle roll, but Shen Jing, with lightning speed, flicked it away with her chopsticks, securing it firmly, quickly putting it into her mouth, and not forgetting to give her husband a smug "thank you" look.

"Hey! That big piece of rice cake is mine!" Shen Jing feigned anger.

"Tsk, whoever gets it first keeps it! My daughter's food is always the best!" Su Mingyuan mumbled a rebuttal while quickly picking up another rice noodle roll.

The food in the lunchboxes was disappearing at a visible rate, and the irresistible aroma was torture for those waiting in line. A barrage of resentful yet longing gazes pierced the Su family, especially Su Weiwei, who stared dumbfounded at her parents' "performance."

Su Weiwei sat on the bench, watching as the treasures she had painstakingly selected after queuing for almost two hours, which she had carefully chosen to "show off" to her foodie roommates, quickly disappeared into the mouths of her two closest "robbers".

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but in the end she just closed it helplessly, letting out a long, resigned sigh, her shoulders slumping.

Feeling like crying but unable to shed a tear? All she wanted right now was to find a quiet place.

"Dad, Mom," she said softly, with a hint of grievance, "didn't you say you were coming to see me at school? Why does it feel like—this trendy snack is your real child?" She pointed to the nearly empty lunchbox, then to herself.

Su Mingyuan was fighting with his wife for the last piece of rice cake covered in sauce when he heard this. He paused, and a very unnatural expression flashed across his face, a mixture of guilt and embarrassment, as if he had been touched on something. "Ahem!"

"Cough!" He coughed twice, almost choking, and barely managed to swallow the rice cake. He quickly put on his fatherly airs, "Nonsense! Of course we're here to see my precious daughter! This snack—cough cough—isn't it—isn't it just a side thing? Your parents are queuing up here to experience what you young people like! That's called—keeping up with the times! Right, wife?"

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