Training the Heavens

Chapter 45 Crab Feast
Gao Jialin has been living a very comfortable life these days. Since he came to this world, he was busy overthrowing Gao Minglou and Qin Baosheng's gang. After entering university, he had to attend classes, write articles, and prepare activities, and he had no time to enjoy life.

Now that he has come to revise the manuscript, he can finally relax for a few days. The revision suggestions given by the editorial department of "Mengya" are not complicated. Gao Jialin has created many characters with distinct personalities in "Young Friends Come to Meet", which is certainly an advantage, but there are too many supporting roles, which makes the main and secondary roles seem a bit unbalanced, and the image of the protagonist is not prominent enough.

So we just need to reduce the supporting roles' roles, or increase the main characters' roles, to make the proportions a little more balanced.

Gao Jialin chose to add more scenes for the protagonist Sun Shaoping without hesitation. The royalties are calculated based on the number of words. Who wouldn't want to earn more money?
It is not difficult at all to decide what scenes to add to Sun Shaoping's story. The character's personality is already clear. All we need to do next is add a few events to continue to highlight these personality traits.

The editorial department of "Mengya" hoped that Gao Jialin could complete the revision of the novel within ten days. After writing for two days, Gao Jialin found that at this pace, he might be able to finish it in five days.

No, I finally made it to the city, and I don't have to go to class, so why should I go back so soon? So Gao Jialin slowed down his writing speed and wrote according to the time given by the editorial department.

Every morning when I wake up, I stroll to a nearby shop for breakfast. After breakfast, I chat with Niu Xinliang and listen to him tell some interesting stories about Shanghai. I only go back to the dormitory to start writing when someone urges me.

I wrote until noon, then took Niu Xinliang out to find a restaurant and have a delicious meal. He is a good partner. If you ask him what delicious food there is in Shanghai, he knows it better than anyone else. From big restaurants to snack shops in the alleys, there is nothing he doesn't know.

In this era of thrift and diligence, it is not easy to meet such a foodie. Niu Xinliang also feels comfortable eating with Gao Jialin, because he is not like others. Every time he talks about food excitedly, he will advise himself to save money and use it in key areas.

When eating, just talk about food and nothing else. It is fun to eat with people like this.

At the beginning, other editors had some opinions, but Gao Jialin took out the manuscripts he had revised in the past few days and said that it was the good food he had eaten in the past few days that inspired his writing.

The editors looked at the quality of the new manuscript and learned about the progress of the revisions, and said nothing more.

On the day Gao Jialin finished revising all the manuscripts and submitted them, Niu Xinliang came over mysteriously before leaving and said, "You're going back to school tomorrow. Today I'm taking you to eat something really delicious!"

"What delicious food?" Gao Jialin asked hurriedly. Now he couldn't buy a car or a house, and he couldn't take the girl to a hotel to get a room. The only thing left was food, right?

"When it comes to food, it's all about the seasons. Eat the right food in the right place at the right time. In Shanghai, there are a few things we love: 'Hanging knife fish during Qingming Festival, tasting hilsa on Dragon Boat Festival, and eating hairy crab on Mid-Autumn Festival!' Qingming Festival and Dragon Boat Festival are long gone, and knife fish and hilsa aren't as tasty as they used to be. Hairy crabs are at their plumpest. A mouthful of hairy crab and a sip of rice wine... Just thinking about the taste makes my mouth water!"

"When the knife fish and shad are in season next year, come back and I'll take you to eat them! Today, let's go eat hairy crabs first!"

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Gao Jialin was also tempted by him. "The place we're going to today is a bit expensive." Niu Xinliang didn't move immediately. "If you go to the market to buy hairy crabs, they're 50 cents per pound. If you go to this restaurant, it's 80 cents per pound. But the crabs here are better, they're all over half a pound! Do you want to eat there, or buy some hairy crabs and I'll cook them for you?"

"I don't mind the price, as long as it tastes good!" Half a pound of hairy crab? Gao Jialin had never seen such a thing before. He used to eat crabs weighing four ounces, and they were weighed together with the rope. Now that he heard about such a good thing, he couldn't wait to eat it.

"Hey, what you said is absolutely right! Come on, let's take a stroll over there and clear some space in our stomach to digest the food so that we can eat more crabs later!" Niu Xinliang felt that Gao Jialin was simply the most appetizing author he had ever met.

The two of them walked east along Julu Road, turned north at Maoming Road, and then turned from Weihai Road to Renmin Road. After walking about three kilometers, they stopped at Fuzhou Road. Niu Xinhua pointed at the sign in front of them and said, "In Shanghai, if Wang Baohe said he was the second best crab stylist, no one would dare to say they were the best!"

"Not only is their crab delicious, but their rice wine is even better. They're known as the 'Crab King, the Ancestor of Wine.' They've been brewing rice wine and crabs since the Qianlong Emperor's reign. They moved here during the Republic of China and became Shanghai's top choice for crab! They suffered a bit of a setback a few years ago, but now they've reopened. The long-lost 'crab feast' has returned to Shanghai, attracting countless gourmets to try it. You've come at a great time!"

After entering and finding an empty seat to sit down, Niu Xinliang listed a bunch of signature dishes without even looking at the menu, including drunken crab, chrysanthemum crab, crab roe and peony shrimp, crab roe tofu, and crab stuffed with orange. Gao Jialin took the menu and flipped through it, and added a few more expensive dishes like crab roe and shark fin.

The waiter left with the order, and Niu Xinliang continued to tell Gao Jialin about the secrets of eating crab. "Shi Jinmo, a famous doctor in the Republic of China, said about crabs, 'Sea crabs are not as good as river crabs, river crabs are not as good as river crabs, and river crabs are not as good as lake crabs.' This statement is biased. The taste of sea crabs is not that bad, and some types are still delicious. However, the saying that lake crabs are the best in the world is definitely true."

As Niu Xinliang spoke, he took out a set of eight crab dishes from his pocket and placed them on the table. These dishes, like perilla, rice wine, ginger tea, and vinegar, are all essential ingredients for Shanghai people to eat crabs.

After chatting for a while, Gao Jialin smelled a strong aroma. The waiter came up with crabs. At first glance, Gao Jialin was shocked. Are these hairy crabs? Each one looked more than half a pound, with a bright red color and plump shells. He couldn't help drooling before he even tasted them.

"Crabs like these are the real first-class crabs. During the Republic of China, they were sold for one dollar each! We are in for a treat today. Come, let's eat quickly!" Niu Xinliang immediately picked up a crab and started to disassemble it using the eight crab disassemblers.

Gao Jialin didn't have the skills or the meticulous effort, so he just picked up a female crab, opened the lid and saw a full load of crab roe. When he put it in his mouth, the rich and mellow sweetness rushed straight to his head.

Gao Jialin finally came to his senses after finishing the crab roe in two or three bites. He carefully recalled the feeling of eating hairy crabs in modern times, and suddenly felt that these were two completely different things, one in heaven and one in hell, and there was no comparison at all.

In the 1980s, most of the enjoyments could not be compared with those in later generations. Only in terms of food, you could still find many delicacies that have become extinct in later generations. Just for this, you had to make a lot of money!

So he couldn't help but ask, "Teacher Niu, will I get my royalties tomorrow morning?"

　Please read
　　
　
(End of this chapter)