Chapter 48: An Endless Stream of Problems

“It’s Freddy,” said the man in front of the stall, mimicking the way Freddy spoke. “Every time I see him lately, he talks about Chinese cuisine, saying that after tasting Chinese-style beef, seeing beef cooked any other way feels like a waste. The guy is a true gourmet, and he’s piqued my curiosity.”

He turned to Ronan with genuine sincerity and asked, “Is there any way I could try the beef you make?”

Ronan and Zoe exchanged a subtle glance.

Even outsiders from other villages are coming to ‘invite’ us for food?

...

Soon after, several others approached Ronan, having heard from Freddy about how delicious his Chinese dishes were.

Freddy’s slaughterhouse supplies meat throughout Provence. The people he deals with—whether clients or acquaintances—are either involved in food-related businesses or are simply food lovers. Conversations inevitably revolve around food.

Since tasting Chinese cuisine, Freddy has been boasting to everyone he meets, caught up in the superiority of ‘knowing something others don’t.’

This would normally be a trivial matter, a brief chat that would end quickly.

But last week, Ronan sold a prized truffle worth over 40,000 francs, and all the food connoisseurs in Provence were buzzing about it.

At that moment, Freddy’s sense of superiority flared up again.

“You mean that prized truffle at the Meynard village market? Of course I know about it. The guy who sold it is that young man who cooks Chinese food. We were drinking together just yesterday—he’s my best friend.”

With both the person and the event at the center of attention pointing to the same individual, it was difficult for Ronan to remain low-key.

“Looks like someone has already made the choice for you,” Zoe said, looking at Ronan’s profile.

...

Back home, Ronan seriously considered the feasibility of entering the food business at the market.

His father, Tianhai Luo, works in the restaurant industry, so Ronan had been exposed to it over the years and had some rudimentary understanding.

He remembered his father often saying that location is crucial for a food business.

For example, setting up a Chinese restaurant in a Paris neighborhood densely populated by Chinese residents is an excellent choice.

In Provence, Chinese cuisine is hardly known, but feedback from French customers who have tasted dumplings, braised beef, and mouthwatering chicken has been positive—they can accept and even enjoy these flavors.

Moreover, the Meynard village market attracts a large crowd, meeting the essential requirement for a food stall.

After weighing the objective factors, he turned to the subjective ones.

This was where the headaches began, with many problems standing before Ronan.

First, both braised beef and mouthwatering chicken are relatively complex to prepare. Particularly, beef in Provence is expensive—70 francs per kilogram—meaning the dishes would have to be sold at a high price to turn a profit. This leads to the second problem: would customers be willing to pay such high prices?

Prices in Provence differ from those in Paris. Ronan had felt this keenly when buying stone furniture. Since moving to Provence, he rarely dined out, preferring to eat at home or with friends. He didn’t have a good grasp of local prices, and even asking his parents offered little help.

Food is unlike truffles; it has no fixed price. Even if his dishes were delicious, setting prices too high could hurt sales, while pricing too low would waste labor. There was so much he needed to learn in advance.

The third and most troublesome issue was that neither Ronan’s cooking skills nor his home kitchen conditions supported high-intensity food preparation.

He was slow at handling ingredients, his knife skills were unrefined, and while casual home cooking was fine, selling food publicly was a different matter.

Operating a stall required a lot of preparatory work, and his kitchen was small and outdated—unsuitable for the task.

“Looking at it this way... it’s doable, but my personal conditions don’t support it,” Ronan concluded.

As he hesitated, he glanced at the calendar on the table.

March had already begun; April would bring a small surge in Easter travelers, quickly followed by the busy summer travel season. Time to think and explore options was running out—he could even call it urgent.

In recent times, he’d shared drinks and conversations with many people, and he felt that Zoe’s advice was truly the best.

In Provence, food-related ventures are the easiest to make money from; truffles and grapes also fall within this category.

“So, why not give it a try?” Ronan rubbed his chin.

He couldn’t think of a better choice... and Freddy had already spread the word about him.

If he didn’t try to make some money from it, was he really going to feed so many people for free?

Provençals aren’t known for being ‘polite’—they would actually come knocking!

Each group of guests would consume two kilograms of beef and five or six bottles of wine... No, no, he was scared!

Having made up his mind, Ronan reconsidered the three difficulties he’d identified.

Actually, the third and most troublesome problem was the easiest to solve.

If his hands were slow and knife skills poor, he could just improve his cooking skills. He had no other choice now.

The experience needed for leveling up could be gained by visiting many restaurants throughout the villages, which would also solve the second problem—learning about local prices in Provence.

Having explored numerous restaurants and cafés, the first problem might also be solved. Even if he still didn’t know what to sell, he could ask his parents for help. There was always a solution.

As for the cooking environment...

Ronan stood up and went to the kitchen doorway, folding his arms and sighing repeatedly.

The kitchen was probably the oldest part of the house, built according to residents’ culinary habits hundreds of years ago, bearing no resemblance to anything modern.

There was no ventilation hood, the stove was rusty, and there were no tiles or proper flooring—none of those had ever been installed.

The cookware, stove, counters, walls, and floor could all be upgraded, but the kitchen was too small... there wasn’t enough working space.

He looked at the kitchen, then turned to the empty dining room.

Hmm?

The floor plan of the entire house appeared in his mind.

If the wall between the kitchen and dining room were knocked down, the spaces of both would increase, allowing for a larger workspace.

The materials were ready—just sitting outside in the vineyard.

But this raised two even bigger issues.

How much would such a large-scale project cost?

This was no longer a job he could do alone...

And it was still peak renovation season—where would he find craftsmen?

...

Elena casually tossed her newly bought off-white stone brooch onto the table, fuming as she removed her earrings in front of the dressing mirror.

“No one’s complimented it after all these days. It cost 2,000 francs—you could buy a gold necklace for that!” she said, frustrated.

After a bit of clattering about, there was a knock at the door, and a middle-aged woman poked her head in.

“Elena, someone’s looking for you.”

Elena had few friends, and those who came to her house were a handful of ‘ordinary girls’ who habitually idolized her.

Some naively hoped to access what she called ‘high society’ through her, others wanted to marry her brother-in-law—legal or not didn’t matter... but whatever their motives, Elena looked down on them all.

She casually threw on a cloak, and when she saw it was Ronan at the door, she immediately turned and ran upstairs.

I’m not wearing any makeup!

Ronan, standing with his back to the stairs, heard the noise and turned just in time to see Elena ‘fleeing in panic.’ Tentatively, he called out,

“Elena?”

She turned around awkwardly, forcing a stiff smile.

“Hello, Ronan.”

Ronan returned a bright, sunny smile.

“Hello.”

Hello to Elena, Provence’s most ‘all-powerful’ Miss.