After his grandfather finished speaking on the other end of the phone, Lu Jingming said, "You'll have to wait a moment, Grandpa. She's been quite busy these past two days, so I need to ask her first."
With that, he looked at Xu Yanxia with an inquiring gaze and whispered, "Is it convenient for you?"
Xu Yanxia, "..."
Cooking for Old Master Shen was naturally not a problem.
But the elderly man had referred to her as his girlfriend...
...
Of course, with Old Master Shen waiting on the other end of the line, now was not the time to bring this up.
She nodded and said, "Sure, ask him what he'd like to eat."
Lu Jingming relayed the question to his grandfather on the phone.
Old Master Shen chuckled on the other end and said, "Anything is fine, I'm not a picky eater. Of course, it would be even better if it's our hometown cuisine."
"To be honest, Jingming, I've been living here for so many years, and I rarely get to eat such authentic hometown food. It really has that nostalgic taste."
Lu Jingming smiled and said, "She's also very happy knowing you enjoy her food. We'll have it sent over to you as soon as it's done."
The elderly man agreed and hung up the phone.
Lu Jingming put away his phone and was about to speak when Xu Yanxia coughed lightly and asked, "Why did he say I'm your girlfriend? Did you say something you shouldn't have?"
Lu Jingming immediately raised both hands in surrender. "I haven't visited my grandfather in a while. May lightning strike me if I said anything."
"But he does like browsing on his phone; he might have seen something online himself."
"???"
This reminded Xu Yanxia of another very important matter, and she hurriedly asked, "Right, I wanted to ask you, did you see the video Jingxi sent to the group chat yesterday? It's so weird. Neither of us are celebrities, yet it somehow got recommended to a bunch of completely unrelated people."
"Even my cousin saw it and came asking me about it."
"Is that so?"
Lu Jingming said, "Maybe the creator paid to promote it?"
"But big data recommends content based on user habits. Perhaps the people around you just like seeing us together."
What nonsense.
Xu Yanxia couldn't help blushing. "I'm being serious with you."
"I'm being serious too."
Lu Jingming smiled and teased her a bit more before his expression turned slightly more serious. "I clicked the link later to check, and it was already gone. It was probably deleted due to privacy concerns."
"Really?"
Xu Yanxia quickly took out her phone, found the Lu Family Foodies group chat, and tried clicking the link. Sure enough, it was no longer available.
"That's good."
Feeling relieved, she glanced at the wall clock and said, "It's time, I need to go to the meeting. Do you want to come along?"
"Sure."
Lu Jingming smiled, his lips curling up, and followed her out.
...
Perhaps because the big boss was present today, the heads of all departments had arrived early and were sitting exceptionally straight.
Lu Jingming walked in behind Xu Yanxia and sat in the chair behind hers.
His gaze swept over the upright crowd, and he said amiably, "Don't be nervous, everyone. I'm mainly here today as Director Xu's family-and-friends cheering squad."
"..."
Xu Yanxia tried hard to maintain her smile. "President Lu is very approachable. There's no need to be formal; just present as usual."
"Understood."
The crowd nodded and began their reports one by one—
"Compared to yesterday, the foot traffic for today's lunch service has seen a clear and further increase. The main dining hall is at 100 percent capacity, and the private rooms are at 90 percent. The table turnover rate has also gone up by at least fifteen percentage points compared to yesterday. Furthermore, we've already received private room reservations for tomorrow, the day after, and even the Mid-Autumn Festival."
Xu Yanxia, fully in work mode, nodded seriously and said, "On the one hand, this might be because some institutions and companies have already started their holidays today. On the other hand, our marketing and promotions must have taken further effect."
"Yes."
The head chef immediately chimed in, "There's a noticeable change in our food orders today. Aside from the highly recommended dishes on our menu, the order rates for the Fish Maw and Yellow Croaker Soup, as well as the Braised Chicken with Abalone, have significantly increased. This shows that Director Xu's program is having a strong promotional impact."
"That's for sure."
Everyone nodded in agreement. "Just watching the video makes it look incredibly tempting! People will definitely want to try it when they come."
Supervisor Yang from the marketing department had a sudden flash of inspiration and quickly raised his hand. "Director, I think we can continue to ride the coattails of the program's popularity."
Xu Yanxia immediately asked, "What do you mean?"
Supervisor Yang said, "Based on my observations, what netizens are paying the most attention to right now—aside from the official promotional clips—are the leaked behind-the-scenes moments. Especially the part where you mentioned domestic high-end ingredients versus imported ones; the online response has been very strong. Why don't we strike while the iron is hot and release a few videos of you cooking with domestic high-end ingredients? It should be very appealing."
"Great idea!"
Everyone echoed their support. "Wagyu beef, caviar, foie gras, black truffles—we can do them all."
"Exactly. Especially if we have Director Xu personally demonstrate the proper way to prepare domestic high-end ingredients, the hype will definitely be even higher."
"That works."
Xu Yanxia nodded and said, "If the program does well after it airs, domestic high-end ingredients should see a wave of popularity. There's no harm in capitalizing on that."
"We just received a new batch of Inner Mongolian Wagyu yesterday, so we can start filming the Wagyu series today. Dishes like diced beef stir-fried with fresh walnuts, garlic black pepper diced beef, and black truffle diced beef would also suit the tastes of our local customers quite well."
"Yes, definitely."
Amidst the chorus of agreement, the female front-of-house manager raised her hand and said, "Speaking of filming videos, I have another suggestion, though I'm not sure if it's appropriate."
Xu Yanxia quickly nodded. "Go ahead and say it."
The manager glanced at Lu Jingming, who was sitting behind her, and smiled. "After Director Xu finishes the dishes, if we could invite President Lu to personally appear on camera for a taste test, the results would be even more explosive!"
Xu Yanxia, "..."
However, the surrounding colleagues were already cheering in approval—
"That's a great idea! I support it!!!"
"With you two joining forces, we might even make it to the trending topics!"
"Yeah, both of you are very popular right now."
...
Amidst the soaring enthusiasm, Xu Yanxia looked at Lu Jingming, who hadn't spoken yet, and tentatively asked, "What does President Lu think?"
To her surprise, he nodded casually. "No problem, I'd be more than happy to. We can start filming right now."
"Great, great! We'll go prepare right away!"
Everyone stood up and filed out of the conference room.
Lu Jingming also stood up to leave, adding one last remark to Xu Yanxia, "I'm doing this to help you achieve your little goal as soon as possible. So, if the response is good after it airs, does that count as me doing my part to help you?"
"If it does, can you really give me a key?"
Xu Yanxia, "..."
...
Everyone acted immediately with high efficiency. In less than an hour, they had completed the video filming.
In addition to Xu Yanxia's skillful and exquisite cooking techniques, Lu Jingming really did appear on camera as a guest taste-tester.
Truth be told, even though he did not show his face often, he was surprisingly natural for his first time participating in a video shoot.
After the shoot ended, leaving the rest to the marketing department for editing and publishing, Xu Yanxia cooked a few dishes for Lu Jingming's grandfather, Old Master Shen.
Once again, she focused primarily on the flavors of the old man's hometown: Wensi tofu, Longjing shrimp, braised river eel, and a dish of Yan Du Xian.
Even though it was not spring, the quality of the vacuum-sealed spring bamboo shoots was still decent enough to hopefully relieve some of the old man's homesickness.
Once the food was ready, Lu Jingming drove her car to personally deliver it to his grandfather, taking the opportunity to chat with the old man for a while.
Xu Yanxia, meanwhile, stayed at the restaurant to keep an eye on the dinner service.
Unsurprisingly, the dinner rush was even more bustling than lunch. Customers started pouring in from half past five, and it was not until after half past nine that the foot traffic gradually began to thin out.
With less than an hour until closing, the two-day soft opening was smoothly coming to an end. Xu Yanxia said her goodbyes to the evening shift colleagues and took Lu Jingming back to the Lu family home.
After all, this man had returned right after visiting his grandfather and had been waiting in her office the entire time. He was still wearing the same clothes he had on this morning for the closing ceremony of the tech forum in Hangzhou, and his suitcase had been sitting in her office all along.
