Zhang Jiusi was consumed by deep regret, as were the other students. Although a serving of mung bean soup was substantial, once you’d tasted its refreshing, cool flavor, you’d never forget it; it always felt like it wasn’t enough.

While savoring the cool feeling in their mouths, they looked at Luo Huai’an eagerly. 

“Thank you for saving my life. Now the mung bean soup is sold out. When will there be new mung bean soup?”

“I want to bring a tall cup of mung bean soup to military training.”

“Beautiful boss, please save this child. I will die of heat if I don’t have mung bean soup.”

Luo Huai’an thought for a moment and said, “It will take about an hour. You can take a lunch break first and come back here to buy mung bean soup in the afternoon.”

Although everyone was a little disappointed that they couldn’t buy mung bean soup immediately, they had no other choice but to accept this arrangement.

… …

After everyone left, Luo Huai’an started making Suzhou-style mung bean soup with the others. She wanted to survive and open up the new student market, so she racked her brains to figure out how to attract the freshman students.

She looked out at the dog days of summer and was suddenly inspired to make mung bean soup. Her favorite mung bean soup was the Suzhou style, which was made with mint water and was very thirst-quenching even at room temperature.

To make a good Suzhou-style mung bean soup, one couldn’t simply boil a handful of mung beans in a ladle of water. Both the mung beans and glutinous rice should be soaked for a long time before steaming. This made sure the mung beans wouldn’t bloom excessively, maintaining their vibrant green color. This was the key to a clear soup.

In order to save time, many people only used mint essence to make mint water. However, the traditional and best method was to slowly boil mint leaves to allow the effective ingredients in the plant to be distilled, allowing one to make a pot of authentic, refreshing and cool mint water.

Luo Huai’an added the steamed mung beans to the mint water then began to make glutinous rice balls. She was very skilled, and in the blink of an eye, small, white glutinous rice balls were thrown into the mint water.

… … translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

When it first opened yesterday, the Eighth Cafeteria was deserted after lunch, feeling rather quiet and desolate. But today, there was a slight change. At least fifty students were queuing in front of the mung bean soup window.

Zhang Jiusi and his three roommates were among them. They all bought a tall cup of Suzhou-style mung bean soup. The soup came in a transparent 500ml cup with straw—the straw was large because the drink’s ingredients were larger.

In the afternoon, the instructor asked them to practice military posture and goose marching¹, and then let them rest for ten minutes.

The four of them hurried to their personal items.

Zhang Jiusi was a little worried, “This hot summer makes me suspect that eggs cracked on the playground can be cooked directly. Even though I covered it with my clothes, the mung bean soup might have already heated up in this weather.”

Liang Hai thought about the possible scenarios and said seriously, “Your scenario is still relatively good. High temperatures like today can easily cause food to spoil, it would be awful if the mung bean soup went bad.”

This was the mung bean soup they had been looking forward to all afternoon! Even during lunch break, the refreshing feeling would come back to them in their dreams, making them yearn for it.

Everyone got frightened by the situation he described, and their hearts skipped a beat. They quickly picked up their respective mung bean soups.

Zhang Jiusi looked at the mung bean soup in his hand, feeling a sense of shock. Although it wasn’t his first time seeing this kind of soup, he was still somewhat amazed. The clear liquid in the transparent plastic cup, the colorful and dazzling ingredients—they all seemed to dance, swaying.

When their classmates saw the mung bean soup, they all looked at it and said, “This drink has its own photo filter, it has a refreshing aesthetic.”

“Did you buy those drinks from the milk tea shop in the snack street? Why do they look so good? Tell me the name of the shop quickly.”

Zhang Jiusi said, “It’s the mung bean soup we bought in the Eighth Cafeteria.”

Classmates: “???” 

There were so many things to complain about in that statement that they didn’t even know where to start.

Yesterday, when Liang Hai mentioned going to the Eighth Cafeteria, Zhang Jiusi had been the one most opposed. How come Zhang Jiusi had become a completely different person in just one day?

Zhang Jiusi didn’t forget what he said yesterday. His face flushed slightly, so he raised his voice to hide his guilt. “Liang Hai didn’t lie. The food in the Eighth Cafeteria is really delicious, especially this mung bean soup.”

A classmate was skeptical “Really?”

“Of course it’s true!”

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. If only one person said that the food in the Eighth Cafeteria was delicious, it might not be convincing. However, Zhang Jiusi, who had been the most resistant to the Eighth Cafeteria before, had changed his attitude. All these made them curious about the Eighth Cafeteria.

But at this moment, someone asked the question in his mind, “You said you bought mung bean soup…. but what mung bean soup looks like this?”

In most people’s eyes, mung bean soup was usually just mung beans with greenish soup. However, this Suzhou-style mung bean soup contained green mung beans, white glutinous rice balls, and red and green silk. The impact was so colorful that it made people feel dazzled.

Everyone: That’s weird, let me take another look!

Everyone: It’s still so weird!

Mythical Beast Cafeteria translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

---

If you’re enjoying my translations, do consider buying me ko-fi and get access to advance chapters as reward. Thank you for your support! ☺️
Chapter 13.2 — Suzhou-style Mung Bean Soup Part II
Chapter 13.3 — Suzhou-style Mung Bean Soup Part II
Chapter 14.1 — Pepper Pancakes
Chapter 14.2 — Pepper Pancakes
Chapter 15.1 — Pepper Pancakes Part II
Chapter 15.2 — Pepper Pancakes Part II
Chapter 15.3 — Pepper Pancakes Part II
Chapter 15.4 — Pepper Pancakes Part II
Chapter 15.5 — Pepper Pancakes Part II
Chapter 15.6 — Pepper Pancakes Part II

1. Goose-step. It’s a type of marching where the foot is not bent at the knee. The most well-known example of how to do it would be Nazi army marching, but the Allied forces used goose-stepping as part of its propaganda, ascribing mindless rule-following to its users, and so the goose-step fell out of favor in half of the world. But it is still being used in ceremonial events in many countries.
   ↩︎