The Game of Life

Early the next morning, Jiang Jianguo was driving his Wuling Hongguang with a cartload of wooden molds to the Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant. Not only were there molds, but also several large bags of red beans, mung beans, and peas that had been soaked overnight, along with several large pots-a whole bunch of stuff all hauled into the back kitchen.

Ever since the aunt was diagnosed with the three highs, she’s never touched those high-sugar desserts again, leaving Jiang Jianguo with this pile of gear with no use for it.

The kitchen was divided in half, one side for Mr. Jiang Jianguo to make pastries, and the other for Mr. Jiang Jiankang to run the business as usual. There weren’t many customers in the restaurant on weekends, and there were only a few scattered takeout orders; Ji Yue alone was more than capable of handling it, so Jiang Feng sent a message to Qiu Chen and the others not to come in to help today.

Mrs. Wang Xiulian and the aunt had an appointment to get facials at the beauty salon and left early in the morning.

"Feng, I didn’t know what kind of pastries you wanted, so I just soaked some beans,” Jiang Jianguo said as he poured several large bags of beans into basins, filling three large basins to the brim.

"Let’s deal with these beans first. I’ve got several dozen pounds of flour over there, we can make some Cantonese pastries later,” Jiang Feng suggested.

Now that everything was ready, of course, they were going to make pea cakes, mung bean cakes, and red bean cakes.

Jiang Feng started cooking the peas in a pot while Jiang Jianguo put the red beans into a pressure cooker. Afterwards, they both sat next to the basin full of mung beans and began peeling them.

Peeling mung beans is a tough job, but if you want to make fresh mung bean cakes and aren’t willing to buy commercial mung bean flour, this is the way to

Jiang Feng could only help out with this preparatory work; once the beans were cooked and mashed, there wouldn’t be much for him to do anymore. As for the proportion of the ingredients and how to mix them, Jiang Jianguo had it all figured out in his head.

After toiling away for a good two hours peeling the mung beans, Jiang Feng’s own palms were nearly peeled along with them by the time they finished with the large basin of mung beans. He put them into the pressure cooker as well, marking the end of his share of work.

Jiang Jianguo was cooking pea paste and, upon seeing Feng finish, he pointed to several large dark bags on the ground and said,

“Feng, look and see what kind of molds you want.”

Opening the bag, it was filled with wooden molds.

Without saying, most were definitely scavenged from Sir Jiang.

There were molds in the shapes of animals, flowers, a variety of blossoms, long and wide ones, square, round, heart-shaped, with characters inscribed on them—they had everything.

To an outsider, it would seem like they had come upon a mold factory.

Jiang Feng picked out a few with nice designs, feeling confident he would sweep the board.

With these molds, it would be hard for the Chess Club to not recruit people this year.

In order to thank his uncle for his strong support, Feng had sweetened the pot by asking Liu Zixuan to buy some of the popular health teas on the market. Recently, the aunt had become quite obsessed with wellness and had complained several times on social media that she couldn’t get her hands on the hot wellness teas. Liu Zixuan, whose family had wide business connections, was sure to delight her with the tea. Who knows, perhaps the amount of pocket money given to the uncle might even double this month.

Within the Jiang Family, from top to bottom, it’s always the wives who manage the money. Sir Jiang wanted to improve the meals for his pet pig still had to get the approval of the old lady.

Ji Yue had finished the last of the deliveries and was idly playing with her phone in the restaurant. Seeing Feng come out of the kitchen, she looked up and asked,

“All done?”

"Not even close,” Feng said as he took a seat in a chair.

-jiahui finished the flyer; take a look, if there’s no issue she can get it printed now,” Ji Yue said, handing her phone to Jiang Feng.

The flyer was simply designed, with no fancy extras—clearly a product of shortcuts. If it weren’t for the big printed words

“Chess Club Recruitment!” Jiang Feng would have doubted whether it was an advertisement for Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant.

There was even a QR code for the public account in the bottom right corner.

Jiang Feng was very satisfied.

"Just like that, go ahead and print it. Senior, do you remember how much funds our club had left from last year?” Feng asked.

"Fifty.”

“…Let’s start with printing 300 copies. I’ll front the money for now and get reimbursed after the funds are approved,” Jiang Feng said as he took out his phone to transfer money to He Jiahui.

“How’s it going with securing the venue?”

"Seriously, who’s the president here, you or me? I seem to recall I’ve already graduated,” Ji Yue complained a bit.

“We still have to rely on our former president to sacrifice his charm for the venue. If the Chess Club shuts down this year, I’ll skin you alive.”

The stall for the club recruitment is supposed to be fixed in theory, but that’s just theory. If you manage to grab a corner spot and expand from there, the Student Union can’t really do anything about it, provided that you can secure a corner spot in the first place.

In the past few years, the largest spots have been taken by the Cooking Club under the pretext of needing space to showcase their equipment—which, frankly, is just a bunch of pots and pans, plus some cakes they made. Sugar-coated bullets and eloquent, pretty girls would lure uninformed junior girls into joining.

"The capable has to work harder, Ji Yue. You’ve worked hard.” Jiang Feng said with a smile.

“There’s chilled sour plum juice in the fridge. Should I get you a bowl?”

Ji Yue solemnly held up two fingers and said seriously,

“Two bowls!”

In the late afternoon, it was time for Jiang Feng and the others to take their stuff and set up the recruitment booth.

The recruitment was theoretically starting at 7 a.m. the next day. Some of the more casual clubs at UAL University, like the Badminton Club and the Basketball Club, which don’t limit their membership, could have a couple of hundred members. Elite clubs have higher barriers to entry because they offer course credits and chances to win decent awards. Clubs like the Chess Club, which are not popular, have no credits to offer, and even lack sufficient funding, are quite rare.

Being short-staffed means there’s a lot of work to do.

By the time Jiang Feng and his team arrived at the venue with tables, props, decorations, banners, and shades, most other clubs had finished setting up.

"Is everything ready?” Jiang Feng asked.

"All ready. I’ve checked. Let’s start setting up,” Qiu Chen said, beginning work on the sunshade.

The others quickly sprang into action as well.

"Jiang Feng?” Jiang Feng was spreading a tablecloth when he looked up and saw Wang Hui, the president of the Home Economics Club, standing in front of him with an armful of decorative fake flowers.

"I went to the Student Council to request a venue, and they told me this area was already allocated. What does the Chess Club need such a large area for?” Wang Hui glanced at their layout.

“Are you planning to set up a row of chessboards?”

"We are showcasing club benefits,” Jiang Feng responded.

"Yeah right, your club’s total funds last year were only 400 yuan. What kind of club benefits could you possibly have? Having such a big spot in an out-of-the-way location is useless. You’d be better off asking for a more front-facing spot. I heard that if you can’t recruit enough members this year, your club will be dissolved,” Wang Hui said. “Change the venue.

Previously, there weren’t any major conflicts between the Chess Club and the Home Economics Club, except for the personal grudge from when the former president of the Home Economics Club refused to let Jiang Feng join because he was male. After all, the Home Economics Club was a large club of 200 members, and the Chess Club didn’t have the opportunity to have any grudge with them.

"No change,” Jiang Feng flatly refused.

“The front spots are in high demand, and there isn’t enough space.”

"What are you going to display?” Wang Hui asked curiously.

"It’s a secret!”

"Tsk,” Wang Hui walked away with the fake flowers.

"Why did Wang Hui come over here?” Qiu Chen asked.

"It seems their spot is next to ours.” In fact, the Home Economics Club’s spot wasn’t small either; Wang Hui was right, this place was indeed out of the way.

"Next to ours?” Qiu Chen was shocked.

“What if the freshmen think we’re the Home Economics Club tomorrow?”

Jiang Feng:…

"Is it so bad if they fill out our club’s application form by mistake?”