Elise nodded and smiled back, but inside she was dying of curiosity, hoping these people would leave quickly.

Watching the three disappear around the hallway corner, her expression changed. She restrained her clichéd smile, quickly dashed over for a look down the hallway, confirmed they had exited the back door, and hurriedly turned towards the door where they had been hiding, peeking outside.

Her gaze swept over the crowd in front of the restaurant, instantly ignored them, and then expanded her focus outward.

"Huh?"

Soon, with the keen eyesight and judgment of a front desk attendant, she locked onto two women standing under the big tree at the street corner.

Beside them were two baby strollers identical to the ones pushed by those three women this morning!

"Interesting, caught sneaking out to eat behind friends’ backs?"

A strong sense of gossip glinted in her eyes.

The work at the front desk is inherently dull, and they generally can’t leave, making it the most confining job in the entire hotel, bar none.

But this job has its perks—lots of gossip.

Every guest needs to register with them, and if there’s any peculiar combination, they tend to pay extra attention because there’s bound to be gossip.

"Here comes lunch~"

While she crouched by the wall, peeking outside, the guy in the logistics uniform pushed a food cart in through the main door, staring at her with puzzlement.

"Elise, what are you doing, being all sneaky? Lunch is right here."

The guy thought she was looking for him and trying to evade him, feeling a bit smug about it.

Everybody in logistics knows that when it’s your turn to deliver lunch, you get to hang out with the front desk girls and slack off openly—everyone fights for this task.

If you can get a girl’s phone number, you’ve got the chance to chat later.

Whether or not you can win them over, getting a number is better than not getting it.

Besides, there’s more than one or two front desk girls. If you can’t get one, you can always try for another. There’s bound to be one you can get.

"Get lost, stop bothering me."

Elise rolled her eyes, waved him off, indicating he should just leave the stuff at the front desk.

She had no interest in lunch; it’s the same dishes every day anyway, and the gossip had a stronger pull on her.

"Huh?"

The man hesitated just as he was about to go over, stopped in his tracks, looked towards where Elise was staring.

"What are you looking at? There’s nothing there."

"None of your business, can’t I look for handsome guys? Annoying!"

After watching for a long time, she saw the two women didn’t do anything, reluctantly withdrew her gaze, shot the man a hard glare, turned and went back to her workstation.

The three women had left a minute ago, and these two hadn’t noticed—it was really subpar!

Having no gossip to engage with made her irritable, and the same lunch menu every day only added to her frustration.

The man scratched his head, didn’t dare ask further, looking over at Vanessa for an explanation.

Vanessa shrugged, indicating she didn’t know either.

Well, unlucky me!

Under the tree at the street corner outside.

The two women had stood there so long their calves were getting numb, eyes dry, yet they hadn’t seen any familiar faces come out of the hotel gate.

"It’s weird; we’re all parents here, how could they leave the kids alone for hours?"

"Could they have left before we got here?"

"Hardly. When we got here, wasn’t someone still looking for his wife? If they left the hotel, we should have bumped into them."

"So strange, where are they? Could they be enjoying themselves inside and ignoring the kids?"

"Could they have taken the kids inside with them?"

The two discussed for ages but couldn’t come to any solid conclusions. Their babies in the car were still sleeping, so there was no harm in waiting a bit longer.

The two women thought maybe just a few more minutes would make the difference.

Elsewhere.

Exiting the hotel through the back and looping around the parking lot, they walked a full five hundred meters before daring to cross the street.

From afar, they saw those two familiar figures still under the tree, facing the direction of the hotel entrance.

"What sly women, coming over to catch us!"

"So speechless, we didn’t even invite them today, don’t they know what respect is?"

The trio dared not linger, glancing quickly before moving on, worried staying even a second more would lead to capture.

They hurried home, starting to strategize along the way.

"Getting caught on the first day of action means tough times ahead."

"All your fault—forgetting your date with your man and missing his calls caused all this trouble!"

"Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean it. It’s just that the food here is really so novel and delicious. Who could remember that guy when thinking about eating such good stuff at lunch!"

"Just a heads up, next time it doesn’t matter who it is, if you have an appointment with someone, be proactive and set the alarm clock, max volume. If this happens again, no lunch for you!"

"What should we do now? There’s no way those two would let this slide easily."

"No worries, they didn’t actually see us going in and out, no evidence. As long as we all agree to say we went to another restaurant for a gathering, we’re good."

"We must mention it to Su. She’s quick-witted and full of ideas; let’s see what she suggests."

"Isn’t she getting a massage? How come there’s no news from her yet? Maybe she hasn’t started?"

"Not necessarily, maybe she’s in the middle of the massage, no time to check her phone."

"No worries, let’s hurry home first. We can discuss anything in the group chat."

Lin Chen, of course, was unaware of what’s happening outside, he was about to go crazy busy.

The plan was perfect initially, everything proceeding in an orderly fashion, but as time went by, the mental load of cooking twelve orders simultaneously was kind of overwhelming.

The first hour went fine, but halfway through the second hour, the brain started to feel a bit swollen, dizzy, but still able to keep going.

The main issue is each of these twelve orders had subtle differences in their requirements, couldn’t mix up positions, and the speed of serving had to be swift and precise, avoiding long wait times for the patrons behind.

Even after two hours, the line of waiting guests was never-ending; a rough estimate would be a scale of at least over fifty to sixty people.

For upscale big hotels, the number of rooms is regulated, usually no less than two hundred rooms, with no upper limit.

Totaling over three hundred rooms at Radisson, some are reserved for staff, so you have to deduct part of that.

Single rooms are not many, mostly double rooms.

On average, calculating two people per room, with full occupancy, you’d have at least five hundred tourists.

Plus some rooms are family rooms, accommodating several people, and there are business suites, two-bedroom living rooms.

Additionally, diners within 24 hours of checking out qualify to dine, and this group isn’t small, there’s always someone wanting one more good meal before leaving.

In total, at least seven hundred tourists for sure.

Subtract those dining out and in restaurants, and those who haven’t come to eat, conservatively, at least half of the tourists came to patronize his food truck, which is over three hundred.

Calculating twelve orders every ten minutes, that’s seventy-two orders per hour, less than one hundred and fifty orders in two hours, lining up is understandable.

The total prepared ingredients roughly came to about three hundred orders. Plus the limited space in the back kitchen and food truck couldn’t prepare all ingredients in advance; after all, Jonathan needed the back kitchen too.

Now only Dais and himself were busy at the food truck, Lucas and Elsa had run to the kitchen to help handle the remaining ingredients to ensure the continuity of serving.

As he was busy until his head was spinning and covered in sweat, John drove his pickup slowly to the parking lot in front of the restaurant.

Seeing the bustling scene from afar, it didn’t surprise him, he didn’t get off the car, just reclined the seat and started napping.

Before closing his eyes, he remembered to set a half-hour alarm, to prevent oversleeping.

Having come many times, he roughly could tell clearing such a size of line would take about half an hour to an hour.

Originally, he intended to have lunch here, but his farm had inexplicably many guests, making him unable to step away.

With much effort, once the meal rush eased a bit, he rushed over here to avoid being entangled by guests.

After all, he’s a farm owner, a boss-level figure, personally getting involved in work is already pretty good, expecting him to work non-stop from morning till night?

Impossible!

Why hire employees then!

He didn’t come empty-handed this time, he brought a netful of special ingredients.

Not that he wanted to bring them, but there was really no choice.

These things went rampant every summer, even blackfish, the ones not picky about food, couldn’t eliminate them.

Additionally, both lived in different zones, overrunning separately, damaging crops, plants, and the ecological environment, giving him a major headache.

Just then a guest caught a netful and asked if he’d take them. He intercepted them, saying they’re inedible and nobody wanted them, and decided to bring them over to ask Lin Chen if he could make them into something delicious.

"Hmm?"

Despite being busy, Lin Chen’s senses were sharp, he immediately noticed John’s pickup.

Seeing him not intent on getting out of the car, he could guess he came to find him for something, intending to wait until he’s done here, so he stopped paying attention to that side.

After being busy for over another hour, until all ingredients were sold out, the remaining ten bowls of broth were seized by unlucky diners, who had to settle for some noodles or something to fill them up.

Boss John, who nearly fell asleep again, was half-dazed when he heard tapping sounds on his car window, quickly perked up.

"Yo, our big star finally done with work?"

Teasing him, he jumped out of the driver’s seat, and from the trunk took out a netful of...

Bullfrogs?! 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Seeing those plump, ugly creatures in the net, Lin Chen instinctively swallowed hard.

John hadn’t had a chance to inquire, noticing his expression, his eyes lit up.

Promising!