AGN -Chapter 112 Teach You What You Like

Joyful times are always short. Soon, it was time for Chen Yingjun and the fruit-shaped pastries tasting session to come to an end.

Over the next few days, Zheng Siyuan made several other types of fruit pastries for Chen Yingjun to try. Chen Yingjun enjoyed himself immensely while tasting them, and eventually settled on apple pastries, date pastries, and peach pastries.

For the date pastries, two dates were used to symbolize “good things come in pairs,” bringing auspicious meaning to the premium gift box.

As Chen Yingjun gnawed on a peach pastry—pink on the outside, white with a hint of yellow inside, with a pit at the very center—he almost felt like crying.

Such delicious food… he wouldn’t be able to eat it as often in the future.

Chen Yingjun had already signed a contract with Zheng Siyuan, paying the full amount upfront in one go—an achievement worthy of being considered a “Client of the Year.”

However, the property company needed time for promotional activities, custom gift boxes also required time, and Zheng Siyuan himself needed rest.

Of course, “rest” was just an excuse. The main reason was that Zheng Siyuan didn’t particularly enjoy making fruit pastries. Normally, when teaching Qin Huai, making a few was enough. But once orders came in, there would be a fixed daily production quota, which would cut into the time he spent making his beloved crispy pastries, ding sheng cakes, fresh meat mooncakes, and qiaoguo.

Zheng Siyuan didn’t feel Chen Yingjun’s sorrow at all.

“Mr. Chen, since the contents of the gift box have been finalized, once the delivery date is set, you can simply send someone to pick up the goods each day,” Zheng Siyuan said. “Do you have any other questions?”

“Can I buy 20 jin of crispy pastries to take home today?” Chen Yingjun asked sadly.

Zheng Siyuan: “……?”

Faced with Zheng Siyuan’s questioning gaze, Chen Yingjun immediately changed his request. “Then 10 jin is fine.”

“Ah, no—5 jin.”

“3 jin. Surely you can spare me 3 jin, Xiao Zheng? We have three people and two cats at home!”

Zheng Siyuan slowly said, “Even if you hadn’t collaborated with me, as a customer, how much you buy is entirely up to you. However, today…”

“I didn’t make any crispy pastries.”

“The pastries made this morning have all been sold out. The only thing left in the shop now are egg cakes made by Master Chen.”

Back at home, Chen An, who had already finished work and was watching TV, sneezed and rubbed his nose.

Chen Yingjun felt like the sky had fallen.

In the end, he reluctantly took a box of packaged fruit pastries and two jin of egg cakes home.

After Chen Yingjun left, Zheng Siyuan didn’t leave immediately either. Instead, he sat in the kitchen chatting with Qin Huai.

Qin Huai was still shaping animal red bean buns.

“Your finger technique is wrong,” Zheng Siyuan pointed out. “Your fingers shouldn’t be afraid to apply force. Press when you need to press, lift when you need to lift. When shaping pastries, you should already have a rough design in your mind. Normally, you should ‘knead’ it mentally first before actually doing it.”

Looking at the completely shapeless dough in Qin Huai’s hands, Zheng Siyuan sighed. “I’ve realized you’re really strange.”

“Huh?” Qin Huai looked up blankly, still struggling with the dough while chatting—he was having trouble dividing his attention.

“At first, when you made apple pastries, I thought you had extraordinary natural talent in finger technique—so much that it seemed instinctive. It was unheard of.”

“But later, when you made grapes, dates, peaches, and longans, I felt your talent was quite average—like a beginner.”

“But your pear pastries were actually quite decent.”

“And now…” Zheng Siyuan gave the dough in Qin Huai’s hands a complicated look. “What exactly are you making?”

“Doraemon,” Qin Huai replied. “This is for Luo Luo. Didn’t you say to visualize it first? I don’t really have specific animal images in my head—I only have Doraemon, Snoopy, Hello Kitty, Garfield, and Detective Black Cat. I think the blue chubby one is easier to make, so I visualized it and started shaping it.”

Zheng Siyuan: “……”

Was it possible that when he said “visualize,” he meant ordinary animals?

“At this point, you look more like a complete beginner than ever,” Zheng Siyuan sighed. “You really are strange.”

“You can make apple pastries well, but not even a basic rabbit. To me, you’re not just unevenly skilled—you’re more like someone who’s good at cloze tests but terrible at listening comprehension.”

It was clear Zheng Siyuan had deep resentment toward cloze tests.

“I don’t know either,” Qin Huai continued trying to shape Doraemon. “Before I met you through Grandpa Wang, the best pastry maker I knew was a Master Qin who ran a chestnut pastry shop at the back of our neighborhood.”

Seeing Zheng Siyuan’s confused expression, Qin Huai explained, “Qin is a very common surname where I’m from. In my elementary school class of 57 students, 17 had the surname Qin—more than those with the surname Wang.”

“That Master Qin made especially delicious chestnut cakes and mung bean cakes. He even taught me how to make mung bean cakes. But after teaching me, he realized mine tasted better than his, so he stopped teaching me chestnut pastries.”

Zheng Siyuan: “……”

“I’ve never formally learned techniques or systematically studied ingredient ratios. In fact, I don’t even know ingredients very well. My mom usually just buys the same common vegetables. We eat whatever is cheapest at the market.”

“You might think it’s strange that I’m sometimes very good and sometimes like this, but this is how I’ve always made pastries.”

“Making si xi dumplings was very difficult. I followed online recipes and pastry guides, but nothing worked. No one taught me ingredient compatibility. Back then, I just bought whatever was available at the market and tried things one by one—basically brute force.”

“Luo Luo ate two months of terrible si xi dumplings, and all her lucky money went into experimentation before I finally figured it out.”

“But for some pastries, it was very easy—like lu da gun, pea cake, crab-flavored crisp, and heikehuang. Those were learned just by reading recipes. There weren’t even video tutorials because we didn’t have a computer back then.”

“Yet I picked them up quickly after just a few attempts.”

“And kneading dough—although my kneading theory came from Dean Qin, even he didn’t really know how to knead properly. No one taught me how to knead dough for steamed pastries or baked pastries, but somehow I just know how.”

“So sometimes, even though Master Zheng speaks abstractly—saying things like ‘you know that feeling, right?’—I actually understand what he means, because I’ve always relied on feeling to make pastries.”

“So if you ask me why I can make apple pastries well, I can only say—it just feels right when I make them.”

Qin Huai finished speaking.

Zheng Siyuan fell into thought.

During Qin Huai’s explanation, he had already finished battling the dough and shaped the outline of a big-headed Doraemon.

Zheng Siyuan watched as Qin Huai used tools to add eyes and draw whiskers.

“I remember your hedgehog buns were very well made,” Zheng Siyuan said. “How did you learn those?”

“I learned them from a pastry compendium,” Qin Huai replied, adjusting the eyes. “At first they didn’t look good either. I practiced them over and over. Luo Luo loved hedgehog buns when she was little.”

Zheng Siyuan fell into deeper thought.

Qin Huai placed the blue Doraemon into a small pot and steamed it separately.

After some time, it came out of the steamer, and Qin Huai did the final touches.

It was ugly.

Ugly—but kind of cute in its own way.

But it should taste fine—Qin Huai made the dough and filling himself, so there was no issue with eating it normally.

“Tsk tsk tsk,” Qin Huai couldn’t help but click his tongue at his own craftsmanship. “It’s really ugly. Luo Luo gets off school in an hour—let me make her another one with meat filling.”

“I understand now,” Zheng Siyuan said.

“Huh?” Qin Huai was confused again.

Why had Zheng Siyuan become so jumpy recently?

“I know how to teach you finger technique now,” Zheng Siyuan said. “I’ll teach you what you like.”

“What I like? What do I like?” Qin Huai was still puzzled.

He didn’t really understand finger technique. Over the past couple of days, he had either been making apple pastries or animal red bean buns—one very difficult, one very easy. He hadn’t tried anything in between, like lotus pastries, layered crisps, or golden thread rolls.

“You like what Luo Luo likes,” Zheng Siyuan said decisively. “If you’re tired, go back and sleep first. I’ll stay here and wait for Luo Luo to get out of school and ask her what kinds of pretty pastries she likes.”

“Whatever she wants to eat, I’ll teach you how to make it.”

Qin Huai: “?”

For some reason, Qin Huai felt he wasn’t far from becoming “Second Brother.”