AGN -Chapter 209 The Hundred-Fruit Filling Research Squad

A single major failure wouldn’t defeat Qin Huai—but four would.

Over four consecutive days, Qin Huai suffered repeated historic failures.

He felt that he had already solved several obvious major problems. But after adjusting the ratios of ingredients, new major problems would emerge.

This hundred-fruit filling recipe was like a constantly buggy program—you knew it could theoretically run, but every time you fixed one bug, another would appear.

Qin Huai realized this was not a simple recipe.

The number of ingredients in this hundred-fruit filling was simply too large—so large that even using brute-force trial and error would likely take until next year.

Every time Zheng Siyuan tasted the tangyuan, it felt like going to an execution. He had to mentally prepare himself before daring to eat the cooked dumplings.

As for Zheng Da, he simply went into seclusion at home, saying he would devote himself to studying quietly for a few days. Once he achieved results, he would emerge and give Qin Huai a surprise.

Zheng Siyuan guessed his father had most likely called someone to seek outside help. However, Jiang Weijin’s hundred-fruit filling recipe was too strange—external help wouldn’t be able to figure it out quickly.

While Zheng Da sought outside help in seclusion, Qin Huai sought outside help at Huang Ji.

Tan Weian was pulled into the “Hundred-Fruit Filling Research Squad” by Qin Huai.

At first, when Tan Weian received the invitation, he was extremely flattered. His cooking skills, among the younger generation at Zhiwei Residence, could only be considered average. Compared with Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan, he would be clearly overshadowed.

Now that two shining geniuses had invited him to join their team, Tan Weian naturally accepted immediately.

On the first day Zheng Siyuan tried making the hundred-fruit filling, his guess was correct—Tan Weian indeed knew how to make it.

Zhiwei Residence was full of talent, and there were quite a few veteran chefs who knew how to make hundred-fruit fillings. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, hundred-fruit mooncakes were very popular. Having stayed at Zhiwei Residence for so many years, Tan Weian had learned quite a bit from other master chefs.

Tan Weian’s hundred-fruit filling recipe was learned from the top-ranked master chef at Zhiwei Residence—Chef Zhou.

From the first day Tan Weian arrived at Huang Ji, Qin Huai had already noticed that, due to his family background, he had a very rich theoretical foundation and many excellent recipes, but his technical skills were insufficient to execute them.

Tan Weian’s hundred-fruit filling was theoretically flawless.

The problem was incompatibility.

Tan Weian admitted that the hundred-fruit filling recipe was flexible. Aside from several essential preserved fruits and nuts, the rest could be adjusted to some extent based on quality and cost—but only to a certain extent.

In Tan Weian’s recipe, there were only nine types of preserved fruits and nuts combined. Qin Huai’s version had a long list far exceeding that.

This problem couldn’t be solved with a formula.

The exam setter simply didn’t follow conventional rules.

On the third day after joining the Hundred-Fruit Filling Research Squad, Tan Weian began to suspect that Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan had invited him just to make him taste-test more.

It was too difficult to eat.

Every time it was different—but always unpleasant.

Each preserved fruit and nut tasted fine on its own, so why did they become so bad when combined?

Tan Weian even wanted to say he was on a diet and couldn’t eat so many high-calorie foods, and request adding someone else dedicated to tasting.

He thought Huang Anyao would be a good candidate.

The young master might not know how to cook, and might not necessarily be good at eating either, but he could comment—and his commentary was quite articulate, making him well-suited for this tough job.

“Still not right.” Qin Huai took a small bite of the tangyuan, carefully tasting the filling. “It’s not as sweet as before now, but don’t you feel that after reducing the sugar, the filling tastes worse than the last version?”

Zheng Siyuan and Tan Weian both nodded in unison.

Normally, each iteration should improve the result. Cases where things got worse with each attempt were rare.

This was something that usually only happened to beginners.

Tan Weian looked at himself, then at Qin Huai, then at Zheng Siyuan. None of them seemed like beginners.

If he were a beginner, wouldn’t all these years of experience have been wasted?

Looking at the bowl of tangyuan filling he only dared to take a small bite of, Tan Weian felt like his years had indeed been wasted.

“Grandfather… your grandson has failed you. Such terrible pastries were still made by me.”

“We’ve already adjusted the proportions of many ingredients. Initially, we used dried apricot, dried peach, walnuts, olives, crushed peanuts, and sesame seeds as the main components, with other ingredients as supplements. We found that sesame had too strong a flavor.”

“So in the second attempt, we increased the proportion of preserved fruits, but the sweetness became overly cloying.”

“Then we tried adjusting several main ingredients. No matter how we changed them, the flavor became too mixed—either everything blended together with no distinct taste, leaving only sweetness, or certain ingredients became too dominant.”

“Since there are so many ingredients in this recipe, each must have its own role, combining to produce a harmonious effect.”

“But…”

“Too many,” Zheng Siyuan interjected. “In both cooking and pastry-making, the biggest taboo is adding too many ingredients. Less is more. But this filling does the opposite. If the recipe was personally written by our senior uncle, I’d almost suspect something is wrong with it.”

“Then… is it possible that something is actually wrong with the recipe?” Tan Weian boldly suggested. “It’s not that I don’t trust Chef Huang’s skills. First, I want to emphasize that I deeply respect and admire him. All chefs listed in the Master Chef Registry are senior figures I respect, not to mention Chef Huang’s high ranking.”

“But Chef Huang is a red-cooking specialist.”

“And this recipe is decades old. After so many years, he may not remember it perfectly—perhaps he misremembered and included more ingredients than originally intended?”

“I’ve been wanting to say this since a couple of days ago: although it’s called ‘hundred-fruit filling,’ the name often represents symbolism and blessings rather than literally one hundred ingredients. ‘Hundred’ is an auspicious number, symbolizing abundance. Many master chefs at Zhiwei Residence make hundred-fruit fillings without using that many ingredients.”

Tan Weian looked hopefully at Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan, wishing they would stop before going further astray and return to a more conventional path.

He already had a proper recipe—why not just use a normal one?

Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan fell into thought.

“That makes sense,” Qin Huai nodded. “After so many years, Chef Huang likely wouldn’t remember every detail. But since he wrote it down, it means he was certain about these ingredients—so the original recipe likely has more, not fewer, ingredients.”

“Agreed,” Zheng Siyuan said. “If the original has even more ingredients, then our overall direction is wrong. We can’t even handle what we have now—adding more would only make things worse.”

“After going home yesterday, I kept thinking. With so many nuts and preserved fruits mixed together, not only is the flavor muddled, many nuts taste similar and are indistinguishable.”

“If they can’t be distinguished, what’s the point of adding so many ingredients?”

“So I’ve been considering whether this recipe is meant to achieve a subtle balance among all ingredients, producing something like: ‘great straightness appears crooked, great skill appears clumsy, great eloquence appears awkward.’”

Tan Weian: ?

Weren’t they discussing cooking? Why does it sound like someone brought up Dao De Jing?

Has discussing cuisine reached this philosophical level now?

Qin Huai clapped his hands. “I think this is definitely the right direction. Let’s continue later… ah, time’s up. I need to go practice heat control. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

Tan Weian also tried to slip away. “I’m going to—”

“You go ahead. I’ll keep trying,” Zheng Siyuan nodded.

After being “trained” by Guo’er, Zheng Siyuan had developed high tolerance for strange recipes. Not to mention, this hundred-fruit filling recipe was his senior uncle’s.

Now, both Zheng Siyuan and Qin Huai firmly believed the recipe itself had no issues—the problem lay with their execution.

Tan Weian: …

Are all white-cooking chefs at Huang Ji this stubborn?

How could someone be more stubborn than his junior brother?

Ignoring the facts… no, there wasn’t even a need to ignore them—the facts were already sitting right there in the bowl. Yet Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan still trusted this strange recipe?

Was this the gap between him and geniuses?

Geniuses could see something in this recipe that he couldn’t see at all.

Tan Weian didn’t understand. All he could say was, “I’ll go cut the nuts and preserved fruits.”

As usual, Huang Shengli led Qin Huai in practicing heat control.

Qin Huai was still practicing stir-frying meat—various kinds of stir-fried dishes. Because part of his afternoon time was now allocated to practicing the hundred-fruit filling, he was cooking less meat. As a result, Huang Ji employees had less meat in their evening meals.

In exchange, there were many batches of unpalatable hundred-fruit tangyuan.

Logically speaking, such terrible tangyuan shouldn’t even be fit as pig feed. Yet the people at Huang Ji—from chefs to service staff—still bravely volunteered to taste them every day.

Yesterday’s tangyuan even had a shortage—there weren’t enough for everyone to try.

As a result, a bizarre rumor spread that Qin Huai had been researching tangyuan and that they were extremely delicious, attracting everyone to try them.

Many customers were eagerly anticipating Huang Ji’s new tangyuan.

Among them was Gong Liang.

Yes—Gong Liang still hadn’t tasted Qin Huai’s hundred-fruit tangyuan. Every night when Qin Huai practiced at home, he would deliberately set aside the hundred-fruit tangyuan and send only three pieces of Four-Season Tangyuan to the neighboring household.

It was simply too bad—so bad that it wasn’t even worth testing further.

Gong Liang didn’t clearly remember what hundred-fruit tangyuan tasted like. For him, it was a beautiful memory. Qin Huai was afraid that one bite might shatter that memory.

That would truly be a sin.

Qin Huai continued stir-frying meat.

His progress in heat control these days had been steady—improving, but not dramatically.

Xu Cheng was still in Suzhou and had not left, seemingly determined not to stop until he had tasted all of Qin Huai’s desserts.

With the large number of customers at Huang Ji, traffic around the area sometimes started as early as 10 a.m. Xu Cheng usually didn’t come at noon but instead visited in the evening, sitting in a private room to enjoy his meals. After Qin Huai finished practicing each day, he still had to prepare additional desserts before leaving.

While stir-frying, Qin Huai was thinking about what desserts to make next, while also pondering how to balance so many ingredients perfectly. Distracted, he made a mistake.

“Thinking about the hundred-fruit filling?” Huang Shengli smiled. “Losing focus while cooking isn’t a good habit.”

“Sorry, Chef Huang. I won’t do it again,” Qin Huai quickly apologized.

Huang Shengli waved his hand. “No blame intended. Given how the hundred-fruit filling has been turning out these days, being distracted is understandable.”

Qin Huai felt that Huang Shengli’s “attack power” had increased recently.

“Chef Huang, did Chef Jing’s hundred-fruit filling really use that many ingredients?” Qin Huai asked.

Huang Shengli replied firmly, “Yes. I helped my master prepare the ingredients, so I remember it very clearly. I think I once asked him the same question, but after so many years, I can’t fully recall his answer—though it must have been reasonable.”

“Then was Chef Jing’s hundred-fruit filling really as delicious as Mr. Gong Liang and his wife said?” Qin Huai continued.

“Although Gong Liang tends to exaggerate and is best at turning a 1 into an 11, he wasn’t exaggerating as much when it came to my master’s craftsmanship.”

“When I was young, I once believed my master was all-powerful. He mastered both red and white cooking, and was a grandmaster of Huaiyang and Su-style cuisine. Although he didn’t often make many dishes—some only once—I knew he was proficient in other cuisines as well.”

“Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan, Shandong, and Huizhou cuisines—he knew them all. I even believe he was highly skilled in Shandong cuisine, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to perform the Shandong technique ‘big flipping ladle.’ It’s just that, due to regional factors, he mainly cooked Suzhou and Huaiyang cuisine here.”

“The hundred-fruit tangyuan was likely just one of many desserts he was skilled in. He didn’t pay much attention to it—just made it occasionally when he felt like it—but it must have been delicious.”

“Xiao Qin, if you can’t recreate the recipe, don’t be discouraged. Even geniuses encounter mountains they can’t climb.”

“When I and your Zheng chef were young, we also thought we were prodigies, but reality proved there are always higher peaks ahead.”

“Sometimes setbacks are a good thing—don’t get stuck in stubbornness.”

“Your Zheng chef even called the Zhiwei Residence owner yesterday to contact Chef Zhou for help. He sent the recipe over, but was scolded for bringing such a bizarre thing and making things difficult.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard. Let your Zheng chef study it at home for a few more days.”

Qin Huai understood. Huang Shengli’s message was: don’t make things too hard for yourself—make things hard for Zheng Da instead.

Qin Huai continued stir-frying meat.

The next day, when practicing the hundred-fruit filling, Qin Huai proactively suggested setting aside the strange original recipe and trying Tan Weian’s more reliable one instead.

Upon hearing this, Tan Weian was almost moved to tears, thinking Qin Huai had finally come to his senses.

Zheng Siyuan didn’t fully understand but followed along anyway.

Tan Weian’s recipe was indeed good. The resulting hundred-fruit filling had no issues—normal and tasty. If used for mooncakes, it would definitely be excellent.

The only drawback was that it felt a bit odd when used as tangyuan filling and needed adjustment.

Finally tasting a normal version of the hundred-fruit tangyuan, Tan Weian was so moved he nearly cried.

“Now can we focus on adjusting this recipe?”

At last, the Hundred-Fruit Filling Research Squad was finally doing something proper!

This was how research should be!

Qin Huai, eating a decent tangyuan filling, said, “It seems our level isn’t the issue. Hundred-fruit filling itself is good, and it can work in tangyuan.”

“Zheng Siyuan, let’s use this recipe as a reference and study the design principles behind it to analyze Chef Jing’s original recipe.”

Zheng Siyuan nodded. “I think that works.”

Tan Weian: …

You people are unbelievable.

I’m done. Destroy me.

He couldn’t take this hardship anymore. Could they please send his dear junior brother Gu Li to suffer in his place for a couple of days?

Junior brother, it’s not that your senior brother is avoiding responsibility—it’s just that I’m trying to diet and quit sweets for a while.