AGN -Chapter 277 Did you secretly take another master behind my back?

Zheng Siyuan’s reply made Qin Huai feel that his upgrade to a “filling master” hadn’t been in vain. They chatted on WeChat for a while, sharing insights about making Four-Happiness Tangyuan during the New Year.

Qin Huai also told Zheng Siyuan not to go to Shanshi City for the time being. Even he didn’t know when he would return. They would decide after Han Youxin’s birthday banquet in March.

By then, Little Zheng would return like lightning and give the customers of Yunzhong Canteen a surprise.

After all, Zheng Siyuan’s pastry shop had only just finished renovation and reopened. If it closed again after only a few days of business, the neighbors would be wailing in despair.

After thinking about it, Zheng Siyuan felt it made sense, so he started sharing his recent experiences in white-belt pastry work with Qin Huai on WeChat, and also complained a couple of times about how his father had been forcing him into blind dates the entire New Year holiday.

Previously, Zheng Siyuan and Zheng Da had both been working at Huang Ji, so Zheng Siyuan had no time for blind dates, and Zheng Da also had no time to find potential candidates. But as soon as Qin Huai came home for the New Year, Zheng Da immediately slacked off—after seriously making New Year gift boxes for only a few days, he entered a continuous “strike mode” and instead arranged blind dates for Zheng Siyuan from the third day of the lunar new year all the way to the Lantern Festival.

All of them were outstanding women from various industries, including many fellow chefs—both hot-kitchen and pastry specialists.

Qin Huai was stunned, thinking Zheng Da really had quite the network. Female chefs in the industry were already very rare, especially hot-kitchen chefs—excellent ones were practically unicorns.

Yet Zheng Da had managed to find so many. He clearly had some serious connections.

At the end of the chat, Qin Huai curiously asked: “Found anyone you like?”

Zheng Siyuan replied: “No.”

“They’re all not good at cooking. I don’t have anything in common with them.”

Qin Huai: “6.”

While chatting with Zheng Siyuan, Tan Weian also replied.

His reaction was simple: shock, shock, shock—and jealousy.

In summary: “Holy crap.”

The screen was full of “holy crap” and “bro what kind of miracle medicine did you take, is this even reasonable?” It hurt Qin Huai’s eyes, so he simply replied, “Next time if there’s a chance, I’ll make it for you,” and ended the chat.

The third reply came from Huang Shengli, who directly called.

His call was very structured and full of content. First, he repeated the exact same New Year greetings as on the first day of the lunar new year, then asked about Qin Huai’s holiday life. After learning that Qin Huai had spent the entire holiday making Four-Happiness Tangyuan in the kitchen, he felt both relieved and concerned, telling him not to overwork himself or he might leave health problems behind.

Only then did they talk about the meat filling Qin Huai had sent him. They carefully discussed every step of its preparation. In the end, Huang Shengli said with satisfaction: “Xiao Qin, even without someone guiding you, you’re still improving at an astonishing rate. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t believe it. Has Luo Luo really given you this much motivation? Just because your sister likes to eat, you’ve improved this much?”

Qin Huai knew Huang Shengli was joking and smiled as he replied: “No choice, Master Huang, you know I’ve always made desserts just because Luo Luo wanted to eat them.”

Although this time it was for the March birthday banquet, for Chen Gong’s side quest.

It didn’t matter—Luo Luo had still eaten plenty of Four-Happiness Tangyuan these days. She was almost tired of it already, so occasionally letting her take the blame wasn’t a big deal.

“Xiao Qin, what are you doing right now…?”

“I’m sitting in the courtyard sunbathing and using my phone,” Qin Huai said. “Don’t laugh at me, but I’ve been making Four-Happiness Tangyuan so much recently that my head’s a bit spinning. I finally made such a beautiful batch of meat filling today, took a photo, and came out to relax in the sun. The filling is still in the kitchen, not wrapped yet.”

Huang Shengli laughed heartily over the phone.

“Good, sunbathing is good. That’s what you should do in winter. I won’t disturb your rest. If you run into problems while cooking, message me anytime. If I don’t reply in time, call your Master Zheng—he’s free.”

“Got it.” Qin Huai hung up and continued using his phone.

On the other end, in the Huang Ji kitchen, Huang Shengli held his phone and looked at Zheng Da, who was still standing there with his ears perked up.

“It’s already hung up,” he said helplessly.

“Senior brother! You didn’t ask the question I told you to ask!” Zheng Da said anxiously. “Xiao Qin’s talent is good, but it’s absolutely not this good. How could he have made that meat filling by himself in such a short time?”

“Someone must have guided him. I can tell at a glance that filling has been specially processed with a unique technique.”

“Also, have you noticed? Ever since the sixth day of the lunar new year, Xiao Qin hasn’t asked us any cooking questions on WeChat, not even casual sharing.”

“Could it be that he met another master during the holidays?”

“Are there any famous chefs in Guangdong Province from the same hometown as Qin Huai? No, I need to check their origins. Who is it? Who dares to go home for the New Year instead of working in a restaurant? I need to find out who returned home for the holiday.”

Zheng Da was anxious like an ant on a hot pan.

Huang Shengli sighed helplessly.

“When Xiao Qin was here, I didn’t see you working that hard. You slacked off after just a couple of days. Now you’re anxious?”

“With Xiao Qin’s talent, isn’t it normal for a passing master to take notice?”

“No, the thing is now…”

Huang Shengli interrupted Zheng Da: “Just tell me—does the filling he sent today look good or not?”

“Good. Extremely good. If I had seen Xiao Qin make filling this beautiful the first time I met him in Shanshi, I wouldn’t have even thought of taking him as my apprentice,” Zheng Da said. Proud as a so-called white-belt genius, he once had the desire to take talented people as disciples—but when faced with a true genius among geniuses, all that was left was self-awareness.

“Then how long do you think it would take Xiao Qin to make filling this good if he stayed at Huang Ji and continued training?” Huang Shengli asked again.

That question left Zheng Da silent.

It was hard for him to answer.

After a long pause, Zheng Da admitted honestly: “He can’t make it.”

“This filling clearly relies on a unique secret technique. I don’t have that technique, so I can’t teach it. If Xiao Qin tries to figure it out on his own, he might not be able to in ten years, twenty years, or even thirty years.”

“You see,” Huang Shengli said slowly. “I’m in hot-kitchen, you’re in pastry. You should understand better than I do. The meat filling in the photo Xiao Qin sent—besides his improved skill in mixing fillings, the main reason it looks so good is because of a newly learned secret method.”

“When used by street vendors, it’s called a century-old family recipe.”

“When used by ordinary chefs, it’s called a signature skill.”

“When used by famous chefs, it’s still a unique secret technique.”

“Ask yourself—if you could tell from just a photo that a technique significantly improves meat filling like this, would you teach it to anyone other than your direct disciple?”

“If you, Zheng Da, hadn’t gone into business and had spent your life as a chef, and only after decades of effort finally developed such a technique—would you have passed it to Xiao Qin the first time you met him?”

Zheng Da fell completely silent under Huang Shengli’s string of questions, and that silence was his answer.

“So even if Xiao Qin really did meet a new master, so what? That master has skill and is generous. As Xiao Qin’s Master Zheng, shouldn’t you be happy he met such a person?” Huang Shengli asked with a smile.

Zheng Da let out a deep sigh: “Senior brother, am I out of the picture already?”

“You were out of the picture a long time ago,” Huang Shengli said bluntly, piercing his junior disciple without mercy.

“You should be glad you met Xiao Qin first. You will always be the first Zheng Master who discovered him.”

“Even if later there are Master Wang, Master Zhang, Master Zhao, Master Li—you and I, Master Zheng and Master Huang, will always be at the front.”

“The record in Zhiwei proves it.”

After being comforted by Huang Shengli, Zheng Da became cheerful again and took out his phone to check flight tickets.

Huang Shengli glanced over and saw he was looking at tickets to Sanya.

Huang Shengli: ?

“Ah, I’ve been too tired lately. There’s nothing urgent at work anyway. I’ll go to the seaside and relax for a while.”

Then Zheng Da called his wife: “Hey, honey, should we take our daughter and Yiyi to Sanya for a while? Didn’t you just say the kids haven’t traveled in a long time?”

“The factory? It’s fine recently. If anything comes up, I can just fly back.”

“Siyuan? Siyuan definitely won’t go. Even asking him to go on a blind date takes repeated urging—he’d rather stick himself to that pastry shop. We’ll just go ourselves.”

“Alright, tell our daughter. I’ll look for hotels.”

Huang Shengli: …

He shouldn’t have said any of that earlier.

Zheng Da—you lazy donkey who only makes pastries a few times a year, without Qin Huai dangling in front of you like a carrot, you won’t even pull the mill.

“Senior brother, are you coming?”

“Get lost.”