AGN -Chapter 284 Little Master Qin Will Return Like Lightning

On March 8, Qin Huai boarded a flight to Shanshi carrying a large amount of luggage.

The six cutting boards that Zhang Chu made for him, along with three sets of finished molds, were all sent by mail early that morning.

To make it easier for Qin Huai to better cut ingredients while video-calling Cao Guixiang for online lessons, Zhang Chu used leftover materials to make a wooden phone stand. It was painted and carved with floral patterns, and on the back of the stand was even a small “Qin” character.

Qin Huai didn’t know how Zhang Chu managed it, but the phone stand was quite flexible. Its only drawback was that it was a bit heavy. However, that heaviness was actually an advantage—it wouldn’t easily tip over from external force.

Cao Guixiang and Zhang Chu sent Qin Huai to the airport.

“Master Cao, I’m going in for security. I’ll message you when I land to let you know I’m safe. Don’t freeze the Four-Joy Tangyuan in the fridge for too long—after more than a week, the taste drops significantly. The Four-Joy dumplings are the same; they’re best eaten fresh.” Qin Huai waved goodbye to Cao Guixiang and Zhang Chu.

Since moving in with Cao Guixiang to learn cooking, Qin Huai had basically never woken up early. But today, he got up especially early—around 4 a.m.—to make a large batch of Four-Joy Tangyuan and Four-Joy dumplings, preparing a rich breakfast for Cao Guixiang and Zhang Chu.

“Don’t worry, they won’t last long. With Yunyun and Qingqing’s appetites, they’ll be finished in two or three days. The Four-Joy Tangyuan you brought back on the sixth was finished in one meal.” Cao Guixiang smiled and waved. “When you get home today, don’t practice cutting boards anymore. Rest well.”

“I understand, Master Cao.” Qin Huai waved again and went through security.

On this flight, Qin Huai did not encounter Chen Gong sitting next to him—in fact, there was no one beside him at all.

It seemed airline business wasn’t doing very well today.

With no one around, Qin Huai relaxed completely. He opened his game interface and started watching tutorial videos. Some of these videos he had watched many times; others he had barely touched.

Tutorials like fruit pastries, Four-Joy Tangyuan, and San Ding buns—he had nearly memorized them.

Of course, there were also ones he didn’t dare to watch often, like rice cake soup. Watching once was fine; watching twice meant he would remember everything.

But there were some recipes he truly hadn’t watched much at all, only occasionally glancing at them without ever practicing.

For example, glutinous rice cake and “claw-flower palace lantern buns.”

To be fair to them, Qin Huai had watched stir-fried cabbage with pork more times than those two recipes. Sometimes before sleeping, when he didn’t know what else to do, he would open the cabbage stir-fry tutorial and watch it once.

That video was only a few minutes long, but packed with useful content—and most importantly, he could actually understand it. When he couldn’t physically improve his heat control skills through practice, he could only rely on “cyber training” by watching videos.

As for glutinous rice cake and claw-flower palace lantern buns, those were not bedtime viewing material. The latter was too difficult—watching wouldn’t help him make it. His skill in finger techniques was only intermediate, and for an S-rank claw-flower palace lantern bun, even master-level dexterity might not be enough. Watching it was more like appreciating art.

As for glutinous rice cake, he simply hadn’t reached that stage yet.

During his attempt to raise his favorability with Qu Jing, Qin Huai had once seriously practiced glutinous rice cake. But after going to Huang Ji for exchanges, he rarely made it. Occasionally, when he sent pastries to Qu Jing, they were made by Zheng Siyuan instead—Zheng Siyuan made better rice cakes than him.

The glutinous rice cake buff only activated at A-rank, and Qin Huai knew his limits very well. He couldn’t reach A-rank with it, so he simply stopped watching the tutorials much at all.

Sigh… he had neglected glutinous rice cake.

Feeling a bit guilty, Qin Huai decided to watch it a few more times on the plane.

And once he started, he couldn’t stop.

This movement, this technique, this control of steaming heat…

A master. Definitely a master.

Wait—who made this glutinous rice cake again?

He checked the recipe: unknown.

Oh, that wandering “spirit-like creature.”

He hadn’t expected that even among spirits there were such culinary masters. Truly, masters were everywhere in the world.

Throughout the entire flight, Qin Huai watched tutorial videos nonstop, so absorbed that he didn’t even touch the in-flight meal. When he got off the plane, he was still immersed in the glutinous rice cake technique, itching to try it.

He made up his mind: today he would rest at home, and tomorrow afternoon he would make glutinous rice cake. After so long working with Four-Joy Tangyuan and dealing with glutinous rice, he was confident he could make a B+ grade glutinous rice cake!

As for why he wasn’t confident about making A-grade?

Because he truly wasn’t.

“Qin Huai! Old Qin! My godfather! Dad!”

At the airport exit, Ou Yang excitedly ran toward Qin Huai. As he got closer, his form of address became increasingly affectionate.

Qin Huai: “…I’m noticing you’re getting more and more shameless.”

Calling him “dad” in public—Ou Yang was really developing the makings of a true profiteer. Thick-skinned.

“Help! Didn’t you say you’d be back in a couple of days? It’s been over a week! Your brother here almost died!” Ou Yang cried dramatically, though his eyes were dry and not a single tear appeared.

“What happened? Your grandfather’s already discharged. You’re not missing arms or legs, your father didn’t beat you half to death, and your uncle and aunt didn’t blame you either. You’re the man who sent your entire family to the hospital on New Year’s Eve.” Qin Huai laughed.

“They didn’t beat me half to death, but I’m basically starving to death,” Ou Yang said, looking resolutely at the sky so his tears wouldn’t fall. “Even coming to pick you up, I had to borrow Sister Hong’s car—and I don’t even have money for gas.”

“Oh right, Sister Hong told me to tell you: meet at Mr. Luo’s house at 4 p.m. today. Something’s up.”

Qin Huai immediately understood—tea party.

After months of online tea gatherings, they were finally having an offline one.

Fruit always tasted sweeter at Luo Jun’s house. The fruit sent to Qin Village by Luo Jun never quite had the same flavor.

As they walked toward the parking lot, Qin Huai asked, “Your poverty probably has nothing to do with me, right? Isn’t it because you quit your community job and lost your salary, and your parents froze your card and stopped giving you allowance?”

“Exactly. I’m counting on my hand-shaken lemon tea shop to recover. My dad said if I don’t open the shop, I won’t get a single cent.”

“How much will you get if you open it?”

“200,000 yuan loss subsidy.”

Qin Huai: …

For a moment, he really felt like fighting these rich second-generation kids.

At that moment, Qin Huai even felt a sudden urge not to give Ou Yang the fruit tea recipe Master Cao gave him.

“Have you hired staff for your lemon tea shop yet?” Qin Huai asked.

“One full-time worker and four university students. Enough.”

“Let me ask you something. Would you consider going high-end?” Qin Huai said.

Ou Yang: ?

Can hand-shaken lemon tea go high-end?

They reached Chen Hong’s Bentley, put their luggage in, and Ou Yang set the navigation before asking, still confused: “Why go high-end?”

“Here’s the thing. I’ve been learning from a master recently. She heard you were opening a lemon tea shop and kindly gave me a few fruit tea recipes she developed herself. I’ve looked at them—they’re very simple and easy to make, but the cost is very high. They require top-quality sugar, tea, fruit, and juice. Absolutely no cutting corners.”

“Using cheap sugar substitutes and blending spoiled fruit after trimming the bad parts—that kind of thing is absolutely not allowed for these recipes.”

“According to the formula, each cup of fruit tea costs around 8 to 15 yuan.”

“You’re probably going to have to sell it for over 30 yuan per cup, and the portion size still can’t be very large.”

“Forget it, I probably can’t explain this clearly. Your shop should already be renovated, the machines are all in place, and you’ve likely already bought some ingredients. Later I’ll go to Mr. Luo’s house and ‘borrow’ some fruit. I’ll follow the recipe and make you two cups so you can taste it yourself—you’ll understand then.”

For Ou Yang’s hand-shaken lemon tea business, Qin Huai didn’t first go home after entering Yunzhong Community with his luggage. Instead, he asked Ou Yang to help him take the luggage while he headed straight to Luo Jun’s house to “pick out” fruit according to the recipe written by Cao Guixiang.

Cao Guixiang had specifically noted on the recipe that fresh fruit should be used whenever possible, not juice—the freshness of ingredients was the most important part of her fruit teas.

Under Luo Jun’s side-eye glare, Qin Huai left with two large bags of fruit, fully loaded.

The moment Qin Huai left and closed the door, Luo Jun—who had been sitting on the sofa watching TV the entire time without moving an inch—suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs:

“Xiao Zhang! Go check the fruit Qin Huai picked just now—buy two boxes of each kind!”

Qin Huai carried two big bags of fruit straight to Ou Yang’s lemon tea shop.

It had to be said, Ou Yang’s field trip to Suzhou wasn’t completely useless. He had learned the essence of shop design—paint the storefront green.

If that green had been a darker shade instead of bright emerald, it would have been even better. No one knew what Ou Yang was thinking—the shop front was a bit too vividly green.

Ou Yang’s hand-shaken lemon tea shop was directly opposite Yunzhong Cafeteria. It was called “Xiao Ou Hand-Shaken Lemon Tea”—a very straightforward name.

The shop was small. Qin Huai vaguely remembered it used to be a coffee shop selling cheap coffee, with drinks ranging from 9.9 to 29.9 yuan. Chen Huihong had once complained to him that the 9.9 coffee was basically diluted from a cheap coffee concentrate bought on Taobao for under 2 yuan—an absolute scam. She told him to avoid it at all costs.

By the way, Luo Jun had also left a scathing review for that coffee shop’s delivery menu—reportedly extremely harsh. That review alone had over 700 likes, all from the merchants themselves.

The merchants who had been roasted by Luo Jun loved nothing more than liking negative reviews of other businesses he had also criticized.

Qin Huai couldn’t understand it. Luo Jun was already 92 years old, had irregular sleep habits—what did he even need coffee for? And cheap 9.9 coffee at that?

All he could conclude was that ordering random takeout just to leave negative reviews was the old man’s hobby.

There were no employees in the lemon tea shop yet. Since it hadn’t officially opened, Ou Yang didn’t want to spend too much on salaries. After basic training, he simply told the workers to wait at home or school for further notice.

It was clear Ou Yang was being extremely cautious about not losing money in this venture.

Qin Huai looked around the shop briefly. The renovation was decent. The space was already small, so aside from the counter, there were only two small tables and four chairs.

At first glance, the counter was clean and well-equipped—standard modern tea shop setup.

Ou Yang was clearly prepared.

Cao Guixiang had given Qin Huai four fruit tea recipes, named after their main ingredients: strawberry fruit tea, blueberry fruit tea, mango fruit tea, and coconut drink.

Among them, the coconut drink mainly used coconut milk and a well-known brand of coconut juice. According to Cao Guixiang, this was because Zhang Zhuyun had once loved drinking that brand, so she developed this drink to let her grandson enjoy it in a better way.

Ou Yang stared at the recipe in disbelief and pointed at the coconut drink recipe.

“This… really… can be sold?”

It just looked like mixing drink with drink.

“Don’t worry about it. Just make it.” Qin Huai said calmly as he started preparing the strawberry fruit tea.

Fresh strawberries were mashed, blended with ice into a smoothie, sugar added, water mixed in, then poured into a well-known brand of green tea.

Meanwhile, Ou Yang was mixing this, pouring that, then mixing again.

Making the coconut drink felt like playing house as a child.

After carefully studying the recipes again, Ou Yang realized that aside from the mango fruit tea—which was completely normal and used high-quality ingredients like fresh pulp, fresh juice, premium sugar, and specific tea leaves—the other three recipes were all strange.

They were all just “mix this with that, then mix that with this.”

It didn’t look like something written by a culinary master. It looked like it was written by someone extremely experienced in drinking beverages.

“Qin Huai… are these really recipes?” Ou Yang asked blankly.

If these were good recipes, then his own “innovative lemon tea formulas” were just as good too.

They also involved mixing ingredients—and he even had hand-shaken lemons!

“Don’t worry about it. Just make them.” Qin Huai didn’t even look up. “Just tell me—are the costs high or not?”

Fresh fruit plus expensive drinks being mixed together recklessly—there was no way the cost would be low.

The shop door was open while they worked. Sitting by the cafeteria window, staring at the street outside, holding his phone and hesitating whether to message Qin Huai, Xu Tuqiang looked at the shop across the street with deep sadness.

Why hasn’t Xiao Qin returned yet?

Wasn’t he supposed to be back after the New Year? It’s already March—where is he?

He didn’t even go to Suzhou—how are their “Suzhou housing investment group” plans supposed to proceed?

Just as Xu Tuqiang was feeling melancholic, he suddenly thought he might be hallucinating. Why did the young man inside Ou Yang’s unopened lemon tea shop… look like Xiao Qin?

Wait—Xiao Qin?!

Xu Tuqiang quietly looked around, confirmed no one was paying attention, stood up, and muttered:

“Where’s my cigarette?”

Then he acted extremely skillfully and casually walked away.

Inside the lemon tea shop, three premium fruit teas were already prepared.

Ou Yang held the coconut drink, about to taste it—but first he needed to ask what it was called.

Before he could speak, Xu Tuqiang suddenly “teleported” into the shop.

“Xiao Qin!” Xu Tuqiang’s excited voice pierced the air. “You’re back and you didn’t even say anything in the group? I’ve written so many notes on Four-Joy Tangyuan tasting experiences—just waiting to give them to you!”

“Good afternoon, Uncle Xu.” Qin Huai smiled and handed him a strawberry fruit tea. “Just got off the plane. Ou Yang’s shop opens tomorrow, so I came to help test the recipes.”

“You should try it too.”

Xu Tuqiang took the iced strawberry fruit tea and, in early March weather still cold enough for cotton coats, decisively took a big sip.

“Good… hey, this is really good.”

He was shocked. He had originally planned to just compliment it blindly, but this didn’t need blind praise—it was genuinely good.

He smacked his lips, temporarily shelved all the praise he had prepared during the New Year, and took another small sip.

“Xiao Ou, not bad—you actually learned real skills in Suzhou.”

Ou Yang: ?

Uncle Xu, are you acting or not? That actually sounded pretty real.

Ou Yang took a sip of the coconut drink.

“Holy—”

“I’m going to get rich?!”

Five minutes later, news spread throughout the Yunzhong Cafeteria food circle:

Little Master Qin has returned like lightning and is currently at Xiao Ou’s Lemon Tea Shop testing new drinks with Ou Yang. All customers are welcome to come taste them.

Office workers were instantly excited, feeling that life finally had hope again.

When Luo Jun heard about Qin Huai’s return:

?

“Hey Qin, are you still coming to my tea party at 4 p.m. or not?”

“You just took my fruit and now you’re not coming? Was Zhang Shumei’s fruit platter prepared for nothing?”