AGN -Chapter 306 Turns Out We’ve Misunderstood Mung Bean Cakes All These Years

Ou Yang didn’t come to pick him up empty-handed.

He brought along the culprit behind his recent weight gain—“Mango No. 1.”

Sitting in the passenger seat, Qin Huai sipped his milk tea while scrolling through the chat history of their “Happy Family” group during his flight, and couldn’t help but sigh:

“Your drink-mixing skills have definitely improved. Mango No. 1 tastes way better than the first time I tried it.”

“Of course.” Ou Yang proudly lifted his chin—though that only made his soon-to-appear double chin more obvious. “I make hundreds of cups a day, especially while you were gone these past few days. Not to brag, but our delivery orders practically exploded. So many people couldn’t get your pastries, and, you know… they miss you when they see the food, so they come to our handmade lemon tea shop for fruit tea instead.”

Qin Huai: …

He really needed to emphasize again—that’s not how you use that phrase!

“But Qin Huai, why did you suddenly decide to start selling mung bean cakes from tomorrow?” Ou Yang asked curiously. “I remember you said before that making mung bean cakes is troublesome because you have to peel the beans, and the mung bean flour on the market varies in quality, not as good as the traditional method. You hardly ever made them.”

“You’d occasionally make iced mung bean cakes in the summer, but after autumn started, I haven’t seen you make them at all. Back at Huang Ji, you only made them once.” Ou Yang looked genuinely puzzled.

“It’s actually not because peeling them is troublesome.” Qin Huai calmly sipped his fruit tea. “It’s mainly because I don’t like eating mung bean cakes, so I couldn’t be bothered to make them.”

“You can buy peeled mung beans on the market anyway.”

Ou Yang: ?

“Every time I had Luo Luo peel them was because mung bean cakes are really cheap—and she likes them.”

“If she were allowed to eat freely, from morning till night, she still wouldn’t spend much money. That girl likes expensive pastries, but she doesn’t mind cheap ones either. When she has money, she eats the expensive stuff; when she doesn’t, she eats the cheap ones.”

“If we let her pay for unlimited mung bean cakes, she’d lose all motivation to study during holidays to ‘repay her debt.’ She’d just sit around eating mung bean cakes all day.”

“My mom and I both felt we shouldn’t spoil her like that, so we came up with this method. If she wants to eat mung bean cakes, she has to earn them herself—her job is peeling the beans. Turns out she’s not great at other tasks, but she’s surprisingly skilled at peeling mung beans—careful and fast. After a while, it just became a habit.”

Ou Yang: …

As an only child, Ou Yang sucked in a cold breath, silently lighting a candle in sympathy for Qin Luo. At the same time, he felt a strange sense of relief that his parents hadn’t happened to pass through Qiu County back then and adopt Qin Huai to be his younger brother.

Qin Huai was terrifying!

With a brain like that, wouldn’t he have been toyed with just like Qin Luo?

…Wait.

If doing some work meant getting pastries…

Damn it—why didn’t his parents pass through Qiu County and adopt Qin Huai?!

After Qin Huai finished his milk tea and even scooped out and ate the fruit pulp, Ou Yang finally gathered his thoughts and cautiously asked:

“Um… Qin… Qin Huai, can I ask why you suddenly changed your mind and decided to sell mung bean cakes every day?”

“Is it because Luo Luo did well on her last exam?”

Qin Huai noticed the caution in Ou Yang’s tone, though he didn’t understand why his friend had suddenly become so careful—but that wasn’t important. Ou Yang’s train of thought often didn’t make sense to him anyway.

“Oh right, the results from that exam should be out by now. My parents haven’t told me yet—I’ll ask tomorrow.”

Ou Yang: Luo Luo, I’m sorry!

“As for why I decided to make mung bean cakes,” Qin Huai said, “it’s probably because after going to City A this time, I realized that mung bean cakes are actually pretty tasty.”

“I think if everyone can buy a delicious and affordable mung bean cake at Yunzhong Cafeteria, they’d be quite happy.”

—

The roads were smooth that night. After getting home, Qin Huai washed up and went straight to bed, then showed up for work on time the next day.

Of course—his shift as a pastry chef.

The days of “Little Qin” waking up at 4 a.m. to make breakfast were long gone. Now, Yunzhong Cafeteria’s breakfast was handled by a proper breakfast chef, Chen An, and business had returned to what a normal community cafeteria’s breakfast service should be.

The elderly who had developed a habit of morning jogging still came every day at 6 a.m., rain or shine, to eat a simple breakfast. Office workers, if it was on their way, didn’t mind stopping by to grab a couple of buns on their commute.

Just in case, one day, Little Qin might be in a good mood and decide to give everyone a surprise.

Opportunities favor the prepared—many customers firmly believed that as long as they checked in often enough, they’d eventually catch an unexpected “super surprise.”

In reality, no such surprise appeared.

What did appear… was mung bean cake.

As President Han’s all-purpose assistant, Chen Gong’s efficiency and work quality were unquestionable. Qin Huai even felt that after regaining memories of all his past lives, Chen Gong’s work ability had reached another level. Before, he had only lived thirty-something years with just over a decade of work experience.

Now, with memories of multiple lifetimes spent working, his experience was so vast it would leave any job seeker in the dust.

By 6 a.m., high-quality peeled mung beans had already been delivered to Yunzhong Cafeteria—stable supply, reasonable price. Even Huang Xi clicked her tongue in amazement, asking Qin Huai what connections he had used to find such an excellent supplier.

The first thing Qin Huai did upon arriving was make mung bean cakes.

He steamed the beans first, then brewed tangerine peel tea, then started kneading dough while instructing helpers to prepare ingredients—timing everything perfectly to produce the maximum number of pastries in the shortest time.

Life as Little Qin at Yunzhong Cafeteria was still busy. Besides making pastries, he had to set aside two hours daily to practice knife skills. Without careful time management, he wouldn’t even have time to use his phone after work.

Li Hua and Pei Xing were already prepared.

Pei Xing had brewed hot tea. Before Qin Huai arrived, Li Hua had been the pastry chef; after Qin Huai’s arrival, he became Little Qin’s most capable assistant—specializing in chopping meat. Pastry-making could wait; being Qin Huai’s helper was his lifelong dream.

Recently, Li Hua and Pei Xing had been in fierce competition.

They were colleagues—but also rivals.

Qin Huai loved teaching, but his time was limited. Both Li Hua and Pei Xing came from Zhiwei Residence, so they understood this basic unspoken rule:

A master giving guidance is a privilege. If you keep asking about trivial things or fail to understand after repeated explanations, it just shows you lack awareness.

A master’s time is precious—getting even a sentence or two of advice is already a bonus. If you understand, it means you have insight. If you don’t, it means you’re dull.

The problem was—Chef Qin wasn’t very articulate.

When it came to areas he excelled in, like seasoning, he could explain more. But in areas he wasn’t as strong in, like kneading dough, he didn’t have much to say.

Pei Xing was grinding his teeth in frustration.

He wanted to improve and become Qin Huai’s most capable assistant, but his knife skills couldn’t match Li Hua’s, and his progress lagged behind too. Every time he showed Qin Huai his kneaded dough, he could only understand about 30% of what Qin Huai said—the remaining 70% about “feel,” “touch,” and “subtle force” had to be grasped through intuition… which he simply couldn’t achieve.

He was so anxious he even considered calling his relative Pei Shenghua for help. Unfortunately, although Pei Shenghua was a master chef, he specialized in savory cooking, not pastry—so there was no shortcut available.

During the two days Qin Huai was away in City A, Pei Xing felt like he had finally grasped a bit more of that elusive “feeling.” He was now kneading dough seriously, planning to take a small piece to Qin Huai for feedback once it had fermented.

While Pei Xing was hard at work, his coworker slacked off.

“Have you heard? Chef Qin contacted a mung bean supplier himself. Starting today, mung bean cakes will be officially sold every day,” Li Hua said—not only slacking off himself, but also chatting with others.

Pei Xing shot him a look—why aren’t you working?—and replied, “Mung bean cakes aren’t complicated to make. They can be produced in large quantities, sold quickly, and have a broad appeal. If Chef Qin wants something easier, it makes sense.”

Li Hua shook his head inwardly, thinking Pei Xing still lacked insight in certain areas—no wonder he couldn’t outcompete him lately.

“Chef Qin has always made high-volume pastries—like donkey rolls, for example. And in terms of speed and efficiency, Four-Joy Tangyuan isn’t slow either, and it’s even more profitable. As for appeal, do Chef Qin’s pastries ever struggle to sell?” Li Hua said.

“…What do you mean?”

“You’ll see in a moment.”

After Li Hua’s reminder, when the steamed mung beans were ready to be mashed, both Pei Xing and Li Hua basically stopped what they were doing, craning their necks to watch how Qin Huai handled it.

If it were just a small amount of mung beans, you could simply mash them into paste with a spatula.

But when dealing with hundreds of jin of beans, that method would be far too exhausting. Traditional pastry-making has its advantages—but modern technology has its strengths too.

Compared to a spatula, a blender was clearly the better choice.

An Youyou led two helpers in processing the steamed mung beans into paste, while Qin Huai heated a pan and melted butter to begin stir-frying. Steaming could be done all at once, but stir-frying had to be done batch by batch.

Qin Huai felt that one great thing about making mung bean cakes was that it helped improve his control over heat.

Stir-frying mung bean paste with butter and sugar wasn’t particularly difficult—in fact, it was relatively easy, with a high margin for error. It was perfectly suited to Qin Huai’s current level of heat control.

In this process, controlling the amount of butter and sugar was actually harder than the stir-frying itself. It was practically the ideal pastry for training heat control skills.

As Qin Huai stir-fried batch after batch of mung bean paste, Pei Xing and Li Hua watched closely the entire time. With each batch finished and pressed into molds, the kitchen filled with a refreshing mung bean aroma, mixed with the creamy scent of butter and the sweetness of sugar.

When the final batch was done, Qin Huai skillfully took out several small plates, scooped a portion into each, and called out to the others:

“Want to try it while it’s hot?”

Pei Xing & Li Hua: ?

Try it… while it’s hot?

Since when was that a thing for mung bean cakes?!

“Honestly, I don’t really understand this way of eating either,” Qin Huai admitted. “But President Han and his wife from Hao Weidao seem to like it a lot—maybe it has its own unique charm. This is the last batch, so if you don’t try it now, you won’t get the chance.”

Still confused, Pei Xing and Li Hua each picked up a plate. Chen An was still busy working and couldn’t come over yet, while An Youyou—having just finished pressing a batch—quickly washed her hands and hurried over happily.

An Youyou was a complete amateur. She didn’t understand anything technical—she simply did whatever Qin Huai said and started eating immediately.

“Mmm!”

When it came to giving feedback, An Youyou was definitely number one.

No matter what pastry Qin Huai made, she always responded with exaggerated delight like this.

“Wow, Chef Qin, you were right! Mung bean cake tastes way better when eaten hot than usual!” she exclaimed in surprise.

Pei Xing & Li Hua: ?

After all these years as pastry chefs… had they actually misunderstood mung bean cake?

The two exchanged uncertain glances, then each scooped up a spoonful and carefully tasted it.

The mung bean flavor was rich. Since the paste hadn’t yet been tightly compressed in molds, its texture was loose upon entry, yet still smooth and delicate.

The combination of butter and mung bean paste added a subtle milky aroma, making it more fragrant and sweet. The precisely controlled amount of sugar enhanced the sweetness without making it cloying—instead, it highlighted the refreshing quality of the mung beans.

This was genuinely delicious.

Delicious mung bean… paste.

Pei Xing and Li Hua both saw the same confusion in each other’s eyes.

Was this actually the correct way to eat mung bean cake? Had they misunderstood it all these years?

So this was why they couldn’t advance further at Zhiwei Residence and had to quietly leave—because they didn’t even understand something as simple as mung bean cake.

At that moment, both of them felt like crying.

Just as Qin Huai was about to ask how it tasted—whether it was truly better hot than cold, and whether he misunderstood mung bean cake or Han Guishan understood it too well—his phone rang.

It was Zheng Siyuan.

That call had to be answered.

(Incidentally, Qin Huai had also tried freshly made, still-warm mung bean cake the previous day—but didn’t get to try it chilled. Chilled mung bean cake takes time, and he had a flight to catch.)

“Hello,” Qin Huai answered.

“I’ve arrived in Shan City—just got off the plane. I’m staying at the same place as last time; my dad already arranged for it to be cleaned. I’ll drop off my luggage later and then head to Yunzhong Cafeteria.”

“Send me today’s menu—I’ll prepare,” Zheng Siyuan said concisely.

Qin Huai was surprised. “Why did you arrive in the morning? Weren’t you supposed to take an afternoon flight?”

“There was a seat on a morning flight, so I changed it.”

“Why the rush?”

There was a brief silence on the other end before Zheng Siyuan replied, “Tan Weian forwarded me some pictures… and some chat messages.”

“The Four-Joy Tangyuan you made at the birthday banquet… looked incredible. Apparently everyone who tasted it praised it endlessly. Xu Cheng even plans to write another exclusive feature just for you.”

Qin Huai was shocked. “Why did Tan Weian forward all that to you?! Wait—why is Zang Liang the same? Why does he also love sending pictures and messages so much?”

“Is that the point?” Zheng Siyuan shot back. “You actually turned down Xu Cheng’s exclusive interview?!”

“I wouldn’t call it turning it down,” Qin Huai explained. “The celebrity effect from Zhiwei is too overwhelming—my small Yunzhong Cafeteria can’t handle it. And I didn’t completely refuse. Mr. Xu said he’d reserve the interview for me indefinitely—Zhiwei will always keep a spot for my Four-Joy Tangyuan whenever I’m ready.”

Zheng Siyuan took a deep breath… and hung up.

Then immediately messaged Tan Weian:

Zheng Siyuan: You were right. I kind of want to beat him up now too.
Tan Weian (instant reply): RIGHT?!

Back at Yunzhong Cafeteria, after Qin Huai hung up, Pei Xing turned his head slightly and whispered to Li Hua:

“I don’t know why… but I suddenly feel like hitting someone.”

Li Hua gritted his teeth and replied:

“Same.”