AGN -Chapter 323 The Apprenticeship Learning Group

The morning crab roe noodles continued selling until 8:42 a.m.

The final bowl of crab roe noodles was bought by a Mr. Wang, a senior executive from a nearby office building. The reason Qin Huai knew so much detail was because the executive’s employee happened to be standing in line right behind him to buy buns, and Qin Huai overheard more than one office worker addressing him as “Mr. Wang.”

Honestly speaking, once you reach the level of Mr. Wang, things are just different—you don’t even worry about being late for work.

Mr. Wang spent a full 18 minutes eating that bowl of noodles, starting when the restaurant was at its busiest and finishing when it had become almost empty. After eating, under the waiter’s recommendation, he even went across the street to Xiaoou Handcrafted Lemon Tea shop to buy a fruit tea, and didn’t forget to ask whether the crab roe mixed noodles were available every morning.

It was clear—Mr. Wang had decided he would start arriving late to work every day just to eat crab roe noodles.

“Looks like the customers really like today’s crab roe mixed noodles. Even though we didn’t produce a crab roe sauce that satisfied us, we still satisfied most of the customers,” Qin Huai concluded with a smile.

Zheng Siyuan remained unmoved by this, only asking with slight confusion, “Did you recently learn some kind of motivational teaching method?”

Qin Huai nodded naturally. “I picked up some insights from guiding the staff in the shop lately. How was my wording just now?”

“My martial uncle is better at this than you,” Zheng Siyuan said. “If he were praising someone, you wouldn’t even realize he was deliberately praising them.”

Qin Huai understood immediately—still needed practice.

“What are we making today?” Zheng Siyuan asked.

He was a very measured pastry chef, clearly distinguishing between normal work and extra practice, and would never let experimental training affect regular operations.

“I’ll stick to the same plan: I’ll make Four Happiness Tangyuan and mung bean cakes, you make San Ding buns and fermented rice buns, and the rest is free practice,” Qin Huai said. “But I might slack off a bit during this period, so I’ll need you to help make some of the items.”

“I want to take this time while we’re researching crab roe sauce to get familiar with sea cucumber.”

Zheng Siyuan appreciated Qin Huai’s forward-thinking approach. Crab roe sauce research was important, but Qin Huai’s contribution there was limited (he wasn’t strong in heat control). His main role was tasting and ensuring the noodles weren’t wasted.

After the crab roe sauce research was done, Qin Huai might end up with dramatically improved dough skills—but little improvement in seasoning, knife work, or heat control.

No need to ask why. He’d simply made too many crab roe noodles.

“Need help? How do you plan to get familiar with it?” Zheng Siyuan asked.

“I plan to make cold sea cucumber salad,” Qin Huai said. “Sea cucumber has a strong fishy smell, so I’ll start with the easiest and most error-prone method. Even though my knife skills aren’t great, cold dishes don’t rely too much on cutting. The key is seasoning. I believe once I master this, I’ll understand sea cucumber well enough. By then, your crab roe sauce should also be close to ready, and we can combine them for the official Double Crab Bun.”

Zheng Siyuan simply said, “Knife skills are still important.”

“All cold dishes depend heavily on knife skills.”

“Then I’ll just get someone else to cut it. Li Hua’s knife skills are pretty good—I’ll tell him later.”

After saying that, Qin Huai looked slightly troubled. “Sigh, at first I thought two pastry chefs were enough for Yunzhong Cafeteria. Later I realized we needed more helpers. But when it came time to hire them, I found not every place has helpers like Huang Ji or Zhiwei Residence.”

“If it weren’t for you helping me, I wouldn’t even have time to practice cold sea cucumber.”

Zheng Siyuan agreed, “It’s indeed hard for ordinary restaurants to hire helpers with decent cooking skills. And your requirements are even higher than normal chefs.”

“In places like Huang Ji or Zhiwei Residence, even their ordinary helpers could work as full chefs in regular restaurants. For example, Wang Jun in Huang Ji is only half a cutting station worker, but his actual cooking skills are stronger than your cafeteria’s two hot kitchen chefs.”

Qin Huai: “……”

Fine. I get it. You’re not satisfied with our cafeteria meals.

“What did you eat yesterday?”

“For lunch, braised pork with preserved vegetables, garlic stir-fried water spinach, and pork rib soup.”

“Don’t eat the braised pork with preserved vegetables. It’s always too salty, but some customers like it, so it’s never removed from the menu.”

“I recommend just eating tomato scrambled eggs. It goes well with rice.”

Zheng Siyuan: “……”

Exhausted. Let it all be destroyed.

A slightly unhappy Xiao Zheng could only sigh deeply and continue kneading dough.

Another ordinary morning.

Zheng Siyuan diligently focused on making pastries, while the “irresponsible” Qin Huai only half-heartedly made Four Happiness Tangyuan and mung bean cakes before starting his sea cucumber experiment.

None of his results were offered for tasting.

Each time, he would prepare a portion, take a bite himself, immediately grimace, look like he was suffering, question his life choices in silence for a few seconds… and then collapse into despair.

This repeated over and over in the kitchen. As Qin Huai’s expression grew more and more serious, even Pei Xing—who had originally planned to rush over with dough for guidance—quietly went back to kneading his own dough out of good sense.

At lunch, Pei Xing whispered to Li Hua in confusion, “Didn’t Qin Chef usually let us all taste after he finished testing dishes?”

“Why is he just making it, eating it, and silently collapsing today?”

Pei Xing’s face was full of: I also want to contribute.

Li Hua glanced at him deeply, finally understanding why this “connected hire” guy couldn’t survive at Zhiwei Residence like himself. Talent was one thing—emotional intelligence was another.

Li Hua calmly took a bite of rice and said, “Chef Qin has his own judgment. If he says no need, then there’s no need.”

Some dishes are worth tasting. Some aren’t even worth it.

The pigs eating today’s cafeteria leftovers are lucky.

Meanwhile, Qin Huai was genuinely questioning his life while making cold sea cucumber salad.

Not because it was inedible—but because it was difficult beyond expectation.

Before this, he barely understood sea cucumber. Even though Cao Guixiang had given him a one-hour crash course and told him to practice afterward, he still didn’t really understand it.

Now he did.

Sea cucumber… is really fishy.

Compared to it, fishy smell from fish or meat was nothing. Sea cucumber’s odor wasn’t strong, but if not handled properly, it would instantly ruin the entire dish, exposing the chef’s lack of skill in the most direct way.

It wasn’t impossible to handle.

But it definitely wasn’t easy either.

Qin Huai’s master-level seasoning meant he wouldn’t mess up flavoring easily.

And indeed, during practice, early attempts had many issues due to unfamiliarity and clumsy handling, making the first few versions barely edible.

Learning a new dish meant constantly finding problems and fixing them. Qin Huai fixed quickly—but he only fixed.

He had merely managed to remove the fishy smell, making the dish “acceptable,” but not truly delicious.

Sea cucumber itself has no flavor. All taste comes from seasoning added later—it is a true “skill showcase” ingredient.

And “showcase” means you must have skill to show.

With each improvement in the morning, Qin Huai found himself questioning life a little more.

Because the more he understood sea cucumber, the more a question from Cao Guixiang kept circling in his mind:

Could sea cucumber really be paired with crab roe in a bun?

How did the chef who created that recipe even dare?

This was no longer just confidence.

This was… pure audacity.

“How can these two ingredients possibly be combined?”

As he gradually learned more about sea cucumber as an ingredient, Qin Huai came to realize that Chef Zheng’s idea of deep-frying sea cucumber for just a few seconds was nothing short of genius.

Zheng Daye truly had remarkable talent.

His ideas were unconventional, almost unorthodox, yet the results were astonishing.

As Qin Huai kept working, he even began to feel a sense of awe toward Chef Zheng.

This admiration and confusion lingered all the way until noon. While slicing radish into shreds in front of his phone camera, his mind was still on one question: how did sea cucumber and crab roe even end up being paired together? Was that even right?

Was the “Double Crab Bun” made with crab roe sauce really the same as the one made with fresh crab roe?

Qin Huai even started to understand Zheng Siyuan a bit. It’s easier to be fearless when you don’t know—when you lack knowledge, everything feels possible. But the more you know, the more your thinking becomes constrained. Not necessarily limited, but aware of the difficulty, the barriers—so you stop even considering certain ideas.

Thinking about it that way, Zheng Daye really was a genius.

He dared to throw almost anything into hot oil and fry it once. It was absurd, but that kind of thinking was indeed genius.

“Xiao Qin, what’s wrong? You seem distracted. What are you thinking about?” Cao Guixiang noticed Qin Huai’s slight absent-mindedness and reminded him, “Thinking about other things while cutting vegetables isn’t a good habit. Be careful with your hands.”

Qin Huai didn’t even subconsciously look down at the knife and directly explained, “I was thinking about how crab roe and sea cucumber could be combined as bun filling.”

Cao Guixiang couldn’t help but laugh, coughing twice before quickly taking a sip of water.

“So it looks like you were learning sea cucumber dishes today. Let me guess—hot dishes are out of the question for you. Your knife skills and heat control aren’t there yet. So for cold dishes, it’s probably just chilled sea cucumber, right?”

“Using the recipe I gave you?”

“Yes.” Qin Huai nodded.

“Then you should practice it well,” Cao Guixiang said. “That recipe I gave you isn’t ordinary—it’s basically a secret recipe. It’s quite difficult and requires either a very experienced chef or someone with very strong seasoning skills.”

“But what you just said is right too—combining crab roe and sea cucumber into bun filling is pretty outrageous. That filling is probably no less difficult than the chilled sea cucumber recipe I gave you. If you can master that dish, then what you were talking about—the ‘Double Crab Bun’—still has a chance of success.”

Qin Huai: ?

Qin Huai looked up in shock. “Ah? The chilled sea cucumber recipe you gave me is that difficult?”

“Of course,” Cao Guixiang said innocently. “It’s a secret recipe. How could it not be difficult? If it were easy, someone would’ve stolen it already.”

“And secret recipes taste better. Ordinary chilled sea cucumber is just average—you can’t compare it to mine.”

Qin Huai: …

“I really didn’t expect that,” he said slowly. “The recipe you just casually gave me is actually a secret recipe.”

“Well, why wouldn’t it be? You’re a pastry chef, so I don’t have many recipes suitable for you. If you were a hot-kitchen chef with talent, I could give you plenty. I’m telling you, I have tons of secret recipes similar to chilled sea cucumber. If you learn one a month, you won’t repeat anything for three years.”

“Have you ever thought about taking on a disciple?” Qin Huai asked.

On the screen, Cao Guixiang paused mid-sip, thought for a moment, and then shook her head.

“It’s not really up to me. I have two senior brothers. Even though they’ve both gone abroad and I don’t have their contact information, I heard they took in many disciples before leaving and brought them overseas.”

“So the matter of inheritance in our lineage can be left to my senior brothers. I’ll just be the junior sister and enjoy an easy life down south.”

Qin Huai tactfully didn’t continue the topic and went back to cutting vegetables.

Just then, a message popped up from Tan Weian asking if Qin Huai was busy—his earlier video call hadn’t gone through.

This was unusual. Tan Weian rarely made video calls; even when something urgent came up, he usually used voice calls.

It seemed like something very important—something that needed to be discussed face-to-face.

“Chef Cao, a friend is calling me for a video chat. It seems urgent, I’ll take it.”

“Go ahead,” Cao Guixiang nodded.

Qin Huai put down the knife, ended the call, and immediately dialed Tan Weian back.

He picked up instantly.

From the background, Tan Weian seemed to be at Zhiwei Ju, crouching near what looked like a storage room while secretly taking the call.

“What is it?” Qin Huai asked.

“Well… it’s a small matter, but also kind of a big one,” Tan Weian stammered. “After the New Year, didn’t I and my junior apprentice go to Huang Ji for exchange learning?”

Qin Huai tried to guess, “Is it that Gu Li is having trouble with pastries and is too embarrassed to ask me directly, so he asked you?”

“No no no no no,” Tan Weian quickly denied—five “no’s” in a row to emphasize it wasn’t that.

“It’s that everyone improved too much.”

Qin Huai: ?

“To be honest, even though you can’t really tell, I actually gained a lot from studying Four-Happiness Tangyuan.”

Qin Huai: ??

“And Gu Li too. I even feel his ‘Ruyi Roll’ is showing real progress now—it might actually succeed.”

“Everyone else too. They were originally just helpers without formal masters, learning bits and pieces in Zhiwei Ju. But after going to Huang Ji, they improved dramatically—people might think they officially apprenticed there.”

Qin Huai: ???

“So…” Qin Huai hesitated, “you called me just to say thank you?”

That doesn’t sound like your personality.

“Not exactly. Here’s the thing,” Tan Weian took a deep breath and finally got to the point. “Our boss at Zhiwei Ju wants to discuss something with you.”

“That boss who arranged the blind date between his daughter and Zheng Siyuan?”

Tan Weian quickly whispered, “Yes, yes, keep your voice down. He’s walking over.”

Qin Huai immediately straightened his expression. “What is it?”

“You know, at Zhiwei Ju, as the leading faction in the pastry world, what we never lack are registered disciples—basically helpers.”

Just then, a deep voice interrupted him.

“Xiao Tan, what are you saying? Give me the phone, I’ll talk to Chef Qin myself.”

The screen shook as the phone was handed over, and soon a middle-aged man with a very “honest and upright” face appeared.

He smiled warmly.

“Chef Qin, right? I’m the owner of Zhiwei Ju. You can just call me Boss Su—everyone does.”

“Boss Su.”

“Here’s the thing, Chef Qin. This morning I heard from Xiao Tan that you need helpers.”

“What a coincidence—we just happen to have a lot of helpers here who really need your guidance. Last time your guidance was extremely successful; even Chef Zhou couldn’t stop praising your teaching!”

“How many do you need? Just give me a number. I’ll have Xiao Tan lead them over, and we can start a 1–2 month exchange program.”

“You can use them however you want—just like at Huang Ji. I believe you still have my WeChat. If anything comes up, just message me directly. If you’re not satisfied with someone, I’ll replace them.”

“Accommodation is also fully arranged on our side.”

“And if you’re free, it would be even better if you could come to Zhiwei Ju for a 1–2 month exchange in the middle or second half of the year. What do you think?”

Boss Su looked at Qin Huai expectantly.

Qin Huai: …

Is this the legendary protagonist treatment—delivering subordinates… no, helpers on a silver platter?!

“…That sounds great,” Qin Huai nodded. “But maybe we should discuss the details further?”

“Of course. You’re still working, right? I won’t disturb you. We’ll talk later on WeChat.”