AGN -Chapter 356 Zang Liang?

Zheng Siyuan’s judgment of people was quite accurate. Zang Liang jogged into the Cloud Diner at 8:37 in the morning. It was obvious he was in a rush—but he still didn’t actually make it in time for anything.

The moment Zang Liang entered the cafeteria, Qin Huai shoved a plate of shengjian buns into his hands. After Qin Huai specifically named shengjian buns as the focus, Pei Xing’s enthusiasm for work exploded, and he ended up making a whole pile of them.

Ou Yang couldn’t eat anymore by around 8 o’clock, and after tasting one, Qin Huai concluded that, as expected of Pei Xing, his ability to correct mistakes improved extremely slowly—basically not at all.

Of course, this couldn’t be entirely blamed on him. After all, Pei Xing was never good at making shengjian buns in the first place, and all the problems shown in his buns were old habits deeply ingrained over the years.

Every time Qin Huai saw the long-standing issues in Pei Xing, Chen An, and Li Hua, he felt very lucky. His own knife skills had been terrible before, but they were basically nonexistent—so there was still time to forget them.

Otherwise, even if Cao Guixiang’s skills were top-tier and her teaching ability exceptional, Qin Huai would never have been able to raise his knife skills to an intermediate level in such a short time.

Zang Liang was never picky about breakfast—he ate whatever was available. Seeing Qin Huai hand him a plate of shengjian buns, he just chewed and swallowed them all.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Qin Huai said.

Hearing this, Zang Liang immediately got excited.

That day, Qin Huai had sent a group message saying he had “found the feeling,” which had thoroughly whetted Zang Liang’s appetite. Although Zang Liang wasn’t exactly impatient by nature, among chefs he already counted as someone with a relatively quick temper.

Qin Huai had previously said he couldn’t explain it clearly at the moment and would talk about it later when he returned. Yesterday Qin Huai had come back but hadn’t shown up at the cafeteria, which had made Zang Liang so anxious that he almost went straight to Qin Huai’s house to ask him:

What exactly is this “feeling” you found? How do you find it? Is the feeling you’re talking about the same feeling I imagine? Why is your “feeling” so easy to find? I’ve been searching for so long and can only barely touch its edge?

Among believers of the “feeling school,” Zang Liang was the most impatient. Unlike Zheng Siyuan, who was extremely talented, Zheng Siyuan could actually understand most of what Qin Huai meant. For true geniuses, anything that couldn’t be clearly explained was simply “feeling.”

Not to mention Zheng Siyuan’s verbal expression was much better than Qin Huai’s. He had already begun translating Qin Huai’s “feeling” into techniques he vaguely understood but couldn’t clearly describe—so he just called it “feeling.”

As for Tan Weian, he was the opposite extreme. He never even knew what “feeling” was.

Over the years at the Zhiyu Restaurant, he had already gotten used to it. He couldn’t outwork others, couldn’t match talent—so he simply accepted it. There were many things in life you couldn’t compare with anyway.

What feeling? Not important. Just listen—understand or not, keep listening. That’s all.

Neither of them needed to fully understand what Qin Huai meant by “feeling.” Only Zang Liang—the one who truly needed to find it—was the most curious about it.

Yet paradoxically, he was also the one who understood Qin Huai the least.

He knew Qin Huai wasn’t very good at expressing himself, but he had no idea just how limited that expression actually was. He also had never met Zheng Da, so he didn’t understand the kind of silent “mental connection” between people who were similarly inarticulate.

“You’ve been waiting for me? Waiting for what? To tell us what feeling you found? Is it about thickening sauces? Did your Master Cao teach you some special thickening technique? Like the big arm movement you demonstrated before?”

“I’ve been studying thickening these past few days. I can roughly imitate your method, but it doesn’t work. Maybe I haven’t grasped the technique and don’t understand the meaning behind such large movements. I’m still more used to my old way of thickening after all these years.”

“Sigh, Master Cao said if you learned it, you’d teach me—but what if I can’t learn it? I’d be letting both you and Master Cao down. Should I bring her a gift? What does she like? Knives? Pots? Cutting boards?”

Qin Huai: …

He had never realized Zang Liang talked this much—and so densely. It was a nonstop stream of words; Qin Huai couldn’t even find a gap to interrupt.

Also—what kind of gift ideas were those from a red-cooking chef? Knives, pots, cutting boards… why not a spatula?

“Not thickening,” Qin Huai cut him off in a single sentence, ending any possibility of him continuing.

Zang Liang: ?

Zang Liang opened his mouth, looking confused.

“Ah, not thickening… Didn’t you go learn thickening? You found a feeling other than thickening?”

Qin Huai tried to explain, but quickly realized it was hard to put into words. He was actually very good at lying—if something was fabricated, he could spin it instantly with perfect logic, structure, and persuasiveness.

But if something was real and didn’t have room for embellishment, his expression became a problem.

Right now, he had to tell the truth.

Qin Huai opened his mouth several times but still couldn’t organize his thoughts. He could recall the feeling from when his knife skills and heat control had improved, but describing it was extremely difficult. He almost wished technology allowed brainwave communication so he could just transmit the experience directly to Zang Liang.

“Let’s do this,” Qin Huai finally said after a long pause. “I’ll stir-fry a dish of yam for you. After I finish, you’ll understand.”

Stir-fried yam—the best dish to demonstrate Qin Huai’s current level.

Qin Huai: Thank you, stir-fried yam!

The three of them: ?

Stir-fried yam?!

They exchanged looks, all seeing confusion in each other’s eyes. Zang Liang gave Tan Weian a glance, asking what was going on—he had only arrived a bit late, why was nothing making sense anymore?

Tan Weian returned a “I don’t know either” look, then turned to Zheng Siyuan.

Zheng Siyuan directly said, “If you have a question, can’t you just ask? I can’t understand what your eye signals mean.”

Tan Weian: Hmph. No tacit understanding.

While the three were silently communicating with chaotic eye signals, Qin Huai had already gone to get the yam.

Out of habit, he took ten at once.

He began peeling and cutting the yam.

Intermediate-level knife skills were completely different from beginner-level ones—visibly different. Even someone who didn’t understand cooking could see the difference.

Previously, when Qin Huai cut vegetables, everyone in the Cloud Diner—even the customers outside—could tell he didn’t cut vegetables often. At best, he was practicing, not skilled.

But intermediate knife skills were different. Though it was only a jump of a thousand proficiency points from beginner to intermediate, that thousand points marked the boundary between professional and amateur.

A transition from zero to one.

Qin Huai made his first cut.

Zheng Siyuan had originally wanted to explain the eye signals to Tan Weian, but the moment he saw that first cut, he stopped paying attention to him and silently watched Qin Huai.

Tan Weian opened his mouth again as if Zheng Siyuan had something to say—but he was ignored mid-breath. A question mark practically formed above his head. He followed Zheng Siyuan’s gaze and saw Qin Huai cutting yam… then the question mark disappeared.

Zang Liang had already fallen completely silent, staring intently at Qin Huai.

Qin Huai’s current knife skills with yam were already extremely proficient.

The thickness was just right, his cuts were fast, accurate, and steady—he already looked like a qualified kitchen assistant.

As for why he wasn’t considered excellent, Qin Huai estimated that every vegetable cutter working under the Huang family had advanced or near-advanced knife skills.

In the red-cooking field, basic skills like knife work were simply too competitive.

The ten yams were quickly finished. During the entire process, Zang Liang had a lot he wanted to say, but he didn’t dare say a single word. He was afraid that this might be the “feeling” Qin Huai was talking about—and that speaking would destroy it, making it even harder for him to grasp.

Qin Huai set down the kitchen knife.

Zang Liang couldn’t wait any longer and asked Tan Weian in a muffled voice while covering his mouth:

“How exactly did Qin Huai learn this knife skill? How long has he been practicing? Last time I saw him, wasn’t he just starting out?”

Tan Weian thought for a moment.

“It seems so. When I saw him at Huang’s place, he hadn’t trained at all. He was even holding the knife wrong.”

“Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!”

Zang Liang’s vocabulary was sometimes very limited.

What Zang Liang didn’t know was that the real “damn moment” had only just begun.

After finishing the ten yams, Qin Huai walked to the stove and started cooking.

Heat the wok, add oil.

Add the yam.

Stir-fry, continuous stir-frying, chaotic continuous stir-frying.

The movements were still Qin Huai’s signature “clearly-not-very-skilled-at-cooking” style, but the results were completely different.

After his heat control reached an advanced level, Qin Huai could clearly tell when the food in the pan needed to be stirred, which part needed stirring, and whether any extra actions beyond random tossing were necessary.

Sometimes his hands even moved before his brain did—by the time he realized a certain area needed to be stirred, the spatula had already moved.

Of course, this feeling was currently limited to yam stir-fry. Perhaps because he had cooked yam so much in a short time, Qin Huai had developed something close to mechanical muscle memory.

Then came the step of thickening the sauce.

The starch water had already been prepared in advance, mixed according to formula.

Qin Huai picked up the bowl. There were no fancy movements—none of Zang Liang’s recently practiced exaggerated arm rotations. Just a completely normal, standard thickening technique.

But it was done very well.

A qualified thickening.

The timing was good, the movement and amount were appropriate, and the starch water had no issues.

Most importantly, Qin Huai’s heat control had improved. With his current level, cooking a dish of yam posed no problem. Good heat control combined with proper thickening resulted in excellent thickening.

Tan Weian was stunned.

What shocked him even more than Qin Huai mastering normal thickening without mistakes was how Qin Huai seemed to have learned everything.

Bro, weren’t you just supposed to be learning thickening? How did you end up attending a full-course cram school?!

And with so many skills—did you even have time to learn all this in just a few days? How did you actually manage it?

Aren’t you supposed to be the rising star of the white-cooking side? At this rate, you might as well switch to the red-cooking side. Are you trying to kill everyone?

Forget others—are you trying to kill me too?

Even if I’ve already given up, you can’t be this extreme, right?

Zheng Siyuan, on the other hand, fell into deep thought.

From his expression, it was clear: he didn’t understand—but he was deeply shocked.

He didn’t say anything, but his face was practically shouting: “Do it again. Quickly, do it again!”

This time I need to see it clearly—your skill level and your movements.

As for Zang Liang, it was much simpler and more direct: “Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!”

“Is this really Qin Huai? Does he have a twin brother or something? This can’t be Qin Huai—no way—damn!”

“Qin Huai… Brother Qin… Master Qin!”

“Teach me, please teach me! Is this the ‘feeling’ you said you found? Which feeling did you find? What kind of feeling can improve everything at once?”

“I don’t ask for much. I just want a bit of feeling related to seasoning. My master always says I can’t find the feeling—he must mean this kind of feeling. But what exactly is it?”

Qin Huai thought for a moment.

“If it’s about improving seasoning,” he said, “my advice is:”

“Practice your knife skills and heat control.”

Zang Liang: ……?