AGN -Chapter 366 A Special Recipe

When Qin Huai left the memory, he was a bit dazed. He hadn’t expected to exit so suddenly. He had thought he would at least wait until the buns were finished—steamed, taken out of the pot, and Shi Dadan finished tasting them completely—only then would he leave the memory. That would have been the normal process.

Instead, the memory ended the moment Shi Dadan took a bite of the filling.

Was the bun filling really that good?

When Qin Huai came back to his senses, he saw Shi Dadan happily eating shaved ice while smiling at him.

Seeing Qin Huai move, Shi Dadan said in surprise, “Xiao Qin, it really is like you said. When you’re looking at memories, you just kind of stare blankly. Normally people wouldn’t even notice—they’d just think you zoned out.”

“How long did I zone out for?” Qin Huai asked.

“Two or three minutes,” Shi Dadan replied. “Look, I only ate half a bowl of shaved ice. This stuff is pretty good—you should try it before it melts.”

Qin Huai felt that Shi Dadan was probably the first person who, after knowing he had just been watching his memory, didn’t immediately ask what he had seen—but instead told him to eat shaved ice.

Qin Huai picked up his spoon and took a bite. It didn’t feel especially amazing—just ordinary, the standard quality of a normal dessert shop.

“Aren’t you curious what I just saw?” Qin Huai asked.

“A little,” Shi Dadan admitted frankly. “But you’ll definitely tell me anyway. Besides, I didn’t actually eat anything good in my past life. All the good food I had was given to me by Xu Nuo. My money was all with him anyway. Was it Chef Jing who made it?”

Qin Huai nodded slightly. “Let me check first.”

As he spoke, Qin Huai tapped into the void and opened the game panel to view the recipe.

Although he had already guessed the recipe might not be complete, he was still somewhat surprised when he saw it.

【Pork & Crab Roe Filling (A Grade)】

Creator: Xu Nuo

Recipe Details: A spirit who mastered a craft used his refined skills and newly learned culinary concepts to create this unique filling. It was one of the few fillings Xu Nuo had put real effort into researching during his short life. It was also one of the rare foods that Shi Dadan truly enjoyed and remembered deeply.

For Shi Dadan, this was a filling specially developed for him by his close friend Xu Nuo, and he was the very first person to taste it. It carried special meaning—it was a symbol of their friendship.

When this filling is used to make pastries of no less than A-grade, and shared with a friend, there is a high probability of recalling the happiest moments shared between friends and experiencing the joy of friendship.

Daily crafting limit: (0/500)

Qin Huai noticed a keyword in the description.

“Close friend.”

If Shi Dadan had killed someone of his own kind—someone who was also his close friend—then failing his tribulation because of it would make perfect sense.

Qin Huai read the description again, closed the game panel, and looked at Shi Dadan.

Shi Dadan was looking at him with an expectant gaze, his face practically saying: hurry up, hurry up.

Qin Huai organized his thoughts and briefly described what he had seen in the memory.

Shi Dadan listened very seriously. He even stopped eating his shaved ice while listening. After Qin Huai finished, he nodded and said, “I remember that pork-and-crab bun. That day Xu Nuo made a full sixty of them. His home usually didn’t cook much—he used a coal stove for everything, so steaming buns wasn’t convenient.”

“Later, the two of us went to the state-run restaurant and borrowed Chef Jing’s kitchen to steam them. Those buns were really delicious. I ate thirty-five in one go. Xu Nuo gave me ten to take home for breakfast the next day, and he took fifteen back himself.”

“After that, he made similar buns a few more times—crab roe with fish, crab roe with chicken, and crab roe with duck. Only the chicken version was slightly good. The fish and duck ones weren’t great.”

“Then later, he couldn’t resist and secretly went to Hangcheng. He used the money his grandmother had saved for him to get married, plus his own savings, to buy the recipe for that bun. That was the ‘double crab bun’ you mentioned.”

“But after he bought the recipe, he gave it to Chef Jing and never made it himself. The recipe cost a fortune—I don’t know exactly how much, but Xu Nuo’s father was furious.”

“Not only did he cut off his pocket money, but he also didn’t allow his grandmother to give him extra money. With just my salary and ration coupons, Xu Nuo couldn’t get enough flour, let alone things like sea cucumber. So after buying the recipe, he rarely made the double crab bun.”

“He mostly ate it from Chef Jing.”

“At that time, news of him spending a huge amount of money to buy the recipe spread through several state-owned factories. It was widely known.”

“Chef Jing actually wanted to return the money to him, but it was too much, and he couldn’t afford it. So he just tried to make more pastries for Xu Nuo instead.”

“Later, Xu Nuo seemed to have made the double crab bun once more, but I was away delivering goods in the south and missed it.”

After hearing this, Qin Huai gradually pieced the story together.

The “Double Crab Bun” that Wang Gensheng wanted was almost certainly made by Xu Nuo—the one and only time Xu Nuo personally made it.

And Xu Nuo’s motivation for buying the recipe was also very clear, because this recipe was unusual—or rather, its culinary concept was extremely unique.

As for what exactly made it special, Xu Nuo had already explained it in the memory.

In a sense, the double crab bun was somewhat similar to “Guo’er,” but also very different. Guo’er was a pastry where a savory chef forcibly applied pastry techniques, resulting in something delicious but slightly awkward—the forced nature was obvious even from the recipe.

But the double crab bun was more like showcasing skill.

It was a pastry chef trying to prove his red-cooking skills weren’t weak, with a stubborn “if you say it can’t be done this way, I’ll do it exactly that way” kind of attitude.

Now Qin Huai even felt that Wang Gensheng’s version of the recipe might have been modified.

And that actually made sense. Back then, Xu Nuo spent a fortune buying the recipe and gave it to Chef Jing. With Chef Jing’s skill, he could naturally improve it further, especially in terms of crab roe sauce and technique balance.

The original recipe was already a showcase of skill, and Chef Jing could elevate it further—removing the awkwardness while preserving the uniqueness, balancing savory and pastry techniques to near perfection.

But none of that difficulty could be seen from the recipe alone. The first time Qin Huai saw it, he only thought it was a high-difficulty, step-by-step guide.

Chef Jing had clearly written it in extreme detail, afraid that buyers wouldn’t understand it. Anyone who knew the craft could immediately tell it was extraordinary—but only after actually practicing it did one realize how difficult it truly was.

Xu Nuo’s cooking level, as Qin Huai had seen in the memory, was better than his—but not by much.

If Xu Nuo could make the double crab bun, Qin Huai likely could as well.

After hearing the rest of the story from Shi Dadan, Qin Huai fell into thought. He reopened the game panel, looked at the recipe again, and recalled Xu Nuo’s explanation of the cooking concept and his own attempted ideas from the memory.

“Xu Nuo’s savory cooking skills aren’t bad either, right? By savory cooking, I mean stir-frying dishes,” Qin Huai asked.

Shi Dadan nodded. “His stir-fried dishes were pretty good—much better than the chefs at our textile factory. But still not as good as his pastries.”

“Xu Nuo usually doesn’t cook savory dishes much. He had a really good relationship with Chef Jing. Most of the time, either Chef Jing would give him a private meal and he’d pack it back to eat with me, or he’d just stay at the state-run restaurant and eat employee meals with Chef Jing and the others.”

“He paid with money and meal tickets anyway, so it wasn’t breaking any rules. Sometimes when he ran out of money and tickets at the end of the month, Chef Jing would even cover for him. Everyone at the state-run restaurant knew him well. Honestly, I thought it would’ve been fine for him to become a chef there, but Factory Director Xu didn’t agree. He was dead set on making Xu Nuo go to university.”

“At the time I didn’t really understand it, but now that I think about it, maybe Xu Nuo himself didn’t actually want to become a chef at the state-run restaurant. He just didn’t want to take the university entrance exam, and Director Xu saw through that. If he truly wanted to be a chef, Director Xu probably would’ve agreed.”

“After all, his cooking skills were really good.”

Qin Huai nodded but didn’t say anything.

Seeing that Qin Huai remained silent, Shi Dadan also stopped talking and focused on eating tangyuan. After a couple of bites, he seemed to think it tasted pretty good, so he pushed the bowl toward Qin Huai.

“This tangyuan is pretty good too. Want to try some?”

Qin Huai could already tell—Shi Dadan was simply someone who loved eating. As long as something tasted normal, he considered it good.

After making Four Happiness Tangyuan for so long, Qin Huai could tell whether a tangyuan was good just by looking at it. The ones Shi Dadan was eating were clearly just ordinary frozen tangyuan you could buy in any supermarket.

From the memory, Qin Huai had also seen Xu Nuo’s skill level in stir-frying fillings—it was decent, but not exceptional. About the level of an average state-run restaurant chef, roughly on par with Dong Shi, slightly better than Dong Li, but nowhere near Zang Liang.

Of course, it was still much better than Qin Huai himself. He was very self-aware about his own level.

Qin Huai casually took a bite of the tangyuan. Confirming it was just ordinary frozen tangyuan with an inflated price, he looked around. The shop was still quiet, and the owner was sitting in a corner playing with his phone.

Safe.

“I’ll check the video tutorial,” Qin Huai said, tapping into the void to open it.

The video tutorial was the entire process of making the filling from the memory—close-up shots throughout, with audio included. It also contained Xu Nuo’s full explanation from earlier.

Qin Huai watched very carefully.

He watched it again and again.

He felt this was probably the most understandable and rewarding tutorial he had ever seen. Not only because Xu Nuo’s level was only slightly above his—making everything easy to follow—but also because it had detailed explanations.

Shi Dadan had only learned to be “human” a few years earlier and had the equivalent of a second-grade education. Xu Nuo’s explanations were extremely detailed, practically breaking everything down to the smallest point to ensure he understood.

By the time Qin Huai finished watching it for the fifth time, all the food in front of Shi Dadan was gone.

Qin Huai could tell Shi Dadan was already a bit full, but he still seemed like he wanted to eat more out of boredom. Judging from the amount he had eaten, the appetite of this post-tribulation “Dangkang” was still as astonishing as in his first life.

Qin Huai suddenly felt like going back to make crab roe meat filling buns.

Although Xu Nuo’s filling used fresh crab roe, and Qin Huai wasn’t sure whether using crab roe paste would work, he really wanted to try it.

After watching the tutorial five times, he truly understood Xu Nuo’s thinking and approach—and he fully agreed with it. Xu Nuo might not have been an extremely top-tier chef, but his ideas were definitely first-rate.

He probably only had A-grade pastry skills—but his culinary philosophy was at S-grade level.

Xu Nuo’s master must have been extremely skilled.

“Old Shi, can you call Sister Hong and the others and ask if they want to head back now? I kind of want to go back and make buns,” Qin Huai said.

Shi Dadan nodded and immediately called Chen Huihong on WeChat.

After several attempts, she finally answered. After a few words, Shi Dadan hung up and said, “Chen Huihong and Xiao Qu still have a few rides they want to play. They don’t want to leave yet. Old Luo wants to leave, but he doesn’t want to sit in the same car with me.”

“They said we should head back first. Chen Huihong said her brother’s driver will come pick them up later.”

Qin Huai thought that was fine. He sent a message to Zheng Siyuan saying he had something to deal with and needed to leave early, then looked at Shi Dadan.

“So, Old Shi, are you coming back with me or staying to play? Or you could go find Sister Hong and—”

Before he finished, Shi Dadan interrupted him with a hearty laugh.

“I’m about done eating too. I’ll go back with you.”

Qin Huai: “…6”

He thought that worked out well, since he also had some questions for Shi Dadan on the way.

The two of them left immediately. By the time they got into the car, Zheng Siyuan still hadn’t replied—probably still on a ride.

Either the pirate ship or the drop tower. Poor Zheng Siyuan and Ou Yang were probably suffering.

Qin Huai started the car and slowly drove out of the amusement park parking lot, with Shi Dadan in the passenger seat.

In a casual tone, Qin Huai asked, “Old Shi, do you know how Xu Nuo failed his tribulation?”

“I don’t know,” Shi Dadan shook his head.

“He didn’t tell you?”

Shi Dadan thought for a moment. “He kind of did, but not on purpose. He didn’t remember it himself.”

“Didn’t remember?” Qin Huai was surprised. “I know spirit beings gradually lose memories during tribulation, but does it really go as far as not remembering why they failed?”

“Yes,” Shi Dadan nodded firmly.

“I actually told Old Luo about this last night. The feeling of forgetting is strange—you think you remember a lot, but when you try to recall details or key points, you realize you actually don’t.”

“Xu Nuo knows he’s a spirit, and he knows he failed his tribulation. But he doesn’t actually remember what his obsession was. He mostly acts on instinct. Even if a failed spirit loses its most important memories, instinct remains. That instinct is carved into the bones.”

“That’s also why Xu Nuo didn’t really do much in daily life. He didn’t know what he should do. You say he’s human, but he isn’t fully human. He knows he’s a spirit, he knows he needs to resolve his obsession, but he doesn’t know how. He can’t just live like an ordinary person. Director Xu wanted him to go to university, but he didn’t want to—meaning his obsession had nothing to do with that.”

“Across different lifetimes, spirits may seem like they get many chances to succeed in tribulation, but missing and chaotic memories make it very difficult. Once they fail, it’s almost impossible to succeed easily afterward.”

“I know Old Luo is annoyed with me. Last night I kept rambling like I was lecturing him, but I really just wanted to tell him more before he reincarnates.”

Qin Huai smiled. “Old Shi, you’re really different from what you were in that memory.”

Shi Dadan grinned honestly. “Of course I’m different. Back then I’d only just started learning how to be human. Now I’ve been one for decades.”

“Being human is hard work. It took me many years to learn how to do it properly.”