AGN -Chapter 375 Discharge from Hospital

Under Qin Huai’s high-speed driving, the three of them arrived at 3:03 p.m. at the farthest corner room on the 13th floor of Building 7 of the hospital.

The reason the location was described so precisely but the room number couldn’t be given was because Zang Liang didn’t remember which room Tan Weian was in—he only remembered it was the very corner room.

Zang Liang burst into the room, and Tan Weian was still on an IV drip.

Seeing him arrive, Tan Weian pointed at the chair beside him and then at the nearly-finished drip, about to say that he could go through discharge procedures once this bag of fluid was finished, when Qin Huai walked in right behind him carrying buns, followed by Zheng Siyuan.

Qin Huai said nothing unnecessary and directly handed the buns to Tan Weian.

“Guess what this is?” Qin Huai asked.

“Isn’t this… you guys actually made the Double Crab Buns?!” Tan Weian wasn’t stupid. Before he even finished his first sentence, he had already realized what it was. Looking at the large bag of buns in front of him, he was overwhelmed with mixed emotions.

First came shock, then envy, and finally happiness. His emotional reactions were exactly as Qin Huai had expected—down to the smallest detail. The only difference was that, at the very end, there was a trace of disappointment.

“You really made them… and I’m not even discharged yet, and you already finished them,” Tan Weian muttered a little dejectedly.

For a long time, Tan Weian had been in a relaxed, lazy state. Only recently, because of Pei Xing’s sudden enlightenment, had he felt a slight spark of motivation. But just as that motivation had ignited, he now had to face the fact that he was basically useless.

Even though it was true—and he had always known it—the difference between knowing it and seeing it in front of you was still not the same.

In Tan Weian’s heart, even if he couldn’t contribute anything to the Double Crab Bun research team beyond providing the recipe, he still wanted to be able to do something.

“Of course,” Zang Liang said without noticing his friend’s disappointment, immediately launching into an enthusiastic explanation. “You sounded like you were giving last words on the phone that day. Of course we had to fulfill your dying wish and make the buns before you got discharged. Luckily you stayed in the hospital a couple more days, or we might not have made it in time.”

“You have no idea how we’ve been working these past few days. Seven to seven every day—go to work at 7 a.m., get off at 7 p.m. After work I’d go home and review what went wrong with the filling that day. Yesterday morning I woke up so dazed I thought I’d gone back ten years to basic training days. Why else would I be getting up at 6 every morning?”

“I asked Zheng Siyuan how he’s been doing and he won’t say a word, but I bet he was secretly practicing too, because Qin Huai definitely was. He even complained his kitchen was too small and ran off to some Mr. Luo’s kitchen to practice. That Mr. Luo even came to the cafeteria this morning with Old Shi.”

“Man, that guy has such a bad temper. His face looked stricter than my high school dean—I swear one sentence from him could kill me.”

Just as Zang Liang was going further off-topic, Qin Huai interrupted him: “Alright, enough talking. The buns are getting cold.”

He turned to Tan Weian.

“You try them first. You’re the only one here qualified to judge the crab buns. It doesn’t count as success if we think it’s good—it only counts if you think it’s good.”

Hearing this, Tan Weian’s disappointment immediately disappeared.

Right, so what if he was a little lazy, a little useless, and contributed nothing other than the recipe? So what?

He was the official taster of the team. And this was a work-related hospitalization. Work injury benefits—this counted!

Tan Weian was back in form.

With his left hand still on the IV drip, he picked up a bun with his right hand, opened the bag, and grabbed one Double Crab Bun.

It was still warm.

Even though these 28 buns had been transported with VIP treatment in the front seat, time had passed and the texture and flavor were no longer at their absolute peak.

But that didn’t matter. As a professional bun taster—at least during this period—Tan Weian could already tell how good the dough was the moment he held it.

Touch and taste were connected.

He could feel it. This bun skin must have been made by Qin Huai.

Well… actually, that didn’t even need “feeling.”

He took a bite.

!!!

Even though his mouth was still full, the professional instinct of a taster made him blurt out loudly: “It’s done! This is definitely it! Double Crab Bun—this is absolutely the Double Crab Bun! This flavor, this combination, this harmony—you actually made it!”

“When I go back for New Year and burn incense for my grandfather, I’m going to tell him this good news!”

“Why not tell your great-grandfather too?” Zang Liang asked.

“Both of them,” Tan Weian replied immediately.

“Eat slowly. These are all yours—we made them specially for you,” Qin Huai said with a smile. “You contributed a lot to this. If you can’t finish them, share them out. And don’t overeat today—you just got discharged, don’t end up back in the hospital. In a few days we’re going to Suzhou.”

But Tan Weian wasn’t listening anymore. His mind was completely filled with the buns as he nodded absentmindedly and ate frantically.

He wasn’t as dramatic as Shi Dadan when eating, but it was still enough to make others crave them. The patient in the next bed stared longingly and asked: “Brother Tan, can I have one? The doctor told me to eat light food these days, my mom’s been feeding me plain porridge every day and won’t even let me eat pickles. What kind of buns are these? I smell crab roe?”

“It’s crab roe buns,” Tan Weian said vaguely, generously handing him two.

The young man took a bite and was instantly shocked.

“Oh my god, this is insane!”

“Is it because I’ve been eating porridge for days? Why does this taste like it has some kind of magic in it?”

He kept eating without stopping, quickly finishing one bun and immediately going for the second, proving exactly why he was hospitalized in the first place.

When he was halfway through the second bun, his mother returned with washed fruit. Seeing him eating buns, she was about to scold him when Tan Weian casually handed her one.

Then mother and son ate together.

Seeing that two buns weren’t enough for her son, the mother originally wanted more, but stopped him, saying two was enough and she, as the mother, would take on the rest on his behalf.

“As a mother, I must be strong.”

The son: (-)

By the time Tan Weian was discharged, every patient and family member in the ward was burping with the flavor of Double Crab Buns.

On the way back, Tan Weian replaced the buns in the front passenger seat.

Still a little dazed, he said: “So… we actually made them. We really made them before I got discharged.”

Qin Huai smiled.

“Still thinking about it? You probably didn’t wash your clothes much while you were in the hospital, right? Go back and do your laundry—probably a week’s worth. We’re going to Suzhou in a couple of days.”

“Going to Suzhou?” Tan Weian didn’t understand.

“It’s a bit complicated, but basically—we’re going to Huang Ji to make Double Crab Buns.”

“You’re part of the research team. You have to be there during development, so of course you can’t be missing when we make the final product.”

“Besides, Huang Ji doesn’t even have a proper pastry chef. You can help fill that gap.”

Tan Weian: ???