AGN -Chapter 454 Shengsheng (Part 5)

Qin Huai looked up and saw the shattered Ling Guangzhao.

Qin Huai: ?

How much did Ling Guangzhao even eat? How did he end up so stuffed—he looked like he was about to pass out.

Sticking to the principle of “commit to the act to the end,” Qin Huai lowered his voice and slowly asked, “Do you have any suggestions for improvement regarding my pastries?”

Ling Guangzhao silently swallowed the tears in his heart and screamed internally: apart from the fact that these pastries won’t be sold in Baobao Zhai, there is absolutely nothing that needs improving.

But he didn’t say it out loud. He only forced out a smile that was barely convincing, looking slightly nauseated from overeating, and said, “They’re very good. I spent many years abroad and didn’t really eat pastries much. The pastries you make, Little Qin Master, are already the best I’ve ever had.”

“Boss Ling, you’re really kind. I know my pastries still have many shortcomings—you’re just encouraging me. If you hold another exchange conference next year, or if I have another chance to come to Beiping, I hope you can still help me taste my pastries like today. By then, my skills should be even better.” Qin Huai said with a smile.

Ling Guangzhao: wuwuwuwuwu…

Little Qin Master said I’m really kind… my white-case master… Huang Ji, I hate you!

Ling Guangzhao forced a smile. “Of course.”

Tong Deyan: …

What are these two doing? Why does it feel like they’re performing a play in front of him? The problem was, he couldn’t quite understand what they were acting out. Each of them seemed completely immersed in their own role.

Expressionless, Tong Deyan took a bite of a Five-Ingredient Bun. The dough was soft, the filling juicy, savory and fresh—an absolute top-tier product, something that could easily stand out in any restaurant.

He stared at Qin Huai.

How did this kid improve so fast? Fast enough that it didn’t even seem scientifically reasonable.

Is this what it means to have a “problematic brain” advantage? Ling Guangzhao may be a bit odd in the head, but he was indeed quite good at business.

Qin Huai, of course, had no idea what Tong Deyan and Ling Guangzhao were thinking. He also didn’t really care. He simply felt that both of them were pretty good people—especially Ling Guangzhao.

Qin Huai and Ling Guangzhao added each other on WeChat. After hearing that Qin Huai and Zhao Cheng’an would stay in Beiping for a few more days, Ling Guangzhao waved his hand generously and extended their hotel stay. He also said that Qin Huai could play as long as he wanted, and that no matter how late the return flight was, Baobao Zhai would cover it.

He practically had “I am very wealthy” written on his face.

Qin Huai was deeply moved by Boss Ling’s generosity and quietly opened Ling Guangzhao’s Moments, liking everything that was visible.

Hidden task completed, Qin Huai really wanted to return to the hotel and view Zhao Cheng’an’s memory. Tong Deyan, halfway through prepping ingredients, suddenly stopped working and came over to watch Qin Huai, forcing the cooking schedule to be delayed from 5 p.m. to at least after 6 p.m.

Qin Huai used the excuse that he hadn’t rested well last night and asked Tong Deyan if he could return to the hotel for a two-hour break and come back around 6 p.m.

Tong Deyan didn’t care about such things and readily agreed. Ling Guangzhao, standing nearby, felt like crying again.

Wuwuwuwu… Little Qin Master isn’t well-rested but still came to Baobao Zhai as promised to make pastries in the afternoon… how can such a good pastry chef not be mine… wuwuwuwu…

On the way back to the hotel, Qin Huai couldn’t help but quietly message Tong Deyan, asking whether something had happened to Ling Guangzhao recently—like a stock crash, a failed investment, or being dumped by his girlfriend. He felt Ling Guangzhao’s emotional swings that afternoon were a bit too intense.

Tong Deyan calmly replied that there was no need to worry about him; he was always like that, and just continued cooking.

After returning to the hotel, Qin Huai first announced in the “Family Who Loves Each Other” group chat that he had successfully completed his hidden task. Then he put down his phone, locked the door, opened the game interface, and selected:

【A Fragment of Zhao Cheng’an’s Dream】

Confirm.

What arrived first, even before the visuals, was the smell of food.

A richly fragrant aroma.

This memory segment was no different from the previous one, except Zhao Cheng’an’s clothes were neater. He looked cleaner too—no longer a dirty little mud ball. His fingernails were clean, and he no longer looked quite as foolish. He held a chipped large sea bowl, filled with half a bowl of rice mixed with dishes that were almost overflowing, squatting at the entrance of a kitchen eating.

Not the kitchen of Tai Feng Lou, nor the kitchen of Chen Qiusheng’s house. It seemed to be the kitchen of some wealthy household.

The kitchen was large, with many workers inside—men and women alike. Outside was a courtyard with very clean ground paved with stone bricks, no clutter, and even some not-so-beautiful flowers planted around.

The rich aroma Qin Huai smelled did not come from Zhao Cheng’an’s bowl, but from the kitchen itself. Just from the scent alone, he could identify fish soup, braised lamb, and pork knuckle—dishes that, in this era, only wealthy households could afford.

But Qin Huai wasn’t particularly interested in looking into the kitchen.

His entire attention was drawn to the teenager beside Zhao Cheng’an.

A boy also holding the same type of chipped large bowl, squatting at the kitchen entrance, eating expressionlessly, dressed neatly and cleanly—so different that Qin Huai almost didn’t recognize him.

Xia Sheng.

Xia Sheng had changed a lot.

He had grown taller. Even while squatting, Qin Huai could clearly see that he was much taller than before. If the previous Xia Sheng was a severely malnourished child who definitely didn’t look older than nine, then now he could be described as a strong teenager—or even close to an adult in this era.

The food in Zhao Cheng’an and Xia Sheng’s bowls was the same: pork-fat stir-fried greens, bright and fresh-looking. On top of the greens was a piece of tofu drizzled with sesame oil, soft and white. Beside it was bacon stir-fried with dandelion greens, thinly sliced bacon with an obvious 80/20 fat-to-lean ratio—rich in oil but not particularly attractive in appearance. In the corner was scrambled eggs with chives, mostly chives and only a little egg.

Even the rice beneath the dishes was an “upgraded version”—soybeans mixed with barley and white rice. A true luxury meal.

This was a very good meal.

From Zhao Cheng’an’s satisfied expression, Qin Huai could tell he was extremely pleased with today’s food. Every spoonful he scooped was piled high, stuffed into his mouth until his cheeks puffed up. He ate big mouthfuls—though not exactly wolfing it down, his speed was extremely fast, enough to be described as a whirlwind of eating.

“Xia Sheng, honestly, I’ve noticed the food at the Li residence is really good. The tofu is soft tofu, the greens are stir-fried instead of boiled. There aren’t many places in all of Beiping that can serve food like this! When we were at Tai Feng Lou, we couldn’t even get whole blocks of tofu—only broken bits.”

“I just don’t know if I can save a piece of pork knuckle skin from tonight’s leftovers. Did you see those knuckles today? They were huge! The pig must’ve been really fat. I saw Chef Chen even stewed them for an extra half hour. If I could get a piece of that skin…” slurp Zhao Cheng’an said it so vividly that he started craving it himself and quickly stuffed another big bite into his mouth.

Xia Sheng glanced at him with mild disgust and ignored him.

Zhao Cheng’an continued, “Even if there’s no pork skin left, some meat would be fine. If not, even the soup is okay—I could dip sweet potatoes in it. Ah, if only today were the fifteenth. We get white rice on the fifteenth every month.”

“White rice goes with everything—fish soup, pork knuckle, even plain lard tastes good with it.”

“But what day is it today anyway? We’ve been at the Li residence for two months and I’ve never seen food this good before. Pork knuckle, fish soup, and I think there was even bird’s nest, sea cucumber, venison… If I hadn’t promised Chef Chen I’d never steal from the host family, I would’ve already stolen a couple of sips of that fish soup.”

Xia Sheng looked at him speechlessly: “I heard the eldest daughter of the Li family just got a newspaper divorce and came back today. The eldest son said it’s not exactly a celebration, but not bad news either. Since she’s back, they’re holding a banquet to welcome her.”

Zhao Cheng’an completely ignored him and kept talking, “When do you think I’ll ever get to eat white rice every meal? Even Chef Chen can’t afford that life. No, actually, he could’ve—but the medicine for Ping’an is too expensive. Our monthly wages combined aren’t even enough for one month of Ping’an’s medicine.”

“If it weren’t for the medicine, Chef Chen wouldn’t have left Tai Feng Lou to come here. But I think the Li residence is fine too—good food, less work. Tai Feng Lou wasn’t bad either. Even though we couldn’t eat leftovers, we still got meat three days a month. The only bad thing is that Boss Lu refuses to give me a name.”

“Is it really that hard for a literate man to give me a name? I feel like Boss Lu has started avoiding me these past two years.”

Faced with Zhao Cheng’an’s nonstop chatter, Xia Sheng swallowed his last bite of food and finally couldn’t hold back:

“So Boss Lu doesn’t want to name you? He gave you five names and you rejected all of them—either too simple or too complicated. My master gave you two, Master Jiang gave you three, Miss Huiqin gave you seven, Young Master Wei Jin gave you one, Young Master Wei Ming gave you three, and Young Master Ping’an has given you countless ones over the years. You didn’t accept a single one.”

“Now everyone in Tai Feng Lou flees whenever they hear you talk about names. At first my master told everyone you had a problem and nobody believed him. Now he says you’re actually fine and nobody believes that either. Sometimes even I can’t tell whether your brain is normal.”

“Ping’an taught you to read—you learned faster than I did. My master taught you skills—you’re not worse than me. He told you not to steal while working, and you didn’t steal at Tai Feng Lou. You didn’t steal at the Li residence either.”

“But every autumn you go outside the city to steal from those child traffickers. You steal offal, sweet potatoes, even black beans. Sometimes when work at the restaurant runs late, you sneak out at night to steal. Those traffickers even thought it was ghosts haunting them and called a Taoist priest to perform rituals—then you even stole the Taoist priest’s meal.”

“I’m just practicing my skills!” Zhao Cheng’an said righteously. “If I don’t practice for too long, I’ll get rusty. What if I can’t be a chef someday? I can’t even lose my last way of making a living!”

Xia Sheng: …

He gave up and continued, “My master wanted to take you as an apprentice, but you refused. You said he specialized in red-cooking but not white-cooking, and you didn’t want to be a red-cooking chef because you like white steamed buns. You also said red-cooking chefs work twice as long for the same pay as apprentices, so it wasn’t worth it. You almost got kicked out of his house.”

“You thought Master Jiang was better in both red and white cooking, so you went straight to him to ask for apprenticeship. And the first thing you said after that was asking if he could give you a name.”

“The next day, Master Jiang recommended two famous doctors to my master and asked if you had hit your head and gotten worse.”

“You’re said to be stupid—everyone thinks you’re abnormal. But sometimes, you’re also surprisingly smart.”

“At first my master didn’t want to bring you to the Li residence, afraid you didn’t understand the rules of a wealthy household and would offend someone and get beaten out. In the end, it was because the Li family lacked a pastry chef, the old madam liked your bean flour buns, and Miss Huiqin had married into the family. My master thought your relationship with her wasn’t bad, so you wouldn’t be thrown out. And since you were obsessed with the monthly wages here, he brought you along.”

“Xia Sheng, I feel like you’re not praising me—you’re insulting me,” Zhao Cheng’an complained. “Normally after you scold someone this much, shouldn’t you say something nice at the end?”

Xia Sheng ignored him completely and continued, his expression a little complicated: “Even though you care about the wages, you still do the same thing as before. The moment you get paid each month, you immediately hand it over to my master so he can buy medicine for Young Master Ping’an.”

Zhao Cheng’an grinned. “I like money, sure, but I don’t really need it. Chef Chen is the one who needs it. Ping’an has medicine fees and tuition every month—raising him costs way more than raising us two. And Chef Chen doesn’t have my skills. If I want something, I can just steal it. He can’t.”

“I give him the money mainly because I don’t recognize medicinal herbs. If I did, I’d just steal the medicine from the pharmacy for Ping’an. But let me tell you—medicine is really not something you can steal randomly. One mistake and it can kill someone.”

Xia Sheng: …

He took a deep breath. From his expression, Qin Huai could easily tell he was questioning why he ever thought Zhao Cheng’an was normal.

Zhao Cheng’an’s brain had never been normal to begin with.

To the point that even the usually expressionless Xia Sheng now had a face full of emotion.

“Oh right, Xia Sheng. Yesterday I overheard Chef Chen and the eldest young master of the Li family talking. They said—”

Before he could finish, a shout came from inside the kitchen:

“Hey! Done eating yet? If you’re done, come in and work. The old madam wants jujube paste buns—she specifically asked for you to make them!”

Zhao Cheng’an immediately stood up, quickly shoving the remaining beans in his bowl into his mouth. “Coming, coming!”

Leaving only Xia Sheng sighing as he stood up as well, muttering in a not-too-loud voice:

“You can’t steal things. And eavesdropping isn’t allowed either.”

“…Forget it. Your brain’s got issues. Even if you eavesdrop, people will just think you happened to be passing by.”