Chapter 4 Purchasing

After lunch, Chen Huihong sent Chen Huihui home to rest. Zhao Rong felt that the house hadn’t been cleaned properly and that guests would be coming in the evening, so she pulled Qin Congwen back home to clean again. Qin Huai and Qin Luo went to the supermarket on the basement level of the mall to buy ingredients. Ou Yang, who still had over an hour before work and nothing to do, also tagged along to buy groceries.

The supermarket on the basement level was a huge one. The fresh produce section was as abundant as a traditional wet market—but of course, the prices were just as “abundant.” Qin Luo, who didn’t usually buy groceries and wasn’t familiar with prices, was completely bewildered.

“Lychees… 128 yuan a box? One box has… 1, 2, 3… 9 pieces. Bro, that’s 14 yuan per lychee!” Qin Luo was shocked.

Qin Huai wasn’t interested in lychees and didn’t even look at them. He was picking spinach in the nearby vegetable section. To be fair, although the supermarket was expensive, the quality control was good. Even at midday, one could still find fresh, crisp spinach. Compared to the market near his hometown, where after 8 a.m. vendors would randomly hand you all sorts of leftover wilted vegetables, the quality here was much better.

Of course, the market was cheaper and allowed bargaining—each had its pros and cons.

“Bro, what kind of lychee costs 14 yuan each? What would it taste like?” Qin Luo was still staring at them.

“You don’t get it,” Qin Huai said. “These are the same kind of lychees that Empress Yang Guifei used to eat. Of course they’re expensive—celebrities endorse them. They taste the same as the 8-yuan-per-jin ‘Feizixiao’ lychees you eat at home.”

Qin Luo suddenly understood and continued staring at the lychees.

Standing between Qin Huai and Qin Luo, Ou Yang, who didn’t know how to pick vegetables but loved to join in the excitement, was speechless: …

Seriously? Luo Luo trusts her brother that much? She believes everything he says?

That lychee variety is clearly “Gualv,” and the label says it plainly. 128 yuan per box is a promotional price—the word “promotion” is printed so big, how could she not see it?

Of course, Ou Yang chose not to say anything. After all, he still wanted to be treated to “crab shell yellow” pastries in the future.

He had just searched online and found that crab shell yellow pastries come in savory fillings like scallion oil, fresh meat, crab roe, and shrimp, and sweet fillings like white sugar, rose, red bean paste, and jujube paste. They are baked flaky pastries.

The images showed golden, crispy crusts sprinkled with white sesame seeds.

If freshly baked, biting into one while it’s still warm…

Slurp!

The taste—he didn’t even dare imagine it!

Ou Yang tightened his grip on the fresh shrimp he had just picked.

He had carefully selected each shrimp himself. They were large and lively—clearly fresh. Most importantly, among the four or five types of shrimp in the seafood section, this was the most expensive one. The crab shell yellow pastries made with them would surely be delicious!

Qin Huai was so smart—he would definitely understand his hint!

“Qin Huai, Luo Luo really listens to you. She believes whatever nonsense you say,” Ou Yang said as he walked over and sighed beside Qin Huai.

Hearing this, Qin Huai packed the spinach into a bag and nodded in agreement. “That’s true.”

Over the years, with so many adults in the family constantly influencing Qin Luo, it was impossible for it to have no effect.

Speaking of influence, sometimes Qin Huai himself found it rather absurd.

For years, neither Qin Congwen nor his younger sister Qin Xiuli had been able to have children after marriage. Seeing that both siblings had the same issue, outsiders inevitably suspected a hereditary problem. Even Grandma Qin once wondered if she had overworked herself in her youth and harmed her body, feeling guilty and self-blaming for many years.

She couldn’t even hold her head up when going out.

Then, less than half a year after Qin Congwen adopted Qin Huai, Zhao Rong became pregnant.

Before Qin Luo was even born, Qin Xiuli also became pregnant.

That year, Grandma Qin almost wanted to take a loudspeaker and shout from one end of the village to the other every morning, venting over a decade of frustration.

According to local customs, when a couple who has been childless for years suddenly conceives after adopting a child, it is believed that the adopted child brings siblings into the family—that the child’s destiny includes bringing brothers and sisters.

Grandpa Qin firmly believed this. He even spent a hefty 5 yuan to hire a fortune teller.

In exchange for 5 yuan and a meal, the fortune teller predicted that Qin Huai would have one younger sister and one younger brother.

Two months later, Qin Luo was born.

A few months later, Qin Huai and Qin Luo’s cousin He Cheng was born.

From then on, Qin Huai became famous locally as a “miracle doctor” specializing in fertility.

Later, Qin Xiuli wanted another daughter and tried to find that fortune teller again to see if Qin Huai’s fate still included a younger cousin sister—but to no avail. She could only sigh every day while looking at her unlucky son, who had been poor at math since childhood.

When Qin Huai was in high school, he seriously considered whether his long-dormant system might actually be a “gynecology master system.” When choosing a college major, he even thought about sacrificing his hair to study medicine.

In the end, his grades weren’t enough to get in.

Thinking of this, Qin Huai felt a bit disappointed.

A doctor system seemed far more impressive than a culinary system.

If he had abandoned science for medicine and become a legendary master, it might have become a local tale passed down for generations.

Sigh.

Qin Huai sighed.

Ou Yang immediately tensed up, thinking Qin Huai was sighing at the shrimp in his hands. He quickly asked, “Is something wrong with the shrimp I picked?”

“Could it be that these shrimp can only be used for stir-frying and not as pastry filling? Qin Huai, let me ask you—what kind of shrimp is usually used for fresh shrimp filling in crab shell yellow pastries? My mom wants to learn how to make them recently.”

Ou Yang felt his hint was already very obvious.

“Shrimp? Aren’t crab shell yellow pastries usually meat-filled? Fresh shrimp… I don’t know,” Qin Huai said, glancing at the shrimp in Ou Yang’s hands. “Ou Yang, are these shrimp for your mom? They look good. I’ll pick some later too. We’ll make fresh shrimp wontons tonight.”

“Can you hold the spinach for me? I’m going to pick some pork first.”

With that, Qin Huai headed straight to the fresh meat section, leaving Ou Yang in the vegetable section frantically searching online about whether crab shell yellow pastries even had shrimp fillings.

He had made his hint so obvious, yet Qin Huai didn’t get it at all!

“Ou Yang, my brother doesn’t make fresh shrimp crab shell yellow pastries,” Qin Luo said as she walked over after finishing with the lychees, having already concluded that Ou Yang’s hinting skills were terrible. “If you want to eat them, you’ll have to tell him directly. He’ll look up recipes online and learn.”

“Look up recipes online?”

“Yeah.” Qin Luo nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “That’s how it’s always been. If I want to eat something, I just tell my brother. He checks the family recipes or searches online, studies it for a while, and then learns it.”

Ou Yang was confused. “Shouldn’t these things be taught by a master, hands-on?”

“Aren’t they supposed to be secret techniques, family inheritances, or lineage traditions? That’s how novels describe it. Are online recipes reliable?”

Qin Luo didn’t quite know how to respond and could only say, “My brother says… some are reliable, some aren’t. If they don’t work, he just adjusts them.”

“My dad says making buns is something you’re born with. He’s sold buns for over twenty or thirty years, yet the buns my brother made at home when he was in middle school were already better than his.”

“It might also be because my brother trained in a welfare home when he was young and had a solid foundation. He said that since fourth grade, he was the one making all the buns at the welfare home.”

Ou Yang was even more confused. He had always thought Qin Huai came from a family with a long tradition, that their bun shop was some kind of hidden sect, with Qin Congwen being the 13th-generation heir of a famous lineage.

He had been looking forward to it for a long time, even wondering how to ask Qin Congwen to show off his skills.

But now Qin Luo told him that Qin Huai was entirely self-taught.

“When my brother was in high school, his grades were average—just slightly better than mine… a little bit. Back then, my third aunt and my uncle even suggested sending him elsewhere to learn a craft. I heard there was a place in Hangzhou where masters accepted apprentices. My uncle could pull some strings to get him in. After graduating, our family’s bun shop might have even turned into a dessert shop.”

“But in the end, he didn’t go.”

As they were talking, Qin Huai returned with the meat and shrimp he had selected—pork hind leg meat and live shrimp in his left hand, shoulder meat and three-layer pork in his right hand, and a small bag of fatty meat hanging from his pinky.

“Wow, you bought so much,” Ou Yang exclaimed.

“For making minced meat,” Qin Huai explained, lifting his left hand. “The key to four-delicacy dumplings is the minced meat.”

Seeing that Ou Yang didn’t quite understand, Qin Huai elaborated: “Generally, dumpling filling uses hind leg meat, while bun filling uses shoulder meat. Hind leg meat is firm, has less tendon, and tastes better.”

“But Luo Luo has a special preference. She likes fillings that are softer and more tender, preferably with some fat—juicy enough that oil seeps out when you bite into it.”

“If it doesn’t taste bad, she’d even want to wrap bun filling inside dumplings.”

“So today I’m preparing two kinds of dumpling fillings: one made purely from hind leg meat, and another mixed with three-layer and shoulder meat, plus a bit of extra fat. If you’re not used to one, you can eat the first kind. I’ll steam them separately.”

Ou Yang listened in a daze.

Although he didn’t fully understand, it somehow sounded very delicious.

After thinking it over, Ou Yang gritted his teeth, stomped his foot, and looked at Qin Huai with determination.

“Bro!”

“Qin Huai, you’re my bro. I want fresh shrimp crab shell yellow pastries!”

Qin Huai: …

“Get lost!”