Chapter 78 Guidance from a Master

With guidance from a master, Qin Huai felt his soup-making skills improving by leaps and bounds.

Of course, that was only on the first day.

By the second day, he had regressed by about nine-tenths.

But a master is still a master.

Compared to Zheng Da’s abstract teaching style and his tendency to look down on 99% of white-case chefs while favoring talent, Huang Shengli’s teaching approach was clearly encouraging.

Perhaps it was the result of years of mentoring that tempered his temperament, or perhaps due to rheumatism and back problems that kept him mostly out of the front lines, allowing him to enjoy semi-retirement and take things more lightly. Even when Qin Huai advanced by leaps and bounds one day and fell back the next, Huang Shengli could still find something to encourage.

“Very good, Xiao Qin, don’t be discouraged.”

“Although your beef soup today is clearly not as good as yesterday’s, that actually highlights the issue. Think carefully—why is it that with the exact same process, yesterday’s beef soup seemed perfectly fine, while today’s turned out so noticeably worse?” Huang Shengli asked while sitting comfortably, sipping tea.

From his camera feed, he could be seen sitting in a corner near the kitchen door—cool and yet able to oversee everything. Beside him was a small table with brewed tea and some snacks he liked. Among them, a plate of fresh meat mooncakes was clearly made by Zheng Siyuan.

Huang Shengli’s Huang Ji Restaurant in Suzhou was quite famous. Qin Huai had done a quick search online, and its reputation was stellar—top ratings across review sites, and its share of mentions on major platforms far ahead of competitors. It was evident these weren’t inflated by marketing, but earned purely through quality.

However, this year the negative reviews had noticeably increased. Many diners commented that the food wasn’t as good as before and didn’t live up to its online reputation.

Although some longtime patrons explained in the comments that the head chef, Mr. Huang, was older and in poor health, and that his senior disciple had taken over but hadn’t yet fully mastered the craft, it was still clear that Huang Ji Restaurant was on a slight decline.

When Qin Huai saw these online reviews, he had felt a bit concerned for Huang Shengli. After all, when one’s family business starts to decline, it’s hard for anyone to feel good. He even considered reducing how often he asked for guidance so as not to bother him.

But he soon realized he was wrong—Huang Shengli didn’t care at all.

Every day, he would cheerfully have someone bring a chair to the entrance of the back kitchen, sit there, and while supervising his apprentices in real time—watching for mistakes or laziness—he would also connect via video to guide Qin Huai in soup-making, thoroughly enjoying the process.

Qin Huai even overheard one of Huang Shengli’s apprentices muttering quietly out of sight, “Is the person on video the master’s closed-door disciple? Didn’t he say I was supposed to be the closed-door disciple?”

From this, Qin Huai could only conclude one thing—Huang Shengli truly loved being a teacher.

He had remained one for so many years, taking in numerous disciples without ever growing tired or dismissive, even when their talent wasn’t exceptional or they hadn’t fully grasped the essence of the craft. Even during a transitional period when he was gradually preparing for retirement and couldn’t fully pass the torch, he remained cheerful, sitting in the kitchen every day—simply because he loved teaching.

If Huang Shengli hadn’t been a chef, he would likely have been an outstanding teacher with students all over the world.

The master’s instruction continued.

Faced with Huang Shengli’s question, Qin Huai thought carefully and replied, “I feel like the beef I used today seemed different from yesterday’s.”

“Or maybe I didn’t cut it properly?”

Huang Shengli nodded. “That’s what I mean—Xiao Qin, you actually have talent, but you simply haven’t been properly taught before. You immediately noticed the main issue with today’s beef soup. You’re not familiar enough with the ingredient itself.”

“Of course, insufficient skill is also a factor, but improvement always takes time.”

“Have you noticed that today’s beef is much fresher than yesterday’s? The process for beef soup is to clean and cut the meat, soak it to remove blood, then blanch it in cold water before simmering.”

“But when dealing with ingredients in different conditions, you need to slightly adjust your methods.”

“Just like how you knead dough. I remember you telling me that when you were running your family breakfast shop, you used to prepare the dough the night before because you had to wake up early. But now, you get up earlier and your shop hours aren’t as early, so you can knead the dough fresh in the morning.”

“You clearly understand that these two different preparation methods require slight adjustments in the final process. Naturally, freshly made buns taste better than those made with pre-prepared dough.”

“It’s the same in red-case cooking. You can’t rigidly apply formulas or methods to every situation. If you rely on fixed patterns when your fundamentals aren’t solid, the chances of failure are high.”

“I have a document here that explains how to handle different ingredients and how to respond to various situations. I’ll send it to you now.”

“Take some time today to study it carefully. Tomorrow, try making beef soup again, and we’ll see how it goes.”

Huang Shengli took another sip of tea. His senior disciple, who had acted as a teaching model the day before, peeked into the frame from the side.

“Master, should these dishes—braised eel in hot oil—be handled by you? This is for an engagement banquet, and it was specially booked at our restaurant. I’m worried…”

Huang Shengli immediately set down his teacup and stood up. “I’ll take care of it. Xiao Qin, I have some matters to attend to here. I’ve already sent you the document—study it well and feel free to message me anytime if you have questions.”

“Continue practicing the soup every day as usual. Don’t put pressure on yourself—practice boldly. You should trust yourself. Your seasoning is already quite good, and you have talent. Trust your instincts. When you’re unsure and have no one to ask, just follow your intuition—I have high expectations for you.”

With that, Huang Shengli ended the call.

Qin Huai nodded at the now-disconnected phone screen and began reading the document.

At table 9, the conscientious truant Ou Yang was holding a bowl of beef soup. Though somewhat reluctant, he still sipped it slowly, refusing to waste it.

“Luo Luo, your brother is great at pastries—why did he suddenly decide to start making soup?” Ou Yang couldn’t understand it at all, pointing at Qin Huai, who was fully focused on reading the document. “And he’s even taking online classes!”

“In this day and age, people are learning cooking through online courses!”

Ou Yang didn’t get it. He took another sip of the beef soup and grimaced again: “And this course doesn’t seem very good either—the soup he made after a whole day of lessons actually tastes worse.”

Qin Luo was also drinking the soup—it was something she had insisted on, so even if it didn’t taste great, she forced herself to finish it.

“You don’t understand,” Qin Luo said confidently. “My brother said this is for building fundamentals.”

She felt she truly understood this time. The online instructor Qin Huai found was excellent—she could understand every sentence!

“Teacher Huang said that problems during the fundamentals stage are actually good—they allow for timely correction. If there are no problems, it becomes much harder to fix them later when advancing. It’s like me—my math still has room to improve, but my English is already hard to improve further.”

Ou Yang: ?

Are you sure that’s a valid analogy?

No wonder you failed your Chinese exam.

Still, Ou Yang felt her words made some sense—it just made things harder for him.

Sigh. What was supposed to be a delightful daily soup tasting had turned into a chore.

“Officer, if the soup doesn’t taste good and I end up getting fat from drinking it, can that count as a work injury?”

He looked sorrowfully toward the kitchen, hoping Qin Huai would finish building his fundamentals quickly so he could finally enjoy good soup again.

Naturally, Qin Huai couldn’t hear his thoughts.

The document Huang Shengli sent was extremely detailed, even allowing searches by ingredient names. After studying the section on beef, Qin Huai felt enlightened once again.

He could do this!

Advantage is mine!

Qin Huai decided to work overtime and cook another pot of beef soup.

After all, soups can be cooked simultaneously—he could make both the stock and the beef soup at the same time and practice more.

He would listen to Huang’s advice, and also Zheng’s advice.

As for what constructive suggestions Zheng had offered…

Zheng’s suggestion was simply: listen to Huang more, and practice more.