Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle

Chapter 1354: Chen Huixi Side Story (Part 4)

On the second day, when Qin Huai knocked on Zheng Siyuan’s door at six in the morning and saw Zheng Siyuan still half-asleep, he suddenly realized that Zhou Hu’s fortune-telling was actually pretty accurate.

He really was born to be a workhorse.

Because Qin Huai had been avoiding Zheng Siyuan and the others for a few years, Zheng hadn’t come to Yunzhong Restaurant to hang out for a long time and had already forgotten those days when he’d almost ended up as a Breakfast Shop chef at Yunzhong Restaurant.

"What time do you usually get up for work at Babaozhai?" Qin Huai asked.

"Around seven-thirty," Zheng Siyuan said. "Sometimes eight."

"I’m the head chef; the grunt work is done by the juniors, and Babaozhai’s back kitchen is managed pretty well. The snacks we start selling at ten in the morning are fresh meat mooncake, so as long as I get to the shop before eight-thirty, it’s fine."

Qin Huai thought about what time he’d been getting up these past few years...

Sure enough, in the world of snacks, it was the breakfast chef who ended up carrying everything on his back.

Qin Huai fell into contemplation.

He’d already inherited Luo Jun’s estate; even if he had to give most of it back to Luo Jun, whatever slipped through Luo Jun’s fingers would still be enough for him to eat, drink, and have fun for a lifetime—so why was he still getting up early every day to sell breakfast?

Qin Huai couldn’t figure it out, but he didn’t feel there was anything wrong with that.

Anyway, He wasn’t human; having a few screws loose was perfectly normal.

An Youyou’s assets were almost at the financial-freedom line too, yet she was still living a sustainably broke life.

Spirits are just like that.

Qin Huai happily spent the whole day at Zheng Siyuan’s place making snacks.

Dong Shi and Dong Li came for dinner. They couldn’t get away earlier, and they didn’t bring the usual fruits or standard gifts; they brought ingredients.

The brothers showed off their skills in Zheng Siyuan’s kitchen: Dong Li made Sizzling Fried Eel, and Dong Shi made Squirrel Mandarin Fish. The dishes were excellent, but they didn’t exactly go with snacks—who eats snacks with two sweet dishes on the side? Isn’t that cloying?

Zheng Siyuan’s meat cooking skills were so-so; he stir-fried two vegetable dishes. With the big table of snacks Qin Huai made, dinner could be called sumptuous.

The Dong brothers didn’t touch the four dishes with their chopsticks even once; they spent the whole meal staring at the snacks. Dong Shi didn’t even have a spare mouth to gossip with Qin Huai about Taifeng Building until he was full.

After chattering away, you could tell from their gossip that the two brothers were pretty happy working at Taifeng Building.

When they finally left, lugging several big bags of snacks, Dong Shi still remembered to add a little drama for himself, declaring that they would definitely sneak these snacks back and eat them in secret, absolutely not sharing a single one with the people at Taifeng Building, so no one would suspect where the snacks came from.

To this, Qin Huai thought: You’re acting like if my relationship with the Jiang Family was great, you’d actually share the snacks with other people.

At his current level and speed at making snacks, a single day was enough for Qin Huai to produce two months’ worth of breakfast for Zheng Siyuan.

Of course, there was no way Zheng was going to eat these snacks for breakfast every day for two months—the raw dough, even kept frozen in the freezer, could last at most two weeks. After that, it’d be better to just buy frozen stuff from the supermarket.

Some of these snacks were for Tong Dayan, some for Ling Guangzhao, some for Han Guishan, and some for Xu Cheng. Back then, when Ling Guangzhao ran off to Gusu trying to poach Qin Huai and ended up bringing back Zheng Siyuan by mistake, the whole farce didn’t affect Ling’s relationship with Qin Huai.

The two of them hadn’t had much of a relationship to begin with.

Qin Huai and Ling Guangzhao only got a bit more familiar after Zheng Siyuan started working at Babaozhai.

They weren’t close and didn’t normally meet up, but Boss Ling was generous as hell. His biggest virtue was loving to hand out red envelopes. After Zheng Siyuan went to work at Babaozhai, because Qin Huai wanted to know how Jiang Feng was doing, he had Ling secretly add him to the Beiping merchants’ group chat.

Whenever he was bored, Ling Guangzhao would send red envelopes to the group, and during holidays he was great at gift-giving (always Babaozhai’s holiday gift boxes, with a definite whiff of advertising). Following the principle of reciprocity, whenever Ling mailed him something, Qin mailed something back. After a few rounds of this, Qin Huai got used to sending him raw dough every holiday; whenever he made snacks in bulk, he’d always remember to set aside a share for Ling.

According to Zheng Siyuan, Ling often ate his way into a melancholy mood, sighing over how he, as Boss, had failed to poach Qin Huai.

By the time Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan finished dividing up the snacks, it was already nine at night.

Logically, Qin Huai should have gone back to the hotel early to rest and recharge.

Tomorrow was going to be a tough battle: Huihui’s birthday banquet was in the evening. Everyone had prepared what needed preparing—the people were there, the venue was set, the dishes were basically fine. Huihui was the main character, and what would decide her fate was the Longevity Noodles she’d eat tomorrow.

Recently, Chen Huihong had been so anxious she muttered nonstop every day, desperate to nail down everything from the color of the tablecloth to the specs of the plates and cutlery, constantly studying what tiny details she might have missed, determined to keep every last detail under control. Cheng Gong and the others never mentioned the Longevity Noodles, but everyone knew very clearly that everything else was just decorative, the icing on the cake; the only thing that could truly be decisive was the Longevity Noodles made by Qin Huai.

This was Huihui’s last chance.

Every previous birthday, Huihui hadn’t woken up. Qin Huai had been a little disappointed but never felt much pressure, because he knew there’d be another chance the following year.

But this year, there wouldn’t be.

If this life’s Huihui still had a straw to grasp, then tomorrow would be the last chance to take hold of that straw.

Chen Huihong had gotten so anxious she was watering the money tree every day at noon; there was no way Qin Huai could be completely calm.

He felt that he’d been doing okay these past few days, at least not as over-the-top as Chen Huihong. But once they arrived in Beiping and he spent a whole day at Zheng Siyuan’s making snacks and simmering stock, he finally started to experience that exact same brand of anxiety she had.