Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Daddy, Where’s Mommy?
South City.
People streamed in and out of the Civil Affairs Bureau.
Jiang Liu’s expression was grim. He suppressed his anger and asked in a low voice,
"Yang Yixue, I’m asking you one last time. Are you sure you want to go through with this divorce?"
"Yes, Jiang Liu. I’ve already answered this question five times. Oh, wait, this makes it the sixth. And while, um... I’m very grateful for your help over the years, well... we’re just not a good match."
The voluptuous and elegant Yang Yixue held a round LV handbag.
She wore a blue floral dress, her face done up in glamorous makeup. A distant smile played on her thin, slightly upturned lips.
"Fine. From now on, we have nothing to do with each other."
"Mm, that’s great. Couldn’t ask for more. We’ll stick to the plan: you can have Tongtong, and I get the property and the house."
Yang Yixue’s smile vanished.
Her expression was complicated as she glanced at Tongtong in Jiang Liu’s arms.
’Damn it, that house was originally mine!’ Jiang Liu took a deep breath, suppressing the fury in his heart.
He wasn’t sad to lose her, but their daughter, Tongtong, was only four years old!
Jiang Liu was afraid the divorce would cast a shadow over his daughter’s childhood.
That’s why he didn’t want to divorce now.
At the very least, he wanted to wait until Tongtong was six.
As for their relationship, it had been a mistake from the start.
Five years ago, at a party, Jiang Liu was 22 and Yang Yixue was 21. They both drank too much and, through a strange twist of fate, ended up in bed together. Yang Yixue had never been in a relationship before, and she got pregnant from that first time.
Jiang Liu was handsome and stood six-foot-one. He was a graduate from a top architecture university and came from a family of civil servants.
Yang Yixue had been very satisfied with him, and because she was pregnant,
their two families pushed them into a flash marriage.
After getting married, they led a harmonious life for a while.
In the second year,
Yang Yixue insisted on throwing herself into her career. She worked in the beauty industry and borrowed five hundred thousand yuan from Jiang Liu’s parents to open her own salon.
By the third year, she had opened two more branches. By the fourth, she had ten, with a monthly income of over nine hundred thousand yuan.
Yang Yixue was usually busy with work,
and she often left Tongtong at home to go hungry.
Jiang Liu brought it up many times, but she was just stubborn as a mule.
She’d say that if she didn’t earn money, Tongtong wouldn’t have a good future.
Helpless, Jiang Liu had no choice but to quit his job at the state-owned enterprise and become a stay-at-home dad.
As time went on,
seeing Jiang Liu at home taking care of their child every day, Yang Yixue started to grow resentful, feeling he was no longer good enough for her.
She was a powerful career woman earning millions a month, while her husband was nothing more than a nanny who only knew how to look after their child.
Aside from being handsome and good in bed, he was utterly useless.
’She could do so much better!’
So, Yang Yixue began a year-long campaign of giving him the cold shoulder.
Until last month, in July of 2020, their marriage finally entered its grave.
During the one-month cooling-off period, Jiang Liu tried to negotiate with Yang Yixue multiple times, hoping she would wait another two years until Tongtong was a little older. They could live separately during that time.
But she just saw it as an excuse to avoid the divorce.
Her words even became insulting.
That just pissed Jiang Liu off.
"Mmm, ice cweam!"
Just then, Tongtong stirred in his arms, murmuring in her sleep, "Daddy, why’d you buy me ice cweam, Daddy? I’ll just have a wittle bite."
"Daddy’s here, sweetie."
Jiang Liu dotingly stroked his daughter’s head.
Watching them, Yang Yixue’s permanently shaped brows furrowed in displeasure.
"Jiang Liu, if you ask me, you can’t afford to raise Tongtong. You don’t even have a job. Why don’t you just give her to me? I can let you have the house. How about it?"
"No need. If you like the house so much, you can keep it,"
Jiang Liu refused coldly.
’Giving Tongtong to her would be like throwing her to the wolves.’
’This was his precious daughter. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt her!’
There was nothing more to say.
The divorce went smoothly.
Thirty minutes later,
they had signed the papers and walked out with their divorce certificates.
Just as Jiang Liu stepped outside,
a flash of light suddenly went off in his mind, like the brilliant burst of a camera flash, leaving him with a sheet of white.
At that moment,
a cold voice rang out, whether in his ears or in his mind, he couldn’t tell.
[Gourmet Album successfully unlocked.]
[Would you like to purchase world-class gourmet skills?]
[Upon unlocking skills, you can purchase corresponding top-tier rare ingredients.]
"Huh? A hallucination? What is this!"
Jiang Liu was astonished, his eyes wide.
He had read web novels, so he knew about things like "systems."
"Could this be my golden finger?!"
Excitement surged through him.
He closed his eyes, and in the darkness of his senses, a yellow booklet clearly appeared.
The booklet slowly opened to the first page.
On it was an image of a white steamed bun, still giving off steam.
There was a lock in the middle of the bun.
It looked like a game interface.
"Are you the system? I’m Jiang Liu. Nice to meet you."
Jiang Liu asked tentatively.
Faced with such a miraculous event, he didn’t know what to do for a moment.
The voice sounded again, like a whisper in his ear.
[Spend 1000 Praise Points to unlock?]
[Current Points: 1200]
Jiang Liu hesitated for a moment, then thought, ’Yes.’
[Congratulations on unlocking Three-Delicacy Buns, Pork and Scallion Buns, Chive and Egg Buns, and Corn and Shrimp Buns.]
In an instant, a gentle stream of memories flowed into his mind.
In those memories,
Jiang Liu practiced and studied day and night.
He spent half a year just perfecting the single motion of kneading dough.
The selection of ingredients, the professional and meticulous preparation, the precise ratio of simple seasonings, adding sugar and baking soda to the flour... repeated kneading, proofing, and precise time control... all to make the dough fluffy, soft, and chewy...
The seasonings were made using the most primitive crafting methods.
For example, the soy sauce had to be brewed using ancient methods from the Yun region, giving it a naturally rich, fragrant soybean aroma...
The flour had to be made from fresh wheat grown in a region with large day-night temperature differences, clean water, and fertile soil, harvested no more than two months prior...
The fillings were similarly world-class.
The shrimp had to be Little Cyan Dragon, with its smooth, tender meat and intoxicating shrimp flavor. The pork had to be a specific cut from the back of a free-range suckling pig. The chives were five-colored chives, crisp and tender. The scallions were thousand-year scallions, sweet with a bit of spice, and wouldn’t get mushy when steamed...
All ingredients were the best in the world.
After absorbing the memories, Jiang Liu was somewhat dumbfounded.
’Is this even meant for people to eat?’
’Or rather, how many people could even afford something like this? Top-tier ingredients combined with such meticulous craftsmanship... it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call these the number one buns in the world!’
Thinking back on the buns he used to eat, they hardly even qualified as food.
Flavored with all sorts of additives, made with crude techniques, the most common ingredients, and they weren’t even fresh or sanitary...
Yang Yixue glanced at the motionless Jiang Liu.
She shook her head with a pitying laugh. "Jiang Liu, I’m leaving now. Take good care of Tongtong."
With that, she swayed her slim waist and walked toward her BMW.
It had to be said, Yang Yixue was quite a beauty. Even after having a child, she was still captivating.
Jiang Liu didn’t respond, or rather, couldn’t be bothered to.
He was busy holding Tongtong and wondering if he should hurry up and get a shop.
He still had over a hundred thousand yuan saved up, which should be enough to handle the current situation.
Inside the white BMW 7 Series,
sat a woman in her fifties. She was cross-eyed, her hair was tied up in a bun, and her eyeliner and eyebrows were drawn in jet black. Gold and jade jewelry adorned her hands and neck.
She looked like someone you didn’t want to mess with.
This was Yang Yixue’s mother, Li Xiaoyan.
"How’d it go? Smoothly? That punk didn’t give you any trouble, did he?"
Seeing her daughter return, Li Xiaoyan leaned over and asked urgently.
"Don’t worry. When your daughter takes charge, everything goes smoothly!"
Yang Yixue lifted her snow-white chin and said with a triumphant humph.
"Haha, that’s good, that’s good."
"By the way, that poor boy didn’t ask you for the house, did he?"
"No. He has the child to worry about," Yang Yixue replied.
"Excellent!"
Li Xiaoyan patted her chest and let out a long sigh of relief.
"We really got the better end of the deal. His family’s house is worth at least a million. If we had to buy it, it would have cost us an arm and a leg."
"Mom, why do you love taking advantage of people so much? It’s just a house. I could buy several of them whenever I want. What’s the big deal?"
Yang Yixue started the car, turning her head to scold her mother in dissatisfaction.
Earning millions a month, she truly looked down on a single house. There was very little in all of South City that she would even deign to notice.
Feeling like her daughter was a hopeless case, Li Xiaoyan slapped the seat. "You prodigal child! Only a fool wouldn’t take a freebie when it’s offered!"
"Mom! I’m getting angry!"
"Alright, alright, I won’t say any more, I won’t say any more!"
Li Xiaoyan gave an embarrassed laugh.
"My daughter is so outstanding, earning millions a month at just twenty-six. In the future, you have to find a man worth at least a hundred million, hmph!"
"A poor boy like that... if you were still with him, our family would be too embarrassed to even mention it. Splitting up is good for him, too. Imagine the pressure he’d be under being with you."
Li Xiaoyan chattered on endlessly in the BMW.
As they passed Jiang Liu, she shot him a disgusted look before turning her head away.
Yang Yixue nodded slightly, then gave a small shake of her head.
She neither agreed nor disagreed.
For some reason, she felt a sense of unease in her heart.
...
"Daddy, where’s Mommy?"
On the way to kindergarten, Tongtong tugged on Jiang Liu’s hand.
