The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 180: The Beast (Part ) (Additional chapters for the reward from the Alliance Leader to promise you a city where flowers never fade!)
After Gong Liang returned home, his mother didn't say anything. She just went to inform the neighbors and told them that Gong Liang was back and they didn't need to look for him anymore. Then she used the stove to heat up the food in the lunch box so that Gong Liang could eat quickly.

The lunch box contained quail eggs, braised pork and steamed bread. The steamed bread looked wrinkled and not quite formed, and it was obvious that it was made of pure coarse grains. The quail eggs and braised pork were the portion Gong Liang had reserved for the hot dishes in the afternoon, but Gong's father and mother did not touch a single bite.

Gong Liang didn't say much the whole time. After finishing his meal, he washed the lunch box, washed up quickly, and went back to his room to rest.

The next day, when Gong Liang got up, his mother was no longer at home. There was a cooked corn on the table, and the door of Gong's father and mother's room was closed. Gong Liang took a look inside and saw that Gong's father was still sleeping with his eyes closed, so he didn't say anything and went to work.

Gong Liang didn't see it clearly without a God's perspective. Qin Huai was always wandering around the house. He saw Gong's mother getting up before dawn to boil medicine, clean the house, sort out the laundry, and do needlework. She was never idle for a moment, fearing that if she did less, someone else would have to do more.

A quarter of an hour before Gong Liang woke up, his mother went out to mend clothes with some needlework. She probably calculated the time in case Gong Liang saw her.

The clothes that Gong's mother wanted to repair were of many styles and of various designs. Those clothes were probably not from her family but were jobs she took on outside.

As for Mr. Gong, he had not slept either and had woken up long ago.

Most of the time he lay in bed with his eyes open in a daze. Occasionally he would try to move to see how paralyzed he was, and then he would stare at the ceiling with his eyes open blankly.

Gong Liang walked to work, chewing corn as he walked.

Although the sales department has an office, it is never fully staffed. Qin Huai counted and found that there are 11 positions in the office. In theory, there should be at least 11 people in the sales department, but only 4 of them were on duty in the morning.

Section Chief Chen, Gong Liang, Liu Hai, and a middle-aged man whom he had never seen before. The middle-aged man who asked Liu Hai to speak less yesterday did not come today. He was probably out on business.

It was hard to run business outside, but it was impossible to sit idle in the office. Gong Liang was assigned the task of collecting information, which actually meant reading newspapers, writing letters, and making phone calls.

He read newspapers from all over the country and looked for factories that might be interested in ordering silk. He made phone calls with a certain chance of success and wrote letters with a slim chance of success. These three tasks could not be done at the same time. In the morning, Gong Liang was mainly responsible for reading newspapers and recording information.

Qin Huai watched from the side and realized that Gong Liang was indeed a natural salesman.

Gong Liang was not only good at talking, thick-skinned, and good at pestering and beating snakes, but he was also good at collecting, identifying, and extracting information. Many newspapers were obviously advertisements, such as handicrafts and toys, but he recorded them and marked the types that could be sold.

He would even write down news reports about a pearl farm's pearls being well received at last year's exhibition and successfully earning foreign exchange, and mark that they might require silk packaging.

With this ability and patience, Qin Huai fully believed that Gong Liang's successful negotiation of the order in Shanghai at the beginning of the year was not a problem of ability, but purely a problem of mentality.

No wonder Section Chief Chen trusts Gong Liang, a young man who has just been promoted, so much and always lets him take the lead when negotiating big orders.

After finishing his work in the morning, Gong Liang did not go to the canteen to eat, but went to ask for leave from Section Chief Chen. He explained the reason directly without making up a story, saying that Master Jing asked him to go to the state-owned restaurant in the afternoon.

Section Chief Chen agreed without thinking, and did not ask Gong Liang to write a leave note. He told Gong Liang that if the work at the state-owned restaurant ended early, he did not need to come to the company and could go home directly.

Gong Liang went to the cafeteria to eat a meal before leaving for the state-owned restaurant.

The canteen food at the silk weaving factory was very perfunctory, with steamed buns made of mixed grains, cabbage with minced meat, and stir-fried white radish. Except for the cabbage with minced meat, which had some oil, the stir-fried white radish looked no different from the boiled one.

With this kind of food, it’s no wonder that the workers in the silk factory are trying every means to transfer to other factories. Just looking at the food shows that the factory’s efficiency is indeed not that good.

When Gong Liang arrived at the state-owned restaurant, it had just closed. The waiter was already serving noodles in bowls. It looked like white noodles and the food was good.

Seeing Gong Liang coming, the round-faced, slightly plump waiter raised his head and pointed the way to the kitchen with his eyes. He seemed reluctant to open his mouth and said with a long tail tone: "Master Jing is waiting for you in the kitchen."

Gong Liang walked into the kitchen somewhat confused.

Jing Lixiang was the only one in the kitchen.

"Here I am." Jing Lixiang looked at Gong Liang with a smile, pointing at all the visible ingredients on the table, "Is there anything you want to eat?"

What this means is that you can order whatever you want to eat. All the dishes today will be paid for and prepared by Chef Jing.

Gong Liang was very frightened for a moment.

The first thing he saw was the beautiful pork belly on the chopping board, and then he quickly looked away. He saw the chicken, looked away. The duck, looked away. The fish, he didn't look away, and after a while he saw the crab.

Gong Liang pointed at the crab.

Based on the order in which Gong Liang looked at the ingredients, Qin Huai saw a pattern.

I don’t dare to look at the expensive ones and always choose the cheap ones.

In this era, crabs, fish and shrimps are absolutely cheap goods, and you can catch them everywhere in the river. If you want to make these dishes delicious, you have to add seasonings, which means spending money. Boiled in plain water, they are not delicious. The most important thing is that there is no oil, so you don’t feel full like pork when you eat them.

Although now is the season when crabs are the fattest, this big pot of crabs crawling around may not be as valuable as that small piece of pork belly on the chopping board.

"Crabs, the crabs of this season are really good, plump and full of crab roe. Let me think about what I can do with crabs. Cooking is a bit too grand, and I will inevitably be criticized for abusing my power for personal gain."

"How about some snacks? How about crab roe dumplings?" Jing Lixiang asked.

Gong Liang shook his head repeatedly. He knew that crab roe dumplings required pork, which was too expensive.

Jing Lixiang also saw what Gong Liang was thinking, and smiled helplessly: "Since Xiaoliang doesn't want to eat pork filling today, why not make crab roe steamed buns, shrimp filling with crab, although it's a bit troublesome, but the ingredients are easy to get, and it doesn't cost money."

Gong Liang nodded, not understanding why.

Jinglixiang started making crab roe steamed dumplings.

Qin Huai is very familiar with this dish, and he is so familiar with the preparation process that he knows what to do next even if he covers his eyes.

Qinhuai’s crab roe steamed buns were taught by Zheng Da, and Zheng Da’s crab roe steamed buns were taught by Jinglixiang, so the crab roe steamed buns from Qinhuai and Jinglixiang are actually of the same origin.

Qin Huai was familiar with every move of Jing Lixiang, but also a little strange.

How should I put it, the level of Bai's case is too high.

Ignoring physical strength, the level of a pastry chef can theoretically be improved with practice.

White case does not require such strict control of strength and skills as red case. Red case chefs' cooking skills will gradually decline after they reach middle age. Although they are more experienced, their bodies cannot keep up with their brains. Especially red case is a high-physical labor, and they cannot keep up with the intensity of the kitchen when they are older. White case is much better, which is why there are very few female chefs among red case chefs, but there are relatively more female chefs among white case chefs.

Although Jing Lixiang is now over 50 and has a lame leg, his cooking skills are still at their peak. Qin Huai can only sigh with his mouth open, wondering how far he can go before he can reach his peak level.

His movements could no longer be described as smooth and seamless.

Qin Huai felt that Jing Lixiang was probably the second best cook he had ever seen. The best was Jiang Chengde, whose teaching video was difficult to understand.

I can still understand Jinglixiang's this to some extent.

"You thought about it all night last night when you got home, right?" Jing Lixiang was able to have a heart-to-heart talk with Gong Liang while kneading dough.

Gong Liang nodded.

"Have you figured out anything?"

Gong Liang didn't say anything, and if he didn't say anything, that meant nothing.

"Sometimes it's hard to make a decision, but when you make up your mind and start doing something you think is hard, it's often not that hard." Jing Lixiang said, "Just like when Shengli cut his hand for the first time, he was always very careful after that, for fear of cutting his hand again."

“But in reality, people don’t fail all the time after failing once, and when learning to cook, it doesn’t mean you will cut your hand many times after cutting it once.”

“When people fail, they learn lessons and make corrections. The purpose of making corrections is to avoid making the same mistakes again.”

“If you don’t even have the courage to try, you won’t even have the chance to know if you have made corrections.”

Gong Liang stood quietly by the side without saying anything.

Jing Lixiang chuckled: "I feel like Master Jing is talking about some big principles again, isn't it?"

"No." Gong Liang hastily denied, "I just... just... it's useless to think about these things now. There are no places for the trade show. I don't even have a chance to try."

“Opportunities are always there.”

"I still remember how your parents told me with great excitement last year about how you negotiated your first order."

"Since the silk mills don't have any orders, you can look for interested manufacturers in the newspapers and call them one by one. Section Chief Chen thinks you're making too many calls and the phone bills are high, so you can just write a letter and wait for a reply."

"Other people who go on business trips to Jinling only visit the places they were supposed to visit. You do your homework in advance and visit more factories than others. Even if the guards don't let you in and you are turned away from the door, you can still wait for the purchasing leaders at the door."

"Isn't that how you got your first order?"

Gong Liang didn't expect that Jing Lixiang actually remembered this, and remembered it so clearly.

"Your Section Chief Chen is old-fashioned, but he's not bad, and he values ​​talent. Otherwise, he wouldn't have trained you as a key member before you were even hired, and wouldn't have let a newcomer like you go to Shanghai to take on important tasks and negotiate deals."

"Giving up after one failure is not the Gong Liang I grew up with."

"I remember when you were little, I made snacks during the Chinese New Year and you were greedy and wanted to eat. When you failed once, you tried twice. You never stopped saying nice things. When one trick didn't work, you tried another. You're not the type to give up after getting hit once."

Gong Liang felt a little embarrassed by what Jing Lixiang said. He lowered his head and blushed: "Master Jing, those were things that happened when we were little."

"Didn't you cheat on Shengli and Zheng Da when you were in junior high school..."

"Master Jing!" Gong Liang had already begun begging.

Jing Lixiang smiled and shut up, no longer trying to uncover Gong Liang's underwear, and quietly made crab roe steamed buns.

It doesn't take long to make crab roe siu mai. Soon, the crab roe siu mai was steamed in the pot.

"What I want to say is, Xiaoliang, I, your Master Jing, have watched you grow up over the years. You are not the kind of person who will just accept your fate if you are not given a spot at the trade fair."

"When Section Chief Chen didn't allow you to make phone calls, you wrote letters. Now I believe you can do it too."

"It's just that you're still hesitant in your heart, hesitating whether to do this thing."

"But I have something to tell you. Opportunities are fleeting. There won't always be such a good opportunity waiting for you to grab it."

Gong Liang remained silent.

Jing Lixiang stopped talking and waited for the crab roe steamed buns to be ready.

After seven or eight minutes, the crab roe steamed buns are ready.

After it cooled down slightly, Gong Liang picked up a crab roe steamed bun and swallowed it in one bite, chewing it.

Gong Liang's eyes widened, he said nothing, yet it seemed as if he had said everything.

While Gong Liang was chewing frantically, Jing Lixiang stood by and asked with a smile: "What do you want to eat tomorrow?"

Gong Liang:!
Gong Liang swallowed it quickly and refused: "Master Jing, no, I will ..."

Jing Lixiang did not give him a chance to refuse: "Don't be polite with me, just order whatever you want. People should face their desires and their hearts. You must first determine what you want before you can have the motivation to make choices and work hard."

"Master Jing, I am not a person who only talks empty words."

Gong Liang thought for a moment and said embarrassedly, "Master Jing, I want to eat meat buns."

Jing Lixiang laughed out loud: "I knew that you have been staring at the pork belly since you entered the kitchen. Okay, I will make you meat buns tomorrow!"

"Special meat buns, three-diced buns."

(End of this chapter)