The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 439 Two Recipes and an Amazing Buff
When Qin Huai left the memory and returned to the living room, there were still many uneaten egg tarts on the table, and Shi Dadan had stopped eating, apparently having eaten his fill.

Seeing Qin Huai look up, Shi Dadan asked, "What was the plot of Xiao Zhao's dream?"

"His struggle in finding a job," Qin Huai said succinctly.

When it comes to job hunting, Zhao Cheng'an is practically in a league of his own among spirits. Zhao Cheng'an's dream this time wasn't very long; Qin Huai only stayed in it for less than four days, two of which were just wasted time, during which he didn't even see the main character.

As a mayfly, Zhao Cheng'an had no intention of playing around with life, nor was he obsessed with living a few more years; he only had a strong desire to find a good job.

"Old Shi, don't rush. I'll make a group video call later and tell everyone what I saw. I also have some questions for Sister Hong. Let me see what recipes I got first." After saying that, Qin Huai opened the game panel.

Zhao Cheng'an's condition remained unchanged.

Name: Zhao Cheng'an
Species: Mayfly

state:???

Dream: 1/3
Recipes: Rice Cake, Red Eggs (Click to view details)
Gifts: None
However, there were indeed three dreams, and in addition to rice cakes, a red egg was also found in the recipe, which was a little unexpected for Qin Huai.

Click on the recipe to view details.

[Rice Cake A+ Grade]

Creator: Jiang Chengde

Dish Details: This dish was a casual creation by Jiang Chengde, a grandmaster of martial arts, while preparing breakfast for his family of eleven after his wife suffered a difficult childbirth. Although it was simply rice cake made with the most common ingredients and a little sugar, and its texture was slightly hardened and less appealing after cooling, it still left a deep impression on Zhao Cheng'an, becoming his standard for judging delicious snacks. Eating this snack on a weekday morning would give him plenty of energy and a better mood for the whole day.

Number of times you can make it per day: (0/996)

[Grade C Red Eggs]

Creator: Qin Wan
Dish Details: To celebrate the 100th day of her seventh son Jiang Weiguo's birth, Qin Wan, despite her illness, spent a day cooking red eggs with sappanwood. Although just ordinary red eggs, they contain a mother's purest and simplest blessings and expectations for her child. Consuming them on occasions such as weddings, childbirth, and full moon celebrations can alleviate physical pain to some extent within 24 hours (depending on the specific circumstances).

Number of times it can be made within 100 days: (0/99)

The ratings and buffs for these two recipes were somewhat beyond Qin Huai's expectations.

First of all, how can a rice cake, which the dish details clearly state was made haphazardly and became hard after cooling, affecting its texture, be rated A+?
What does A+ mean?
The only A+ grade pastry Qin Huai made was the fruit that Xu Cheng and Huang Shengli ate that day, which was an exceptional creation and directly landed the fruit on the cover of the opening issue of "Zhiwei" magazine.

That's a fruit, and the filling requires a large ladle to flip. The overall shape and preparation method are very close to apple dough fruit, meeting both the requirements for red and white dough.

That's A+ grade.

What is the rice cake made casually? In Qin Huai's mind, the rice cake made casually is the slightly sweet rice cake that he could find in his neighborhood every afternoon around 5 o'clock when he was in junior high school. It was sold by vendors who would ride around on tricycles and call out, and it cost 1 yuan for 5 pieces.

That's what makes rice cakes casually.

An A+ grade is a casual work.

What are the B+ and A grade pastries that Qin Huai diligently and wholeheartedly produces every day?
Even if Jiang Chengde is a grandmaster, a grandmaster still has to abide by basic principles. This is outrageous! This is too much! It's one thing for locust flower steamed buns to be S-grade, specially made to appease children, but how can this casually made rice cake be A+ grade?

Is the title of "Grandmaster" really that valuable?
Qin Huai was almost reluctant to click on the video tutorial for rice cakes. His intuition told him that, like the video tutorial for locust flower steamed buns, he wouldn't understand it.

As for the rice cake's buff...

Essential for cattle and horses.

The number of times the rice cake was made (996) speaks for itself. If nothing unexpected happens, Zhao Cheng'an should have had a happy day of work after eating this rice cake.

Of course, what actually shocked Qin Huai the most was not the A+ grade rice cake.

It's a grade C red egg.

Qin Huai knew exactly what red eggs were. On the day Qin Luo and He Cheng were born and on their one-month birthday, Qin Huai had cooked the red eggs for both children.

It wasn't that the adults in the Qin family were being lazy and abusing the children, making them do such simple chores. Rather, it was because everyone believed that Qin Luo and He Cheng were sent by Qin Huai, the Goddess of Mercy who grants children, and that the red eggs he boiled would have double the blessing effect, making them even more auspicious.

Not only were the eggs boiled by Qin Huai, but even the red paper wrapped around the eggs was personally wrapped by Qin Huai.

Qin Huai had cooked them before, so he knew very well that red eggs were basically just boiled eggs.

It won't produce any flowers when cooked.

What kind of boiled egg is grade C?

What about the D-grade Gastrodia elata stewed pigeon when this C-grade boiled egg is made?
As for the buff from the red eggs, it goes without saying that this is probably the most powerful buff Qin Huai has ever seen in all the recipes he's come up with. 99 can be made in 100 days, and eating them on specific days can alleviate pain to some extent, which truly fits the auspicious meaning of red eggs, since the essence of giving red eggs is to share good fortune.

Qin Huai thought for a moment and then watched the video tutorial for making rice cakes.

It's still the familiar close-up video tutorial, most likely taken at Jiang Chengde's own home.

The process of making rice cake is very simple. After soaking rice and glutinous rice, they are ground into rice paste, yeast and sugar are added, stirred evenly, and then fermented. After fermentation, a little sugar is added, the rice paste is poured into a mold, and steamed over high heat.

It can be said to be one of the simplest types of snacks, making it very suitable for mass production.

In Jiang Chengde's time, there were no juicers, so making rice milk was a bit more troublesome and physically demanding. But obviously, this physical exertion wasn't a big problem for Jiang Chengde. He used the most traditional method to make a very smooth rice milk, and every step was precise.

It's somewhat like Zhao Cheng'an's textbook-like precision, but not quite the same. Zhao Cheng'an's textbooks give the impression that he's read the original tutorials and imitated them very well, making them textbook-like treats.

Jiang Chengde's textbook blatantly tells you, yes, this textbook was compiled by me.

Every step is perfect, every step is precise, every step is flawless. It's so perfect that you can immediately tell, "Wow, this is the textbook I've always wanted, this is the perfect tutorial I've been searching for!"
Before watching the video tutorial, Qin Huai thought that rice cake would be like locust flower steamed buns, and she didn't quite understand it.

Okay, not a little, I just don't understand it.

Qin Huai is now watching tutorials for making locust flower steamed buns, but he can't understand the key steps. He knows there might be techniques involved, he knows there are crucial points, but he simply doesn't know where those crucial points lie.

He felt that Jiang Chengde had done a series of smooth and efficient operations, and that was it. It felt like listening to the teacher explain the solution to the last, most difficult problem on a high school math test; you just listen to the teacher ramble on and on, and then it's over. You listened, but you had no idea what the teacher was saying.

The video tutorials for Komi Cake are different.

Perhaps it's because this rice cake is so simple and basic, so basic that there are no techniques involved, that Qin Huai was able to understand it, and even understand it very well.

This rice cake video tutorial gave Qin Huai the definitive answer to a question he had been pondering but didn't know the answer to: What does it mean to make the simplest dessert into its ultimate form?
Now, Jiang Chengde has clearly told Qin Huai the answer in the video tutorial: that's how it is.

There are no tricks or difficult operations, only maxed-out stats and smooth, fluid gameplay.

The simplest thing is the most difficult.

It's easy to imitate a textbook, but difficult to become a textbook.

Qin Huai couldn't resist watching the rice cake video tutorial over and over again. It was clearly just these steps, and there wasn't much to see, but Qin Huai just couldn't help watching it again and again.

That's perfect, that's amazing.

As a pastry chef, Qin Huai felt that this was no longer just making pastries, but art.

Qin Huai completely forgot the definitions of beauty and art that he had read in books before while watching video tutorials.

This theory or that theory, it doesn't matter.

This is true art!

All the fancy colors and combinations are meaningless; what Jiang Chengde shows in this video tutorial is the art that Qin Huai loves most.

It has a strong personal style, yet it is also extremely standard, so standard that there is no fault to be found.

Qin Huai even felt that he understood where Zhao Cheng'an's problem lay. Zhao Cheng'an still didn't have his own strong personal style, not because his direction was wrong, but because he was bad at it.

His skills aren't yet so advanced that he can develop such a textbook-perfect personal style.

After watching the rice cake video tutorial at least nine times, Qin Huai reluctantly exited and started watching the red egg video tutorial.

The video tutorial for red eggs is even simpler. Apart from taking some effort when selecting them, the rest of the steps are just ordinary boiled eggs with sappanwood added.

Adding sappanwood was for dyeing. In the days when there were no pigments to dye eggs, buying some sappanwood from a Chinese medicine shop and boiling it to make red eggs was the most normal and cheapest method.

Qin Huai could tell that Qin Wan had spent a lot of time and effort selecting the eggs; every single one was a red-shelled egg. In those days when large-scale farming was almost nonexistent and eggs had to be collected from door to door, Qin Wan worked very hard to select the eggs that she felt were relatively good in size and appearance, carefully controlling the water temperature and time before boiling and dyeing them.

There were no tricks involved; it was just a lot of dedication.

This might be why red eggs are grade C.

Qin Wan has the ability and is willing to put in the effort, so it seems quite reasonable for her to be rated C for cooking delicious red eggs.

Qin Huai couldn't resist watching the red egg video tutorial three more times. By the time he realized he had been watching the video tutorial for a long time and came to his senses to exit the game panel, Shi Dadan was already playing on his phone.

To be precise, I was watching a video, but without sound, probably because I didn't want to disturb Qin Huai.

"Old Shi, I'm sorry, I got a little engrossed in watching the video tutorial a few times." Qin Huai quickly apologized, glancing at the egg tarts on the table. "You probably won't eat the rest of the egg tarts, right? They've been sitting here for quite a while. Oh dear, I forgot to message Tan Weian to come and get the egg tarts."

“I messaged Xiao Tan, he should be here soon,” Shi Dadan said. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Xiao Qin, you’re busy with important matters. I can’t even turn the sound on when I’m on my phone at home. My wife always thinks that the kids’ poor grades are because I’m disturbing them by playing on the sound on my phone. I either play on my phone on silent or go out to play.”

"got used to."

No sooner had Shi Dadan finished speaking than there was a knock on the door. Qin Huai quickly got up to open it, and sure enough, it was Tan Weian.

Tan Weian walked in excitedly and said, "Wow, Qin Huai, why did you suddenly think of making egg tarts? Wow, so many! I can't finish all of these by myself."

"But it's okay, we can put the leftovers in the fridge. I love frozen egg tarts. Qin Huai, let me tell you, frozen egg tarts are just as delicious as freshly baked hot egg tarts, they have a unique flavor." Tan Weian said, walking to the table, picking up an egg tart and stuffing it into his mouth.

Take a bite and chew.

Tan Wei'an: "...Why is it so sweet? Is it because it's cold?"

"It's alright, let my junior brother have some when we get back."

Qin Huai: ...It tastes sweet and reminds me of Gu Li. Why didn't I mention Gu Li at all just now?

"Qin Huai, I heard you weren't at Zhiweiju this afternoon. Chef Zhou gave you and Zhao Cheng'an the day off to go to an exhibition. Is going to an exhibition even useful? We're chefs, what's the point of going to an exhibition?" Tan Wei'an brought his own takeout containers and asked about the gossip while packing.

Their hands and mouths are never idle.

Qin Huai certainly couldn't say that seeing the exhibition was useless; saying that seeing the exhibition was useless would be the same as saying that Master Zhou's leave was useless.
Moreover, Qin Huai did indeed gain some insights while watching Jiang Chengde's video tutorial.

"To cultivate aesthetic appreciation," Qin Huai said. "I also bought a painting."

Tan Weian: ?

Tan Weian's face was saying: Brother, when did you develop such refined hobbies behind my back?

"It should be useful," Qin Huai said tactfully, giving Tan Weian a heads-up in advance.

No matter how much Tan Weian pressed for answers, Qin Huai refused to reveal anything further. Tan Weian could only leave disappointed, carrying her egg tarts, with a head full of questions.

After Tan Weian left, Qin Huai took out his phone, entered the group chat of "A Loving Family", and found that everyone was chatting in the group chat.

Chen Huihong is taking advantage of a steak deal and is enthusiastically sharing it in the group chat.

Qin Huai initiated a group video call, and Chen Huihong joined immediately.

Without waiting for anyone else to come in, Qin Huai asked directly, "Sister Hong, when you were eating at Taifeng Restaurant before, did you sense that there were actually other spirits or monsters inside?"

Chen Huihong was caught off guard by Qin Huai's question, and she froze for a moment, even a little flustered. She opened her mouth, revealing a somewhat dazed expression:

"what?"

“Is there…is there?”

"I... let me think about it."

"That was in my first lifetime. You're asking me all of a sudden, and I don't quite remember."

(End of this chapter)