The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 478: Resume or Novel?

Zhao Cheng'an didn't get a big idea, and neither did Qin Huai. After making the yam cake, Qin Huai took advantage of the fact that Master Zhou hadn't returned yet and quickly made a batch of potato dumplings.

As Qin Huai had expected, the potato dumplings were grade B.

Actually, B-grade pastries aren't bad at all; they're quite rare and delicious in the market. Even the master chefs at Zhiweiju can't make every pastry to A-grade level. When faced with pastries they're not good at, they'll probably only make them to B+ or B-grade.

Even when Qin Huai's fermented rice steamed buns were only grade B, they were already a hot item among diners at the Cloud Canteen.

But Qin Huai doesn't like potato dumplings.

Qin Huai realized that he simply didn't like this flavor of pastry; the pure potato filling was a bit too rich for him. It's like how some people are born disliking cilantro; even if you make an S-grade cilantro dish, people who don't like cilantro just won't like it.

Zhao Cheng'an loves to eat.

After all, this was the snack he had been longing for before he died. Qin Huai tried one of the dumplings after cooking them and then stopped eating. Zhao Cheng'an took the rest of the bowl and ate it, analyzing the food as he ate.

"Qin Huai, do you think if you gave the buff from your potato dumplings to marathon runners, they might be considered doping and get banned?"

Qin Huai felt that Zhao Cheng'an had become very imaginative after his awakening. The recovery of his memories from his previous seven lives filled in many of his knowledge gaps, and his conversations became increasingly whimsical.

"This is your recipe, why are you asking me?" Qin Huai retorted.

Speaking of which, potato dumplings were the first recipe Qin Huai found made by the holder of the memory. All the other recipes were eaten by the memory holders, but only potato dumplings were made and eaten by Zhao Cheng'an himself, and he still misses them.

"To be honest, your game system is unreasonable. According to the logic of normal games, the encyclopedia should unlock recipes and contain chefs. But instead, the encyclopedia is full of diners."

"This isn't something I can decide. I didn't develop this game system," Qin Huai complained. "As far back as I can remember, there's been an exclamation mark in the upper left corner of my vision. This crappy game has neither instructions nor a tutorial. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been mistaken for a crazy person who likes to gesticulate wildly by the headmistress when I couldn't read."

"If this game system had customer service, I would definitely write a complaint. The game experience is terrible and seriously affects players' daily lives."

"How long have you been holding this in?"

Qin Huai: "It's been quite a few years."

"How about it? Don't you think it's great to live like us mayflies? We can say whatever we want and do whatever we want. It's not easy to live once. If we're timid and hesitant, afraid to do this or that, and end up living a miserable life, then it's not worth it." Zhao Cheng'an began his mayfly survival propaganda. "My philosophy is still effective, isn't it? You see, it has already shown results on An Youyou."

"Let me tell you, I secretly thought about this all night last night. I think Luo Jun's state is also because you guys are too conservative. Just because he wants to die and wants to fail, do we have to go along with him like this? I don't believe he really wants to fail that much. Bi Fang is so arrogant, those guys can't wait to lift their heads to the sky and walk without looking at the ground. Although they don't walk much, because it's inconvenient to jump with only one foot."

“I think you just didn’t use the right method. He’s resigned to death because he hasn’t come to terms with it. What you need to do is not to go along with him, but to help him come to terms with it.”

"Didn't you see his and Liu Tao's memories? You know what happened before, so just bring it up with him. The more he avoids it, the more you bring it up. If he gets angry and embarrassed, it means it's working. Maybe he'll have an epiphany before he dies and successfully transcend his tribulation."

Qin Huai: ...

Sister Hong, I've been misunderstanding you all this time.

Qin Huai had always thought Chen Huihong was a reckless radical, but now he finally saw what a true radical among the spirits was like.

That's too radical.

Qin Huai was silent for a moment, then said, "I want Luo Jun to be able to successfully overcome his tribulation, not to want to die."

"Once he successfully transcends his tribulation, he can really breathe fire and kill me, leaving not even ashes behind."

With Zhao Cheng'an's witty banter, Qin Huai happily finished his work for the day.

Qin Huai realized that Zhao Cheng'an's theory might be applicable to An Youyou in some situations, achieving a surprise effect, but it was not applicable to the vast majority of cases.

That's so dramatic.

There's a reason why Xia Murui is still alive and Zhao Cheng'an has been reincarnated seven times.

Fortunately, he has been a pastry chef all his life, which is a relatively stable job with a low risk factor. He also has Master Zhou watching over him to prevent him from traveling all over the world. In addition, society is relatively safe and technologically advanced, so accidents are unlikely to happen.

Otherwise, if Zhao Cheng'an really let himself go, it's uncertain whether he would have lived to this age to go to Beiping with Qin Huai to see Xia Murui.

It's highly likely that Xia Murui won't be old enough to wait for Zhao Cheng'an to be reincarnated for the eighth time, grow up, and go to Fenyuan for dinner.

At 5 p.m., Qin Huai left work on time and went home. Zhao Cheng'an also wanted to go home with Qin Huai, but Master Zhou stopped him and made him practice more.

Master Zhou had witnessed Zhao Cheng'an's thoroughly enjoyable slacking off today. Master Zhou hadn't mentioned it beforehand because he was busy. Thinking of leaving early? Forget it! When Qin Huai left, Master Zhou was in the kitchen angrily berating Zhao Cheng'an for his trip to Beijing, saying he'd let his mind wander again, wasn't focused on making pastries, and was constantly chatting until his hands stopped moving, not to mention developing some bad habits.

Originally, Zhao Cheng'an's problem was that his pastry making lacked inspiration and was too rigid, like a textbook. Now, however, he is no longer too rigid, because textbooks don't have obvious errors, but Zhao Cheng'an can now find obvious errors.

Zhao Cheng'an is now even worse than a rigid textbook.

After a busy day, Chef Zhou finished his work with Boss Su and returned to the kitchen. To his dismay, he saw his apprentice had gone out to play and produced such a mess of pastries. He nearly fainted and considered replacing the apprentice on the spot, his anger reaching its peak. Chef Zhou was so furious he stopped being sarcastic and unleashed a torrent of abuse, leaving Zhao Cheng'an speechless. Zhao Cheng'an immediately knelt down and apologized, promising to work hard and quickly correct the bad habit he had inadvertently picked up.

This shows that even a mayfly that claims to live life to the fullest and do whatever it wants will, when truly facing its own life, still kneel down to its master at lightning speed.

As for when Zhao Cheng'an picked up these bad habits...

Qin Huai knows a little.

This is the first time I've ever had this disease.

When Zhao Cheng'an was still Chen Sheng, his skills weren't as good as they are now. Now that Zhao Cheng'an has recalled the memories of seven lifetimes at once, after the great fusion of memories, his skills haven't been fully mastered, but his bad habits have been integrated, and he's picked up some of the bad habits from his first life.

Chen Shengshi did not diligently practice his culinary skills, but instead indulged in a leisurely life of laziness and idleness. Chen Shengshi did not experience the consequences, but Zhao Cheng'an, the 8th generation, did.

That evening, when Qin Huai was scrolling through his WeChat Moments, he came across a post by Zhao Cheng'an containing eight crying emojis.

Qin Huai silently gave a thumbs up.

Over the next few days, Qin Huai was grinding his skill level as usual, and Zhao Cheng'an was also miserably trying to correct his bad habits. Everyone had a bright future ahead of them.

As for An Youyou, after being energized by Qin Huai's promises that day, she was highly motivated at work and sought advice from everyone, especially Tan Weian.

Tan Weian is indeed a bit less skilled than Qin Huai and Zhao Cheng'an, but he is more than capable of guiding An Youyou. An Youyou has indeed made some progress, a little bit of progress that is visible to the naked eye.

In just a few days, there has been a visible improvement, which is already an amazing achievement.

Tan Wei'an was shocked. He secretly came to ask Qin Huai during his lunch break whether what Qin Huai said to An Youyou that night was a complete lie or true. Could it be that Qin Huai really thought highly of An Youyou and saw her potential, and that An Youyou would really become the next Qin Huai?

Qin Huai told Tan Wei'an to read fewer light novels. An Youyou was able to make visible progress because she had so much room for improvement. Any apprentice at Zhiweiju could have made similar progress if they received one-on-one guidance from Tan Wei'an every day.

However, considering that the apprentices who can stay at Zhiweiju are all quite talented, An Youyou can be considered a promising talent.

After listening, Tan Wei'an realized that his true talent lay not in making pastries, but in teaching. His mediocrity in the first half of his life was all paving the way for a future filled with students.

Tan Weian was very moved and began to guide An Youyou even more earnestly, treating An Youyou like a disciple to gain experience.

Qin Huai thought that Tan Weian, aside from anything else, had a really good personality and was very optimistic. No wonder he could still persevere in Zhiweiju despite his lazy and unproductive lifestyle.

Even a mayfly can't slack off as freely as Tan Weian at Zhiweiju. These past few days, he's been working overtime to practice, wishing he could give himself a good whack to forget all the bad habits from his first life so that Master Zhou would scold him less.

A whole week passed peacefully like this.

Zhao Cheng'an posts eight crying emojis on his WeChat Moments every day, and Qin Huai likes them every day. Qu Jing even secretly messaged Qin Huai to ask what was wrong with Zhao Cheng'an, wondering if there was anything in this world that could make Fuyou so devastated.

Qin Huai tells Qu Jing that only he himself can make the mayfly break down, and the eighth incarnation of the mayfly cannot even empathize with its first incarnation.

An Youyou hasn't submitted a new resume yet, but Qin Huai isn't in a hurry or urging her. After all, the resume he needs is quite special, and An Youyou's education level is limited, so it's normal for it to take her a while to write it.

At four o'clock on the morning of the eighth day, Qin Huai arrived at Zhiweiju on time as usual to make steamed buns, and An Youyou also arrived earlier than Qin Huai to prepare the ingredients, as usual.

"Good morning, Youyou." Qin Huai greeted An Youyou as usual. This friendly greeting every day was the beginning of leveling up their familiarity with each other.

"Good morning, Chef Qin." An Youyou responded somewhat nervously, hesitated for a moment in front of the cutting board, then ran to wash her hands and went to the break room to get a stack of tissues.

Yes, a stack of papers.

There were at least twenty or thirty sheets of A4 paper, covered with densely printed text.

"Master Qin, I've finished writing the resume you requested." An Youyou handed over the resume.

Qin Huai: ?
Is this a resume or a novel?
Qin Huai took the resume, and upon closer inspection, what caught his eye was—

"Master Qin, I've revised this opening seven or eight times because I don't know how to write it, so I can only use this way to start. My name is An Youyou. According to my parents, this name comes from 'leisurely seeing the southern mountains,' but according to my uncle, my original name was An Youyou because there were two pomelo trees in my yard. However, my dad's Mandarin is not standard, and when he went to register his household, the staff misheard him and wrote my name as An Youyou, so that's why I'm called An Youyou."

I lived with my maternal grandmother in the village until I was four years old. My parents worked away from home. After I turned four, they came back and opened a breakfast shop in town, and that's when I started going to town. Because the kindergartens in town required tuition, I never attended one…”

Qin Huai has been confirmed; it's a novel.

The kind that talks a lot of nonsense.

Great, that's exactly the kind of novel I want—a lot of nonsense. The more nonsense, the more information. And the more information, the better I can understand An Youyou's situation and build her favorability.

Qin Huai found a small stool, sat down, and began to examine it carefully.

(End of this chapter)