The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 479 The Essence of Spirits and Monsters
Because An Youyou's novel—no, her resume—was filled with too much rambling and poorly written, we won't go into detail here. Qin Huai skimmed through it in about 20 minutes and could tell that An Youyou had tried her best.

Qin Huai asked An Youyou to write her resume by focusing on her life experiences, educational background, and hobbies. An Youyou did everything as instructed, afraid that Qin Huai would think her resume wasn't sincere enough. An Youyou even mentioned that when she was little, she and her grandmother sold pears at the market. One day, she secretly ate six pears and was so full that she kept burping. As a result, she couldn't eat any of the braised pork her family cooked that night. She was sad for a week, and ever since then, seeing pears reminded her of the braised pork she never ate. To this day, she doesn't like to eat pears.

An Youyou used a full 13 lines to describe her sadness at losing the braised pork because of 6 pears, and you can see that she was really sad.

The entire resume was made up of similar small incidents. An Youyou listed everything she could remember from childhood to adulthood in chronological order, things she felt met Qin Huai's requirements and showed more of her true self. The writing was verbose, a bit like a diary entry, and lacked excessive embellishment due to limited education, but it was very genuine.

Qin Huai was so impressed by An Youyou's dream that after reading the 29-page resume, he really wanted to quickly improve his proficiency and make the three A+ grade desserts that could trigger buffs, hoping to wake An Youyou up from her dream soon.

An Youyou was a left-behind child before the age of four, and after the age of four, it was even worse than being a left-behind child.

Before An Youyou was four years old, her parents worked away from home, leaving her in the care of her maternal grandmother. Besides An Youyou, her grandmother also had to look after eight other grandchildren and great-grandchildren. These nine grandchildren, of varying ages and personalities—some noisy, some quiet, some obedient, some rebellious—exhausted the old woman's patience. In An Youyou's description, her grandmother was neither kind nor gentle; she was a loud, harsh woman who was very good at scaring children.

The old lady's secret to taking care of children was to scare them into obeying. Therefore, the old lady's best techniques were to yell at them and tell them ghost stories at night.

Before starting school, ordinary children are frightened by ghost stories told by their elders every day. They are told that if they don't sleep at night, they will be grabbed and eaten by ghosts outside, which will scare them so much that they cry loudly and fall asleep nervously clutching their blankets.

But An Youyou was different. She used very cheerful words to simply describe several ghost stories that she remembered vividly, and praised her grandmother as a person who was very good at telling ghost stories, and whose ghost stories could scare all the children in the village to tears.

Besides being good at telling ghost stories, An Youyou's grandmother was also very good at ordering the children to do all sorts of things. In the old lady's mind, children would cause trouble if they were idle, and if you wanted the children to stop causing trouble, you just had to keep them occupied.

In the countryside, there are many chores that children can do, even if they are only three or four years old. Sweeping, taking out the trash, picking vegetables, gathering firewood, weeding the vegetable garden, running errands, delivering messages, and so on...

This is a story that could easily be used by a small blogger to start a blog about my tragic family background. In An Youyou's narration, her grandmother was very farsighted and had long predicted that her parents would come back to town to open a breakfast shop after she turned four, so she cultivated her ability to work early on.

After she turned four, An Youyou moved to town. In her resume, An Youyou frankly admitted that she wasn't very close to her parents when she was four, and she still isn't very close to them now.

She knew her parents didn't like her that much, not even as much as her grandmother, and she also knew her parents preferred her younger brother. In An Youyou's resume, she didn't complain, reflect, fight internally, or struggle with any of this; she felt it was all perfectly natural.

Her parents didn't like her that much, and correspondingly, she didn't like them much either. She didn't study hard in school, so her grades were terrible. Her father liked to cut corners on the ingredients for their steamed buns, so even though his skills were decent, their family's breakfast shop only did so-so.

In An Youyou's worldview, nothing is something you are born with. You either have it or you don't. It's not shameful to want something you don't have. If you don't have it now, work hard to earn money, and you'll definitely have it in the future.

She completed primary and junior high school in town. After completing nine years of compulsory education, her grades were so bad that her parents didn't want to spend extra money to send her to high school. After graduating from junior high school, she helped out at the family's breakfast shop.

Her brother finished elementary and middle school in the city and successfully entered high school, using the money she and her parents earned from selling steamed buns to pay for his tuition and living expenses. Sometimes, customers at the breakfast shop would cast sympathetic glances at her, muttering under their breath that this family was truly sexist, with the brother studying in the city while the sister, at such a young age, had to start working.

But An Youyou wrote in her resume that she thought it was reasonable. Her brother had good grades and would definitely go to high school if he got in. Her grades were terrible, so it didn't matter whether she went or not. Her parents didn't treat them equally, but so what? That was her parents' problem. Was she going to waste her already limited time watching TV dramas on pirated websites on being angry and sad just because her parents didn't love her enough?

Besides, this wasn't the first day she realized her parents didn't love her enough; she knew it before she was four years old.

An Youyou is not bound by other people's gazes or words, nor is she affected by anyone's mood, judgment, or goals. When she was helping out at the family's breakfast shop, An Youyou's parents initially didn't even want to give her 200 yuan, feeling that since she was still a minor and was helping out at their shop, why should she spend money if she was eating and living at home?

An Youyou disagreed, feeling that one should be rewarded for their efforts. Because she had never had much money in her pocket growing up and hadn't seen much of the world, she only asked for 200 yuan as wages, and to this day, An Youyou still regrets asking for so little.

I wish I had known it would cost 1200 a month! The dishwashers in the restaurants in their town earn 1400 a month, and they also get room and board included.

An Youyou's decision to go out to work also encountered a lot of obstacles. Relatives, friends, neighbors and elders told her that it was dangerous for a girl like her to go out to work, that she had not received much education, and that companies in big cities would not hire her.

Compared to working in other provinces, the nearby counties are safer. You can easily earn 3000 yuan a month by working diligently in any factory.

An Youyou didn't want to earn only 3000 yuan a month. She had been using mobile phones for several years and had seen the world through them. She wanted more than before, and a monthly salary of 3000 yuan simply couldn't satisfy her dreams.

As for why she ended up working in Shanshi, it was because An Youyou managed to snag a discounted plane ticket to Shanshi for 99 yuan online. Believing that it didn't matter where she worked, cheap travel expenses were the most important thing. Having never flown before, she wanted to experience flying out of the province. So, 18-year-old An Youyou packed her bags and came to Shanshi.

Then I submitted my first resume to Yunzhong Canteen.

Of the 29-page resume, a full 18 pages are dedicated to describing life after arriving at the Cloud Cafeteria.

Before Qin Huai knew about it or cared about it, An Youyou went shopping for the first time, ate in a shopping mall for the first time, ate Korean food for the first time, ate sushi for the first time, and went to a beauty salon for the first time to experience a special 9.9 yuan facial treatment.

She moved many times, and each time the rent was more expensive than the last. She still had many so-called friends and elders around her who advised her not to spend money so extravagantly, to save some money, to not live in such an expensive house and to save money, and to not buy a tablet and that a mobile phone was enough.

An Youyou didn't listen to a word anyone said, and continued to happily spend her own money and diligently earn her overtime pay.

This year, when An Youyou returned home for the Spring Festival, she didn't arrive with a mountain of gifts like a heroine in a wish-fulfillment novel who returns home to slap her poor relatives in the face, nor did she return home in triumph as depicted in short videos. An Youyou said she was neither rich nor wealthy, and she couldn't bear to buy things for her parents and younger brother, with whom she didn't have a very good relationship.

Unlike the awful relatives in novels, his parents didn't put on a mean and sarcastic face. An Youyou spent the Spring Festival this year just like every year before, and had a normal year.

At the end of her resume, An Youyou summarized her entire experience. Her parents didn't love her that much, but they didn't dislike her either. Her family didn't value daughters, but they weren't sexist either. Her family wasn't rich, but they weren't poor either. Her current job could support her, but with her spending habits, it was just enough to make ends meet.

She wanted so many things, so many things she couldn't have. She knew there were many things she might never get in her lifetime, like an apartment in the Cloud Residential Complex. But she could get them in another way, like renting an apartment in the Cloud Residential Complex for two months to experience it.

At the end of her resume, An Youyou made a promise to Qin Huai, saying that she was someone who didn't have much money at home, didn't have much ability, but loved to spend money, and that she would work hard now so that she could spend money better in the future and live up to her boss's expectations.

She's not exactly a good person, but she's not bad either. She's told countless lies since she was little. She stole pears when she was selling fruit with her grandmother, and she stole steamed buns while working at the family's breakfast shop, especially targeting meat buns. But she's never stolen money, never broken the law, and never been involved in fights (not counting the fights she had in the village when she was a child). She doesn't have a good relationship with her parents, but she's not unfilial either. She doesn't have any close friends from childhood, but she's not exactly a loner either.

In short, she is an ordinary employee with no particular abilities, but a promising future.

This is An Youyou's autobiographical novel, based on herself, and it serves as her resume. At least after Qin Huai finished reading it, he felt it was an excellent resume.

This resume made Qin Huai start to reflect on whether his previous methods of completing tasks were wrong, and that Zhao Cheng'an's radical remarks were actually not wrong.

Because of Luo Jun, who is practically an encyclopedia of spirits and monsters, Qin Huai would always subjectively judge the personalities of these unawakened spirits and monsters based on what kind of spirits they were, after determining their species.

The E's Beast is good at spouting nonsense, the Xie Zhi upholds fairness and justice, and the Three-Legged Golden Toad likes money falling from the sky.

This is indeed the normal personality of these spirits, but it is a very one-sided view, because each spirit is different.

When you label them based on their race, you're already viewing spirits through tinted glasses, because they are spirits, so their personality must be like that.

That's not actually the case.

Even the proud and powerful Bifang, who walks with his nose in the air, will regret his mistakes and spend decades a long time atoning for them.

A timid and cautious little bird might do something extremely bold and outrageous, like reuniting with its parents from a past life.

The plant spirit, known for being muddle-headed and meddlesome, will be reborn as a neighborhood committee auntie who is enthusiastic and good at snatching up group-buying deals.

Dang Kang, who seems to have a good life and is not very bright, only cares about what to eat today and what to eat tomorrow, will remember everything his best friend Xu Nuo did, even though Xu Nuo has been dead for many years.

Even after being ruthlessly abandoned by successive bosses, Wenyaoyu will still persist in searching for a good boss who will never abandon him, and continue to be a diligent and perfect employee.

The qualities of these spirits are not on the surface, but within their hearts.

Like the three-legged toad famous for its love of money, it may refuse a windfall, but it will still stick to its original intention and live a comfortable and contented life.

Qin Huai had only focused on the three-legged toad's love of money, but he overlooked the fact that the three-legged toad, in the mouths of every spirit, was a treasure trove of gold and silver jewels. After gathering a large number of followers, it would lie on its back by the pond with its followers, covered in mud, basking in the sun.

Even after possessing everything, the three-legged toad will still choose to lie by the pond and bask in the free sun.

Previously, Qin Huai was surprised that An Youyou, as a three-legged toad, would refuse a pie falling from the sky. After reading this resume, Qin Huai deeply felt that An Youyou was indeed a three-legged toad.

No matter where you are, whether you are rich or poor, or what kind of life you lead.

As long as there is a pond where it can cover itself in mud and bask in the sun, the three-legged toad is a happy three-legged toad.

I still love money, still crave gold and silver jewelry, and still want to enjoy more things, but it doesn't matter whether I have these things or not; as long as I can bask in the sun, I can be happy.

After reading the resume, Qin Huai remained silent for several minutes. During his silence, An Youyou stood by, nervously watching his face, trying to discern from his expression whether he was satisfied with the resume.

"Master Qin, I'm not very good at Chinese. It's mainly because I didn't pay attention in class when I was in school. I was either sleeping, drawing, or chatting with my classmates. When I was chatting with everyone at Zhiweiju, I heard that there are no educational requirements for apprentices at Zhiweiju, but I don't know if the person in charge of Yunzhong Canteen has any educational requirements."

"If you think my education level is too low, I'm still young and my brain can still work. I can take online classes and study again!"

"No need." Qin Huai flipped through the resume and asked, "Youyou, your dream is to buy an apartment in the Cloud Residential Complex, right?"

“Yes!” An Youyou’s eyes lit up when she said this. “My dream is to buy a small house in the Cloud Community that faces south, so that the sunlight can shine directly onto the sofa, so that I can lie on the sofa and bask in the sun every day!”

“There are many apartments like this in the neighborhood,” Qin Huai nodded. “I’ll rent one for you when you get back.”

"Your resume is very well written. I am very satisfied. This is a benefit that our Cloud Cafeteria provides for future successors."

"Now that your resume has been approved, I should teach you something properly. I've been making some basic pastries lately, so starting today, you'll work here every morning and practice with me, watching how I do it."

“Tan Weian teaches well, but his skill level is still a bit lacking. Besides, he’s too lazy and unwilling to teach step by step. It’s much faster for him to learn from me.”

(End of this chapter)