The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 548 Old Master Wang's tastes are truly unpredictable.

Hearing Qin Huai say he would be making soy sauce noodles later, Xu Tuqiang happily placed the pickled vegetable jar on the table and leaned out the window to ask An Youyou what she wanted to eat for breakfast.

An Youyou honestly replied that she ate rice noodle rolls this morning, the most basic kind with eggs.

This morning, on his way to the Yunzhong Cafeteria, Qin Huai thought the weather was perfect for egg rice noodle rolls. Don't ask why the weather is perfect; if Chef Qin says it's perfect, then it's perfect.

Qin Huai couldn't make anything special with rice noodle rolls; in fact, he felt his skills weren't as good as an old shop in Qiu County. That shop had been open for nearly 40 years, a true established brand, and its signature dishes were egg rice noodle rolls and soy milk.

That shop sells soy milk by the bowl for 5 cents a bowl, and they give you plenty of sugar. If you want to take it away, they pack it in a resealable bag. The soy milk is rather bland, but nobody cares. And you can't order it separately. Few people who go there for rice noodle rolls can resist ordering a bowl of soy milk.

Considering that rice noodle rolls cannot be shipped in large quantities, Qin Huai only plans to make rice noodle rolls for 1 hour this morning, from 6:00 to 7:00, which is a blessing for early risers.

Upon hearing about this limited-edition rice noodle roll, Xu Tuqiang immediately said he wanted one, along with a piece of glutinous rice cake. He didn't dare order anything else, as he wanted to save room for soy sauce noodles.

When the freshly steamed rice noodle rolls, white as snow, thin as paper, and glossy and shiny, seem ready to burst into golden light at any moment, are served, and you can smell the savory sauce and the faint aroma of steamed rice, Xu Tuqiang feels that nothing could be better than this in his retirement.

He never imagined he'd have such a wonderful life when he retired.

Of course, although rice noodle rolls are very tempting, Xu Tuqiang's favorite is still glutinous rice cake.

Xu Tuqiang gave his first bite of breakfast this morning to his favorite glutinous rice cake. He took a big bite, and the sweet and soft rice cake brought a happy expression to his face. His brain subconsciously began to conceive a food review.

Xu Tuqiang held the glutinous rice cake and wanted to ask Qin Huai if he had seen the food review he sent last night, but seeing that Qin Huai was busy, he didn't want to bother Master Qin with such a small matter, so he could only continue eating the glutinous rice cake.

Just as Xu Tuqiang finished eating the glutinous rice cake and began eating the still-warm rice noodle rolls, Wang Gensheng arrived.

Wang Gensheng hasn't been going for morning runs much lately.

He previously ate too many potato dumplings and felt dizzy from the heat, making it difficult to get up in the morning. These past two days, he's been feeling guilty, unable to write food reviews even though he's staying up late every night, and he still can't get up in the morning.

Before Xu Tuqiang ate in the kitchen, he thought Wang Gensheng was just being dramatic. Was such a small thing an excuse for not getting up and not participating in the morning run? But since he ate in the kitchen yesterday, Xu Tuqiang found Wang Gensheng much more agreeable and felt that it didn't matter whether Wang Gensheng participated in the morning run or not.

Luo Jun is not the only one who believes in peace and love.

"Old Gen is here." Xu Tuqiang greeted Wang Gensheng with a friendly smile. "There's a limited supply of egg rice noodle rolls this morning. I also brought a jar of pickled vegetables that my daughter's colleague made. Chef Qin said he'll make us soy sauce noodles with the pickled vegetables later."

Wang Gensheng's mind was full of food reviews he hadn't written yet. He nodded blankly when he heard Xu Tuqiang say this, looking very much like a slow-witted Alzheimer's patient.

"Oh." Wang Gensheng responded briefly to Xu Tuqiang's question after more than 20 seconds, glanced at the pickled vegetables on the table, and asked, "Have you finished writing your food review?"

Wang Gensheng felt like he had returned to his school days, becoming a poor student who couldn't finish his homework every day. But he wasn't a poor student back then; he was a very rare college student in those days, one of the rarest things, and his academic performance had always been among the best since childhood.

"Of course it's finished. I sent it to Master Qin last night," Xu Tuqiang said proudly.

Wang Gensheng continued to think about how to explain to Qin Huai that he couldn't write this food review again, that he genuinely couldn't write it, and that he wasn't deliberately delaying the deadline.

If things really get too bad, he should ask to leave the kitchen. Wang Gensheng felt that if things continued like this, he would be too ashamed to stay in the kitchen any longer.

Xu Tuqiang sighed inwardly that Wang Laogen's signs of dementia were becoming more and more obvious. He should try to persuade him to go to the hospital for a check-up when he had the chance, because maybe it was something that wasn't detected last time. He continued to bury his head in eating rice noodle rolls.

Qin Huai had already kneaded the dough before Wang Gensheng arrived. While making rice noodle rolls, she secretly kept an eye on the situation at the small table. Almost at the same time Wang Gensheng arrived, she started making hand-kneaded noodles.

Xu Tuqiang had just finished his rice noodle rolls two minutes ago when Qin Huai's four bowls of soy sauce noodles were ready. An Youyou and Qin Huai immediately took the noodles to the small table, preparing to sit down and eat together.

Nowadays, people in Qinhuai also like to eat soy sauce noodles for breakfast.

Wang Gensheng's first reaction upon seeing the soy sauce noodles was to refuse.

He already felt guilty for not being able to write a food review, and he was thinking of trying his best to eat more potato dumplings today to write a good food review, so how could he be willing to let the delicious soy sauce noodles take up his stomach?

If I eat such a delicious snack for my first meal, how am I supposed to eat potato dumplings today, and how am I supposed to write a good food review?
Just as Wang Gensheng was thinking about how to refuse, Shi Dadan arrived. Wang Gensheng took the opportunity to offer the soy sauce noodles to Shi Dadan, saying that he was not hungry at the moment and could wait until the first batch of potato dumplings were cooked before eating.

Wang Gensheng's clumsy acting skills couldn't even fool Ouyang, so how could they possibly fool Qin Huai?

Qin Huai immediately saw what Wang Gensheng was thinking. If it were before, he would have definitely advised Wang Gensheng not to feel guilty and to eat the soy sauce noodles first. But now that Qin Huai wanted to give Grandpa Wang a little push, he didn't try to persuade him.

There were still some potato dumplings in the refrigerator that had been made yesterday but hadn't been cooked or sold. Qin Huai asked An Youyou to cook a bowl of them.

Having made potato dumplings for so long, Qin Huai actually doesn't know what other versions of potato dumplings are available anymore.

Potato dumplings can be very simple or very elaborate. Normally, making a dessert requires a direction, but Wang Gensheng's potato dumplings had no direction at all, because Wang Gensheng couldn't remember one.

Previously, Qin Huai had exhausted all possible potato dumplings he could imagine and create. Now, he simply couldn't think of anything new, and any further creation would have to veer towards the bizarre and outlandish; he couldn't create anything new anymore.

If he hadn't been completely lost, Qin Huai wouldn't have resorted to his ultimate technique—pressuring Wang Gensheng, just in case the old man remembered.

What if Grandpa Wang eats only potato dumplings for a month and his body can't take the painful torment? What if he breaks through his limits and regains his long-lost memories?

The human body is incredibly powerful; sometimes you don't know how amazing you are until you push yourself.

Of course, Qin Huai couldn't really make Wang Gensheng eat only potato dumplings for a whole month; it would be too harmful to his health, and Wang Gensheng was too old to withstand such a torment. There was hope of waking up in this life; if he could, he would, but if he couldn't, he couldn't die like this.

Qin Huai said he was still young and did not want to go to jail for murder.

While the dumplings were cooking, Xu Tuqiang enthusiastically shared some pickled vegetables with everyone. As he unscrewed the jar, he said, "This jar of pickled vegetables was brought to me by my daughter when she came to my house last night to get some snacks. I haven't even tasted it yet, but it should taste good since it's homemade."

“My wife used to pickle vegetables, but she hasn’t done it for many years. Her pickling skills are not good, they are too salty, but that’s because the taste was strong back then. I remember my mother’s pickled vegetables were also very salty.”

As he spoke, Xu Tuqiang unscrewed the jar of pickled vegetables and picked up a mouthful of them with his chopsticks, mixing them into the noodles.

“That’s normal. I made pickled vegetables before to preserve them and to make them go well with rice. When there are no side dishes to eat and we can only eat pickled vegetables, the strong flavor of the pickled vegetables makes the rice go better,” Qin Huai said, picking up a piece of pickled vegetables with his own chopsticks, not noticing Xu Tuqiang’s pause in eating noodles. “Master Qin, don’t…” By the time Xu Tuqiang wanted to stop him, it was too late.

Qin Huai has already tasted the flavor of this bottle of pickled vegetables.

Well, as its name suggests, it tastes like a classic old-fashioned pickled vegetable.

It's awful and salty, extremely salty and awful. It feels like one bite of pickled vegetables could go with a whole bowl of rice.

Qin Huai stopped eating his noodles.

Shi Dadan, not understanding why, picked up a little and tasted it, commenting, "It's quite salty."

Seeing Shi Dadan's calm expression, Xu Tuqiang asked, "Xiao Shi, are you used to this?"

“I used to eat a lot,” Shi Dadan said. “Back then we were poor. We’d eat rice with pickled vegetables, or rice soaked in cold water with a little pickled vegetable. As long as it tasted good, we were fine. We weren’t picky.”

Xu Tuqiang was surprised that Shi Dadan, who was so much younger than him, had also experienced such hardship. Just as he was about to express his feelings, Wang Gensheng's sigh came first.

"Back when I was an accountant in Suzhou, I ate like this too. At that time, the factory had separate meal tickets and vegetable tickets. To save money, I only ate vegetables once every two days, and the rest of the time I ate pickled vegetables and rice porridge."

“It was even tougher when I was in college. We ate vegetables once every three days, and almost every meal was rice with pickled vegetables. Sometimes when we couldn’t afford mixed grain rice, we would eat sweet potatoes. Pickled vegetables with sweet potatoes were also delicious.”

"Back then, the pickled vegetables I ate were all specially sent to me by my mom. She knew I ate pickled vegetables as a side dish, so she made them extra salty and was generous with the oil she added. It was really..."

Xu Tuqiang never expected that Wang Gensheng could start reminiscing about the past while looking at a jar of pickled vegetables. Although he was reminiscing about new things, he wasn't very interesting.

Most importantly, there were five people eating. An Youyou was eating noodles by the pot while waiting for dumplings. The other four people at the table, except for Wang Gensheng, all tried the unpalatable pickled vegetables. Wang Gensheng refused to eat them because he was just reminiscing about the past, which seemed like he was just making excuses to avoid eating pickled vegetables.

"Wang Laogen, do you want some?" Xu Tuqiang interrupted Wang Gensheng's reminiscence. "If you like this jar of pickled vegetables, take it all home today and eat as much as you want."

Hearing Xu Tuqiang say this, Wang Gensheng picked up his chopsticks, dipped them in some pickled vegetables, and continued to reminisce: "Back when I was an accountant in Suzhou, I ate this with just a little bit of pickled vegetables every day..."

Xu Tuqiang: ...Wang Gensheng, are you out of words? You take a bite of pickled vegetables and then have to start recalling them all over again.

Xu Tuqiang listened expressionlessly as Wang Gensheng recounted the arduous years when they could only eat pickled vegetables. Only Shi Dadan asked curiously whether the pickled vegetables in front of him were saltier or the ones from back then. Wang Gensheng replied that the ones from back then were saltier.

His mother is generous with the amount of salt she adds, and since she doesn't eat it herself, she doesn't mind adding more without feeling bad.

After Wang Gensheng finished recounting his story, Qin Huai asked with some curiosity, "Uncle Wang, is your family poor? Why is it that even after graduating from university and being assigned a job in a factory, you still have to eat pickled vegetables every day?"

Qin Huai remembered that Wang Gensheng was a recipient of land expropriation compensation. He didn't earn much money while working, and he didn't have much money after retirement either. He became rich instantly after his family's land expropriation compensation two years after retirement, receiving more than a dozen houses.

Qin Huai had read Wang Gensheng's memories of when he entered the factory. As one of the top factories in Suzhou at the time, the cotton mill had very good employee benefits, including dormitory allocation and advance payment of wages.

At that time, Shi Dadan was a driver at a cotton mill, and he could save a considerable amount of money from his monthly salary after deducting food expenses, which he then gave to Xu Nuo. Of course, it's possible that drivers' salaries were relatively high, but Wang Gensheng was a college graduate assigned there, so his starting salary must have been quite high. It's unlikely that working in the same factory as Shi Dadan would result in such wealth while Wang Gensheng was so poor.

Wang Gensheng rarely had anyone listen so attentively when he reminisced about the past, and even ask questions. Feeling a little uncomfortable, he thought for a moment and said, "I have many siblings, and at that time, only my father and I had formal jobs in the family."

“My eldest brother was a temporary worker, as was my sister-in-law. At that time, they already had three children. My second brother and eldest sister were both working in the countryside and needed subsidies. I was able to go to university because I saved four children from drowning, and I was recommended to go to university because of my good grades. When I was assigned to a job, I chose to go to the cotton mill in Suzhou because it had the highest salary.”

“Back then, I sent most of my monthly salary home. No matter how hard my life was in the city, it was never as hard as my second brother and eldest sister’s life in the countryside. At least I could eat mixed grain rice with pickled vegetables at the factory, but they couldn’t even afford mixed grain rice. For five years after I got married, I sent most of my salary home.”

"It was because of this that my parents gave me their house in Shanshi and their house in what was then considered the countryside, which is why I was able to get so many houses when the area was demolished."

Xu Tuqiang was also hearing this story for the first time and exclaimed, "Wang Laogen, you've really been rewarded for your good deeds."

Wang Gensheng did not respond to Xu Tuqiang's words, and Qin Huai could tell from his expression that he seemed somewhat lost.

Wang Gensheng sighed and ate another bite of pickled vegetables.

At this moment, An Youyou brought the dumplings to the table.

"Uncle Wang, the dumplings are ready. I let them cool on the stove for two minutes after I served them, so they should be ready to eat now," An Youyou said considerately.

Wang Gensheng picked up his bowl and began to eat dumplings diligently, while Qin Huai slurped down his noodle soup.

The pickled vegetables were really salty. Qin Huai had already drunk more than half a bowl of noodle soup since he ate that first bite of pickled vegetables. Qin Huai had been drinking soup the whole time while Wang Gensheng was reminiscing about the past.

Just as Qin Huai was finishing the soup in his bowl and getting up to get some more, a game notification sounded in his mind.

"Ding! Congratulations to the player for completing the side quest [Potato Dumplings] and receiving the quest reward: [A Memory of Wang Gensheng]."

Qin Huai: ...?
Is Grandpa Wang's taste really that unique?
When we were young, we not only ate pickled vegetables with rice, but also with potato dumplings.

That's a bit too strong, Uncle Wang.

Qin Huai looked at Xu Tuqiang, the biggest contributor to this side quest, and asked warmly, "Uncle Xu, is there any particular snack you'd like to eat today?"

Xu Tuqiang: !

Master Zhou is truly a master; a single talisman for changing one's luck has such miraculous effects!

"I...I want to pack two bags of locust flower steamed buns to take to my daughter!" Xu Tuqiang said excitedly.

"Two bags aren't enough, Uncle Xu. I remember you have a son. I'll make more this afternoon and pack six bags for you!"

Xu Tuqiang: (σ≧▽≦)σ.

(End of this chapter)