The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 552 The Taste of Memories

Although he didn't know why the spirits' memories suddenly started being sent out in such large quantities, Qin Huai didn't plan to watch An Youyou's dream in person at Luo Jun's house.

too tired.

Qin Huai wasn't physically tired from reviewing memories, but he was mentally exhausted. Shorter memories were manageable, but the really long ones, which stayed in his memory for days, weeks, or even months or years, required him to recover quickly and process them before he could even confirm what he had actually seen.

Although Wang Gensheng's memory was short, lasting only a few days, it's hard to imagine how long Bao Youyou's memory could be.

Once you've started looking into memories, there's no turning back. You have to finish what you've started. Anyway, neither Wang Gensheng nor An Youyou are in a rush, so let's take it slow. If Qin Huai had pulled out Zhou Hu's memories, he might have gritted his teeth and read them all in one go for the sake of the Nine-Tailed Fox's life.

just now……

An Youyou won't know if she makes things difficult for her employees.

Qin Huai sorted out his thoughts, looked at the crowd full of question marks, and began to explain: "It's like this, I completed Grandpa Wang's side quest during the day, and just now at home I looked through my memories and found a new recipe - Family Reunion Dumplings."

As he spoke, Qin Huai pointed to the two plates of dumplings on the table.

"This recipe is a bit special. I'll read the details of the dish to you all in a bit and you'll see. The recipe I found is only rated C, but one of the dumplings I just made is rated A+, which directly completed the main quest."

"That's about it."

Luo Jun listened expressionlessly, glanced at the two plates of dumplings in front of him, and accurately reached for the plate of C-grade leftover dumplings, picking one up.

"So that's why you called me late at night to come over and make dumplings, and told Zhang Shumei to go for a walk?"

Luo Jun stuffed the dumpling into his mouth, took a bite, and revealed the filling inside.

Braised pork filling.

It's still quail eggs with braised pork.

Qin Huai didn't want to make dumplings with this filling either, mainly because Luo Jun's family had too much leftover food. Today, Luo Jun's family had four dishes: sweet and sour pork ribs, braised pork with quail eggs, stewed chicken with mushrooms, and pan-fried beef steak. There wasn't a single vegetable leaf in sight; they were all main dishes.

Zhang Shumei is quite skilled; these dishes would definitely taste good, provided they aren't wrapped in dumpling wrappers and made into dumplings.

As for whether the dumplings taste good or not...

Qin Huai can only say that the C-level rating is enough to prove everything.

The next second, Luo Jun's roar echoed throughout the living room.

"Qin Huai, are you out of your mind?! You're even more insane than Chen Huihong! Braised pork dumplings, and you actually used this piece of junk to make dumplings!"

Luo Jun was so angry that he wanted to smash the dumplings, chopsticks, and plate together in Qin Huai's face. Qin Huai tried to dodge, covering his face with his hands, while loudly explaining, "Mr. Luo, please listen to my explanation. I really didn't mean to do that. Please let me read the details of the menu to you!"
.
Ten minutes later, after listening to Wang Gensheng's rapid retelling of the recipe, everyone looked thoughtfully at the two plates of dumplings on the table.

Luo Jun still really wanted to smash the dumplings in Qin Huai's face. Looking at the plate of C-grade leftover dumplings, he gritted his teeth and asked, "Why didn't you remind me when I picked them up?"

Qin Huai: "...I was in a daze at the time, and by the time I came to my senses, it was too late."

Seeing that Luo Jun was about to grab the plate and start a full-blown fight, with the 92-year-old man starring in an action blockbuster, Chen Gong quickly stepped in to smooth things over.

"This 'Family Reunion Dumpling' is indeed quite special. Judging from the task details, it seems that triggering the 'Family Reunion' requires certain special conditions. I didn't expect that as long as different kinds of dumplings are cooked together in one pot, it will be called 'Family Reunion Dumpling.' Xiao Qin was a bit shocked, and it's normal that he was stunned and didn't react."

"Yes, yes." For Qin Huai's safety, Shi Dadan immediately agreed without thinking.

Qu Jing was still immersed in Wang Gensheng's storyline. She took a sip of warm rice cake soup and asked somewhat vaguely, "Am I the only one who thinks it's a bit strange that Grandpa Wang's side quest doesn't quite match the recipe he found in his memory?"

Gong Liang nodded: "I think so too."

"Old Wang's side quest was potato dumplings, and the recipe he finally found was family reunion dumplings. The two weren't too abrupt. But Old Wang completed this side quest in a very strange way. The potato dumplings Qin Huai made were not the same as the potato dumplings Old Wang ate during the New Year. Who would have thought that these were dumplings made with leftovers?"

"But Qin Huai didn't use the leftovers to make dumplings, yet Old Wang's side quest was still suddenly completed. The only difference was that he ate some unpalatable pickled vegetables before eating the dumplings, but according to Qin Huai, Old Wang didn't eat any pickled vegetables during the meal of the 'Family Reunion Dumplings.' The two are completely unrelated, so how could his side quest have been suddenly completed?"

Gong Liang had just pointed out what Qin Huai found most perplexing, a question Qin Huai had been pondering ever since he saw the memories. Each spirit had its own unique way of completing tasks; some were conventional, some would do anything when emotions were involved, and some would make dumplings out of nothing.

This time, however, Wang Gensheng was being unreasonable.

Qin Huai neither made the potato dumplings that Wang Gensheng wanted to eat, nor did she manage to recreate the special scene from when they ate potato dumplings, but the mission was still accomplished.

It's a bit like cheating.

Of course, cheating is impossible. Qin Huai felt that there were many stories behind Wang Gensheng that they hadn't uncovered. He was more inclined to believe that the completion of this mission was a coincidence, but they didn't know the specifics of how it happened.

Qin Huai briefly explained his guess, winning everyone's approval. Shi Dadan took the opportunity to finish the plate of A+ grade dumplings. After listening to Qin Huai's nonsense, Luo Jun thought that was it for tonight. Just as he was about to reach for a bite of the A+ grade dumplings, he found the plate empty and immediately glared angrily at Shi Dadan.

Shi DaDa:......

Shi Dadan, feeling a little guilty, handed a banana to Luo Jun and asked him if he wanted one.

Qin Huai sensed something was wrong and feared the conflict would spread to him at any moment, so he immediately stood up and said it was getting late and that Master Qin needed to go back and rest so he could go to work as usual the next day.

If anyone wants to eat the A+ grade Family Reunion Dumplings tomorrow, they can make a reservation in advance. There are only 99 servings of Family Reunion Dumplings with the buff each day, so you need to reserve them in advance if you want to eat the buff dumplings.

Just as Qin Huai was about to run away, Luo Jun tapped the plate with his chopsticks, looked at Qin Huai, and said coldly, "Qin Huai, you made these dumplings yourself, aren't you going to try them?"

Qin Huai forced a fawning smile: "Mr. Luo, I've already had dinner, and it's getting late. It's too late to be eating a main course so late at night..."

"eat."

Qin Huai: QAQ
In the end, Qin Huai ate five leftover "family reunion" dumplings.

How to describe the taste of these dumplings...

Xu Nuo might be a very creative pastry chef, to come up with the idea of ​​using leftovers to make dumplings. This is unprecedented and likely to remain so. It's disrespectful to our ancestors and to our own dumplings. Well done, but please don't try to be creative like this again.

It was really awful. Even if this dumpling was grade C, Qin Huai thought it was at least grade D in terms of awfulness.

Because it not only tastes bad, but it also makes diners feel a kind of desecration of dumplings. Compared to Guo'er, this is the real desecration of ancestral desserts.

On the morning of the second day, Qin Huai went to work at the Yunzhong Canteen as usual to make dumplings.

A typical family-style dumpling.

A wide variety of fillings are available: chives and eggs, pork and scallions, lamb and scallions, beef and scallions, pork and sauerkraut, corn dumplings, shepherd's purse and pork dumplings, celery dumplings, mackerel dumplings, three-delicacy dumplings, shrimp dumplings...

The canteen in the clouds was completely transformed into a dumpling restaurant.

When boiling dumplings, I don't care about the filling at all. I just scoop them out and eat whatever I find. Eating the "Family Reunion Dumplings" feels like opening a blind box.

Shi Dadan, Gong Liang, and Chen Gong knew last night that they would be having "Family Reunion Dumplings" this morning, so the three of them arrived early and were very enthusiastic about eating dumplings.

Shi Dadan even set a record of eating 27 bowls of dumplings in a row, his appetite is unparalleled. People who see this can't help but ask if Old Shi doesn't control his figure at all now? With such binge eating, is he preparing to participate in a competitive eating contest?

Shi Dadan got up early to eat dumplings, while Chen Gong and Gong Liang got up early to try and extract information from Xu Tuqiang.

Wang Gensheng was notoriously tongue-tied and had a bad memory. Often, he wouldn't intentionally lie, but he genuinely couldn't remember or explain things clearly. Qin Huai figured that Gong Liang and Chen Gong had probably discussed it privately last night and decided that instead of directly questioning Wang Gensheng, they should first try to extract information from Xu Tuqiang, gathering general details before getting to the heart of the matter with Wang Gensheng. They thought they might get more information that way.

Qin Huai didn't participate in the entire conversation; he just silently watched from the kitchen counter, observing the lively chatter at the small table, with Wang Gensheng occasionally reminiscing about the past with a look of nostalgia on his face.

That afternoon, Qin Huai left work early, but did not go to the hospital to deliver food to Zhao Cheng'an and Zhou Hu. As usual, the task of delivering food was handed over to Ouyang.

Qin Huai, who left work early, carried two large bags of dumplings ready to be cooked to Luo Jun's house for a tea party, trying to soothe Bi Fang's stomach injury from the previous night with the two large bags of A+ grade normal family portrait dumplings.

When Qin Huai entered, Luo Jun didn't give him a friendly look, giving him a disdainful glare, making Qin Huai receive the same treatment as Chen Huihong.

Qin Huai thought it wasn't a big problem, so he went into the kitchen to cook dumplings. The kitchen door was open while he was cooking the dumplings, so he could listen to the news that Gong Liang and Chen Gong had gathered.

Gong Liang and Chen Gong made a major breakthrough today.

No one had thought to inquire about Wang Gensheng's past because everyone felt they already knew enough about him. Grandpa Wang was an outstanding accountant who was extremely honest, fair, upright, and incorruptible, and had never made any false or incorrect entries in his 40 years of accounting.

Mr. Wang comes from a respectable family with a small household and good family relationships. Although he is wealthy, his money came from a land expropriation compensation, and he and his immediate family members maintain the same spending habits as before the expropriation. By all accounts, they are a very normal and fortunate family.

This was Qin Huai's previous impression of Wang Gensheng.

After Xu Tuqiang and Chen Gong inquired, Qin Huai realized he had underestimated Grandpa Wang. The seemingly simple and ordinary Grandpa Wang was actually a hidden protagonist of a period novel, capable of writing at least 400 million words.

Wang Gensheng is a native of Shanshi. After graduating from university, he worked at the Suzhou Cotton Mill for more than 20 years. After the cotton mill closed down, he was transferred back to Shanshi. The elderly people who go for a morning run know his basic information and that of his relatives very well.

Wang Gensheng was recommended to university for his act of bravery and later went to work in Suzhou. However, his salary alone could not support his impoverished family. Wang Gensheng's mother suffered from asthma and could not do heavy physical labor, and his father was a blacksmith in a machine factory, but due to the family's poverty, he suffered from severe malnutrition for many years, resulting in extreme physical depletion. His eldest brother was a porter, also doing manual labor, and his sister-in-law was a temporary worker at a state-owned cotton mill.

Because he had been supporting his family for many years, Wang Gensheng got married very late, in his thirties, which was definitely considered an old bachelor in those days.

If this were a female-oriented novel, Wang Gensheng would definitely be a blindly filial son who is exploited by his family. All his salary goes to supporting his family, leaving him barely scraping by, and his wife and children are inevitably bullied as well.

But reality is not a novel; in reality, Wang Gensheng's family lived a very difficult life.

Wang Gensheng's father suffered from chronic illnesses due to years of heavy physical labor, and also had a broken leg. He passed away at the young age of 47.

His elder brother also died at the age of 55 due to overwork. His sister-in-law contracted tuberculosis from a colleague while working at a state-owned cotton mill and died at the age of 58.

The second brother and eldest sister couldn't find work in the city, so they chose to stay in the Northwest. They worked hard year after year, suffered from malnutrition and their bodies were severely depleted. They died at the ages of 49 and 51, respectively.

Wang Gensheng's mother passed away two years after his family's house was demolished.

It could be said that the Wang family received a huge sum of money from the demolition compensation, but none of Wang Gensheng's relatives in his generation, except for Wang Gensheng himself, enjoyed the benefits brought by this huge sum of money.

Back then, demolition compensation caused numerous news stories of families turning against each other, brothers fighting, and parents and children falling out. Such examples were so numerous that they didn't even attract much attention. Only when brothers fought so violently over compensation and property that they dug up their father's grave did it become news.

All the farmland and houses that the Wang family received during the demolition were registered under Wang Gensheng's name, and all of Wang Gensheng's older brother and sister had passed away. At the time, many people were both amazed by Wang Gensheng's good fortune and secretly wanted to see his nephews and nieces return and cause a ruckus, disrupting his family's peace and quiet.

But no, none of Wang Gensheng's many nephews, nieces, and cousins, whether they stayed in Shanshi or in the Northwest, came back to fight for the property and demolition compensation.

Wang Gensheng's eldest nephew (his elder brother's eldest son) even said that his uncle was his second father, and that he had been basically raised on his uncle's salary since childhood. When the family was poor, his uncle shared hardships with everyone, and now that they were rich, if he wanted to seize the property, he would have no face to face his parents after he passed away.

The demolition ultimately resulted in Wang Gensheng giving each of his nephews, nieces, and great-nephews an apartment, splitting the compensation equally, and keeping the remaining apartments for himself. The fairness of the demolition caused a sensation at the time and was even reported in the newspapers.

For many years, every Chinese New Year, Wang Gensheng's nephews, nieces, and great-nephews would come to Shanshi with their entire families to pay New Year's respects to their uncle.

This is why, although none of the elderly people who go for a morning run know how competent Wang Gensheng was as an accountant, everyone firmly believes that he never falsified or made mistakes in his 40 years of accounting.

After hearing the story that Gong Liang and Chen Gong had uncovered, Qin Huai seemed to understand why Wang Gensheng's side quest had been completed.

He even began to understand why Grandpa Wang, despite not having dementia, always had a poor memory and couldn't recall things from before.

For Wang Gensheng, life before and after the demolition was like two different worlds. Before the demolition, the Wang family was poor, miserable, and their lives were bleak, even experiencing the successive deaths of loved ones. But the further back in time he went, the warmer the times became, especially during the poorest periods. Because back then, he had family, close friends, and his mother's incredibly salty and unpalatable pickled vegetables.

After the demolition, the Wang family is now wealthy, warm, and friendly; life is colorful. The poverty and hardship of the past seem like just a dream. Everyone who experienced poverty has left it in the past, but Wang Gensheng has remained in the present.

Qin Huai thought that perhaps Grandpa Wang really did complete the task because of that bite of pickled vegetable, since Grandpa Wang really couldn't remember.

He might not really remember that the potato dumplings were actually made for him by Xu Nuo using leftovers from home during his first Spring Festival in Suzhou, so he couldn't describe the taste or what he actually wanted to eat.

He was simply reminiscing about the past and the people he knew.

I can't remember the dumplings, but I vividly remember the taste of my mother's pickled vegetables. The pickled vegetables that day might not have tasted like my mother's, but they were still very unpalatable.

Grandpa Wang is also a sentimental person; once memories flood his mind, he can accomplish any task.

(End of this chapter)