Even as a "normie," I'm completely oblivious to it.

But she had at least twenty years of work experience, so she immediately asked, "Has the shift supervisor who was supposed to take over this morning left? Can I ask him to let me work overtime? The pay is negotiable."

"No way." The waiter shook his head helplessly. "This pastry chef is the type who leaves as soon as he gets off work and doesn't answer work-related calls, so we definitely can't contact him."

"..."

Alright, it's just the right time for this tough nut to crack.

Xiao Meng, after all, runs her own shop, so she stepped forward and offered suggestions: "Then I'll transfer some staff from other shops. It will take some time, but it's better than just standing around doing nothing."

The atmosphere outside had changed. Although it was quite noisy before, it was still quite orderly. But now that the procession had stopped moving forward, some doubts and complaints arose.

Aunt Liu instructed the waiter, "Tell them that we need about ten minutes to change shifts, and ask the customers to wait patiently a little longer."

"okay, I get it."

Seeing that she had gone out to stabilize the situation, Aunt Liu could only pin her hopes on Xiao Meng's phone call, hoping that a pastry chef with free time could be called in.

After waiting a short while, she hung up the phone, her tone quite helpless: "It's no use. Other shops seem to be busier than this one, and each shop only has one pastry chef during each work period. There are simply no extra people."

"this…"

Aunt Liu's heart skipped a beat when she heard this.

She knew this meant a very serious problem.

The marketing campaign for this Christmas cake was excellent, attracting so many customers. Many of them will likely become regular customers after today. However, this situation can only be achieved by doing the campaign perfectly.

If something goes wrong here and no one gets to buy a cake in the afternoon, it will not only be a huge loss compared to other stores, but even previous customers may have complaints about the store.

Xiao Meng understood this principle, but she was also in a dilemma. Calling her father at this point would definitely be too late.

Hearing more and more complaints from outside, she couldn't help but become more and more anxious.

"Um... excuse me." Yu Zhe raised a hand, interrupting the awkward situation.

Xiao Meng gave him an apologetic look, while Aunt Liu was very curious about what he had to say.

Yu Zhe first looked at the pastry counter behind him, and then asked Aunt Liu, "Do you have the recipe for this Christmas cake in the shop, or the specific steps? You can describe it verbally."

"This..." Although Aunt Liu didn't know why this super pretty "girl" in front of her was asking this, she had no choice but to tell the truth immediately.

"Yes, the boss distributed a Christmas cake recipe and design to each store in the morning and left it on the front desk."

Seemingly realizing why he asked this question, Aunt Liu just shook her head: "But if you're not a professional pastry chef, you can't make it even if you have the recipe. We actually tried it this morning, and even if the taste wasn't too different, the appearance was completely different. But these customers are buying it precisely because of the cake's appearance."

If an average person follows a recipe, they'll only end up with a pot of paste. It's not something that can be accomplished simply by having a recipe; otherwise, what would be the point of having pastry chefs?

"Then please bring me that recipe so I can try it out. Like Xiaomeng just said, it's better than just standing here doing nothing."

Aunt Liu was stunned. She hadn't expected that even after she had said all that, her friend Xiao Meng would still want to try it.

Xiao Meng was different. After listening to Yu Zhe's words, she looked at...

Yu Zhe's eyes first showed deep apology, then overflowing gratitude, and seemingly mixed with a barely perceptible affection.

In short, she practically ran straight to the front desk. In the front desk drawer, besides some orders, the Christmas cake recipe concept was quite eye-catching. Xiao Meng picked it up and quickly ran back.

"found it!"

Yu Zhe took the drawing she handed him and looked at it carefully. To be honest, it was quite detailed. Apart from the amount of sugar, there was nothing ambiguous in the description.

Okay, I've finished watching.

Yu Zhe simply put the blueprint on the cabinet next to him; it was no longer of any use.

However, it only took him a dozen seconds to memorize the contents of the picture. In those few seconds, he had already constructed a three-dimensional model of the Christmas cake in his mind.

Then let's not wait any longer, let's start work right away.

She instructed Xiaomeng, "Xiaomeng, could you help me move all the ingredients mentioned on the drawing to the pastry counter? I might be a little fast here, so please move them a little faster too."

"learn!"

Without saying a word, Xiaomeng picked up the blueprints and took out the chocolate sauce, cream, dough and other ingredients from the refrigerator and moved them one by one to the wooden board next to the pastry counter.

These ingredients are all served in portions, so you have to carry them back and forth.

Aunt Liu was completely baffled. Was she really planning to bake a cake without even looking at a recipe? Even if she wanted to have fun, she should have chosen the right time! It's such a busy time now!

However, to his surprise, after a moment's thought, Yu Zhe began to act.

Picking up the transparent container of chocolate sauce, she effortlessly stirred it until it was evenly mixed, then placed it on the table, shaping the dough in one smooth motion. From all this, it was clear that there were no unnecessary movements; anyone would know that this was definitely a master.

Even so... trying to make a high-difficulty Christmas cake so soon after starting out is...

That was quite possible, because ten minutes later, a chocolate cake that looked almost exactly like the one in the drawing came out of the high-temperature oven and was placed in front of Aunt Liu.

After Yu Zhe skillfully carved the words "Merry Christmas" and decorated it with intricate details using a craft knife, Aunt Liu finally came to her senses.

Who are you?!

Looking at the cake, which was no less impressive than the one made by the pastry chef that morning, Aunt Liu carefully took it on a tray.

Before turning back to work, Yu Zhe instructed, "Aunt Liu, the cake packaging is now in your hands and the employees' responsibility."

"It's...it's only right!"

I never expected it! I never expected that my friend Xiaomeng would be so amazing!

Aunt Liu's face lit up with joy, and she quickly began wrapping the cake.

"This speed is definitely not good... speed it up."

As expected of a professional bakery, they have dozens of high-temperature ovens neatly arranged. Hehe, then we'll maximize efficiency!

Panting as she carried all the ingredients over, Xiaomeng didn't rest and quickly helped Yuzhe with the dough and chocolate sauce.

With her help, Yuzhe was finally able to free up his hands and quickly put multiple cakes into the oven at the same time to improve efficiency.

The packaging job should have been easier, as making the cake would have been much slower.

The current situation is that the front desk staff responsible for packaging are a bit overwhelmed.

Where did all these cakes come from?!

42. Waaaaah, she hit me!

After Yu Zhe stepped in to help, the cake-buying queue finally started running normally again, and the efficiency was much higher than in the morning.

Aunt Liu was overjoyed. If Xiao Meng hadn't told her along the way that this was a classmate from school, Aunt Liu would have really thought that Xiao Meng had found a super professional pastry chef somewhere.

It's been two hours since 2 PM, now it's 4 PM.

Even though the queue outside kept moving forward, it still seemed endless.

For Yu Zhe, maintaining the quality of the cakes is definitely not a problem, but the problem is that he's not having enough energy right now.

How could someone who has been staying at home for years suddenly adapt to such uninterrupted, high-intensity work!

After putting the next cake into the oven, Yu Zhe rolled up his sleeves to wipe the fine sweat from his forehead and took a few deep breaths to calm himself down.

This detail was naturally noticed by Luo Xiaomeng, who was stirring chocolate sauce next to him.

She hadn't stopped since the beginning, and her arm, which was holding the spatula, was aching terribly.

Ignoring all that, she immediately put down what she was doing, moved two steps to the side, and stood on tiptoe to wipe the sweat from Yu Zhe's forehead with her sleeve.

You should know that in her daily life, she is a girl who is particularly clean and takes special care of her clothes. At this moment, she completely puts all of that aside and just wants to let Yuzhe rest for a while.

She glanced at the crowd queuing outside, then turned and said, "That's enough for now, Yuzhe. You've already helped so much. You need to get home before tonight, right? It's getting dark. Come on, I'll walk you to the door."

"That's it?" Yu Zhe hadn't stopped decorating the cake. "So, what are you going to do with the rest of the people after I leave?"

By deliberately putting on a playful expression, Luo Xiaomeng knew that Yu Zhe was doing this on purpose to imply to her that it was perfectly fine to continue working now.

She shook her head: "That's enough. More than half of the people have already bought a cake. After that, we'll just hang a sign at the door saying it's sold out, and that'll be considered closing time."

Yu Zhe thought it wouldn't work. Aunt Liu had already drawn a line for one of the customers queuing outside, based on the remaining ingredients, and no one was allowed to queue up after that.

Even after getting in line, there was no cake to buy.

But what about those people in front of them? They waited the same amount of time as the people in front, only to be told that the store was closed. You can imagine how terrible they must have felt.

After assessing my own condition, I figured helping Xiaomeng for another two hours shouldn't be a problem, and by then it should be about time.

Ultimately, these things really have nothing to do with Yu Zhe. The reason he's helping out today is simply because he's willing to do it.

There's no particular reason; it's probably just because the person I'm helping is this innocent little girl in front of me.

When Yu Zhe first transferred to Feng Hai No. 1 Middle School, he was actually quite uneasy. His class monitor in junior high school was a weirdo who was very obsequious to Yu Zhe but harsh to everyone else. He thought that his high school class monitor would probably be the same.

When this silly yet clever little girl class monitor stood in front of him that day, he suddenly felt that the start of high school life was not as bad as he had imagined.

Her subsequent actions did not disappoint Yu Zhe. It can be said that it was because of her that Yu Zhe felt relatively comfortable in Class S of Senior Three.

With that in mind, Yu Zhe picked up the ingredients needed for the next cake: "It's okay. At this time, I can get back tonight. If I say I'll help you, I'll definitely help you to the end. Giving up halfway is not in my nature."

He was busy making a cake when he finished speaking, and didn't see Luo Xiaomeng immediately turn her head away after hearing that.

Her eyes welled up with tears. Ah, I really like Yu Zhe so much, I can hardly contain my feelings.

It's sweet, just like the chocolate sauce I secretly ate earlier, sweet to the core.

...........................

More than two hours have passed.

At 6:30, it gets dark early in winter, and by this time it is already completely dark.

In Yu Zhe's apartment, Zi Xiao and Yu Che, who had just arrived, looked at each other in bewilderment.

Yu Che's eyelids twitched wildly, and he said speechlessly, "Hey, can't you send a message to your brother to ask? What time is it? Why are you still standing here in a daze?"

"No." Zixiao showed no intention of taking out her phone. "Before my brother left, he promised me that he would definitely come back to be with us tonight. I just sent him a message and he said that Senior Sister Xiaomeng had encountered some trouble and he would leave after helping her."

"You asked that two hours ago!" Yu Che was so annoyed. This Zi Xiao was so stubborn sometimes. She wouldn't budge on anything her brother said. If her brother really didn't come back, Zi Xiao would probably stay on the sofa until dawn.

"So what do you want?" Zixiao asked.

"I don't want anything in particular, I just want to know the specific situation right now."

She had just taken out her phone when Zixiao stopped her: "No, I won't ask, and you can't ask either."

"You're getting aggressive?!"

"I won't ask you, but you're already sneaking off!"

"..."