CHAPTER 788: CHAPTER 399: TAKING THE BLAME

At this moment, some people might be curious, why does practicing Finger Skill involve people like Dong Shi, Dong Li, and everyone at Huang Ji?

Well, that’s because the Four Happiness Rolls are filling and abundant.

When practicing Four Happiness Rolls, it’s impossible to control the quantity like with Double Crab Buns, so you have to make as many as possible.

The result of this excessive practice is that every day, Four Happiness Rolls are steamed one drawer after another at Huang Ji. However, these rolls taste fine but have a serious issue with appearance. The worst part is, this is Huang Ji — home to many true veteran foodies from the State-owned Restaurant era.

These guests have tasted Master Jing’s Four Happiness Rolls, and Zheng Da’s Four Happiness Rolls. While not every veteran customer can instantly recognize Qin Huai’s rolls as Four Happiness Rolls like Gong Liang could, what if they did?

What if there really is a customer with such a good memory?

Master Qin’s Four Happiness Rolls are made just like how Zheng Da made them when he first started, maybe even worse. If this news spreads, how will Master Qin save face, how will he ever hold his head up at Huang Ji again?

Zheng Da considers this with past experience in mind. Even though he fully believes in Qin Huai’s mental resilience, he feels Qin Huai doesn’t need to endure all this.

Every snack master will have some failures when learning new recipes at first, and these failed snacks are not to be sold in the restaurant. Qin Huai has already made a name for himself at Huang Ji, and his fame isn’t just within Huang Ji; the entire southern snack circle knows his name. Many snack masters have even secretly come to Huang Ji to buy his snacks.

Only now the situation is special. Qin Huai has made Four Happiness Rolls that taste fine but are a complete failure in terms of appearance.

If these Four Happiness Rolls were made by Tan Wei’an, customers would exclaim how much Tan Wei’an has improved for making such delicious rolls.

But these rolls are made by Qin Huai, and as Master Qin, having a passable taste but a serious failure in appearance is still a failure, and it will damage his reputation.

Inevitably, there will be some negative criticism, or even blame.

Zheng Da believes Qin Huai doesn’t need to go through this.

Whether it’s Master Qin or just Xiao Qin, he should simply enjoy being praised as everyone’s golden child, which was the most enjoyable thing for Zheng Da when he was still Little Zheng.

Regarding the criticisms and disappointments that once made Little Zheng cry at home in secret, just let the former Little Zheng experience them. There’s no need for the current Xiao Qin and Master Qin to experience that.

To preserve Xiao Qin’s snack-making experience, Huang Shengli and Zheng Da discussed and both agreed that until Qin Huai can produce decent-looking Four Happiness Rolls, they should not be sold.

They can only be consumed internally.

However, while Four Happiness Glutinuous Rice Balls and Crab Dumplings can be digested internally, Four Happiness Rolls really can’t be.

They are too filling; after all, those are rolls.

Ever since Qin Huai started practicing Four Happiness Rolls, the staff meals at Huang Ji have changed. Dishes like Chicken Soup Noodles, Yangzhou Fried Rice, rice, and fried noodles have all disappeared; the staple is only Four Happiness Rolls, served from breakfast to dinner. If the staff wants, they can even take them home for a midnight snack.

Initially, everyone was quite happy; after all, even though Qin Huai’s rolls didn’t look great, the taste was first-class, and they wouldn’t taste bad according to the preferred version.

After eating them for a week, the staff at Huang Ji started to tire of them.

After half a month, it got to the situation at the beginning where even the best-tasting Four Happiness Rolls became hard to swallow. Every day when Dong Shi sees the rolls at work, he feels full.

At first, Gong Liang was quite excitedly coming to Huang’s Kitchen every day to eat fresh Four Happiness Rolls, but after a few days, he suddenly got busy with work, and couldn’t be seen anymore. When asked, he’d say it’s business matters that can’t be explained easily; he just couldn’t come. It’s a pity he couldn’t eat Master Qin’s rolls.

Only Shi Dadan persisted, sitting at the back door of Huang’s Kitchen every day, rain or shine, sharing the burden with everyone, never getting bored of eating, with the love for staple foods written all over his face.

It can be said, all employees at Huang Ji were nearly stuffed by the rolls for Master Qin’s reputation, even their whole families got fed up with them.

For this, Zheng Da even took a little blame on behalf of Qin Huai. If someone asked who made these rolls, the answer was Zheng Da.

As for why the normally lazy Master Zheng suddenly became possessed and made so many odd-looking rolls every day.

The answer is Master Zheng went mad.

Did everyone at Huang Ji and Master Zheng’s efforts yield any returns?

Qin Huai believes they did.

Another batch of Four Happiness Rolls came out, Qin Huai cut each one open to inspect the cloud pattern, finding them still subpar.

When he looked over at Guli’s batch next to his, he found Guli’s rolls were much more appealing in appearance.

But everyone still preferred eating Qin Huai’s rolls because they tasted good. If they had to be stuffed with rolls every day, they’d prefer tastier ones.

The previous batch of rolls hadn’t even been finished.

Tan Wei’an, munching on a roll, came over to Qin Huai and counted how many were made in this batch, looking troubled, "Qin Huai, if it really doesn’t work out, how about we sell some of these Four Happiness Rolls? Or donate some, just to do some charity, to orphanages, nursing homes and such, I’ll foot the bill!"

"Or we could just say I made these rolls."

Qin Huai, still examining the cloud pattern, didn’t lift his head as he replied, "Your skill isn’t that good."

Tan Wei’an: ...

Sometimes I really want to go all out against you Master Qins.

Seeing Tan Wei’an hasn’t replied for a while, Qin Huai added, "My Finger Skill is almost about to level up, and what you said earlier about Master Huang had thought of it a long time ago, but there hadn’t been any precedent for donating to orphanages or nursing homes before in Huang Ji, and none of the staff come from a welfare center like I do."

"No matter if it’s for the elderly or children, food donations need to be extremely careful. Huang Ji is a well-known restaurant, any scandal in this regard would severely impact business, so Master Huang gave up on that idea after considering it a bit."

Saying that, Qin Huai picked one of the rolls from the group that had a decent-looking appearance, took a bite, and burped.

"Burp, I know everyone is tired of eating Four Happiness Rolls lately."

"Master Zheng’s neighbor’s dog ended up with gastritis again last week and had to be hospitalized."

"I’ve spoken to Master Huang over the past few days as well, if it really doesn’t work out, we can call this snack Four Happiness Flower Rolls and set a cheaper price. When we make rolls that look somewhat acceptable, we can reintroduce the upgraded version of Four Happiness Flower Rolls, set at a higher price."

"I’ve told Master Zheng numerous times, I really don’t mind being made fun of, but he absolutely won’t believe me."

"Just hold on for two more days, at most two more days and the Four Happiness Flower Rolls can hit the shelves."

Qin Huai said so much, but all that Tan Wei’an heard and grasped was one important piece of information.

"That imagined game system of yours with the Finger Skill still has to level up? How do you figure it’s about to level up?" Tan Wei’an was shocked.

Qin Huai: ...

Qin Huai took a bite of the roll quite speechlessly, thinking Tan Wei’an and Zang Liang truly are good brothers; in some sense, both have their mental quirks.

"Once the skill points max out, it levels up." Qin Huai explained, opening up a game panel he could see but Tan Wei’an couldn’t possibly see, showing the skill level for Finger Skill, "My current Finger Skill is Intermediate, with 10,000 points needed in proficiency to level up to Advanced level, and I’m only 37 points away."

Tan Wei’an was dumbfounded.

"So... what happens after it levels up?"

"I don’t know, but the Four Happiness Rolls will definitely be better." Qin Huai smiled slightly, handing another roll to Tan Wei’an, "Don’t worry about these details, try this batch of rolls, I feel they’re a bit better than the last."

Holding the roll, Tan Wei’an left in shock, wanting to find someone to vent to but not knowing who. After all, his best venting buddy Zang Liang was already deeply engrossed in meat cooking.

Tan Wei’an thought for a moment, walked up to Guli and said to his dear junior brother, "Qin Huai’s gone mad."

Guli nodded without looking up, "Oh."

"Can you still eat, Third Senior Brother? If so, help me try this batch of Four Happiness Rolls, I feel like I might have made a mistake during seasoning." Guli said.

Tan Wei’an: ...

That’s it, his dear junior brother’s gone mad too.

Burp.