Chapter 723: Overnight

“Thank you… wait, what?”

The gentle tone Yuan Zhou used made her instinctively assume he was answering with “Yes, no problem. This refill is on the house.” or something like that. That was why Gao Song had instinctively thanked him.

She only reacted after thanking him. Her mood immediately shifted as she looked at Yuan Zhou with her eyes wide in astonishment.

“Yes, the rules are written on the wall. No refills for watermelon juice,” Yuan Zhou pointed at the wall behind Gao Song.

Using her hand as the comb, Gao Song ran her fingers through her hair and calmed down before saying, “I will order another glass of watermelon juice then. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, but one person can only order one glass of watermelon juice per day,” Yuan Zhou felt like this was the most gentle he had ever spoken before. After all, he had to be tolerant when speaking with a beauty.

Although this glass of watermelon juice was ordered and paid for by Wu Hai, but one glass per person had always been the rules. After all, he had a limited supply of watermelon juice.

Gao Song was going mad from anger.

“Wow, all of you are the same. You are all very ‘unique’,” Gao Song mumbled as she carried her handbag and left, wondering how had her friend, Jiang Changxi, lasted one year in this restaurant.

Outside, the sky was already getting dark. Inside the restaurant, it was silent and peaceful.

“Hahaha, I can’t stand this anymore. Hahaha, that forever alone,” Ling Hong finally laughed and broke the silence after Gao Song left.

“Brother Wu is in the wrong. How can he be so merciless? He won’t be given a second chance,” Man Man earnestly shook her head.

“I don’t think he even knows the way of the world. The only thing he knows is how to berate people,” Ling Hong laughed while slapping the table.

“True, true,” Yuan Zhou nodded in agreement. He also contributed his opinion, “One has to be a gentleman when facing a woman. At the very least, one has to watch the way one speaks. Serves Wu Hai right for still being single when he is nearly 30 years old. The way he speaks is really too annoying.”

Ling Hong, Chen Wei, and Man Man were completely dumbfounded when they heard Yuan Zhou’s remark. They wondered how he, out of all people, got the courage to utter these words.

“Compass, where did you find the courage to say that? As if you are any better than him. The beauty had ultimately left from being angered by you,” Ling Hong turned and said.

Yuan Zhou countered, “Are you dumb? If it wasn’t for me speaking so gently to calm her down, all her fury would be unleashed on Wu Hai.”

Not only was Yuan Zhou not admitting to his mistake, he was also of the opinion that he had helped greatly.

“I think Boss Yuan is fine the way he is. Brother Wu is the one lacking EQ,” Man Man pulled at Ling Hong and stopped him from speaking and added.

“Yeah, yeah, Eaves Wu is the stupid one,” Ling Hong immediately reacted and quickly corrected himself. He wasn’t even calling Wu Hai the mustached guy anymore.

This time, Yuan Zhou did not reply. He only looked at the two with a flat face and a gaze of approval.

The reason Man Man stopped Ling Hong from speaking further was because the Queuing Committee had unanimously agreed that for now, staying single would be advantageous to Yuan Zhou’s cooking skills. A chef should always be on the pursuit for greater cooking skills.

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What if Ling Hong managed to awaken Yuan Zhou to the fault of his ways? Although the probability of that happening was probably zero, they still couldn’t risk it.

Just imagine Yuan Zhou getting a girlfriend. He would definitely be distracted. Therefore, he would not be as focused on improving his cooking skills anymore.

What Man Man did was to correct Yuan Zhou’s life path. She was definitely not doing that because she wanted to eat more good food here.

Returning to the topic, regardless of whether Man Man was truly doing that without any selfishness, Yuan Zhou would never stop his pursuit of cooking skills.

Yuan Zhou had asked Zhou Shijie out to eat tofu pudding tomorrow night. But in fact, Yuan Zhou was not very satisfied with the tofu pudding he made.

After mastering the Chengdu School’s Sichuan Cuisine, making the Spring Water Tofu Pudding felt the same as making other dishes — completely well-practiced. But after tasting his own Spring Water Tofu Pudding, Yuan Zhou kept getting the feeling that something was wrong.

Therefore, at the end of the business day, Yuan Zhou tried cooking the dish, again and again, trying to figure out what was wrong. The cooking method of Spring Water Tofu Pudding was in fact very simple. Excluding the sauce, only brine water, soybean, and plain water were required.

Both plain water and soybean were provided by the system and were the best ingredients possible. Therefore, situations such as the soybeans being too damp causing a different feeling in the mouth would never happen with these ingredients.

Whatever dish Yuan Zhou cooked, he would be thinking over every step of the cooking process.

[Soybeans soaked for seven hours and thirty minutes were the best to make tofu pudding. (Remark: If something unexpected happens during the preparation stage, the soybeans can be soaked longer, but it is advisable to not extend it for more than one hour.)]

The notebook of Yuan Zhou was on the table and it was filled with notes. The first line of the page was detailing Yuan Zhou’s investigation on the optimal soaking time.

Every single recipe he had checked would say something like “soaking the soybeans overnight”. Nobody would list the exact timing.

The day before, Yuan Zhou had soaked soybeans without a stop to finally reach this conclusion. His test results on the water temperature and cooling off period were also listed in his notebook.

Of course, these were still all situational. Food ingredients were not like physics where there would not be any mistakes with accurate measurements. The most important factor in ingredient handling was still the skill of the chef. Yuan Zhou had merely reached this conclusion after gathering the average of the best results from his many tests.

A Spring Water Tofu Pudding was freshly cooked, and after adding some sauce on it, Yuan Zhou ate it. The tofu pudding melted in his mouth and the spiciness of the sauce rushed down his throat. At the same time, the tenderness and aroma of the tofu pudding started spreading in his mouth.

“Ohh, nice. This time, the sauce is even more fragrant and spicy yet it doesn’t completely overwhelm the tofu pudding’s taste. This sauce should be perfect,” Yuan Zhou first praised himself before reaching a conclusion with a pensive look.

He had also discovered the source of the weird feeling he was having from the tofu pudding.

“Since there is no problem with the sauce, the problem probably originates from the tofu pudding itself.” This time, Yuan Zhou stuffed the tofu pudding in his mouth without any sauce. The fresh and tender tofu pudding was very tasty, yet the weird feeling was still there.

Yuan Zhou flipped over his notebook. In order to figure out the source of that weird feeling, this was the seventh bowl of tofu pudding he had made tonight. His stomach was already filled with tofu pudding.

“From the notes, I have already taken into account all the fine details of the cooking process. What is the problem exactly?” Yuan Zhou asked the system, “System, be honest. Did you provide me with soybeans and water that are not suitable to make Spring Water Tofu Pudding?”

The system remained silent. Ever since the Tea Salad incident, the system had become more and more cold toward Yuan Zhou. A lot of the time, it would be ignoring Yuan Zhou. But then again, this seemed to be how the system had always been.

Yuan Zhou did not mind. He was mindlessly asking and was not expecting anything. After eating the seventh bowl of tofu pudding for the night, he still learned nothing new. After a short rest, he started making the eight bowl.

It was already three in the morning…