"Xiao Ba is relatively methodical, learns whatever is taught, and does exactly as instructed. This is both good and bad. In this regard, he is very similar to Huang Jia. This is also the reason why Huang Jia can’t yet take over my place."
"When learning culinary arts, chefs shouldn’t have too fixed ideas, but they shouldn’t be completely devoid of ideas either. A mentor leads the way, but personal cultivation is up to the individual. During the learning phase, the mentor lays the foundation for the apprentice. The mentor teaches the apprentice the skills, but there will inevitably come a time when the mentor can no longer teach. If you still rely on others to teach you at that point, it’s hard to become a true master."
"Huang Jia has only reached 80% of my level; the remaining 20% cannot be taught and must be understood by himself. Actually, I’m the same—I only acquired 60 to 70% of my mentor’s level, and over the years, I haven’t fully comprehended the rest."
"Zheng Da and Zheng Siyuan have both told me that you’re a chef who is very good at imitation. Zheng Da even worried unnecessarily, concerned that if you keep imitating without forming your own style, you’ll face significant challenges and hardships when you truly want to make a name for yourself in the future."
"I initially had the same worry, but after watching you learn for a day yesterday, I no longer have that concern."
Qin Huai looked at Huang Shengli.
"I feel like you’re not simply imitating."
Qin Huai wondered if Huang Shengli saw him through some inexplicable filter. Honestly, even Qin Huai sometimes felt that his ability to imitate was frighteningly strong.
He couldn’t figure out how he managed to perfectly imitate Zheng Siyuan’s apple dough ball even now.
"Try it," Huang Shengli said.
Qin Huai began frying the green vegetables.
One dish after another, just like yesterday, each had different technical errors.
Qin Huai was just dissing Wang Jun’s ability to fry vegetables, thinking it was really not great. No wonder he was the worst in culinary skills among Huang Shengli’s nine disciples.
Now, the vegetables he fried were even worse than Wang Jun’s.
When compared with Wang Jun’s vegetables, his fire control truly seemed poor.
Although, indeed, his fire control was quite poor.
Oh, this intermediate fire skill is really hard to upgrade.
But it seems like the dough fermentation is about to level up.
Qin Huai wasn’t very concerned about the skill levels and proficiency indicated by the game system, because he had a clear understanding of his own level. He didn’t need to look at the game’s ratings to know if he had improved or regressed.
When the game system first awakened, the proficiency of dough fermentation increased at a snail’s pace, barely advancing.
For a long time, the proficiency of dough fermentation and seasoning maintained a ratio of 2:1. With a little thought, it’s obvious that this was completely unreasonable.
Given the types of snacks Qin Huai made daily, the occurrences of dough fermentation far exceeded those of seasoning, definitely more than double.
Therefore, Qin Huai speculated that this proficiency wasn’t like leveling up in a game where you gain experience by defeating monsters. Or it was like a very rigorous game leveling system where different monsters give different experiences.
When you work on dough with high difficulty, you gain more experience. If you knead the dough carelessly with no technical skill, you gain little or even no experience.
From the perspective of culinary arts and learning, this is reasonable. After all, no matter how diligently a high school student does mental math within 20, his math score won’t improve.
Recently, Qin Huai had been making guo’er continuously. The difficulty of the dough fermentation might have been high, and the skill proficiency was rapidly increasing. He estimated that in seven or eight days, it would level up.
Qin Huai plated the stir-fried vegetables.
Between basic fire control and intermediate fire skill, there is a qualitative leap. Is there one between intermediate dough fermentation and advanced dough fermentation?
If he practices fire control at Huang Ji for 10 days and the fire control remains unchanged while his dough fermentation skill soars, would it drive the renowned teacher Huang Shengli to frustration?
Pushing these random thoughts out of his mind, Qin Huai continued to focus on stir-frying the vegetables.
Oh, these vegetables look unappealing.
Huang Ji’s plates, it must be tough for you to hold these mediocre vegetables; surely, you usually don’t serve such poor dishes.
Dish after dish of vegetables emerged like a production line.
Huang Shengli stood silently on the side, without speaking, guiding, or demonstrating; he just stood there quietly, watching the dishes.
From a distance, Dong Shi couldn’t hold back: "Why did the master stop after demonstrating only once?"
"He told us to demonstrate to Qin Huai, isn’t it for Qin Huai to see both the wrong and the right examples, so he can learn according to the master’s cooking? At this point, shouldn’t he make a full attack, and demonstrate several times for Qin Huai to reflect on and find his mistakes?"
"I wasn’t ready when I went up to cook, and didn’t make many mistakes. This time I’m prepared, and I’ve got three common rookie mistakes ready to show to Qin Huai all at once next time!"
Dong Shi thought he understood Huang Shengli’s thoughts very well and believed he would definitely be a renowned mentor once he started teaching disciples.
Dong Li couldn’t even be bothered to engage with his younger brother, feeling that such great culinary talent was wasted on him and should have gone to Wang Jun.
"The master didn’t ask us to demonstrate mistakes for Qin Huai, but wanted to show him how different chefs with different styles cook the vegetables, and how their fire control affects these basic dishes," explained Huang Jia patiently, the senior disciple.
"Huh?" Dong Shi shook his head, "That’s way too difficult. Qin Huai is a newcomer."
Dong Li couldn’t bear to watch, wishing he could drag Dong Shi over to take a closer look at those vegetables Qin Huai had cooked.