Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle

Chapter 1337: Xia Mubing Side Story (Part 3)_2

With his black history suddenly being called out, Zhang Guanghang: ...

Zhang Guanghang said nothing, just silently picked up the fourth Fuling Cake.

Standing to the side, Zhao Cheng’an analyzed very experiencedly, "Then he must’ve eaten too much candy and hurt himself. I’ve got experience with that. Back in... one year during New Year I ate over three jin of pig’s trotters and puked. After that, for a few years, I’d feel nauseous just seeing pig’s trotters."

Zhang Guanghang still said nothing, just silently ate his Fuling Cake.

Xia Mubing asked with genuine concern, "Did you see a doctor? Did you wreck your stomach?"

"Anyway it was all... many years ago. Not eating pig’s trotters is pretty good too. Pig’s trotters were quite pricey back then, not eating them saves money." Zhao Cheng’an said.

"Then a sheng, do you want pig’s trotters this year? If you do, I’ll make them for you tomorrow. I probably won’t have time on Lantern Festival."

"Eat."

Zhang Guanghang gnawed on his Fuling Cake in silence while listening to Xia Mubing and Zhao Cheng’an chat, and at the same time didn’t forget to sneak a look or two at Qin Huai, who was off to the side diligently making Fuling Cakes like a living background prop.

He didn’t know why, but Zhang Guanghang just felt like he hadn’t had such an ordinary, yet so full-of-New-Year-feel New Year in many years.

Since that was the case, he might as well do the French meal on Lantern Festival properly. Originally, Zhang Guanghang had planned to just half-ass it and use some regular dishes to feed these two damn scammers till they burst.

No, actually Qin Huai and Zhao Cheng’an weren’t really damn scammers.

Zhang Guanghang felt it was probably the private investigator whose digging hadn’t been detailed enough. The two of them just might actually be his master’s distant relatives.

.

Over the next two days, Qin Huai and Zhao Cheng’an clearly felt that Zhang Guanghang’s attitude toward the two of them had changed.

The most obvious change was that Zhang Guanghang made them a lot of French dishes they’d never eaten before.

They were all pretty tasty.

You could tell from the taste that Zhang Guanghang put a lot of heart into cooking them.

He even somehow found out that Qin Huai loved bananas and cheese sticks, and had the Fen Garden housekeeper auntie deliver bananas and cheese sticks to Qin Huai’s room every day. As a result, after eating during the day, Qin Huai would still have a late-night snack waiting in his room. Within three days he was either burping or on the verge of burping all the time.

This kind of treatment was usually only enjoyed by Qin Huai’s customers, since his snacks were all about big portions and filling you up. Now it was his turn to enjoy it, and for the first time, Qin Huai empathized with Tan Wei’an, deeply feeling that eating wasn’t easy either.

In the past, Tan Wei’an really had it rough, getting stuffed like that every day, and what he was eating wasn’t even S-Level snacks.

At the same time, Zhang Guanghang started liking Qin Huai’s and Zhao Cheng’an’s Moments posts.

Qin Huai rarely posted on Moments, but Zhao Cheng’an was a Moments maniac—eating one meal and wanting to post eight updates. Quite a few Direct Disciples at Taste had already blocked Zhao Cheng’an’s Moments.

The fact that Zhang Guanghang actually hadn’t blocked Zhao Cheng’an’s Moments was something Qin Huai hadn’t expected.

On Lantern Festival, Zhao Cheng’an posted a full thirteen Moments; just the dishes alone took up seven posts. Qin Huai didn’t even like any of his posts—whenever he scrolled past Zhao’s Moments, he treated them like MLM ads and just smiled and swiped past. Yet Zhang Guanghang actually liked every single one of them, not missing a single post.

So much so that when it was time for Qin Huai and Zhao Cheng’an to leave and Zhang Guanghang proactively helped them pack up all the dishes that could be packed, so they’d be easy to carry on the plane or check in directly, Qin Huai couldn’t help quietly asking Xia Mubing.

"What wrong medicine did Zhang Guanghang take?"

Xia Mubing replied calmly, "Xiao Hang is actually a very warm-hearted kid."

Qin Huai: ...

Is that so, because he really hadn’t seen it before. Every time Zhang Guanghang came to him before, it was to have him tell Zhao Cheng not to push his luck, to scam a bit less money, and not to be chatting with Xia Mubing after midnight, endangering an old man’s life and health.

To be fair, in a way that behavior from Zhang Guanghang was also pretty warm-hearted, just that the target of his warmth was his dear master.

"Because Xiao Hang has been learning from me since he was a kid, he never had much time to make friends, and hasn’t really had any friends growing up. Qin Huai, a sheng, if you two are willing to take him along, then chat with him more."

"Maybe because I’ve gotten more and more reclusive with age, Xiao Hang learned from me, and his personality’s pretty withdrawn."

Qin Huai nodded, but didn’t really take those words to heart. Zhao Cheng didn’t nod, but he did take them in.

On the day the two of them left Beiping, Zhao Cheng started enthusiastically chatting with Zhang Guanghang on WeChat every day. From polite replies at the beginning, to leaving him on read later, and finally to not even liking Zhao Cheng’s Moments anymore, it only took Zhang Guanghang seven days.

But clearly, Zhang Guanghang was still reading Zhao Cheng’s messages, just not replying. Three days after Zhao asked if he had any more of that jam from last time—he thought it tasted pretty good and wanted his colleagues at Taste to try it—Zhao received a shipment of jam from Zhang.

A full sixteen jars.

When Zhao sent another message asking if there were any other French specialties he could mail over, he still hadn’t received anything.

It was obvious that not only had Zhang blocked Zhao’s Moments, he’d blocked Zhao himself.

When Zhao messaged him, Zhang had already gone to Japan for further training.

But about a month later, Zhao received some specialties that Zhang mailed from Japan. For this, Zhao even sighed to Qin Huai that Zhang really was enthusiastic, a good guy—though he left him on read, though he’d blocked his Moments, he really did send stuff.

He sighed this sigh right in front of Qin Huai.

Zhao hadn’t been able to sign for the package in person, because on the day it arrived at Taste, Zhao, Qin Huai, and Xia Mubing were in Z City tailing Jiang Weiguo.