Chapter 124 - 115: Chen Qiyun’s Secret Stash

Chapter 124: Chapter 115: Chen Qiyun’s Secret Stash

After ending his conversation with Zhou Manlin, Chen Jingle thought for a moment before sending Li Beixing a message. "Your friend, Zhou Manlin, wants to treat me to dinner. She said you’d be there too, so I agreed."

"Mhm, she just told me," Li Beixing replied, a subconscious smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

"I originally wanted to find a chance to treat you to dinner," Chen Jingle said sheepishly. "I didn’t expect you guys to beat me to it."

Li Beixing couldn’t help but smile. "It doesn’t matter who treats who first."

Compared to eating at a restaurant, she actually wanted to taste Chen Jingle’s cooking, but she was too embarrassed to say it out loud. She still couldn’t forget the cold-tossed beef Chen Qiyun had brought over last time. Auntie Wang had tried making it twice at home, but she just couldn’t replicate the flavor—it always felt like it was missing a little something.

And she had followed the video’s instructions perfectly, too.

Li Beixing had even suspected that the seasoning was the issue, so she had asked Chen Jingle exactly how to mix it, but the results were still slightly off.

Biting her lip, Li Beixing typed back, "The food at Tang Garden is pretty good, but compared to a top chef, it might still be a little lacking."

Chen Jingle didn’t read too much into it. "As long as it isn’t both expensive and terrible, I’m fine with it."

He assumed Li Beixing was worried he wouldn’t like the taste of the restaurant’s food. In reality, to Chen Jingle, whether a restaurant was "good" or not largely depended on its cost-performance ratio. An eight-yuan buffet boxed lunch with two meats and two vegetables was a worldly delicacy, while a fifty-yuan bowl of plain noodles wasn’t even fit for a dog!

Li Beixing was left speechless.

She felt like she was winking in the dark. She might as well have said nothing. Actually, his cooking wasn’t even *that* good. Auntie Wang’s cooking was about the same, and the ingredients they used at home were better anyway. There was no need to obsess over it.

Hmph.

"Friday night at six-thirty..." Chen Jingle muttered, putting away his phone. His brows furrowed slightly as he thought, "I’ll have to adjust my schedule then."

With three days left until the dinner, he wasn’t in a rush. As the old saying went: three days’ notice is an invitation, two days’ is a summons, the same day is a drag, and midnight is an afterthought. While Chen Jingle didn’t particularly care about such formalities, getting notified a few days in advance gave him ample time to rearrange his schedule, which was always a good thing.

His daytime classes wouldn’t be affected; the main conflict was his extracurricular study time in the evening. Fortunately, it wasn’t a formal class, so he wouldn’t need to make up for it. The only thing he needed to pay attention to was dinner that day. He would only need to make enough for Chen Qiyun, or he could just cook extra portions at noon and have her heat up the leftovers for dinner.

Speak of Chen Qiyun, and here she was. Having just returned from school, she walked into the house with her small backpack, tossed it onto the mahogany sofa out of habit, and headed straight to the kitchen to see what was for lunch.

Chen Jingle turned off the gas valve and used a rag to carefully carry the clay pot over to the dining table.

"What’s this?" Chen Qiyun asked, looking at the pot.

"Five-finger fig root and chicken soup," Chen Jingle replied casually.

She knew what five-finger fig root was; her mother had used it to make chicken soup before. However, Chen Qiyun wrinkled her nose. "Soup, huh?"

Unlike a typical Lingnan local, she actually didn’t like drinking soup. Her grandparents were always saying that her refusal to drink soup was the reason she wasn’t growing taller. But her biology teacher had told her that soup didn’t actually contain much nutrition; the real nutrients were all in the meat.

Ignoring her thoughts on the matter, Chen Jingle lifted the lid of the clay pot to serve the soup. The moment the lid came off, the rich aroma of chicken soup, tinged with a hint of coconut fragrance, instantly wafted through the air.

Chen Qiyun blinked. She poked her head over to peek inside the clay pot and noticed that there wasn’t much of the chicken fat she so despised floating on the surface.

Maybe she could give it a try.

Her gaze then fell on another dish on the table, and her eyes lit up. "And what’s the story behind this one?"

"Arhat Shrimp." Chen Jingle washed and dried his hands, getting ready to fetch the bowls and chopsticks.

"Arhat? Why is it called Arhat Shrimp?"

"They say the plump, round shrimp meat looks like an Arhat’s belly."

Although she didn’t quite understand, her unwavering trust in Chen Jingle’s culinary skills prompted her to quickly wash her hands and get ready to eat. Following Chen Jingle’s lead, she served herself a bowl of chicken soup, slowly blowing on it to cool it down before taking a sip.

Mhm, it tasted really good!

It was significantly better than the soup her mother made. Even though they both used five-finger fig root and chicken, and both cooked it in a clay pot, the flavor of Chen Jingle’s soup was just remarkably different.

"Brother Le," Chen Qiyun suddenly piped up.

"Hmm?" Chen Jingle turned his head slightly.

Chen Qiyun’s eyes darted around. "I eat at your place every day. Does that mean you have to spend extra money on groceries?"

Chen Jingle paused his eating. "Why? Are you offering to pay for your meals?"

"I mean, I could," Chen Qiyun said, pursing her lips, her gaze wandering.

Chen Jingle laughed.

Perhaps interpreting his laugh as slightly dismissive and mocking, Chen Qiyun grew a bit annoyed and huffed twice. "What, do you think I can’t afford it? Let me tell you, I’m actually very rich!"

"Oh?" Chen Jingle’s smile widened. "How rich is ’very rich’?"

Chen Qiyun tilted her chin up. "I’ll let you see my WeChat wallet!" She set down her chopsticks, tapped on her smartwatch, and flashed her WeChat wallet balance at him.

Chen Jingle glanced at it. It was exactly 236.75 yuan.

He raised an eyebrow. "That is quite a bit. Who gave it to you?"

"I slowly saved it up myself!" Chen Qiyun said proudly. "Whenever my mom, Sister Xiu, or Grandpa gave me money to buy school supplies, they always gave me a little extra. I saved it all up. I gave the cash to my classmates and had them transfer it to my WeChat. Sometimes, when they can’t win their game promotion matches, they pay me to play for them."

"Impressive, impressive!" Chen Jingle couldn’t help but clap. Making and saving money at such a young age completely crushed ninety percent of college students. Out of curiosity, he asked, "How much do you charge them for one promotion match?"

"Five yuan. No charge if I don’t win," Chen Qiyun said with immense pride.

"Can you boost any rank?"

"Generally, anything below Kings rank is no problem."

Tsk, her gaming talent was much better than Chen Jingle’s. Whether it was League of Legends or Honor of Kings, he just couldn’t figure them out. To sum it up in one word: trash!

But still, a mere two hundred-something yuan...

Chen Jingle chuckled. "Do you know how much the chicken for this soup cost?"

"How much?"

"Twenty-five yuan for half a kilo. I bought half a chicken, which was fifty-five yuan."

Chen Qiyun, who had been bursting with pride just a moment ago, suddenly froze. She shrank back, her eyes widening in disbelief.

Th-This little bit of food was fifty-five yuan?!

Quite satisfied with her expression, Chen Jingle pointed to the Arhat Shrimp next to it. "Since it isn’t a major holiday right now, large shrimp are cheap—thirty-five for half a kilo. A full kilo costs seventy yuan. If it were the New Year or a festival, the price could jump to eighty for half a kilo."

Chen Qiyun fell completely silent, secretly swallowing hard.

So her small fortune was only enough to feed her for two days?

Oh, wait, no. Two *meals*!

Realizing this, she awkwardly stole a glance at Chen Jingle’s reaction.

Chen Jingle laughed softly. "It’s nice of you to offer to pay for your meals, but your brother here still has enough money for groceries, even if I don’t have many other skills. Besides, earning money to support the family is something adults should worry about; it’s not a kid’s concern. As a student, as long as you do well in your studies, you’re successful. If you really feel bad about it, just try to grow a bit taller after you eat."

Studying was fine—she had been making steady progress recently—but the mention of growing taller made Chen Qiyun’s little face immediately fall.

It wasn’t like she didn’t *want* to grow taller, but her body just refused to cooperate. What else could she do? Drinking two bottles of milk a day, eating three proper meals, and diligently jumping rope every single day... that was already her absolute limit. What more did he want from her?

Darn it, if only she could grow as fast as those giant white pigs raised on feed!

Chen Jingle, however, was thinking about a completely different issue.

It wasn’t just Chen Qiyun; in reality, most people who didn’t run a household simply didn’t know the cost of groceries. Of course, Chen Jingle’s daily consumption level was definitely slightly higher than that of an average family. For a typical family outside of Tier 1 or Tier 2 cities, a per capita food budget of 1,500 yuan a month was already quite good, enough to guarantee a balanced mix of meat and vegetables, along with after-dinner fruit.

That was, assuming it was planned reasonably. If every meal consisted of seafood, steak, lamb chops, durian, and cherries, even multiplying that budget several times over wouldn’t be enough to sustain it.

For a moment, neither of them spoke, both lost in their own thoughts.

"Alright, eat up!" Chen Jingle tapped Chen Qiyun on the head with the tip of his chopsticks to stop the little girl’s mind from wandering.

It was just an extra pair of chopsticks at the table—no big deal. Feeding two people didn’t require that much more food than feeding just himself; he only needed to cook an extra portion of rice. Furthermore, he now had plenty of ways to make money.

He might not be making huge fortunes, but earning pocket money was a breeze. He was about to rake in sixty thousand yuan soon, making his life extremely comfortable. In comparison, what was four or five thousand yuan a month in food expenses?

There was absolutely no need to worry!

Brought back to her senses, Chen Qiyun pouted. Without a word, she buried her head and continued drinking her soup.

Over the next few days, Chen Jingle’s daily schedule was packed to the brim. He did a lot of things, yet simultaneously felt like he had accomplished nothing at all.

No wonder people said that there were 365 days in a year, but most people just repeated the same day 365 times. Having too many repetitive routines made him feel like his days were trending toward the mundane, with time rapidly slipping away.

Of course, there was nothing inherently wrong with a mundane life. With the system’s help, he could make a little bit of progress every day. Waking up to see a more perfect version of himself every morning was a simple, peaceful life that countless people would be endlessly envious of.

But not every day was entirely uneventful.

Considering his Friday evening dinner appointment, Chen Jingle thought it over and found some time to finish the portrait he had promised Li Beixing. He planned to bring it along, in addition to the two pieces of artwork for Mr. Long that he needed her to help pass on.

He painted with utmost seriousness. In terms of quality, it didn’t lose out to his previous *gongbi* flower-and-bird paintings; it was just in a slightly different style, so he wasn’t entirely sure if she would like it.

"Hmm... it feels like I’m missing something." Chen Jingle pondered for a moment, then pulled out a piece of paper, wrote a single sentence on it, and placed it inside a small picture frame.

At noon, he told Chen Qiyun, "I’m going out to eat with friends tonight, so I won’t be eating at home. I’ll save a portion of lunch for your dinner. Does that work?"

"Where are you going to eat?" Chen Qiyun asked curiously.

Chen Jingle shot her a side-glance. "Why ask so many questions? It’s not like I’m bringing you along."

Chen Qiyun curled her lips. Even if he *did* bring her, she might not even want to go. Could the food out there really be as good as Chen Jingle’s cooking?

She wasn’t stupid.

When six o’clock in the evening rolled around, Chen Jingle took a quick shower, styled his hair, and changed into a more presentable outfit before getting ready to head out.

Although he wasn’t going on a blind date, he was still having dinner with people he wasn’t completely familiar with, so a basic level of respect was warranted. It was a matter of courtesy and upbringing.

Everything else was fine, except for the helmet for his little electric scooter, which would completely flatten his freshly styled hair.

"Whatever, nobody cares anyway." Chen Jingle twisted the throttle, and the scooter zipped forward with a soft hum.

He had never eaten at Tang Garden before. In the past, he had only heard others talk about how high-end and exclusive it was, but he had never had the chance to dine there himself.

Today, he was finally getting to piggyback on someone else’s generosity.