Chapter 41: Does the Handsome Guy Have a Boyfriend?

Chapter 41: Chapter 41: Does the Handsome Guy Have a Boyfriend?

Hearing this, Chen Qiyun immediately perked up.

"What is Red Date and Peanut Cream?"

"A traditional Chinese dessert. In the past, the Emperor and his Consorts in the imperial palace loved to drink it."

"Then I want some!"

"It’s in the pot. Serve yourself." Chen Jingle replied casually. Pausing for a moment, he added, "I didn’t chill it. If you want ice cubes, add them yourself. They’re in the bottom drawer of the fridge."

At his age, he had already started studying health preservation, gradually avoiding eating too much cold or spicy food.

"Oh, oh, I’ll have a bowl without ice first."

Chen Qiyun already knew Chen Jingle’s kitchen like the back of her hand. When it came to food, she moved faster than anyone else.

After just the first sip of the peanut cream, her eyes instantly lit up. "This is delicious! It’s so fragrant and sweet, and the texture is incredibly silky. It’s way better than milk tea!"

The peanuts must have been deep-fried, as their aroma was much richer than that of raw peanuts. A generous amount of red dates had been added, their flavor completely unmasked by the peanut aroma, all perfectly complemented by the fragrance of rice.

They were clearly all very ordinary ingredients, but once mixed together, it felt like a magical chemical reaction had occurred.

She really had no idea how Chen Jingle’s brain worked, being able to make so many delicious things.

Chen Jingle lazily replied, "Of course. I strictly followed a master chef’s steps and filtered it with a fine mesh strainer. There’s not a single bit of residue left."

Cooking for the Emperor in ancient times was no easy gig. One careless mistake, and it was a quick game of exterminating your nine familial generations.

For a royal dessert forged under the threat of entire clans being wiped out, the taste definitely wouldn’t be bad.

At the very least, the mouthfeel of most milk teas on the market was far inferior to this Red Date and Peanut Cream.

After finishing her first bowl, Chen Qiyun immediately went to scoop a second.

Seeing this, Chen Jingle hurriedly warned, "Hey, hey, hey, two bowls are about enough. Drinking too much will easily cause internal heat."

"I’m not afraid of internal heat; I can just drink some herbal cooling tea. Besides, if I add ice cubes to the second bowl, won’t that cancel out the heat?" Chen Qiyun said nonchalantly.

"..."

He thought to himself, "Heh, you sure are a smarty-pants. I’m just afraid you’ll get too full and won’t have room for lunch later."

After the dessert came the main course.

Sure enough, just as Chen Jingle had predicted, after drinking two bowls of peanut cream, Chen Qiyun was clearly a bit stuffed during the meal.

Yet, everything Chen Jingle cooked was incredibly delicious. That feeling of wanting to eat more but not having the stomach space for it was the most unbearable.

"Alright, alright, just eat until you’re eighty percent full; any more will just be a burden on your stomach. It’s not like this is your last meal ever." Seeing her struggle, Chen Jingle decisively stopped her.

Only then did Chen Qiyun reluctantly set down her chopsticks.

"This shrimp is so good!"

"It’s made using the Lu Cuisine recipe for sweet and sour crispy shrimp."

"Lu Cuisine? Is that from Lu Province?"

"Yeah. It’s the head of the Eight Great Cuisines and also the representative of former imperial cooking."

Even though Chen Jingle was a Lingnan person, he wasn’t going to blindly defend Cantonese Cuisine and spout nonsense about it being the top of the Eight Great Cuisines, only to make a fool of himself.

Just like how Chu Yunfei said Jin Province cuisine wasn’t refined enough for grand banquets.

Facts were facts.

"Then what about these pig trotters?" Chen Qiyun asked again.

"Plum braised trotters, made the Cantonese Cuisine way."

"No wonder I tasted a faint sweet and sour flavor! So it’s preserved plum. I thought the flavor of the shrimp had just gotten mixed in. This is delicious too!"

Chen Qiyun patted her rounded belly, feeling three parts nostalgic aftertaste, three parts regret, three parts satisfaction, and one part annoyance.

The first three feelings were dedicated to the food, but that one part of annoyance was reserved solely for Chen Jingle. If he hadn’t stopped her, she could have eaten at least two more large shrimp and two more pieces of trotter.

"Since you worked so hard cooking, I’ll reluctantly help you wash the dishes." Chen Qiyun stood up, tilting her little head high in a show of feigned generosity.

Chen Jingle chuckled dryly but didn’t say anything. He thought to himself that she was at least being self-aware.

After washing the dishes, Chen Qiyun made sure Chen Jingle couldn’t see her from outside the kitchen. She tiptoed over, lifted the food cover on the dining table, grabbed a large shrimp, and swiftly stuffed it into her mouth.

She felt like she had struck gold, utterly satisfied.

"Eating one more shrimp definitely won’t ruin my eighty-percent-full ratio!"

Meanwhile, Qiu Xinyi was also eating lunch.

However, her meal was nowhere near as good as Chen Jingle’s; she was just having a standard double-cured meat combo from the cafeteria.

She scrolled through her phone as she ate. When she reopened the video they had posted that morning, she almost jumped up in excitement.

"Ah, it’s gone viral! It’s gone viral!"

Ignoring the startled gazes of the students around her, she hurriedly messaged her partner, "Zhenyu, the video we posted this morning completely blew up! Fifty thousand likes! It’s only been two hours, and we already have fifty thousand likes!"

Goodness, this happiness had come far too suddenly.

For a moment, her heart surged with excitement, making it impossible for her to calm down.

They had split the morning’s interview with the handsome guy into two parts after returning. When they first posted the first half, the number of likes wasn’t that high—just slightly better than usual.

Because of that, she hadn’t kept her eyes glued to the screen.

She never expected the stats to absolutely skyrocket the moment she stopped paying attention.

On the other end of the connection, her partner was clearly just as surprised. "Huh? Really? I haven’t checked yet. Wait a sec, let me see what’s going on."

Qiu Xinyi was highly ecstatic. "At a conservative estimate, we’ll hit at least three hundred thousand likes, maybe even more! There are tons of comments right now—already over six thousand!"

For non-controversial topics like this, the higher the like-to-comment ratio, the higher the video quality, which in turn meant a higher completion rate.

Having made short videos for so long, she knew a thing or two about the metrics.

Over in his dorm, Huang Zhenyu was eating a packed boxed lunch. After receiving Qiu Xinyi’s message, he tapped into their channel’s homepage and took a look.

Good heavens!

In just that short span of time, the likes were already nearing sixty thousand.

It seemed the official Doushou algorithm had indeed pushed their traffic.

Awesome!

Their team had finally produced a smash-hit viral video.

He then looked down at the comments.

"You guys disturbed my husband. [Facepalm emoji]"

"Couldn’t you wait until he finished eating to interview him? I feel embarrassed for you guys. [Facepalm emoji]"

"First glance: Such a handsome guy! Second glance: He’s the future soulmate of Wu Miaoyun from Class 2, Junior Year, Culinary and Nutritional Education Major at Teacher College!"

"«Hang in there, things will get better»"

"My heart is fluttering. Does this handsome guy have a boyfriend yet?"

"Oh my god, is the quality of guys at Teacher College this high now?"

"..."

Amidst his excitement, Huang Zhenyu felt a twinge of wistful envy, even a bit sour. He thought to himself, "Damn it, these days, being good-looking really does let you get away with whatever you want!"

Out of every ten comments, eight were discussing the guy’s looks.

After reading for a while, he texted Qiu Xinyi, "How about it? Should we post the second half now?"

"What do you think?"

"I think we can wait a little longer. After all, the traffic is heavily concentrated on this first video right now. Let’s wait until the traffic dips, then we’ll release the second half and ride another wave of views."

"Alright, let’s do that!"

"..."

Qiu Xinyi rubbed her hands together in excitement. "It’s finally our time to shine!"

At this time, a few kilometers away from Teacher College in Vanke City, Chen Xiuyun had just finished eating. Leaning back on the sofa and scrolling through short videos on her phone, she suddenly froze.

"Holy crap, isn’t this Chen Jingle?!"

Her eyes widened in sheer astonishment. "How did he end up on our school’s channel?"