"Zhao Cheng'an, did you get dizzy from motion sickness and mix up your meds? Did you really take motion sickness pills this afternoon?" Qin Huai asked, questioning his soul.

If Chen Huihong's abstraction, Wang Gen Sheng's hesitation, Mr. Xu's involvement, and An Youyou's hefty investment were within the realm of reason, then Zhao Cheng'an not joining in the fun was extremely unreasonable.

Even Cheng Gong joined in on the fun!

Normally, the first spirit to transfer money to Zhou Hu should have been Zhao Cheng'an.

Instead, Zhao Cheng'an had no interest in Zhou Hu's exquisite tarot reading or what others wanted to calculate, only fixating on the dough. After the dough turned into buns and went into the steamer, he continued to stand guard beside it, not knowing what he was guarding.

"You don't understand." Zhao Cheng'an was still staring at the steamer, reluctantly shifting his gaze slightly towards Qin Huai's face, looking at Qin Huai, "Didn't you feel that the fermented rice with steamed buns you made today was different from before?"

Qin Huai shook his head, "Didn't feel it, they're all Level S-."

"What does that game system of yours know about fermented rice with steamed buns? There's a difference between Level S- and Level S-, didn't you taste any difference?" Zhao Cheng'an blurted out.

"No." Qin Huai continued to shake his head.

"Zhao Cheng'an, if you have something to say, just say it. Playing mysterious isn't your style, and pretending to be deep isn't your persona either. I'm certain my fermented rice with steamed buns haven't changed or have any issues; they're the same as before. Where exactly do you think it's different, or do you think there's a problem? You can just say it directly."

"No one else can tell the difference, only you can. How exactly do you feel? I suspect you've thrown up too much from motion sickness, and your taste has been affected. Tomorrow you might find it tastes the same again."

Qin Huai's retort rendered Zhao Cheng'an speechless. Zhao Cheng'an stared at Qin Huai for a long time, and finally, stubbornly said, "You don't understand."

"None of you understand."

"No one understands fermented rice with steamed buns better than I do."

"The fermented rice with steamed buns you're making now is indeed different from before. You've definitely achieved enlightenment!"

Qin Huai: ... Fine, let's just assume Zhao Cheng'an's thrown up until he's lost his senses.

Qin Huai could only change the subject: "What do you want to eat tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, and our family dinner doesn't have many hot dishes, mostly centered around snacks. This year, the main dish is definitely chicken soup noodles. My grandma has already arranged with villagers for 50 native chickens and 20 pots of chicken soup, aiming to give every household in the village a bowl at that time."

"I wanted to ask you when you got out of the car today if you could help out with the chicken soup tomorrow. The villagers' soup-making skill is just normal household level, surely not as good as yours. But seeing your condition... Wait until you're more clear-headed and feeling better tomorrow, then help out as per your capacity."

"You know my skills, you know what snacks I'm good at better than my parents. If there's anything special you want to eat or request, just let me know now. I've prepared a lot of ingredients over the past few days, and most snacks can be made."

"As for hot dishes... we can't make any grand or fancy ones. Old Shi caught some grouper and yellow fish a couple of days ago, and my grandma has entrusted our neighbors to help make steamed and braised fish tomorrow. Their skill level is what it is, but the quality of the fish caught by Old Shi is pretty good, so they should taste fresh."

"What vegetables do you want to eat? We have a wide variety of vegetables here, but can only make regular stir-fries. As for meat dishes... you can go around the village tomorrow and ask. Sister Hong and the others have been asking around, they've ordered braised pork ribs, mei cai kou rou, pig trotters stewed with soybeans, and beer duck. You can see if they have anything you love and order it."

"We usually bought the marinated dishes from the town, and their taste is average. I heard from my grandpa that a new braised dish shop opened in town, and the taste of the lotus root slices and marinated green soybeans is decent. But tomorrow night, you probably won't have the appetite to eat them."

"What do you want to eat? Just pick something. It's the last day of the year, after New Year's Eve, I'll have to focus on making a lot of single snacks, and you won't have such a good chance to order anymore."

Qin Huai thought the question he threw out wasn't difficult, normally when he asks someone what they want to eat, they'd readily list a string of snacks.

But Zhao Cheng'an fell into another long thought.

Now Qin Huai was really sure that Zhao Cheng'an must've been severely motion-sick to the point of making himself silly, unable to promptly say what he wanted to eat.

Just as Qin Huai was expecting Zhao Cheng'an to think for a few minutes and then list out a string of dishes like Qin Luo, Zhao Cheng'an opened his mouth and slowly uttered four words: "Fuling Cake."

"Fuling Cake?" Qin Huai was stunned when he heard this snack name, it took him seven or eight seconds to react to what it was, then he asked, "Is it the small snack that the hotel in Beiping serves, two pieces of thin Poria cakes with sweet filling, that you complained wasn't authentic at all, the cake skin wasn't thin enough, the sweet filling too sweet, it looked like a premade Poria cake?"

Zhao Cheng'an nodded.

"I don't know how to make that." Qin Huai suspected Zhao Cheng'an was trying to make things difficult for him, during this festive season, he wanted a snack that he'd never made before but seemed relatively easy. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

This snack isn't in the Snack Encyclopedia, and hardly appears in palace drama series, Qin Luo never specified wanting it back then. Qin Huai, having often lived in Guangdong Province, rarely came across such snacks. If it hadn't been for listening to Zhao Cheng'an's complaints during their trip to Beiping last time, Qin Huai wouldn't have known this thing was a Fuling Cake, he would've thought it was some random, cheap snack from the hotel.