Chapter 697: Yang Fangjin (1)

Shen Lingqing had to admit that the person her Grandpa He recommended to her had a lot of potential. If only Yang Fangjin could put aside his shallow jokes and perverted remarks that always succeeded in irritating the Shen princess...

The snowy mooncakes Shen Lingqing had tried earlier weren't bad at all. In fact, if she could be honest, she would say that it was one of the best mooncakes she tried so far that weren't made by her mother or Uncle Lingyu.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Liu Jinfei arrive along with Lin Xiao.

Before the winners for the festival competition had been announced earlier, she and He Haotian had already left the pavilion to ask around for Yang Fangjin's whereabouts. It wasn't like she didn't care about the result of the competition, but she already saw the ones she needed to see after the strict training of her two chefs. Surprisingly, she was quite satisfied with it.

As for Liu Jinfei's issues, Shen Lingqing decided to deal with him later, once he was calm enough to have a decent talk with her.

As she watched Yang Fangjin work in the kitchen, she wondered if she truly had gained another potential chef to join her team. She had asked Yang Fangjin to make some more pastries and sweets she could try before deciding whether she would hire him or not.

In less than two hours, several pastries were served at the kitchen counter, waiting for Shen Lingqing to try them. She then stood from her seat.

Only by then did Liu Jinfei finally notice that she wasn't wearing the hanfu she donned earlier, much to his disappointment. He thought that she really looked good on it.

Shen Lingqing had already changed into a light-gray dress shirt and fitted black pants with a pair of black flats. Now, her face was free from any traces of makeup, and her hair was neatly pulled up in a high ponytail, with only a few loose strands to frame her face.

First, she picked up a red bean paste bun and broke it in half with both of her hands before taking a small bite from it. The red bean paste, made from adzuki beans, was boiled and mashed with a sweetener. While most bean paste mixtures stuffed into buns were a completely smooth purée, Yang Fangjin's version had some real chunks of beans in it, which added hearty texture and chew.

The second one Shen Lingqing took was a white steamed bun without any filling. The hallmark of a really great steamed bun was the simplicity of white, fluffy dough; often made with bleached wheat flour for extra purity. Used for sweet and savory fillings, the dough had less sugar and fat than baked versions.

Steamed buns should be light, never dense or chewy, and moist but not mushy or soggy. Something that Yang Fangjin had easily nailed, which made Shen Lingqing wonder if he already mastered the basics of making a pastry.

For a man who didn't have any official education on cooking and baking, Yang Fangjin was surprisingly not too far behind Liu Jinfei.

Shen Lingqing lifted her head and saw the young man grinning at her. However, she kept her comments to herself and decided to try the other ones that caught her eye. After all, she didn't need to sample all of it.

The last one she tried was a Salted Egg Yolk Bun. The cured, salted duck egg yolks have a rich, gritty salty-sweet custard character, and as a bun filling, they're blended with sugar and milk to make full-on custard and then baked inside buns. As Shen Lingqing took a bite of it, the filling spilled out like the inside of a molten chocolate cake.

Delicious. Truly appetizing. The Shen princess thought. Now, if only she could settle Yang Fangjin's problem first before calling Qiao Lian to make a contract for him...

Ah, how troublesome. Not only did she need to shield Liu Jinfei, but she also needed to add another one under her wing of protection. Until the loan sharks coming after Yang Fangjin had been dealt with, she had no other choice but to keep him away from them.

"So how was it? Did he pass?" He Haotian asked, but the way Shen Lingqing looked at him made him aware that she had already made up her mind. It was a trait that she had no doubt inherited from her father. When they made up their minds, it was almost impossible to change it.

"I need to run a background check to make sure he's clean," the Shen princess said.

"Hey! I'm certainly clean. Not because you find me at the red-light district doesn't mean you can look down on me!" Yang Fangjin complained, which was followed by a deafening silence from the people around him.

"What?" He asked when no one spoke to him in response.

Liu Jinfei's jaws dropped from what he heard and wondered what Shen Lingqing was even thinking, hiring a person like this.

"I'll break both of your arms if you dare to step in such a place again." Shen Lingqing's tone was so cold and scary that Yang Fangjin and Liu Jinfei felt a shiver run down their spines upon hearing her warning.

"A-Are you forcing me to join you?" The youngest man on their team questioned her.

Shen Lingqing scoffed and turned her back on him before sauntering straight to the sink to wash her hands.

"If you really wanted to help your younger sister get a proper treatment, you know better than to decline my proposition," She reminded him.

Yang Fangjin immediately stiffened at that. How did she know about his sister?

Shen Lingqing returned in front of him, wiping her hands dry with a towel.

"You haven't told him about me yet, Gramps?" She asked He Haotian, to which the old man answered with a smile.

"I haven't gotten a chance to tell him that."