Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 230 Just have the skills
"I'm planning to go out with Xiaoxiao next weekend. We'll leave on Friday. Can you spare the time?"

In the cafeteria, Han Zhou carried his tray and looked for a seat while glancing at the short-haired girl next to him.

"I think I have class on Friday afternoon." Guzheng thought for a moment. "Do you want to go see the place Xiaoxiao mentioned on the phone last time?"

She remembered Han Zhou mentioning this.

"Yes, I want to figure it out as soon as possible."

"Then I'll take leave and go with you."

"Taking a day off means falling behind in your classes, and you might not get first place then," Han Zhou joked.

Guzheng rolled her eyes at him: "If falling behind by one day means I can't get first place, then I might as well not study at all."

"makes sense."

The two walked and talked, attracting a lot of attention in the cafeteria. This was not only because of their good looks, but also because Gu Zheng's plate was piled high with rice, a portion that would intimidate even the boys, let alone such a cute girl.

The cafeteria was crowded at lunchtime, and the two of them finally managed to find two empty seats. Han Zhou stared at Gu Zheng's chubby cheeks for a while, then asked somewhat uncertainly, "Have you gained weight recently?"

"No way!" Gu Zheng glared at him, annoyed. "I've always maintained a normal food intake, how could I possibly gain weight?"

Looking down at her unsatisfactory chest, she actually wished she could gain some weight.

The girl sitting next to him paused for two seconds upon hearing this, looked down at the meager amount of rice on her plate that was barely enough to feed a cat, and then looked at the mountain of rice on the guzheng's plate. She was unsure whether she had misunderstood the term "standard portion size" or whether the girl had misunderstood it.

Thinking about how she had already weighed over 100 pounds during her vacation, and looking at the slender figure of the girl next to her, she couldn't help but feel sad. She chewed her vegetables sadly, thinking to herself that people's physiques really can't be generalized.

"I haven't gained weight, maybe I'm seeing things."

Seeing that Gu Zheng seemed a little down, Han Zhou smiled and said, "But you're recovering quite well. I thought you wouldn't be able to eat for several days after you got sick."

"It's not that serious, it's just a minor cold, not a serious illness."

"So how did you manage to catch a minor cold, given your constitution?" Han Zhou asked curiously.

Gu Zheng paused in her hand movements, her expression immediately becoming unnatural, as if she were somewhat embarrassed.

"I wasn't properly covered up in the middle of the night..."

Her eyes darted away, and she made up a flimsy excuse, saying impatiently, "Let's just eat, why are you asking so many questions?"

As he spoke, he buried his head in his plate.

Han Zhou shook his head and smiled. Anyone could see that this guy wasn't telling the truth, but since Gu Zheng didn't want to answer, he didn't ask any more questions.

He had thought that Gu Zheng would find an opportunity to inquire about Mo Yixia's situation, but to his surprise, she hadn't asked anything yet. Uncle Gu and Sister Miao were also acting calmly, and he wondered what they were up to.

"Eat slowly."

He spoke up to remind him, then lowered his head and started eating.

The girl sitting next to the guzheng was on a diet. She quickly finished the little food on her plate, but she showed no intention of getting up to leave. Instead, she pretended to pick at the last piece of green vegetable while glancing at the guzheng out of the corner of her eye.

She wanted to see if the girl could really finish all that rice.

Not only her, but many people nearby also turned their attention to the direction where Gu Zheng and Han Zhou were, peeking at their faces while watching Gu Zheng eat.

Gu Zheng was engrossed in eating and completely unaware of what was happening.

It wasn't until she finished eating, took the tissue Han Zhou offered, and stood up that she noticed the strange atmosphere around her. While wiping her mouth, she asked, "What's wrong with these people?"

Looking around, he saw that everyone was completely silent, almost all of them with expressions of utter shock. Some had even forgotten to eat, their chopsticks holding food hovering near their mouths, refusing to move an inch further.

"Maybe they weren't full."

Han Zhou had already noticed the strange behavior of everyone, so he was used to it. Ignoring the stunned crowd, he collected his plates and left the cafeteria with Gu Zheng.

As they stepped out of the cafeteria, the midday sun shone through the clouds, casting a warm glow upon them.

As if suddenly remembering something, Han Zhou said, "By the way, Guzheng, I happen to need someone with a body type like yours that doesn't easily gain weight to help me recently, so you'd better prepare in advance."

"What do you mean?" Gu Zheng asked, looking puzzled.

Han Zhou said seriously, "I plan to set up a roadside stall to sell snacks. If I really can't sell them, you'll have to eat them for me."

"Street stalls?"

"Yes, I've done some research, and this stuff is quite profitable, but it might not go smoothly at first, so I need you to help me resolve any concerns."

"What worries... Don't treat me like a dumping ground, okay?" Gu Zheng pouted and rolled her eyes at him, annoyed. "What do you want to sell? Can I help you?"

She knew Han Zhou's family situation; he had to earn his own tuition and living expenses, and a roadside stall was probably the only way he could think of to make money.

She had also heard that setting up a roadside stall was quite profitable, at least for students, it was a good income, the technical requirements were not high, the threshold was very low, it was just a bit hard work.

However, with food stalls everywhere, the market is probably saturated, and it seems the city management officers often come out to chase after people, so making a profit won't be easy. Although she had her doubts, Gu Zheng didn't discourage Han Zhou. She believed that Han Zhou could think of what she could think of, and all she needed to do now was to fully support him.

Just like he has always been supporting me.

"No need, you just do your thing, I'm fine on my own."

Han Zhou smiled. "But now you have to help me pick up the package."

……

Back in the dormitory, Chen Long's surprised voice unsurprisingly reached Han Zhou's ears first; this guy seemed to always keep one eye on the outside.

"Han Zhou, why did you bring back so many packages all of a sudden? Are you planning to catch a package thief this time?"

The roommates knew about the previous "takeout thief elimination plan" and had even gotten free barbecue for several days because of it. When they saw Han Zhou bring back so many packages, Chen Zheng and Huo Zhencheng were also a little surprised and came over to help.

"The box on top is for the laptop, and the one below it is for the keyboard. Please put these two on the table carefully. The rest can be placed anywhere, thank you."

With the help of his roommate, Han Zhou quickly finished "unloading" the package and then opened it to begin inspection.

These items aren't particularly heavy, but there are quite a lot of them, making them a bit inconvenient to move.

Chen Zheng pushed up his glasses and asked in puzzlement, "Did you get these from outside?"

“That makes sense.” Han Zhou nodded. There was no need to hide this from his roommate. “I’m planning to open a roadside stall outside the school.”

"Street stalls?"

Chen Zheng initially thought he was joking, but when he saw a box of starch sausages, he was taken aback. "You're planning to sell this?"

“That’s right.” Han Zhou smiled. “Deep-fried starch sausage.”

After several days of research, he has gained a fairly concrete understanding of "mastery of cooking".

First, according to his statistics, the probability of making a fine dish without careful preparation of ingredients and with focused attention is about 25%, which may be slightly lower, at least 5 percentage points lower than the 30% probability stated in the skill description.

He had guessed this before, probably because the properties of real-world food cannot meet the usual requirements of the status bar. This is not surprising, since it is now difficult to find green and healthy ingredients.

Secondly, compared to fine cuisine, the probability of creating top-quality cuisine is quite low, probably less than five percent. If we add the negative impact of ingredient quality, the probability will be even lower. At least he has not successfully created a single top-quality dish so far.

However, given that this stuff is addictive, even if it were made, he might not want to eat it, so the expectation isn't very high.

Finally, and most importantly, after repeatedly studying the phrase "any food you produce possesses a certain deliciousness attribute" in the skill description, he finally came to a conclusion—

It can produce large quantities of food with delicious properties in a short period of time.

The phrase "within your hands" does not mean that the cooking process needs to go through a whole set of steps, but rather means literally that it only requires someone to handle it.

In other words, any food that Han Zhou touches will gain a 20% increase in deliciousness after being processed into food, instead of needing to go through a complete cooking process.

Of course, this is not without limitations. As mentioned above, the limitation is that it must undergo "processing".

In Han Zhou's multiple tests, ingredients need to undergo at least one of the heating processes of frying, cooking, stir-frying, or deep-frying, or they need to undergo a relatively complicated pre-processing, in order to give the ingredients a delicious attribute bonus. Simply touching them does not count as processing and does not meet the conditions for triggering "handled by you".

This is the foundation for Han Zhou's roadside stall.

As for why he chose to sell fried starch sausages, he had considered it carefully.

This thing requires almost no skill in its preparation; you just throw it into hot oil and you're done. That's enough to meet the trigger condition for "Mastering Culinary Skills," thus easily giving the starch sausage a delicious attribute bonus.

Moreover, compared to other street food, starch sausages require almost no pre-processing. Several starch sausages can be thrown into a pot of oil at the same time, and scooping them out in one go is equivalent to completing the processing. The entire production process can be said to require almost no time or effort; anyone with hands can do it.

Han Zhou has personally experienced what a 20% deliciousness factor means, and it is definitely not lacking in competitiveness. At the same price, consumers will undoubtedly choose the merchant with better taste, so sales are not a problem. As long as there is the first customer, subsequent customers will definitely keep coming.

Moreover, he didn't have much money to begin with, and didn't have enough resources to complete his larger plans, so he could only consider this low-cost way of making money first.

As for the profit... he buys his starch sausages from wholesale channels. The cost of one sausage is about 60 cents, and he sells them for 2 yuan each, making a profit of 1.4 yuan. It's definitely a sure-fire way to make money.

Of course, making a fortune by selling starch sausages is unrealistic. This is just the first step in Han Zhou's money-making plan. Moreover, he values ​​other things more than making money at the moment.

He possesses a "learning by analogy" skill from Mo Yixia, which greatly enhances his ability to learn practical skills that interest him; simply put, he has a built-in learning experience bonus.

Cooking skills fall under the category of practical skills, and the process of repeatedly frying starch sausages is a process of practicing cooking skills. It can continuously accumulate learning experience for him, thereby gaining the opportunity to upgrade "cooking proficiency" to a higher level of skill.

"Master of Culinary Skills" is an upgrade from "Proficient in Culinary Skills," which means that it is possible to upgrade skills through one's own efforts, rather than relying solely on status bars.

In addition, repeatedly using "Mastering Culinary Skills" in a short period of time can also test the limits of the status bar to see if the skill will malfunction due to insufficient "blue bar".

If you want to make money based on your current state, you must understand these things.

In conclusion, selling fried starch sausages was more of an experiment; many things can only be better implemented after trying them out yourself.

In other words, it's uncertain whether processing raw fish and sashimi can meet the trigger conditions for "Mastering Culinary Skills," and he can't afford to open a high-end restaurant for the time being. Otherwise, Han Zhou would try to take the high-end route...

(End of this chapter)