Chapter 30: Lightning-fast Application
After arranging for the servant to organize the luggage and transport robot, Xiang Chuan opened the terminal, looked at the club application precautions manual and application form, thought for a moment, and directly sent them to Mother while clearly explaining the causes and effects.
With Mother helping to handle it, it should save some application processes, right? Xiang Chuan thought, after all, the string of application auditors listed by the homeroom teacher was really a bit scary.
When running out of the dormitory, she also ran into Ouyang Yating. It turned out she lived right next door, but the other party just stared at Xiang Chuan for a while without any other reaction. Xiang Chuan greeted her, and she only responded faintly.
Could this girl be shy? Xiang Chuan thought while staring at Ouyang Yating, who was walking quickly ahead on the way back to the classroom.
Back in the classroom, without the transport robot hovering in mid-air, the entire classroom instantly felt much more spacious.
After Ouyang Yating reached her seat, the several girls who had been around her gathered by her side, asking her about the environment in the senior dormitory building. When they saw Xiang Chuan return to her seat, they didn’t forget to greet her.
“Classmate Xiang Chuan, hello.”
A greeting came from the right side. Xiang Chuan turned her head and saw it was that boy who looked rather scholarly.
“Hello, uh…”
“Ah, my name is Liang Gong Yaksim.”
Modern people’s surnames without racial distinctions are really casual! Xiang Chuan complained inwardly, but kept a friendly smile on her face: “Ah haha, sorry, Classmate Liang Gong. I forgot to ask your name before. As neighboring seats, please give me lots of guidance in the future.”
“I’m the one.”
Liang Gong smiled a bit shyly, hesitated for a moment, then seemed to steel his resolve and spoke up: “Classmate Xiang Chuan, that round food you gave me before—what was the thing inside?”
“Hm?”
Xiang Chuan was stunned. Buns were handed out casually; she couldn’t remember which kind she gave him.
“You mean the bun, right? What’s up, didn’t it suit your taste? Currently I can only make these three kinds of fillings…”
“No, that bao… bun was extremely delicious!”
Liang Gong, afraid she’d misunderstand, hurriedly explained. He was so anxious his face turned red.
“I thought it was extremely delicious, but I didn’t know what the thing inside was. It had a salty taste but was very fragrant, so I was really curious…”
The more he spoke, the lower his head dropped. Asking about a recipe involved intellectual property rights public authorization, which was equivalent to inquiring about the other party’s personal privacy or even commercial secrets. But Liang Gong really cared too much and couldn’t hold back his curiosity, so he asked directly. Now that he came back to his senses, he felt like retreating.
“Hm…” Xiang Chuan tilted her head and thought. Revealing just the main filling should be fine. Just as Liang Gong was about to apologize and leave, she directly announced the answer: “The detailed recipe involves authorization to Father’s company, so I can’t tell you, but I can tell you the main filling.”
It’s actually okay?! Liang Gong jerked his head up, looking at her gratefully as if seeing God. The chatting girls nearby and Ouyang Yating couldn’t help turning their heads to pay attention.
“The round food is called a bun. I had our little kitch… uh, that is, the kitchen AI prepare three kinds of fillings according to the recipe. The main ingredients are Chinese cabbage, chicken, and beef respectively. Ah, Chinese cabbage is that white rose-shaped green vegetable. I just handed out two randomly to everyone, so I don’t remember which one you got. By the way, the triangular ones are also buns, with sugar as the filling.”
White rose-shaped green vegetable? Beef? Chicken??
Not only did Liang Gong’s eyes widen; the several girls in the seats to the left and Ouyang Yating all looked at each other in bewilderment.
“White rose-shaped green vegetable and chicken… is that the taste…?”
One girl couldn’t help voicing her inner thought, and the others nodded in agreement. In their impression, Chinese cabbage was all dry and tough solid food, with the only difference being slightly higher sweetness than other green vegetables, tasting sweet and silky when eaten.
“If you don’t believe it, you can go back, wash a piece of Chinese cabbage and bite into it to try, or use boiling water… that is, boiling water to boil clean Chinese cabbage for two minutes, then add 5 grams of salt. The taste boiled this way is pretty much the same as the Chinese cabbage you ate.”
Xiang Chuan directly gave them a verification method, silencing the crowd again. Seeing the shocked looks from people on both sides staring at her, Xiang Chuan was puzzled: “What’s wrong?”
“You… sigh…”
Ouyang Yating couldn’t help standing up and pointing at her, but got stuck and retracted her hand, slumping back down in exhaustion.
“Classmate Xiang Chuan,” Liang Gong said quietly, “you just revealed the entire food manufacturing process.”
“Ah?”
Xiang Chuan was stunned, then realized: oh right, she seemed to have just explained how to make Chinese cabbage soup.
But it was just Chinese cabbage soup! With green vegetables, water, and salt, anyone could make it—what personal information privacy was that!
Thinking this, Xiang Chuan went all in: “It’s just Chinese cabbage soup, no big deal. Anyway, it wouldn’t sell for much money. Just consider it authorized by me to you all.”
With that, she skillfully pulled out her terminal, brought up the authorization form, skillfully filled in the project, and slid it to send to the surrounding classmates in a group. She’d repeated this process countless times last week and was very familiar with it.
Ouyang Yating and Liang Gong stared blankly at the authorization form flying in front of them, which detailed the ingredients and cooking process. This casual authorization excessively challenged their sixteen years of impression of the Third Fleet’s strict protective measures for food privacy.
“Ah, the class bell rang. Hurry back to your seats.” Xiang Chuan urged, not forgetting to add: “Drink more Chinese cabbage soup; it’s good for the body. Drink more soup when you can.”
While Xiang Chuan had left her neighboring classmates speechless, Lin Minzhi was sitting in the Director of Cultural Bureau’s office, looking at the application form and message sent by her daughter, lost in thought. Finally, she dialed her husband’s communication number.
[Buzz… Minzhi? What’s up?]
On the screen, Xiang Weiguo’s expression was a bit surprised. His wife was always strict with herself and usually didn’t contact him outside rest time, but today she broke the rule once, which meant it was urgent.
“I just received a message from Xiao Chuan. She wants to start a club.”
[Ah? Oh?]
Even though Xiang Weiguo was used to his wife’s direct way of getting to the point all these years, this still shocked him quite a bit.
Start a club? Start a new high school club? Could it be…
[Is it about ancient food?]
Lin Minzhi nodded: “She just sent me the application form.”
[Hm…]
Xiang Weiguo touched his chin and frowned.
This matter—neither big nor small.
After all, it was just a high school club. In fact, many high school students chose majors for further education in their third year of high school that differed from the clubs they joined in high school, so high school clubs mainly served to develop students’ abilities outside academics rather than limiting their specialties, hobbies, or ideals.
But establishing a high school club involved influence on the Third Fleet’s education system, and moreover, his little daughter’s chosen direction was ancient food-related, so the audit would definitely be much stricter than for ordinary clubs.
“For ancient history, I can get the Historical Research Institute to provide proof.” Lin Minzhi said. With the favor from the film and TV clip authorization, the Historical Research Institute would definitely be willing to give her and Xiang Chuan face. “The problem is the Education Bureau audit. You know how strict our fleet is with food knowledge audits.”
[Yeah, our yam application here is also dragging on because of that.] At this point, Xiang Weiguo couldn’t help rubbing his temples. If not for the eatery project keeping the board and departments busy, they’d probably be on edge over the yam audit right now. [But high school club applications shouldn’t be that complicated. How about trying a direct approach?]
“Direct approach?” Lin Minzhi thought for a moment, understood her husband’s meaning, and couldn’t help laughing: “That’s really your style, but you’re right. The direct approach is always the most straightforward and effective.”
[Xiao Chuan finally has some direction in life. As parents, we should help where we can.] On the screen, Xiang Weiguo also smiled. [This child has been like her life passion was ignited ever since she contacted the information turbulence—much livelier than before.]
“Yeah.” Mentioning her daughter’s change, Lin Minzhi felt doubly gratified. “Since she wants to do it, let’s let her go all out.”
After briefly chatting with her husband about the afternoon off-work arrangements, Lin Minzhi closed the communication with Xiang Weiguo and opened Lisa’s communication:
“—Lisa, help me send a communication appointment request to the Education Bureau Director.”
Fixed some typos from earlier chapters, thanks to reader Four-Dimensional Fire Rain for catching bugs.
