“So, I take that as a Yes?!” Yang Ling tried to push her luck for Jin’s reply, after which Jin kindly asked them to leave his store. Ku Wai, who always barked louder than his bite, for once did not say anything. Perhaps, he started to recognise Jin as a really talented dungeon supplier and if he made any more fuss, it might jeopardise Yang Ling’s chance of getting him to create a dungeon for her.
As the royal tiger princess went off, Yang Ling did not just leave things hanging. “Ku Wai, send some loyal men from the triad to continue to report his movements to me and protect him if necessary. He is a potentially valuable asset and I do not wish for other Royal Zodiacs to ever find him, nor my brothers.” Yang Ling commanded Ku Wai, which he acknowledged immediately.
On the way back home, Ku Wai called the Three Eye Tiger Triad Leader and told him about the series of developments that happened to Yang Ling and Jin. “I see, I see. If princess demands so, then all the more we would keep an eye out for this dungeon supplier. If her business prospers so will this triad, continue the good work Ku Wai. Keep me in touch.” San Ya Bai said as he put his phone down and returned to smoke his cigarette while keeping tab of his triad’s accounts in the middle of the night.
“Princess, you better produce some results fast, I can only keep both the expenses and secrecy of the project at bay for so long.” Ya Bai said as he let out a puff of his smoke and rubbed his temple after seeing the accounts.
Jin would never know that the day he met the Royal Zodiac Tiger Princess would kickstart a series of events that might shake the region or even the country. But till then, he was still a simple dungeon supplier with an upper hand.
————-
Zhen Qing was looking at her old culinary notes in her locked room in fear her drunken dad would barge in and make noise. If not for Jin’s kindness for allowing her to bring back the black ivory coffee, Zhen Qing would have been exhausted every day.
She knew this could not go on and hoped that Jin would be able to find a suitable cultivation for her. However, she also remembered that Jin told her to take some days off when necessary to do research on her food. Hence, it was also partially her fault that she did not wish to take any rest in between days.
Mainly because of one thing. She already signed a contract with Jin a few days ago when his store apparently turned about one month old. Jin gave her the choice of either a profit based contract or a salary based contract, at which point she immediately chose the former. The terms were simple and neatly explained, mainly because Xiong Da offered to create the wording of the contract based on both parties’ terms and conditions.
Upon signing the contract, Jin did not hesitate to even pay Zhen Qing half a month’s worth of salary based on the net profits she earned for him. It was as if he already knew that she would be choosing that and he had prepared the money in advance just for the moment she signed it.
Zhen Qing used to earn just enough to get by with rent and daily expenses with her street vendor cart. Not only that, she gave sufficient allowance for her jobless dad to eat but instead, he continued on drowning himself with beer and wallowed at the unfairness of life.
She hated him for that a lot, and really hoped that he would just rot and die for being such a useless bum. Not only did he gamble the allowance away, he always asked for more which constantly made Zhen Qing stressed out by the persistent extortion of more money.
If not for the fact that it was partially her fault that he became like this, she would have left him long ago. However, as months and years went by, she could not help but feel that she already repaid any debt she owed him.
Regardless with this new job that she attained, she managed to earn at least 3 months’ worth of salary and that was just half the salary, at the start of a possible rocketing career. Jin even told her that if she continued to succeed the way she did with the black pepper pork buns, he would create a service instance for her to open her own restaurant in the shop.
If Jin told Zhen Qing at first that he would want her as his head chef when he knew nothing about cooking, much less being in a different profession, Zhen Qing would not believe it. However now that she personally experienced dungeon instances, she had a totally different opinion. Zhen Qing had the opportunity to enter the Reservoir of the Deep Service Instance and tried Chef Roro’s sushi and was amazed by the quality of it.
It was unlike the cheesecake she ate, there was the feeling of hard work and effort being put into the sushi. Mainly because, the fish was extremely fresh and with the fisherwoman (herself) fighting to get the food, it made the food especially delicious. While Zhen Qing expected an AI NPC like Chef Roro to have such precise and accurate skills of cutting, what truly amazed her was his aptitude to adapt with different kinds of fish and making various dishes.
Hence, she was really excited about how Jin’s AI NPCs could help within the new restaurant instance. That also meant she did not have to suffer from aspiring apprentices, who just wanted to steal her skills and techniques, just so that they could make their own name out there. She could improve the AIs like how she did for the kitchen instance and they would be there to serve her loyally.
Hence, she was extremely happy to hear that she could open her own restaurant instance. To date, having the small caravan under her name made her secretly smile so Zhen Qing could not imagine what was it like to ever return to the cooking industry.
Perhaps, she could even help Jin attain a Michelin Star for the restaurant instance, the possibilities seemed to be endless with him around.
But right now, the most important thing was to get Jin’s request of creating a main dish be done as soon as possible to continue to prove her worth to him. And she guessed that she should whip out her speciality. The one she was known for, before she exited the cooking industry.
Ramen.
