Chapter 168

Free meals turned out to be more delicious.

Xiao Qi felt that this meal was the most satisfying meal she had eaten since she came to Enhua.

Not to mention the fresh ingredients, the quality was also extremely good, and the seasoning was also very suitable and smooth.

The steak was basically unseasoned, it should have only been salted before roasting, very naturally giving off the aroma of beef and that juice. When chewing, the meat juice burst in the mouth, without any fishy smell at all, leaving fragrance on the lips and teeth.

The accompanying thick soup and toasted bread were also perfect.

Even the final vegetable salad was very good, just a little less salad, the vegetables were all sweet, juicy and crispy.

Eating was very satisfying.

This meal would cost more than 200 yuan, after eating, Xiao Qi saw the 200 yuan the boss sent, very intimate, just for this meal, it would be worth it even without money.

While in the office, Xiao Shengzhou and Xiao Yu had been waiting until the little girl finished eating and left before coming out. The two couldn't wait to order a bowl of noodles and a steak.

They felt that today's food seemed to be especially delicious, and both of them were full, feeling bloated. Not knowing before trying, only after tasting it personally did they understand how much that little girl could eat.

"Looking at how that little girl eats, her etiquette is quite good, doesn't look like someone coming to work and study. But eating so much, could it be that she has taken a liking to eating here? What an appetite." Xiao Yu leaned back in his chair, unwilling to move. He couldn't finish that last mouthful of vegetable salad no matter what.

While Xiao Shengzhou still had half a bowl of noodles left, also because he ate too quickly he was even burping, with slight sweat on his forehead.

"She can really eat. It's not easy to raise such a girl with a big appetite."

Xiao Yu originally had a dinner appointment tonight, but after eating his fill here, looking at the time, he had to leave, or he would be late.

In a hurry, he went to get in the car and left.

A turquoise sports car, very flashy.

As he drove, he came across Enhua's school bus, and saw the girl by the window was precisely that little girl from just now. The setting sun shone on her flushed face, her hair was blown messy by the wind, smiling foolishly by herself, a full mouth of teeth, eyes narrowed.

He somehow couldn't get that image out of his head, all the way the picture kept popping up in his mind.

Smiling so foolishly, so f*cking foolish.

After Xiao Qi returned to the old district with a full stomach, she was in an especially good mood. Back at the dormitory, Yunshu and Wei Cheng had both returned. Hearing Xiao Qi say there was lots of delicious food available for free,

Wei Cheng said longingly, "How nice!"

That seemed to be her catchphrase.

How regretful that she didn't go to the horse farm today. The film club she signed up for was very boring, just gathering to introduce which movies would be shown on which days. The school had many screening rooms, and new club members had to do work to maintain order in the screening rooms. Wei Cheng was also assigned tasks, which was quite good in one way, allowing her to watch movies for free, and she could also apply to show movies she liked. If approved by the higher-ups, they could be screened.

"Next time you guys want to watch a movie, you can all tell me, I'll help apply for you, then we can go watch movies together." Saying this, she sighed again, "How nice!"

She was happy with herself.

Yunshu's flower arranging club was clearly fruitful as well.

She was already arranging flowers, taking the flowers from her original vase, snipping here and there, not cherishing them one bit, leaving every flower bald. "Mi'er said the student council has a dinner tonight, so she won't be back." Yunshu said.

Xiao Qi nodded, having guessed it would be so. The student council seemed to have a lot of dinners.

Since there was still time, Xiao Qi practiced her handwriting first. Calligraphy practice was basically the easiest way to calm her emotions and focus on studying. After half an hour of practice, she then started doing English worksheets.

After finishing one test paper, Xiao Qi went downstairs to go jogging. At this time, after jogging she might be able to come back and take a quick shower, then hurry to evening self-study session.

Although the dorm lights were off, there still weren't many students at the evening self-study.

Less than half. Some were probably participating in club or student council activities, some didn't know where they went. There were quite a lot of club activities at university after all.

Xiao Qi used the self-study time to complete the accounting teacher's homework, since they had just started, it was quite simple. There was only one class a week for Introduction to Basic Principles of Marxism, and the teacher assigned them to write a related article. Looking at the classroom more than half empty, Xiao Qi actually felt this state of university was quite interesting. University was really not like high school, high school mainly focused on studying for exams, while university was not like that. It seemed to emphasize different points, she wanted to write about these things, but felt she didn't have enough collected materials yet.

In the dorm room, Wei Cheng and Yunshu had both come to self-study too. Wei Cheng was also doing homework and previewing, while Yunshu was still reading novels, spending most of her day reading.

After the first self-study class, Xiao Qi had basically completed the homework assigned by the teacher. She didn't want to stay in the classroom either, and went to find her roommates.

"I want to go to the English corner, are you going?"

Yunshu shook her head, she didn't like chatting with strangers. Wei Cheng was quite interested, she was interested in anything new.

So Xiao Qi went with Wei Cheng to the English corner, while Yunshu felt bored alone in the classroom and went back to the dorm first.

Today was Tuesday. Following the address on the notice board at the dorm entrance, Wei Cheng and Xiao Qi arrived at Nanguan Building.

The English corner at Nanguan Building was held on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

It was easy to find, with arrow signs at the entrance. When they went in, it was quite lively inside, with a group chatting. Xiao Qi and Wei Cheng each pulled over a small stool and squeezed into the big circle.

Sure enough there was a foreign teacher. Xiao Qi was a bit excited. The foreign teacher sat opposite her, because the seats closest to the foreign teacher were too crowded to squeeze into.

But sitting face to face gave a good view. This foreign teacher had a completely different style from their oral English teacher Betty. Betty gave off the vibe of a busty blonde American chick, whereas the foreign teacher before her was very tall, with long legs. Her hair was brown, tied in a bun to reveal a smooth forehead. Small, oval face, very fair skin. She wore a shirt on top, sports shorts below, little boots.

Very long calves, beautifully muscular too.

She was definitely over 175cm tall.

Her English was more British. When Xiao Qi and Wei Cheng came in, the student beside them was talking to her. Seeing the newcomers, she smiled and nodded at Xiao Qi.

Xiao Qi and Wei Cheng just sat down, listening for a while. There were many other students around them too, who didn't speak, just listening attentively.

Although the aim of the English corner was to develop everyone's oral proficiency, it seemed many still couldn't open their mouths.

At the moment, the foreign teacher was chatting with the person beside her about some food, in summary, the difference between pancakes and pizza. That student seemed to want to say Chinese pancakes were very delicious, with unique flavor, something like that.

Wei Cheng was eager to speak several times, but opened then shut her mouth again, too shy.

Xiao Qi heard the foreign teacher ask, "...I heard you have a very famous pancake seller called Wu Dalang."

Wu Dalang rendered phonetically in pinyin brought roars of laughter from many who understood.

After all, the Wu Dalang meme was known to all Chinese. They didn't expect the foreign teacher to know it too, giving a sense of connection.

At this moment, Xiao Qi felt that if Mi'er was beside her, whether Mi'er knew English or not, she would have started chattering away, expressing herself through body language if need be.

Of the roommates, Mi'er was the liveliest and boldest.

Both she and Wei Cheng were a bit insecure.

If Mi'er was here, she would probably dare to join in speaking too. But as this thought arose, Xiao Qi was taken aback. She had only known Mi'er for a short time, yet had already come to rely on her like this in her heart. Not having her around, she didn't even dare to open her mouth. Xiao Qi felt this was wrong. It was great to have a friend always willing to push you, but she couldn't truly rely on her for everything either. Mi'er had her own life too, like tonight she was at the student council meeting and not with them.

Xiao Qi's English was not bad, and her spoken English was also good. Teaching a few students over the summer vacation would be no problem. In order not to be timid in front of the students, after all Grace's English was very good too, she studied even harder. She didn't need to be timid, even if she said something wrong, after all it wouldn't cost her anything, losing face didn't matter much either, since nobody knew each other anyway, and Wei Cheng wouldn't laugh at her either.

Thinking this way, Xiao Qi opened her mouth and greeted, "Teacher Grace..." The teacher's name was written on the door when she came in earlier, Grace.

"Wu Dalang comes from a famous classical Chinese novel Water Margin. I didn't expect you to know about him, your knowledge is really extensive. Regarding Wu Dalang, he himself was short and ugly looking, probably similar to the Hunchback of Notre Dame. His profession was selling pancakes. He had a very beautiful wife, whose name was Jin Lian. She committed adultery and murdered him. He had a very capable younger brother, who sought revenge for him after finding out what happened. Because the story is so famous, some shops are named after Wu Dalang, like Wu Dalang pancakes."

Teacher Grace listened very attentively, because the students' English levels varied greatly, if she didn't listen carefully, sometimes she couldn't understand what the students were saying at all.

She didn't expect the new female student to speak such a long paragraph, very fluent, with good language sense, no stuttering at all. She understood everything.

She was even praised by the student for being knowledgeable, students usually only praised her for having a nice name, being tall, beautiful, but rarely for being erudite.

"There is a very tasty Wu Dalang pancake shop in the new district. Although there's no cheese added, the taste is perfect, I don't know what's added to make it so delicious. Chinese cuisine is so amazing, another example is hot pot, although we don't eat internal organs, but cooking vegetables in the spicy broth is great, extremely spicy, you know it will lead to pimples, but it's still addictive. Hot pot is another magical Chinese cuisine." Grace spoke excitedly in one breath.

The other students could only understand a few words like Wu Dalang pancakes, hot pot, as they were transliterations, but they didn't really understand most of what was said.

Xiao Qi had already picked up on the topic: "Actually Chinese cuisine is very simple, take Wu Dalang pancakes for example, you can make them yourself if you have an oven at home."

Thinking that foreigners are more sensitive towards numbers and data, Xiao Qi went on: "First you need 500g of flour, 5g of yeast, an egg, 20g of white sugar, 50g of salad oil, 200g of pure milk, mix them together into dough, let it rest until the dough has doubled in size, then roll the dough into strips and cut into small pieces, flatten them out, shape them how you like, then spread minced meat on both sides, put them on a baking sheet."

Xiao Qi spoke a long string of instructions without any stuttering or hesitation, especially when it comes to cooking, she was quite knowledgeable.

The students around heard her chatter on and on, most had no idea what she was saying anymore, probably some numbers and measurements, but Grace listened attentively. She was very curious about Chinese cuisine, being able to cook one or two dishes herself and bring them back would be awesome.

She listened carefully this time because she was interested, not because she was afraid of missing something and not being able to communicate properly, so her expression was especially animated.

"Then I can just bake them directly? Do I need baking paper?" Grace asked.

"No need for baking paper, but you still need to brush some salad oil, and sprinkle white sesame seeds, chili powder, that's the soul of Chinese BBQ, and hot pepper powder, the spice that's in the hot pot you like, you can add more or less according to your own taste. Bake at 200 degrees for 20 minutes in the oven and it's done."

"That's awesome, I can almost smell the aroma it seems." Grace acted dramatically, sniffing with her nose, looking as if it really smelled and tasted delicious.

Everyone else laughed too.

The speed was too fast and content too much at the beginning of the English corner, some people still felt it was a bit inappropriate for the new student to speak directly with Teacher Grace. But after Xiao Qi spoke such a long string of sentences, everyone turned to admiration.

Most of the students at the English corner were actually English majors, including freshmen English majors. They recognized Xiao Qi as the student who held up the class sign during freshman registration, from the business school. They didn't expect her English to be so good, much better than them English majors.

The ones who came here were usually freshmen and sophomores. Juniors were already old birds on campus, rarely came. Seniors were busy preparing for internships and graduation, slowly separating from campus activities, so they wouldn't come either.

Xiao Qi chatted with the teacher for so long, she also realized this was an English corner, with many people, so she didn't continue dominating the conversation. She accommodated others by bringing up some simple topics, a technique she learned as a tutor, because she had to teach 7 students, when teaching she had to engage everyone, since their English levels varied. Xiao Qi conversed deeper with Grace, and more shallowly with others.

This way, besides admiration, others also grew fond of her, thinking this girl had a great personality.

Wei Cheng didn't expect her roommate Xiao Qi to be so amazing, full of admiration, she also stuttered a few sentences, very excited.

As the bell rang for end of night self-study, the English corner activity also came to an end, great success, no awkward silences, even the shyest ones said a sentence or two.

At the end, Grace called Xiao Qi over.

She asked if Xiao Qi was willing to teach her to cook delicious food. Xiao Qi agreed.

Grace said she wanted to host a dinner party for friends at home on Sunday, and asked Xiao Qi to come, and bring some friends along.

"Su, you must come." Grace took the initiative to add Xiao Qi on WeChat, calling her by last name since she didn't have an English name.

Xiao Qi realized foreigners were different from them, they seemed to skip the polite song and dance in between, if they wanted something they would directly make the request, asking the other party sincerely.

Regarding cooking skills, Xiao Qi was quite confident, plus she hadn't cooked for herself at all since coming to university, her hands were itching to get back in the kitchen.

She told Grace she wanted to bring her roommate along, so 4 people total.

Grace welcomed them.