Chapter 451 - 449: Cooking with Dad
Hearing Lin Xi’s words, Lin Zhenhai raised his eyebrows slightly. His daughter wants to cook for him? How rare.
Lin Xi pushed the shopping cart, wandering through the ingredients section. She bought some greens, ribs, and steak, along with carrots and lotus root. Carrot and lotus root rib soup. Hmm, I make that best.
After picking out the ingredients, Lin Xi hooked her arm around Lin Zhenhai’s. "Dad, we’ve got everything. Let’s go back."
"Not shopping anymore?" Lin Zhenhai asked in surprise.
Lin Xi blinked. "I’ve bought everything I need."
"You... aren’t you going to buy clothes or bags?" He remembered that Lin Xi’s favorite things to buy were clothes, bags, and jewelry. Her room seemed to be filled with them.
"I’m not buying those today. I want to cook a meal for you, Dad. And I’m making it myself!"
"Can you cook?" It wasn’t that Lin Zhenhai didn’t believe his daughter. It was just that he had always raised her like a princess. Tasks like grocery shopping and cooking were always done by Auntie Shen. If she ever wanted to try her hand at it, it was just for fun, not like now, where she was behaving just like someone from an ordinary family.
Lin Zhenhai looked at the other shoppers pushing their full carts. An ordinary family... That doesn’t seem so bad. Some things aren’t worth insisting on.
"Weren’t you supposed to take me out to buy a gift for the Xue family?" Lin Zhenhai suddenly remembered.
"Xue Yang said we just need to show up; we don’t need to bring anything."
"Nonsense. It’s proper etiquette to bring a gift when you’re attending a banquet."
"There’s still time, so we can buy it later. It’s not urgent. Let’s go."
In the end, Lin Zhenhai was practically dragged back to the hotel by his daughter. He didn’t even get a moment’s rest before she pulled him into the hotel’s kitchen and borrowed a stove.
"Dad, come help me. Wash the carrots and greens while I start the soup," Lin Xi ordered without a hint of politeness.
Lin Zhenhai was speechless. He was skipping important meetings and ignoring multi-billion dollar contracts to be his daughter’s assistant? And for something as trivial as cooking, no less. If word of this got out, no one would believe it.
"Dad, hurry up and wash them," Lin Xi urged, personally tying an apron around him.
"Hey, you..."
"Today, you have to listen to me." Lin Xi placed the vegetables in front of him.
Looking at the vegetables and his daughter’s expectant gaze, Lin Zhenhai said helplessly, "Aren’t you supposed to be cooking for me? How did this turn into me being your helper?"
Lin Xi blinked. "Well, I can’t manage all by myself."
In truth, she probably could have managed. Lin Xi just wanted to cook with her dad. Growing up, she had never cooked with him, and now that she had the chance, she wasn’t going to miss it.
Resigned, Lin Zhenhai could only help his daughter.
The father and daughter got to work, one washing vegetables while the other blanched the ribs and put them in the pot. Although it was their first time working together, they coordinated perfectly, as if they had done it countless times before.
After adding the ribs, Lin Xi prepared to chop the carrots and lotus root.
Seeing her pick up the knife, Lin Zhenhai furrowed his brow. "Do you know how to chop?"
"If I don’t know, I can learn." In truth, she really wasn’t very good at chopping vegetables and was a little afraid of knives.
"Never mind, I’ll do it." Lin Zhenhai decided to take over. He would be heartbroken if his daughter got hurt.
"Oh, Dad, why are you just like Xue Yang? You don’t trust me either?"
"He’s said that before?" Lin Zhenhai asked.
"Yes, he never lets me cook. I secretly learned how to make the rib soup from him, and Auntie Shen taught me the other dishes."
"Is this the kind of life you enjoy?"
Lin Xi stood to one side, watching her dad chop vegetables. His chopping technique is just like Xue Yang’s. It’s just... his cuts aren’t as neat. Some pieces are big and some are small; they’re not uniform at all.
"I just enjoy spending time with family, even if it’s just making a simple meal. Is Dad unhappy right now?"
"You little rascal, you’re trying to make a point, aren’t you?"
"Well, someone’s always so busy."
"I can’t help being busy. It’s a mission that members of the Lin family must shoulder. In the future... you will have to as well."
"I don’t want to be like Dad, traveling all over the place all the time."
Lin Zhenhai paused, slightly startled. This little rascal...
"They’re chopped. Do these go into the soup?" Lin Zhenhai asked.
"Yep."
Hearing her, Lin Zhenhai added all the carrots and lotus root to the pot to simmer with the ribs, then he put the lid on. Next, it was time to prepare the other dishes. The steak was pre-prepared and only needed to be seared. There was also a dish of greens. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for the two of them.
The head chef had been hesitating nearby for a long time. When he saw Lin Zhenhai take out a pre-packaged steak, he could no longer hold back and approached them. "Chairman, we have top-quality steaks here. Would you like any?"
"What kind of steaks do you have?"
"We have filet mignon, snowflake steak, tomahawk steak..." The head chef listed all the most expensive steaks the hotel offered.
"Snowflake steak... that’s not a bad choice," Lin Zhenhai mused.
"Do you need any other dishes?" The head chef couldn’t quite understand the chairman and his daughter. The hotel had every ingredient imaginable, so why did they need to go out and buy their own? They could have just asked for anything they wanted. Then again, perhaps this was just how wealthy people thought. After all, if they were content to just use the hotel’s ingredients, there would be no need for them to cook at all. They could just eat the food prepared by the hotel kitchen.
"These dishes are enough. Any more and we won’t be able to finish it."
Hearing this, the head chef decided not to disturb the father and daughter’s time together any longer.
"Dad, this steak looks good, hehe."
After getting the steak, Lin Xi began to prepare it. Once it was ready, she started searing it while Lin Zhenhai watched from the side. At that moment, he seemed to see a familiar figure in her movements. Someone... he hadn’t seen in a very long time. If only her personality had been half as gentle as Xiao Xi’s, perhaps they... wouldn’t have ended up in this situation today.
An hour later, all the dishes were ready, and Jiawen Li’s meeting had also just concluded. When she saw the food on the chairman and the Princess’s dining table, she was dumbfounded. Steak with rib soup? What a strange East-meets-West combination.
"Sister Li, would you like to eat with us? I cooked it myself!" Lin Xi said with a grin.
"The Princess cooked this?" Jiawen Li was even more surprised.
"Yes, eat with us."
Jiawen Li wanted to try the Princess’s cooking, but she worried it wasn’t her place to do so. She glanced at Lin Zhenhai, and only after he gave a slight nod did she dare to sit down.
Just as Lin Xi was about to serve her some soup, Jiawen Li quickly said, "Princess, I can get it myself."