The Onion-Cutting Ninja's Secret Crush

27 A Hundred Different Shapes

Xiao Ming glanced at Qian Huang again. For one, he wanted to make sure that his friend was still doing alright, and second, he couldn't help but wonder if there weren't any comments today. This was something he really wasn't used to anymore.

Back when they had started the channel, this had been the norm. Nobody had commented for the first two or three months. And even after that, it took quite a bit of time before they could expect regular comments. Their channel had really been a slow-growing one.

But that had been five years ago. By now, they had tenths of thousands of subscribers. Even if only one percent of them commented, there would still be too many comments for them to read. So not hearing Qian Huang pipe up even once to inject what somebody had mentioned in the comment section felt weird. Well, maybe Qian Huang wasn't doing well enough to even focus on the comments. He should continue and try to speed up. That way, Qian Huang could go and rest soon.

Thinking of that, Xiao Ming started with his introduction of the dish. "There are a lot of different types of buns and we've made quite a few here on the channel before. Just think of the figurative buns from two days ago, for example! But as you will remember, these buns were either steamed or maybe fried.

"Now, since I've already announced today's third dish as 'baked char siu buns' before, it won't come as a surprise to you that we will handle these buns a little differently. That's right: Instead of preparing the buns like usual, we will bake these in the oven." He smiled brightly, his eyes curving into small crescents. Since he had no idea what was actually going on in the comment section, he was still as relaxed as usual and could just continue.

"I've once again prepared the dough and the fillings already so we just need to shape the buns and then they can go into the oven. The process itself actually won't take that long." With that, he once again turned to the side and took two bowls, similar to the ones from before.

Back in the comments section, some viewers still hadn't given up bad-mouthing Xiao Ming.

Knight with a Bucket on His Head: [Prepared again! What a surprise! Or maybe it's best to say that it isn't a surprise if the person doing it can't actually cook?"

By now, some of the other regular viewers had had enough.

Cat Dancing on a Wire: [Upstairs, are you sure that you would be able to hold an impromptu presentation on the different types of frying? Because if you can't, you'd better shut up!]

The other user wasn't convinced of that reasoning though.

Knight with a Bucket on His Head: [Who says it's an impromptu presentation? Maybe it was scripted by somebody who knows about these things and he's just reading it off?]

Cat Dancing on a Wire: [If that was the case, you'd see his eyes move from side to side. But most of the time, he isn't even looking at the camera. He is shaping the buns. Or do you think that the text he's reading was engraved in them, huh?]

The other guy had to admit to himself that that was true but he still wasn't willing to give up. After making one comment, it was hard to just agree that it had been a stupid one. Wouldn't he look like an idiot then? Thus, he could only try to hold on and find another argument even though he was half-convinced that he might have been wrong.

Knight with a Bucket on His Head: [Then maybe he learned it by heart before. Anyway, being able to talk about the subject doesn't mean that you know anything about it. I remember when I went to school, I also had presentations about lots of things I didn't really understand.]

Another one of the regular viewers of Bright Yellow Water jumped in at that.

Food Enthusiast: [I see that one of the things you don't know anything about is cooking. The dough that Xiao Ming will be using for the baked char siu buns is a wet dough which is made with yeast. It needs to rest for at least thirty minutes to an hour depending on the room temperature before he can use it.