Grandma Qiao noticed that Qiao Wanqing hadn’t gotten up yet, so she put some porridge in the rice cooker and went to the fields to help pick vegetables, knowing that Qiao Wanqing would just need to cook once she was up.

By the time she finished and returned, it was already past eight, and she was surprised to smell something burning coming from the kitchen.

Rushing in, she was met with a scene that made her both laugh and cry.

Gu Yanqing, in a somewhat pitiful state, was attempting to make breakfast.

Since he probably didn’t know how to light a fire, he was using an induction cooker.

When Grandma Qiao walked in, he was trying to fry an egg, but it was beyond salvageable—it could only be called a burnt pancake at this point.

One side was charred black while the other was still raw.

He was awkwardly using a spatula to flip it over.

Meanwhile, Kou Kou loved to watch his mom cook, so she had placed a square plastic stool in the kitchen just for him to stand on and observe the cooking.

Now, he had pushed the stool next to the induction cooker, holding a small bowl and banging it with a spoon, excitedly watching his dad cook the egg, drooling all over his clothes.

Gu Yanqing turned off the induction cooker, frustrated as he stared at the burnt egg.

When he saw Grandma Qiao enter, he exclaimed, “Why can’t this egg cook properly? The top isn’t solid at all, and if I flip it, it breaks apart, but if I don’t, it burns!”

Gu Yanqing never expected that despite his success in the business world, he would struggle so much with a simple fried egg, unable to make it tender on the inside and crispy on the outside.

The egg yolk flowed out on its own, quickly scattering and unable to hold its shape, let alone become a fried egg.

Because she had exerted herself too much last night, Qiao Wanqing was extremely tired today, her whole body sore and lacking the energy to get up and cook.

Gu Yanqing volunteered, but he ended up struggling just to fry an egg.

Kou Kou saw his dad scraping out the burnt egg and eagerly reached for a small bowl to catch it, but his dad scooped it away again.

Kou Kou pouted and said, “Daddy, Kou Kou is hungry~”

Grandma Qiao washed her hands and said, “Let me do it. I’ll make some porridge, and Kou Kou can have some to drink first.”

Although Gu Yanqing wanted to show off his skills and demonstrate his boyfriend prowess, reality defeated him mercilessly, so he could only obediently feed Kou Kou porridge.

Qiao Wanqing only got up for breakfast, and now that Kou Kou was a bit older, he had acquired a new skill: complaining.

He grabbed Qiao Wanqing’s hand and stammered, “Daddy, Daddy’s egg, egg is broken!”

Gu Yanqing who was blowing on the steamed egg that Grandma Qiao made for Kou Kou, was speechless.

Even though he knew Kou Kou was trying to tell his mom something, it sounded a bit odd.

Gu Yanqing noticed something was off, and Qiao Wanqing, who had read plenty of light novels, also caught the strange tone.

She couldn’t help but laugh and asked Kou Kou, “How did Daddy’s egg break?”

Kou Kou tilted his head and thought for a moment, trying to find the right words.

After a while, his eyes lit up as he exclaimed, “Boiled, boiled!”

“Eat the egg,” Gu Yanqing spooned the egg into Kou Kou’s mouth, covering his lips, and gently scratched his nose, saying, “You’re so young and already telling tales, little troublemaker.”

“Daddy is a big, big troublemaker!” Kou Kou shot back defiantly.

“……”

Qiao Wanqing didn’t expect Gu Yanqing to make anything delicious.

In her eyes, he couldn’t even start a fire, so she was surprised he knew how to use the induction cooker.

It seemed he wasn’t completely hopeless in the kitchen.

“Mr. Gu, what kind of terrifying egg did you make that made your son feel the need to report you?” she asked teasingly.

“It just got scrambled,” Gu Yanqing said, feeling that admitting it would damage his impressive image.

But seeing Qiao Wanqing’s skeptical expression, he added, “And it got a bit burnt.”

So not only did he ruin the fried egg, but he also burnt it.

If he were cooking in a large pot, Qiao Wanqing could understand that Gu Yanqing might struggle with the heat, but with the induction cooker… their induction pot was quite thick; it took some skill to actually burn something.

Still, new cooks needed encouragement, so Qiao Wanqing said, “Not bad, very impressive. At least you didn’t start a fire.”

“……” That didn’t sound much like a compliment at all.

Lu Yunfei and the others headed back in the afternoon.

Qiao Wanqing didn’t have much to send her off with, so she bought a few pounds of wild honey from the village for her to drink, good for her complexion, and also, despite Gu Yanqing’s dark mood, sent her two pounds as well.

Days passed, and the owner of the land in front finally softened his stance, but they wanted 180 per square meter, which Qiao Wanqing thought was too high.

After some negotiation, they settled on a price of 170.

Building the greenhouse wouldn’t be cheap, especially with such a large area; the costs could rival constructing a house.

Since the weather was still warm, Qiao Wanqing decided to put this matter on hold and revisit it when it cooled down.

…

September arrived quickly, and the training at the agricultural platform was finally set to begin.

With everything at home sorted out, as for the vegetarian restaurant, to be safe, Qiao Wanqing followed Gu Yanqing’s advice and hired a manager to specifically handle the restaurant’s affairs.

She originally planned to bring Grandma Qiao to the city to take care of Kou Kou while she attended classes, but when Madam Gu heard about it, she happily offered to come over and help with the child.

As a noblewoman, she didn’t have to work and mostly spent her time socializing with her wealthy friends at various upscale venues, so helping to take care of Kou Kou was no trouble at all.

Although Qiao Wanqing still felt a bit uneasy staying with Madam Gu, she couldn’t refuse her good intentions.

After all, relationships between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law take time to develop, and Grandma Qiao wasn’t comfortable living in the city, so she felt at ease leaving Kou Kou with her.

Qiao Wanqing’s class schedule was quite tight, running from 8 AM to 12 PM and then from 2 PM to 6 PM, totaling eight hours a day.

She thought there would be very few participants in the training, but it turned out everyone had the ambition to get rich, as the training was filled with four full classes, ranging from elderly people in their fifties and sixties wearing reading glasses to students still in vocational school.

Later, she learned that these participants didn’t just come from their county; there were recruits from surrounding counties near City C as well.

The promotional materials talked about building an e-commerce town, and she initially thought it was only a project for their county.

No wonder the training was being held in City C.

On the first day, the host motivated everyone and held an opening ceremony.

The project was quite significant, and even the local TV station from City C was present, which made Qiao Wanqing believe in its quality a bit more.

After all that, around eleven o’clock, they received a basic assessment test to gauge their skill levels for class placement.

Those with weaker foundations would start in the beginner class, while those with some knowledge would move on to more advanced topics.

Recently, Qiao Wanqing had been cramming a lot of knowledge about e-commerce, and surprisingly, the exam wasn’t very difficult for her, even though she had hardly any prior exposure to it.

By the afternoon, the test results were out, and the organizers divided the classes into beginner and advanced levels.

As an e-commerce novice, Qiao Wanqing was fortunate enough to be placed in the advanced class.

However, she soon faced her first challenge: she didn’t understand a lot of what the teacher was explaining and often found herself only partially grasping the concepts.

This feeling was quite frustrating for her.

Sometimes she couldn’t keep up with the teacher’s train of thought; while she was still stuck on one question, the teacher had already moved on to the next.

She felt too embarrassed to admit that she didn’t understand when the teacher asked if everyone was following along.

It seemed like none of her classmates had this issue—except for half of them who were dozing off.

Her deskmate looked to be around 20, bright and cheerful, and compared to her, this girl seemed to be operating on another level.

Not only was she actively listening and taking notes, but she could also immediately raise her hand to answer the teacher’s questions.

Qiao Wanqing felt the stark difference between a struggling student and a top student.

She hadn’t been this lost in school; she used to earn scholarships every semester. So why was she struggling now?

Was it really the saying that switching fields was like crossing mountains, or was it the legendary… “pregnancy makes you stupid for three years”?

After class, while Qiao Wanqing was hesitating to approach the girl for advice, the girl took the initiative to talk to her: “Hi, hello! Are you also a recent graduate?”

“Not really… my child is almost two years old.”

“Wow, you look so young and beautiful!” The girl smiled, her eyes sparkling. “I’m Chen Yu. Nice to meet you!”

“Qiao Wanqing.” Qiao Wanqing showed her name on the textbook.

“Not only are you pretty, but your name is also so sweet!” Chen Yu said with a charming smile. “What did you major in at university?”

“…Biological engineering.”

Thinking back on her four years in college, Qiao Wanqing realized that although she studied hard, she felt like she hadn’t learned much.

Their school treated biological engineering as microbiology, so there were very few applicable skills learned.

The major courses were mixed with chemistry and physics courses, leading to a bunch of formulas to memorize.

Unless you were a top student aiming for graduate school, it was hard to find a relevant job afterward.

“That doesn’t really relate to e-commerce,” Chen Yu said. “When I first signed up, I thought my logistics major was already quite unrelated, but it turns out I might actually be more relevant than I thought. Let me tell you, I was shocked to see so many elderly people this morning!”

“However, I was also tricked into coming here by my teacher. She told us this was an entrepreneurship class, and considering how our school is, I figured it’d be hard to find a job after graduation, so I thought I’d give it a shot.”

Qiao Wanqing couldn’t argue with Chen Yu. After listening to her ramble on, she asked, “You haven’t graduated yet?”

“Pretty much. In our third year of college, we’re all out on internships. My teacher said taking classes here would count as internship credits, so I came.”

College students in their third year are usually around 20 years old, which explains why she can talk so freely.