Chapter 4 — The Sweet Taste After Criticism

The first day of filming for "Revival Quan Nho" fell on a Monday morning, when Mai had not yet finished her first cup of coffee, Tung appeared with two cameras, a light, and an excited expression as if preparing for a blockbuster premiere.

“We will film naturally,” Tung reassured, mounting the camera on the stand in the corner of the kitchen, “just work normally, don't pay attention to the lens.”

"Easy to say," Mai muttered, deliberately standing up straighter than usual in a forced way, causing Linh standing nearby to cover her mouth and laugh.

Kien walked in right after, carrying a small tool box, which contained an oven thermometer, a small scale, and a few measuring tools that Mai had never seen in any family bakery.

“Starting with the dough mixing process,” he said, placing the tool box on the table, “I want to see you make the same batch of cream puffs as usual, without changing anything.”

“Revealing all the family secrets for me to see?” Mai asked, half joking and half serious.

"I don't need to know the exact recipe," Kien replied, "I just need to observe the process, temperature, time. The recipe is your own business."

Mai got to work, trying to get used to the feeling of being watched every little gesture. She measured flour, beat eggs, and mixed cream in the same order that she had repeated thousands of times over the past three years, but this time, there were sharp eyes watching every move, making her more clumsy than usual.

“You beat the eggs a bit too fast,” Kien commented, standing not far away, arms crossed over his chest. “Air bubbles will be uneven, affecting the texture of the crust.”

"I've been doing this for three years now," Mai replied, not raising her head, trying to keep a steady pace even though she was starting to feel uncomfortable.

“Three years doesn't mean it's right,” Kien said bluntly, making Mai almost drop the whisk.

“You know,” she turned around, “talking like that can easily make people hate you?”

“I know,” Kien replied, calm and unfazed, “but I would rather be hated for telling the truth than liked for lying.”

That answer made Mai choke for a moment, not knowing whether to continue to be angry or laugh at this man's... admirable frankness. In the end, she chose to stay silent, slowing down the beating of the eggs according to the suggestions, although she still muttered a few unclear sentences expressing her resentment.

Tung, standing behind the camera, tried not to laugh at the constant "word fighting" between the two main characters of the series, thinking that this might be the most natural humorous material he had ever filmed, without any scripting needed.

The morning passed with a series of straightforward comments from Kien and half-laughing reactions from Mai - from the way she held the fruit knife at the "wrong angle", to the way the cake was displayed on the shelf "lacking aesthetics in color distribution", each comment made Mai want to argue back and admit that it was partly correct.

The climax occurred at noon, when Mai was busy arguing with Kien about whether it was necessary to accurately weigh each gram of flour or not, she forgot about the batch of almond cookies in the oven, leading to a thin smoke starting to rise along with a faint burning smell.

“The cake is on fire!” Linh shouted from the counter, causing both Mai and Kien to turn around in surprise.

Mai quickly rushed to open the oven and used her gloves to pull out the cake tray outside, but in his panic, he dropped the entire tray on the floor, causing burnt cookies to scatter all over the kitchen. One even shot straight into Kien's leg, who was standing nearby watching.

The space was silent for a second, only the "clack" sound of the falling cookie tray still echoed, before Kien bent down to pick up the burned cookie that hit his shoe, turned it around and observed with his usual serious expression.

“At least,” he said, his voice even, “this time you didn't hide it at the bottom of the tray.”

Mai stood frozen for a second at the unexpected joke coming from the man who never seemed to know how to joke, then couldn't help but burst out laughing, a burst of laughter that dispelled all the tension that had been pent up all morning.

“Are you just... joking?” she asked, still surprised.

“I'm not joking,” Kien replied, but the corners of his mouth slightly curled up in a way that Mai had never seen before, making that "not joking" sound unconvincing.

Linh, standing nearby and witnessing the whole thing, turned to whisper to Tung who was holding a camera to record that moment. “Hey, this scene should definitely be kept in the video, it's so cute and scary.”

Tung nodded repeatedly, thinking that this part would definitely be the most viral moment in the first episode, even though in the original script there was no plan for such a funny and sad situation.

In the afternoon, after cleaning up the burnt cookies and completing the new batch of cream puffs according to Kien's suggestions, the whole group sat down to rest, sharing a taste of the batch of cakes that had just come out of the oven.

“I have to admit,” Mai said, taking a bite of the cream puff, clearly feeling the difference compared to the previous day's disastrous batch - the crust was crispier, the filling was just right and no longer as thick as paste, "your suggestion is really effective."

“I already told you,” Kien replied, although his voice remained serious, his eyes when looking at her were a bit gentler than the stormy morning that had just passed.

The first day of cooperation did not end quite as smoothly as planned, but it opened up something that neither Mai nor Kien dared to name - a fragile understanding that had just rekindled, hidden behind a thorny shell of blunt comments and seemingly never-ending arguments.

Before leaving, Tung stopped at the door and turned to Kien with a questioning look. "Hey, I think you're different today. You don't usually make jokes like that."

“I don't make jokes,” Kien replied, carrying the toolbox on his shoulder. His voice tried to remain normal but his ears were a bit red, a detail that only Tung - his close friend for more than ten years - was observant enough to notice.

"Well, you said you don't make jokes," Tung shrugged, his voice full of meaning, "but your ears are red, do you want me to get a mirror?"

Kien glared at his friend, didn't answer, and quickly walked out to the parking lot, leaving Tung standing and smiling happily alone, thinking that this would definitely be a much more interesting series than what he originally imagined.

Meanwhile, inside the shop, Linh was also eagerly pulling Mai into the kitchen corner, her voice whispering with excitement. "You see, I'm not wrong. That guy looks like that but knows how to joke, and after joking, he looks at you like... I don't know how to describe it, but it's definitely not the look of a normal reviewer."

“You imagine It's too much," Mai replied, even though her face was equally red, she deliberately turned away to clean up the tools to avoid her best friend's judgmental eyes.

“If I were to imagine,” Linh pouted, “what was that moment when he picked up the burnt cake to play with? Which difficult reviewer would joke with a customer who is arguing with him?

Mai didn't answer, just bent down to clean the kitchen table, but her mind kept thinking back to that moment - the rare smile that flashed across Kien's always serious face, and the strange warm feeling that rose in her heart when she heard that seemingly innocuous joke.

In the evening, when preparing to close, Ms. Nga stopped by as usual. Listening to Linh recount the entire day's events with all the dramatic details added with salt, she couldn't help but laugh out loud.

“I told you,” she said, patting her daughter on the shoulder, “arguing is the first step of love.”

"Mom and Linh are exactly the same," Mai lamented, but in her heart, she couldn't deny that today, despite being full of turbulence with arguments and a batch of burnt cookies, was one of the workdays she felt most alive since taking over her mother's bakery.

That night, before going to sleep, Mai lay in bed, scrolling through a few behind-the-scenes photos that Linh had secretly taken and sent to the chat group during the day - there was a photo of Kien bending down to check the oven temperature with a highly concentrated expression, and there was a photo of the moment he held up a burning cookie with a rare fleeting smile. She stopped for a long time at that photo, her fingers unconsciously enlarging his face on the screen.

“What am I doing,” she muttered to herself, throwing the phone aside, pulling the blanket over her head as if she wanted to hide from her own thoughts.

But just a few seconds later, she reached for her phone again, opened the photo again, this time looking at it longer, letting a gentle, unconscious smile bloom on her lips amid the silent darkness of the room, an emotion that she knew she needed to be careful of, because the line between "collaborative partner" and something else seemed to be fading after just one tumultuous day at work.

On the other side of the city, in his small apartment, Kien was also sitting in front of his laptop, not to edit videos as usual, but to review the recording of Mai frantically dropping the cake tray, wondering why such a chaotic, burning-smelling moment made the corner of his mouth automatically curl up every time he watched it, a strange feeling that he had not felt for a long time, since the day he decided to live behind the cold shell of a strict reviewer. once allowed myself to experience again.