Woman of Intelligence (Book 2 in the series)

Chapter 45 (Part 2)

Riya switched the kitchen lights on. Every light was turned out every second. Liang was standing next to her while watching the lights turn on. Riya was so ready to started her first day. The others were only coming later because they were recovering from hangovers. She had to do everything by herself for a couple hours. Lucky, Liang was here next to her. All the lights were turned on. She looked at him with a smile.

"Are you ready to start making desserts?", she asked. 

Liang picked up a whisk. "I'm ready when you ever you are.", he said with confidence. 

Riya liked that confidence. She switched the ovens and the blast chillers on. They took out their coats and hooked them in one corner. Riya went to the storage room to collect the ingredients. Liang was collecting all the equipment he needed. 

"Moods, what are you making today?!", he shouted across the room. 

"Cupcakes and cakes.", she came out of the room, pulling a ten kilograms bag of cake flour. 

Liang came out with the bowls and spoons. He placed them on the counter and went to get more equipment. Riya came out with twenty kilograms bag of sugar. She placed it next to the flour back. Then she went to bring other ingredients. Liang came out with the last set of the equipment his needed. Riya came out with the cocoa powder, vanilla essence, baking powder and many other ingredients. She placed them on to the stations.

"There are some fresh berries and fruits in the fridge.", she pointed at the fridge behind her. 

"Okay. Do you have the recipes for the items?", he asked.

She picked put a big filled with papers inside. She mistakenly slammed the file on the counter. "The recipes and how to decorate the products are in here.", she pointed at the file.  

Liang was amazed by the height of the file. There was so much papers. "Wow."

"Don't worry, we not going all of them. I already put yellow stickers to indicate which cakes and cupcakes were are making today."

He felt much better. "Great, let's get started."

Both of them put their aprons on together. Then they were starting to rock and roll. Riya started weighing out all the ingredients. First she was making a lot of vanilla sponges. Liang was preparing the chocolate batter right now. It was half past four in the morning. The normal time for opening the café was seven o'clock but it was Riya's first day. She wanted to do a sales run for the day. 

She finished weighing on the ingredients. She was going to put them into the mixers. "This is so much fun. Not working with someone who is arrogant and full of themselves.", she said then started mixing the batters.

"Been there.", he strongly agreed with her.

"How about this? Let's make all the batters then the fillings. While the fillings are in the fridge, chilling, we can make the frostings.", she was talking like an actually chef.

Liang looked at her with a smile. "Look at you, talking like a chef.", he was impressed with her. 

"Oh, thank you.", she was slightly proud of herself. 

She went back to add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Liang made a small laugh and shook his head at the same time. Now he was making the batters for the cupcakes. Riya was in charge of making the cakes. He found a recipe that was interesting to him.

"Forest cake?", he asked. 

She looked at him. "Raspberry cake with blueberry compote and Italian Meringue Buttercream. That reminds me that I should have my allergy medication later.", she almost forget. 

"No, I will make the blueberry compote. Even though you might be taking the medication, you might break out. And I don't want you to die. Let me make the compote.", he was being considerate. 

Riya looked at him for a moment. "Okay. You can do that.", she said. "Seriously, allergy medication doesn't work."

"They do but some red patches will show. You don't want that on your first day."

"True.", she looked at the batter and it was combined. 

She stopped the mixer and removed the bow. She grabbed three big round tins and gently poured the vanilla batter in the bow. Liang was mix the Tiramisu cupcake batter. He already weigh out the ingredients. He looked at Riya for a moment and she already putting some tins in the oven. He started making the batter. Riya looked at Liang for a moment. 

"How you feeling now?", she asked him.

"Eh?", he looked at her. "Oh, my hangover is disappearing. Thanks to your soup.", he answered then looked at the batter. 

"Good."

He started adding the wet ingredients. "Scarecrow actually bribes the police officers to dismiss all the accusations and cases against him.", he spoke. 

"South African Police Forces will do anything for money. That's how useless they are. When there are criminal activities happening, the police will tell the Captain that they don't have vehicles or stuck in traffic. But you know where they are, at the mall, having their meals.", she explained while cleaning the bow. 

"Eish, that's really disgraceful.", he started pouring the batter in the cupcake moles. 

"That's why they can such a bad name. They are the biggest criminals.", she started making the chocolate batter. 

"Do you think that he has friends in the police forces?"

"Let's say, he has friends in every forces across the globe."

Liang put the cupcakes into the oven. "Then we need to prepare for the worse. Hey, do you know this woman by any chance?", he started washing dishes. 

"What woman?", she became interested. 

"Yaithra Iyengar."

"Nope.", she shook her head.

"She went missing over three years ago and no one found her. We don't know whether she is alive."

"Why did she go missing?"

"Rumors are going around that she was running from someone. Some are thinking that is Scarecrow because he does kidnap women and girls. They also thing that she escape from where she was and decided to be lowkey. She must be hiding from him.", Liang explained. 

"That explains. Women who managed to escape are probably too scare to show their faces to the public. They fear that he might come after them.", she poured the batter into the tin. 

"We still need women out there who are scared of their lives to even speak up. There are still lots of things that need to be changed. We can't be allowing people to treat women and girls like nothing.", he was continuing with the next recipe.

"So true. Where did you hear about Yaithra Iyengar?", she was interested in her.

"There are news that some women are looking for her. Some women that are living in other countries did speak up that they were kidnapped and beaten by Scarecrow's men. During their interview, they mention her name. They said that she was the reason they escaped from him. It popped on my YouTube list so I looked at the interviews. Plus, Scarecrow will become trending since those women are speaking up.", he explained. 

Riya was silent for a moment. Liang looked at her with confusion. This was the first time he noticed that she was very silent. Normally she would answer straight away.

"Moods, are you okay?", he asked. She did not respond to his question. He walked towards her. He stopped next to her and placed his hands on her shoulder. "Hey.", he shook her to wake up.

She blinked a couple of times and looked at him. "Eh?", she asked with a blank expression.  

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just a bit tired from last night and this morning.", she lied. "Let's continue.", she went back to making the items. 

Liang wanted to talk but she left him to continue. Now he was becoming confused about her behavior. He left it and continued helping her with the batters.