The Game of Life

In the following two days, Jiang Feng witnessed firsthand how the procrastination master Ji Yue played deaf and dumb in front of his creditors after failing to fill the relentless sea with pebbles, postponing as long as he could, even if it was just for one more second, making full use of the art of dragging things out until he finally just turned off his phone and pretended to post a fake message on his socials and in his friend circles, claiming he lost his phone and to leave a message if something came up.

Armed with this shameless spirit, Ji Yue successfully put off his creditors for another five days, only turning his phone back on after he had completed all his overdue drawings. Then he posted another insincere message in his socials and friend circles thanking the kind person who found and returned his phone, a message that reflected the true love and kindness of humanity, aligning with the core socialist values, before finally getting back to each and every creditor who had been “chasing debts” over the past few days.

“Dear dear, I’m so sorry. I lost my phone these last few days and was busy looking for it, so I didn’t check my messages, but I’ve finished the drawings. Have a look and see if they’re okay, and if not, I can make changes [smiley face].”

Jiang Feng watched this clever maneuvering with utter amazement.

The preliminary round of the Good Taste Culinary Competition ended on the 18th Alan City’s division was the earliest to start and the last to finish. On the final day at noon, Liu Qian didn’t even bother with the lunch provided by the organizers and rushed to Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant for a feast instead.

For the past ten days, Liu Qian had suffered through the overly greasy and salty boxed lunches and, in one go, ordered Kung Pao chicken cubes, sweet and sour fish pieces, Yu Xiang pork shreds, spicy diced chicken, and Guo Bao meat five dishes, plus a milk tea and a rose cranberry drink.

The cranberry series of drinks was something Jiang Feng had rolled out in the past few days, originally because Ji Yue, while rushing to finish his drawings, casually mentioned that he felt like drinking cranberry juice. Jiang Feng decided to give it a try, and it turned out quite successful. The main ingredient was cranberry juice, which would then be combined with yogurt or milk tea and various fruits according to different preferences. To date, they had introduced rose, strawberry, blueberry, banana, and apple flavors, all of which could be made into a yoghurt float series.

Because the cranberry juice was freshly made, and even the yogurt was homemade by Jiang Feng, who would add sugar according to the customer’s taste preference, the taste was significantly better than what was offered at other milk tea shops. Added to this was Jiang Feng’s knack for presentation his yogurt floats were a sight to behold. Once introduced, they received rave reviews, and in these few days, Jiang Feng was making hand over fist just from selling these juices.

The last pot of milk tea was sold out, and a new pot was still brewing, so Jiang Feng first prepared Liu Qian’s rose cranberry drink, especially made in an extra-large size. The placement of the rose petals in the cup was carefully designed by Jiang Feng, with five or six petals sinking to the bottom and two floating on top, creating a gradient of rose red from the bottom to the top in the transparent cup.

Unfortunately, Liu Qian didn’t notice Jiang Feng’s meticulous design. As soon as Ji Yue brought the cranberry juice to her, before her live stream audience could get a good look, Liu Qian ignored the straw in the cup, took it up, and guzzled down more than half of it in one go.

After chugging more than half a cup of cranberry juice, Liu Qian felt as if her tongue, tortured by boxed lunches these past few days, had finally been redeemed. She sighed, “Ah, making money is so exhausting.”

Live stream audience:…

Liu Qian had taken ten days off, feasting and drinking every day with transportation provided by the organizer, without a cut in her salary for random advertising she did along the way. They really couldn’t see where the exhaustion came in.

After chatting with the live stream viewers for two minutes, Liu Qian finished the extra-large cup of the custom-made cranberry juice Jiang Feng made for her.

“ji Yue senior, I want another cup of cranberry juice, with a strawberry yogurt float!” Liu Qian said, still not satisfied.

“No way, not selling!” Ji ■ Sherlock ■ Yue flatly refused, “You ordered five dishes and two drinks, and there are still cookie crumbs on your clothes, which means you definitely snacked before coming here. I’m not selling.

Liu Qian had no choice but to give up.

Back in the kitchen, there was only Jiang Jiankang, Jiang Feng, and Wu Minqi. Sirs Jiang Weiming and Jiang Weiguo had been mysteriously absent these past few days, and even the practice tasks assigned to Jiang Feng were checked via WeChat.

Jiang Jiankang was happily stir-frying Kung Pao chicken for Liu Qian, flipping the spoon more times than when cooking for others, “Qianqian, it’s been almost ten days since you last came to the restaurant to eat, right?” “Exactly ten days,” said Jiang Feng, eyes fixed on the pot.

“Jiang Feng, have the organizers notified you about the time for the pre-selection?” Wu Minqi suddenly blurted out.

“No.” Jiang Feng dished out the stir-fried pork with chili peppers, “The open selection ended today, so the time for the pre-selection should be in the next few days. They should notify us by tomorrow at the latest.” “Three servings of stir-fried pork with chili peppers over rice, one plate of mei caikou rou, and one plate of hand-torn cabbage.” Ji Yue came in and interrupted their conversation, sticking the order slip on the wall.

By the time Jiang Feng and the others finished and came out of the kitchen, Liu Qian had already left, and the plates on the table were empty, the sauce all used to soak the rice. According to Ji Yue, she had eaten four bowls of rice and probably would have gone for a fifth if she hadn’t been stopped.

Her appetite had grown after not seeing her for ten days.

Ji Yue was cleaning up the plates when she saw Jiang Feng come out, “Liu Qian said she sent you a message before she left, something about the pre-selection. She told you to show the message to Minqi as well.” Jiang Feng took out his phone from his pocket, a string of messages from Liu Qian. Stripping away the phrases “I heard,” “I got the news from a certain streamer,” “I heard it from the staff while I was eating,” and the emoticons at the end of every sentence, Jiang Feng conveyed the rumors Liu Qian had heard to Wu Minqi.

“Liu Qian says she heard that because our district has too many contestants, the organizers changed the format. The number of people advancing will be determined by the proportion of contestants in each district, and there will only be two rounds of pre-selections,” Jiang Feng explained.

“Only two rounds?” Wu Minqi frowned, “According to the official data, our district accounts for half of the total number of registrants, so that means only 16 will advance. Nearly three thousand contestants will be eliminated in two rounds.”

“If Liu Qian’s message is correct, each stage of the pre-selection will eliminate over ninety percent of the contestants,” Jiang Feng said, worried.

With such a high elimination rate, if several strong contestants were unluckily put in the same group…

It would be a hell of a battle!

Just after eating, both old gentlemen came over to personally supervise Jiang Feng’s cooking practice. Seeing this, Wu Minqi took it as her cue to leave. As someone hopeless in cooking, she had always coveted Jiang Feng’s opportunity to be personally mentored by two elders with superb culinary skills. But it was the Jiang Family’s familial craft, and she couldn’t possibly learn it with them, so she adopted the self-deceptive tactic of “if I don’t see it with my own eyes, it didn’t happen” and made her escape first.

“Grandpa, what have you two been up to lately?” Jiang Feng asked while he was deboning the live chicken that Sir had brought.

Mastering caramelizing sugar at the bottom of the pot was still beyond his current skill level. Jiang Weiming just gave him the basics without expecting him to excel at it and then moved on to teaching him knifework and fire control.

“We ran into an old friend. Why are you deboning like that? Your last cut was crooked-don’t talk, focus! You’re getting distracted even while deboning a chicken!” Sir scolded.

Jiang Feng dared not get distracted any longer. This chicken was the one that Jiang Weiming would use later to teach him how to make Texas chicken, which was likely to be tonight’s or tomorrow’s dinner. He could not afford to be careless while deboning it.

This was for their own meal!