The Game of Life

After realizing that he actually liked cooking, Jiang Feng felt as if he had received sudden enlightenment, like a martial arts expert in a novel who had been stuck at a certain level for too long or a cultivator in a fantasy novel whose power had reached its peak but whose state of mind still needed worldly experience. Once his inner demons were vanquished, his realm would naturally loosen and subsequent breakthroughs would come easily and naturally.

All of that was Jiang Feng’s fantasy.

In other novels, the big shots’ state of mind was not up to their own strength, but for Jiang Feng, at most his own strength was not up to his state of mind. Moreover, he only scored 66 in “Marxist Principles” last semester, so his ideological awareness was not high either.

But his dreaming abilities were top-notch. He spent the whole night having wildly extravagant dreams where he was the male protagonist leveling up and slaying monsters. Waking up, he even felt a little unfinished as he sat in bed, reminiscing about punching Zhang Guanghang in Beiping and stepping on Wu Minqi in Shu. He was just five minutes away from reaching the summit.

Ah, woke up too early!

Jiang Feng sighed deeply.

“Feng, what are you sighing for?” Wang Hao, who recently took a liking to a beautiful single junior from Foreign Languages, woke up early every day to jog, determined to return to his slim freshman figure and leave the ranks of the single dogs.

“I dreamt that I won the championship,” Jiang Feng said.

“Dreams are always the opposite.”

Is it that your Doraemon is drifting away, or can my Nobita no longer wield the knife?

After a quick wash, Jiang Feng went to help out at the restaurant. The Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant had expanded its offerings to include Texas smoked chicken, which significantly increased the workload.

When Jiang Feng arrived, Jiang Jiankang was already busy with his new knives, clearly passionate about working with the chickens. Wang Xiulian was outside, tapping on the calculator loudly, calculating how much extra money they could make each day, her face alight with joy.

“Feng, go chop the carrots,” Jiang Jiankang directed.

“Alright!”

They were busy from early morning until past one in the afternoon before they had lunch. After lunch, it was everyone’s happy lazy time. Ji Yue had been addicted to a web drama about a domineering CEO falling in love with me and couldn’t pull herself away, watching it every midday. She would be moved by the plot one moment and be lovestruck the next, lovestruck again and again…

Recently, the drama was all about being lovestruck.

“Oh my, that’s just too sweet!” exclaimed Ji Yue in her lovestruck voice.

Jiang Feng:…

This scene with two people sharing an umbrella and getting soaked—how is that sweet? And in the last episode, the male lead leaped down from a height of four or five meters and still landed in an incredibly cool pose. How is this absurd storyline sweet at all?

Yes, he was watching it too, and had followed along with Ji Yue up to episode twelve.

This mindless, absurd drama had a flavor so irresistibly sweet.

The male and female leads were already in each other’s arms, and the next step was the tilt-head, cradle-face kiss. But just at this critical moment, Jiang Feng’s phone rang.

“Pause, pause it for a moment,” Jiang Feng quickly said.

“Hurry up,” Ji Yue pressed the pause button.

“Hello, is this Mr. Jiang Feng speaking? I’m a staff member of the Good Taste Culinary Competition. Congratulations on advancing to the second round of the preliminaries. The second round will take place on the 23rd, which is the day after tomorrow, at 9 am at Shanshui Plaza. Please arrive before 830 am or you will be considered as having forfeited. If you have lost your admission card, please contact us at any time. Do you have any other questions?” the staff sister asked sweetly.

“No.”

“Okay, if you have any questions about the competition in the next few days, you can contact us at any time. Our phone will be available 24 hours a day.” “Alright, thank you.”

“Have a pleasant day.”

Jiang Feng hung up the phone and Ji Yue asked, “Was that the organizer calling?”

“Yeah, they want me to compete the day after tomorrow. Hurry, hurry, play it again. My grandpa is coming over at two-thirty, and if we don’t hurry I won’t be able to finish this episode,” Jiang Feng said.

Seconds later, the male and female leads share a passionate kiss, the background music rises, and the slow-motion scene stretches out, with soft light filters and beauty effects—all the special effects are cranked up.

“Oh my gosh, that’s too sweet!” Ji Yue exclaimed while holding her face.

Jiang Feng glanced sideways at Ji Yue.

What’s so surprising about that? Single dogs love to moon over romance.

The next second, the female lead shyly lowered her head and gently took the male lead’s hand, the saccharine scent of love as if spilling out of the screen.

Jiang Feng:…

Fuck, I wish I had a girlfriend like that.

Jiang Feng managed to finish reading the most recent update before Sir arrived and, after being stuffed full of dog food, obediently went to the back kitchen to practice.

Around five o’clock, someone called to place a delivery order. It was a large order over a thousand yuan but a bit far; it would take more than half an hour to go back and forth by subway. The buyer was willing to pay extra for delivery, so Wang Xiulian weighed the options and accepted the order. Liu Zixuan and Ji Yue went on the delivery, splitting the delivery fee between them. With only Wang Hao and Wang Xiulian a bit overwhelmed in the front, Jiang Feng, the chef with the lowest status and the worst cooking skills in the kitchen, was assigned to go out and help.

Jiang Feng, who hadn’t done the work of serving dishes, cutting off the water, and cleaning tables for a long time, was quite rusty, causing many customers to lose patience and self-initiate grabbing a cloth to wipe down their tables. Some even kindly wiped down adjacent tables. Such a harmonious relationship between customers and the business is rarely seen these days.

Jiang Feng was surprised to see someone, Guo Mengting.

She was with a little girl carrying a cartoon backpack, who must have been her daughter, with two little pigtails and holding her hand tightly.

“Say hello to uncle quickly. This uncle will be cooking for you in a bit,” said Guo Mengting.

“Hello, brother, I want to eat pine nut corn and sweet and sour ribs,” the little girl said.

“Hey!” Jiang Feng felt an instant sense of relief and happily went to the kitchen to place the order.

With such a clever, sensible, smart, obedient, pretty, sensible, moral, and discerning child, Jiang Feng not only reminded Jiankang to stir-fry properly without slacking off, but also went to pour her a small cup of milk tea.

Upon going out, he heard Guo Mengting telling her daughter, “We’re only eating out today because your dad is away on a business trip. This restaurant is owned by a friend of mom’s, and it’s very clean and hygienic, so we can eat here. The street stalls next to the school can cause tummy aches and diarrhea if eaten too much. You must not go there behind my back, understand?

Otherwise, mommy won’t bring you here anymore, and you won’t get to eat the pine nut corn you like.”

The little girl nodded seriously.

“Mommy, daddy won’t be back until the day after tomorrow, and I want to come here to eat tomorrow too,” the little girl said in a milky voice.

“Then you have to listen to mommy. Mommy signed you up for a writing class and a math Olympiad class on Sunday. There are many kids your age there, and you can make new friends. As long as you behave and attend classes, mommy will bring you here to eat tomorrow evening,” Guo Mengting said.

The little girl nodded her head.

Jiang Feng:…

Kid, you have no idea what you’re giving up for a meal.

The day flew by, and on the evening of the 22nd, Wang Hao’s makeup exam results were finally out: 45, he had to retake the class.

Wang Hao posted a string of crying faces on QQSpace, Moments, and Weibo to express his sorrow.

It was said that Professor Li would still be teaching “Signals and Systems” next year.

Jiang Feng originally wanted to go and console his poor roommate, but then he saw that “My Roommate Who Got the Pig’s Feet Script” had been updated just an hour ago on a post.

The plot had progressed to the protagonist showing off his skills at the audition with golden scrambled eggs with tomatoes. The rich second generation and the general audience judges burst into tears upon tasting it and immediately wanted to acknowledge the protagonist as their big brother. The son of the high-level organizer present saw him as a strong rival and had already planned to rig the competition to get rid of him. With a climactic story unfolding, replies flooded in urging the author to update quickly, and some small websites even advertised, asking if the author was interested in moving the story to their platform.

Jiang Feng:…

Wang Hao should have gone to a school that offers screenwriting as a major; what was he doing studying physics at an engineering college?

At 10 o’clock that night, a sweat-drenched Wang Hao came back from his night jog, pushed open the door to the dorm with a face full of grief, and spoke with a pitiful and moaning tone, “Feng, I’m so miserable. Next semester I’ll have to retake the class and it’ll still be Professor Li teaching. Why is my life so hard!” Jiang Feng looked at him with a smile on his face.

“If I’m not mistaken, this post was updated by you half an hour after you posted on your Moments, right?”

Wang Hao:

With the window open and the door ajar, the air was flowing. Although it was already spring, the nights were still a bit chilly. A cold breeze blew through, and Wang Hao shivered.

“Ah, it’s so cold, I’m going to take a shower before the hot water runs out,” Wang Hao swiftly changed the subject.

“Every piece of tomato in scrambled eggs with tomatoes can’t possibly be wrapped in golden egg coating, nor can the tomatoes turn gold. Where did you copy this metaphysical scrambled eggs with tomatoes from?” Jiang Feng asked. “Eh? I just tweaked the legendary golden egg fried rice from a gourmet series I watched. How could the male protagonist not know the legendary golden egg fried rice? Feng, you’re really out of date with novels,” Wang Hao replied, grabbing his clothes to take a shower.

Jiang Feng:…

The food novel I’ve been reading recently has a male lead less popular than a Pig-

And it’s a pig that died in chapter forty-three.