The Game of Life

Early in the morning, while Jiang Feng was still brushing his teeth on the balcony, he received a call from Jiang Jiankang.

“Hello?” Jiang Feng spoke with white foam still in his mouth, his words unclear.

-son, you need to come to the restaurant fast. Your Sir Sun arrived early this morning, ha-ha-ha, he brought quite a lot of stuff, coo-coo-coo, quack-quack-quack, I can’t explain, just hurry over and help.” From the noise on Jiang Jiankang’s side, it seemed that the ducks had already started fighting with the pigeons.

Anxious, Jiang Feng swallowed a mouthful of foam.

That sour taste was unbelievable.

After quickly finishing brushing and washing his face, Jiang Feng dashed downstairs and managed to snatch the last shared electric scooter. Under the regretful and annoyed gazes of another guy, he rode away, reaching Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant in less than three minutes.

The kitchen was in chaos with pigeons flying and ducks hopping around.

Sun Guanyun had gotten up before 4 a.m. left the hotel, visited various live poultry markets around Alan City, and bought more than twenty pigeons and eight live ducks, hiring someone to deliver them.

The person who tied up the ducks didn’t do it tightly enough, and one particularly strong and clever duck managed to escape its bindings while Jiang Jiankang and Sun Guanyun were slaughtering the other ducks in an attempt to flee. The escapee was spotted on the spot by Mrs. Wang Xiulian, who was at the door doing the accounting.

In the process of capturing the traitor, the strongest and fattest duck knocked over a pigeon cage, leading to the scene that Jiang Feng now beheld.

It took about fifteen minutes to quell the rebellion. Jiang Jiankang handed Jiang

Feng a knife to go kill the squabs.

Mrs. Wang Xiulian was actually quite skilled at slaughtering, but her technique wasn’t refined, she was slow, and most critically she didn’t clean the blood well. If the blood isn’t drained properly from poultry, the meat will have a faint fishy taste, particularly noticeable when stewing or steaming.

“Don’t touch this duck blood. I’ll have Qiqi make Duck Blood and Offal later, don’t spill any and be careful when bleeding it,” Mrs. Wang Xiulian gave verbal instructions to Mr. Jiang Jiankang.

Jiang Feng silently glanced at Mrs. Wang Xiulian. Usually, she calls Minqi by her name, but when she wants to eat Duck Blood and Offal, she calls her Qiqi.

“We can’t make all of it into Duck Blood and Offal; I’ll make you Duck Blood Vermicelli Soup, I’ve just learned it recently,” Mr. Jiang Jiankang said.

“No!” Jiang Feng and Mrs. Wang Xiulian exclaimed in unison.

“I just love Duck Blood and Offal!” That was from the wife.

“1 don’t like Duck Blood Vermicelli Soup.” That was from the son.

Mr. Jiang Jiankang, doubly negated but not affirmed, was sadly beside himself.

Jiang Feng, meanwhile, felt a sense of relief. Mr. Jiang Jiankang’s Duck Blood Vermicelli Soup simply could not even match the knockoff version in the cafeteria!

With more than twenty pigeons and eight ducks to deal with, it took quite some time. They started at seven o’clock, and it wasn’t until nine that everything was finally ready, with the big and small naked ducks and pigeons neatly arranged on the prep table.

Jiang Feng rubbed his wrists and asked, “Sir Sun, what are we doing with so many ducks?”

“Eight Treasure Stuffed Duck,” Sun Guanyun replied. “Did you look it up online yesterday?”

Jiang Feng nodded, the recipe took ten minutes, the gossip an hour.

“The internet didn’t mention ducks!”

“The key to Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon is in the stuffing. If I start you off with pigeons, you definitely won’t manage. Start with ducks; the same ingredients, once you get the duck right, the pigeon will be easy.” Sun Guanyun explained, pointing to the previously rebellious lead rebel, “Do you know how to debone?”

“I do!” Jiang Feng said confidently.

Sun Guanyun didn’t buy it: “Show me by deboning it”

The steps for deboning chicken and duck are the same. Ducks are larger than chickens, and especially this one was big, robust and fat. Its meat quality was undoubtedly good, but the difficulty of deboning was proportionate. Deboning isn’t something you master on the first try, but by the second you start getting used to it. Jiang Feng was the one in the restaurant who performed deboning whenever boneless dishes were on offer, having achieved a consistent deboning time of under eight minutes.

Jiang Feng also discovered that the actions during deboning, especially the satisfying tearing when pulling out most of the skeleton and the bones from the wings, were very thrilling. Sometimes, he even thought he could spend an entire day just deboning whole chickens and ducks.

This duck was rather fat, so the movements were relatively slow, taking a full ten minutes to complete the deboning.

The finished product was perfect, and no one could find fault with it.

Sun Guanyun examined the deboned duck from head to toe for a long time before reluctantly managing to say two words: “Not bad.

“I originally thought about having you practice deboning for a couple of days, but it seems unnecessary now. You don’t have to worry about these ducks anymore, go debone the pigeons. Pigeon skin is thin, so be careful with your hands. I’ll have my assistant send over the ingredients,” Sun Guanyun said.

Jiang Feng went to pick out pigeons.

Sun Guanyun bought all squabs, smaller than average pigeons, only the size of a hand, not suitable for a knife, only scissors could be used.

Jiang Feng had never deboned a squab before, let alone with scissors. Despite carefully selecting a relatively larger one, it was still a strenuous task.

He feared that with a little carelessness, one snip might cut the squab in half. Using scissors to debone looked quite bloody. From a distance, it appeared as though Jiang Feng was holding a small piece of pitiful meat, snipping here and pulling something out, snipping there and pulling out another piece. It’s no wonder that there’s the mentality of ‘a gentleman stays far from the kitchen,’ out of sight, out of mind.

While Jiang Feng was engaged in a death struggle with the small squab in his hand, pigeon expert Ji Yue came along with a group of colleagues to slack off work early and sneak into the kitchen for some mung bean soup.

Upon entering the kitchen, she saw three rows of squab carcasses on the counter.

Coo, coo, coo.

Familiar sounds rang in Ji Yue’s head.

What a massacre!

As Ji Yue walked to the pot of mung bean soup, she caught sight of the squab in Jiang Feng’s hand that had been torn beyond recognition.

“What are you doing?” Ji Yue asked, starting to ladle out the mung bean soup.

“Deboning a whole squab,” Jiang Feng said.

Ji Yue continued, “Debone a squab? There’s barely two ounces of meat to begin with, would it still have anything left after deboning? Are we eating squab for lunch today?”

Jiang Feng had no answer.

“Yes,” said Sun Guanyun, who was looking at his phone, “we’re eating Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon.”

Although Ji Yue didn’t know what Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon was, she knew Sun Guanyun was a good cook, and comparing him to Jiang Weiguo, he was just as skilled. She happily took a bowl and went out to draw.

Jiang Feng, not being careful, snipped with the scissors.

Sun Guanyun glanced sideways at the unsalvageable squab in his hand and said, “This one’s for soup; get another.”

Jiang Feng continued to struggle with the next squab.

Another slip, and there was another snip with the scissors.

Before Sun Guanyun could say anything, Jiang Feng obediently switched to another squab.

By the time Jiang Feng had moved on to the sixth squab, Sun Guanyun was getting impatient and started to call his assistant.

“Hey, Zhang, why haven’t the ingredients I need been delivered yet?”

On the other end, Sun Guanyun’s assistant was overwhelmed, “Boss, sorry, I’ve been to several farm markets but couldn’t find squab eggs that meet the requirements, and no qualified gingko nuts either. I just got in touch with Mr. Han’s assistant, and they will be able to send them over soon.”

“Fine, but don’t take too long.”

“Okay, boss, I’ll be as quick as I can, boss, don’t worry, boss!”

After hanging up the phone, Sun Guanyun continued to watch Jiang Feng handle the squabs.

“Be a little more delicate with your hands, pull off the wing bones quickly, turn it over, flip the skin over and cut,” Sun Guanyun began to instruct Jiang Feng. Meanwhile, Han Guishan’s versatile assistant had already found squab eggs and gingko nuts that met Sun Guanyun’s criteria. After making arrangements with Assistant Wang to pick up the items, he informed Han Guishan of the progress.

Han Guishan was discussing competition rules with Xu Cheng when he mentioned this casually after hanging up.

“It’s quite hilarious how Master Sun’s assistant couldn’t find squab eggs and asked my assistant for help,” Han Guishan said with a laugh.

“Squab eggs?” Xu Cheng asked alertly, lifting his head and shifting his gaze from the papers, “Where are they being delivered?”

“Let me check,” said Han Guishan as he texted his assistant, who replied instantly, “UAL University’s food street.”

Xu Cheng organized his papers, “Tell your assistant to let Imperial Meal Tavern’s Chef Zhang know we won’t be coming for lunch.”

“Not going? If we’re not going to Imperial Meal Tavern, what are we eating for lunch? Has your Taste reviewer discovered a new place at my establishment lately?” Han Guishan asked, somewhat puzzled.

“Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon..”