The Game of Life

Jiang Feng and Jiang Jiankang had agreed to meet in front of the Provincial TV Building, and upon their arrival, they found that Jiang Jianguo, Jiang Jianshe, and Jiang Jianye’s entire families were already there. Jiang Junqing and Jiang Junlian, the two sisters, were even wearing their school uniforms and excitedly sprinted towards Jiang Feng as soon as they saw him.

“Big brother, you were amazing! You absolutely have to advance to the finals, then we can skip out on 4 physics makeup classes!” the sisters said in unison.

Jiang Feng:…

Indeed, they were his real cousins.

Jiang Feng was pulled along by his two cousins, one on either side, towards the others.

“Not bad at all, Feng brought glory to our family!” Jiang Jianguo said cheerfully. “I’ve booked a table at Imperial Meal Tavern. We won’t be cooking today. Let’s go for a feast.”

Hearing about a big feast, Jiang Feng subconsciously felt like burping.

“Yes, not bad.” Jiang Weiguo was also very pleased with Jiang Feng’s performance today, and Jiang Weiming smiled gently on the side.

Everyone had driven there, and though it was a tight squeeze, they managed to fit everyone into the cars. Jiang Feng, Jiang Junqing, Jiang Junlian, and Jiang Zaidi were crammed into the back seat of one car, with Jiang Feng sitting on Jiang Zaidi’s lap, feeling like he couldn’t breathe.

“De, you really should think about losing some weight.” Jiang Feng said in despair, his face pressed against the back of the front seat. Jiang Zaidi’s office-bound belly had truly grown fatter every day.

“Give me some time, some time. I’ve already signed up for a gym membership,” Jiang Zaidi scratched his now sparser-than-New-Year’s hair, smiling. “Once this order is finished, I’ll hit the gym downstairs from the company.”

“That’s what you said the year before last.” Jiang Junqing mercilessly exposed her older cousin’s lies.

“Is Imperial Meal Tavern still open at almost ten o’clock?” Jiang Feng asked, struggling to shift his position.

“The renovation blueprint for Imperial Meal Room last year was my work, I know their boss. They seem to have some VIPs tonight, it’s still open!” Jiang Zaidi said.

Jiang Feng instantly understood, a backdoor entry.

“Is Chef Zhang the head chef at Imperial Meal Tavern?” Jiang Feng asked, figuring he might run into Zhang Xi there.

“Yo, little bro, you know about Chef Zhang too!” Jiang Zaidi looked at Jiang Feng with newfound respect. “Chef Zhang’s cooking is really something, even a bit better than Uncle San’s, especially the soups, tsk tsk. Ah, it was there that I gained all this weight last year.”

“Big brother, when you fell earlier, was it because the vegetable juice was so nasty it confused you?” Jiang Junlian asked.

“It must be because big brother belched and the taste came back up!” Jiang Junqing analyzed calmly.

Amidst the incessant chatter of his two cousins and the occasional hair falling from Jiang Zaidi’s head, they soon arrived at Imperial Meal Tavern.

The Jiang Family rarely dined out on such a large scale; they would usually shamelessly stick to eating at home, where the dishes cooked by Sir were better than anything else.

They didn’t see Zhang Xi in the lobby, and a waiter led them to a private room with an oversized round table that was just big enough for everyone.

The craftsmanship of Chef Zhang was indeed excellent, and the table full of dishes was fragrant and flavorful, better than Jiang Jiankang’s, except—

“Burp.” Jiang Feng looked at the table of dishes and involuntarily burped.

Damn, he should have never eaten that sinful boxed meal backstage.

“Eh, big bro, are you full?” Jiang Junlian, sitting next to Jiang Feng, raised her head from the bowl of braised pork with preserved vegetables upon hearing his burp. “Right, you ate quite a bit during the competition. Let me help you with your braised pork!”

“Big bro, let me have your grilled lamb strips!” Jiang Junqing offered eagerly.

Jiang Feng: “…Burp.”

Oh no, the taste of vegetable juice is coming back up!

“I’m going to the restroom.” Jiang Feng put down his chopsticks and ran to the restroom.

After rinsing his mouth to clear the taste, Jiang Feng thought since he was already here, he might as well find a place to see what the crappy game looked like after the update.

Opening the attributes panel, Jiang Feng was instantly attracted to the large settings icon in the top left corner.

Settings!

The lousy game had actually updated with such an advanced feature!

He clicked to see:

Disable proficiency sound alerts (Yes/No)

Disable alerts for experiences under 100 points (Yes/No)

For the sake of his own life, Jiang Feng quickly selected ‘Yes’ and then started to look at the newly added side-quests and hidden tasks. After a quick glance, he thought they all seemed achievable, so he accepted them all. The attributes panel now showed: (repetitive parts omitted)

Name: Jiang Feng

Level: 20 (65379/200,000)

Skills: Appraisal (High Level): You can obtain all the information you want.

Knife Skills (Master Level): Your knifework has reached the level of a top chef. (Proficiency: 11214/1,000,000)

Lies (High Level): Your lies can convince most people. (Proficiency: 3/100,000)

Food Testing (Intermediate Level): Distinguish the ingredients, and that’s it. (Not upgradable)

Side-Quests: (Optional)

3. 3. “Turn Enemies into Friends”: A competitor can become a friend or even a colleague; turning enemies into friends is the correct path to success. Please recruit 5 chefs from the ‘Good Taste’ Cooking Competition’s Top 32 to work for Taifeng Building and lay a solid foundation for Taifeng Building’s reopening. Progress (0/5)

Task Hint: Zhang Guanghang and Ji Xue are good choices.

Task Reward: Taifeng Building ordering program.

4. 4. “Sun Guanyun’s Approval”: Gaining the recognition of your peers is a chef’s glory. Please prepare the Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon to Sun Guanyun’s satisfaction and earn his approval. Progress (0/1)

Task Hint: This task is difficult. Please practice diligently.

Reward for Quest: A segment of Sun Guanyun’s memories.

Hidden Quest:

5. “Jiang Weiguo’s Pride”: As an elderly man in his advanced years, the achievements of his children and grandchildren are his greatest bragging rights among old friends. To satisfy Jiang Weiguo’s vanity, please advance to the final round in the Good Taste Culinary Competition and defeat Sun Jikai. Quest progress: Defeat Sun Jikai (0/1), Advance to the final round (0/1)

Quest Hint: Players are encouraged to make full use of available resources.

Reward for Quest: A segment of Jiang Weiguo’s memories.

Items: Thermal Box [Retrieved], Promotional Board [Retrieved], Renovation Blueprint, A segment of Zhang Zhiyuan’s memories, A segment of Li Mingyi’s memories

Recipes: (Please click to view details)

Evaluation: A somewhat famous novice chef

Jiang Feng:….

There are so many gripes, he can’t even figure out where to start venting.

He once thought “advanced” was the game’s ultimate level, but now the game is telling him there’s a level above that called “master level”…

Could it be that above master level there’s “grandmaster level,” and beyond that, “chef king,” “chef emperor,” “chef god,” and eventually he could even transcend the realms and ascend to immortality?

With the loow experience points requirement for master level knife skills, Jiang Feng felt it would be difficult to level up his knife skills without another three to five years of effort.

When Jiang Feng opened up the recipe book, he found the game to be quite up-to-date. The number of recipes for chopped pepper fish head in the details section had increased from 276 to 277, and the friendly tip had been updated to indicate that the dish’s level was slightly above the player’s cooking level, with a certain chance of failure during cooking, while the friendly tip for sweet and sour yam disappeared entirely.

After perusing his attribute panel from top to bottom, Jiang Feng still felt that something was off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. After looking over it two more times, he still found nothing.

A misconception?

“Son, your grandma is video-calling, hurry up!” Jiang Jiankang shouted from outside the toilet.

“I’ll be right there!” Jiang Feng shouted back, raising his hand to close the attribute panel.

Level: 20 (65379/2OW)

Wait a minute!

Wasn’t the last update because of leveling up from 9 to 10? How did it suddenly jump to level 20!

Jiang Feng began to suspect that there was something wrong with his memory.

The amount of practice he had put in over the winter break was indeed significant, but there hadn’t been much food actually entering people’s stomachs. Given the stingy nature of his parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, where a single bite only yielded a few experience points, it would have been good to earn one or two thousand experience points over the winter break.

To level up from 10 to 20 would require at least a million experience points. Could all those experience points have fallen from the sky?

A bold idea formed in Jiang Feng’s mind.

During the winter break, who ate the most of the food he made? And who could eat, from morning till night, every day, amassing over a million experience points in such a short period of time?

The answer was ready to burst forth.

Erhua!

It had to be it!

A glutton and a sleeper, most of Jiang Feng’s practice dishes had gone into its belly. It never refused any food, whether vegetarian or meat, never being picky and eating everything given to it, regardless of the amount. Even when it was so full it couldn’t walk and lay on its back grunting, it would still eagerly eat whenever Jiang Feng fed it next.

It had to be Erhua!

“Ding, optional hidden quest discovered,” the game notification chimed once more.

Jiang Feng clicked on the attribute panel.

“The Awakening of Da Hua”: As a pig born on June 5, adept at eating, sleeping, and fattening up, Da Hua’s life (formerly known as Erhua) was always carefree until it witnessed the departure of Sanhua. It was then that Da Hua developed an unprecedented sense of crisis for a pig and desired to die a natural death. Please fulfill Da Hua’s wish so it can die a natural death. [Choose: Yes/No]

Jiang Feng:….

Right, Erhua with such weight should indeed be promoted to Da Hua. However, he hadn’t expected that it would be such a thoughtful pig, with such an admirable ambition.

A pig so unique that it could generate experience points from eating shouldn’t be surprising after all.

After clicking yes

Quest Hint: Simply don’t kill it for cooking.

Reward: The Achievement “Da Hua’s Gratitude”

Deeply shocked, Jiang Feng exited the bathroom and returned to the private room, still unable to settle his emotions.

“Son, come quickly, your grandma wants to video chat with you!” Jiang Jiankang, holding a phone, gestured for Jiang Feng to come over.

Mrs. Jiang’s uniquely loud voice, only present during video calls and phone calls, emanated from the phone: “Feng! Your mom’s uncle just called to praise you, said you’re doing great, and he also said he’s going to vote or something for you with those thingamajigs!”

“Grandma.” Jiang Feng took the phone from Jiang Jiankang and realized that Mrs. Jiang seemed to be outside, the view was so dim that he couldn’t see her clearly.

“Grandma, why are you going out so late at night?” Jiang Feng asked.

“I’m going to see Master Wang. You fell during the competition today, didn’t you? You must have had low blood sugar from studying too hard lately, right? You need to eat well. I’m off to see Master Wang so he can butcher Da Hua tomorrow. It has been disdainful of the pig feed you made it for New Year and now it’s even turning its nose up at my cooking. It’s lost over ten pounds this month. Better to butcher it early – fattening it any longer would only mean more weight loss. Once it’s done, I’ll send Da Hua over to nourish you!” Mrs. Jiang said loudly.

“Wow, Erhua is called Da Hua now!” Jiang Jiankang exclaimed in surprise.

Jiang Feng immediately panicked.

“You can’t kill it, Grandma! Da Hua can’t be killed!”

Spare the pig beneath the knife!!!