The Game of Life

In the following hours, the staff in the kitchen experienced the full spectrum of flavors: sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy.

Jiang Feng’s next dish was Sweet and Sour Yam, and the new employees in the kitchen had not yet witnessed Jiang Feng’s remarkable culinary skills after his “game-changer,” therefore they still harbored doubts about the freshly made Sweet and Sour Yam.

Zhang Weiyu, who couldn’t stop burping after eating pickled vegetable dumplings and barely managed to suppress it with two big glasses of water, had the courage and the spirit to try, but his stomach simply wouldn’t allow it.

He would soon realize what he had missed.

Taking advantage of everyone’s hesitation, Jiang Jiankang swiftly grabbed a

large piece.

After eating it without any expression, he said, “Aren’t you going to try it? The

Sweet and Sour Yam will change flavor once it cools.”

Having finished, he took another piece.

Sang Ming hesitated for a moment, reasoning that Jiang Feng was not only the young boss but also his interviewer, who had the insightful vision to recognize his natural talent in arranging mahjong tiles, consequently extending him an opportunity for employment.

With resolve, he also took a piece.

The just-cooked Sweet and Sour Yam, though no longer scalding after a quick dip in cold water, was still piping hot inside the sugary layer. Sang Ming sucked in air as he bit off and swallowed half of it.

That flavor!

Sang Ming was stunned.

He had never tasted Sweet and Sour Yam so delicious!

Sang Ming was uneducated, having attended a worthless high school where he never scored over 300 points on monthly exams. Even with an above-average performance on the college entrance exam, he only just broke the 300 mark, which was still over a hundred points short of the undergraduate cutoff line.

A year at vocational school cost tens of thousands, and with a younger sister who had good grades and was about to enter high school, he couldn’t waste his family’s money. Instead, he needed to save for his sister’s university education. Rather than throwing away cash on a pointless vocational school, he figured he might as well try his luck drifting to Beiping with some fellow townsmen and see if he could make something of himself.

Without any special talents, occasionally praised for being handy, his only claim to fame was his skill at playing mahjong, and his prowess at the game was so renowned in his area that no one wanted to play with him during the New Year celebrations anymore. He decided to apply for the kitchen apprentice cook position because he heard it was just odd jobs. Given a choice between 7500 yuan a month with meals included and 5000 yuan a month with meals and accommodation, he naturally chose the former, as he shared a basement apartment with some townsmen and a few strangers for just 500 yuan a month.

If he could save 6500 yuan a month, that would be 78,000 yuan a year. The boss had mentioned triple pay during holidays and a year-end bonus. There might even be the possibility of a gradual salary increase, which could mean he’d save up at least eighty or ninety thousand yuan a year, maybe even more.

With that amount of money, he could send his sister to a good high school in the city. She was a promising student and shouldn’t waste her days in a town high school. If she could get into a good university and find a decent job, she might even marry into a good family.

His sister wasn’t like him, savvy, nor good at manual tasks, and wasn’t attractive either. How did that saying go? If you are ugly, you should study harder. His sister had no real advantages-flat-nosed, dark-skinned, always with pimples on her face, not even skilled at mahjong. If she didn’t study, she would indeed struggle to find a husband later on.

Sang Ming’s thoughts were in a whirl, and down went a piece of Sweet and

Sour Yam.

He also thought of the girl from the class next door in high school, the math teacher’s daughter, who was beautiful, with fair skin and big eyes, the complete opposite of his sister.

If only his sister could look like that, she wouldn’t need to study; just a stroke of good luck could land her a good marriage.

But he had digressed. Sang Ming worried about his sister so much, he found a way to connect everything back to her.

The girl next door really was pretty, and excellent at math. Sang Ming had a crush on her once, but unfortunately, though he was great at counting cards in mahjong, he was terrible at math; his luck only stretched to guessing single digits. After high school, the girl went off to a university in the provincial capital, while Sang Ming drifted to Beiping, having never exchanged a word during his two years of secret affection.

Speaking of which, although his sister couldn’t play mahjong well-she couldn’t even count cards-her math was exceptionally good, always scoring full marks on exams.

Wait, how did he end up thinking about his sister again? Just a couple of days ago, she had called to tell him she finished first in her grade, and on impulse, he had sent her a 15-yuan red envelope.

Sigh, he had been swindled out of a day’s meal money by his sister. “Sang Ming, Sang Ming, what are you thinking about? I’ve called you several times but you didn’t hear, is the Sweet and Sour Yam good?” Han Yigu asked.

“Ah, it’s really tasty, no, I mean it’s delicious, really delicious!” Sang Ming replied.

Others reached for their chopsticks one after another, all becoming engrossed in the sweet taste of the sweet and sour pet food.

In the end, it was the two Sirs who slammed down their verdict on the pricing of the dishes. The involvement of other chefs was mainly to let them understand the abilities of the respective furnace chefs and to give the furnace chefs a reality check regarding their own skills.

Take Zhou Shi for instance. At first, he thought that although he was younger, he was at least better than Jiang Feng, but after Jiang Feng finished the sweet and sour yam, he deeply realized that he was indeed just the younger brother. After tasting the sweet and sour yam, the entire kitchen staff looked at Jiang Feng with newfound respect.

Jiang Feng, unruffled by praise or criticism, began preparing the Li Hongzhang hodgepodge.

Li Hongzhang hodgepodge is a complicated and elaborate dish, which accordingly, if it could be put on the menu, would also be priced relatively high. Ji Xue was still concentrating on her pot-roasted chicken in Shaoxing wine; the two Sirs were also looking forward to it. If Ji Xue could maintain her standard from the competition, just this dish alone could carve a bloody path for Taifeng Building in Beiping City.

The two Sirs were well aware of Jiang Feng’s level, and the only dish they were prepared to taste personally was this Li Hongzhang hodgepodge.

“When did Feng learn this dish?” Jiang Weiguo had only one thing he couldn’t figure out— who taught Jiang Feng this dish.

This famous Chinatown dish, neither he nor Jiang Weiming knew how to make it, so where had Jiang Feng learned it from?

■’I remember in these past few months he’s always been tinkering with all sorts of bizarre things in the kitchen. Maybe he’s blindly figured it out from some online recipe,” Jiang Weiming guessed.

For the past few months, Jiang Feng had been working on perfecting the Li Hongzhang hodgepodge, Yun Chicken, and Superior Soup. To outsiders, it indeed seemed like blind tinkering.

Zhou Shi essentially fell out of the running, stumbling on three consecutive dishes. He didn’t deserve to have a dish named after him in the specialty menu. Zhang Guanghang had several standard French dishes in addition to his Shandong cuisine; changing the dish’s name and the plate could easily disguise it as Chinese food. For instance, the French spinach pile with sauce, rename it to Prosperity Tops The Waves or simply call it Spinach Pile, and few would identify it as French cuisine.

There’s also the French Rosemary Roast Lamb Chops-remove ‘French,’ and eighty percent of the customers would simply think it’s roast lamb chops. Just add the word ‘French,’ and the price could double.

Sun Jikai was somewhat stronger than Zhou Shi; his steamed East Star Grouper was directly struck out. Other than pricey, the dish had no distinct advantages. His crispy roast suckling pig was also out; his skills were not enough to make such a large dish well. However, the crispy roast suckling pig gave Jiang Weiming a bit of inspiration. After all, when it came to roasting a whole pig, Shandong cuisine is the originator, with the Roasted Pig being one of the Eight Delicacies from the Zhou Dynasty, followed by countless variations. Jiang Weiming knew quite a few of these.

Using such a “hard” dish as the showstopper for the opening day couldn’t be more appropriate.

With Zhou Shi out of the picture, another furnace chef took his place while Ji Xue’s pot-roasted chicken in Shaoxing wine still needed more time. Jiang Feng’s Li Hongzhang hodgepodge, however, was almost ready to come out of the pot, reaching the step where it’s to be arranged on a platter before being steamed.

“Sang Ming, Han Yigu, Ou Yang, Luo Yu, Yin Xuan, come over and watch how I plate this,” Jiang Feng called his colleagues.

If his Li Hongzhang hodgepodge could score a perfect hundred, thirty points would be due to the plating alone, highlighting the significant impact of excellent presentation on the dish.

Observing Jiang Feng’s hand movements, Sang Ming had an epiphany.

“This is a way of plating a cake! And it’s three-dimensional,” Sang Ming remarked.

The rest: ???

Jiang Feng: ???

Jiang Feng’s hand movements halted as he took a closer look.

Upon Sang Ming’s comment, it did look somewhat similar.

Even with a significant inner turmoil, Jiang Feng did not reveal it on his face and continued with his hand movements, saying, “Just stack it layer by layer like this, then pour the broken bits and the original broth over it, and it’s ready to steam.”

Even if the ‘buff’ can only be done once a day, making such a good dish just once a day would be wasteful. It definitely needs to be priced higher and made more often, preferably taught to the other furnace chefs for mass production. About ten minutes later, the Li Hongzhang hodgepodge was ready to come out of the pot..