Chapter 485: Chapter 484: News from Tokyo
It was still early. Taking a JR train to Asahikawa City, he drove a Jeep through the city streets. Xia Yu looked at the watch on his left wrist, and it was just past ten in the morning.
He compared the hand-drawn map with the navigation map on his phone.
The map from Chiyoda was abstract in terms of terrain, but Asahikawa City and Chuyun Shrine were marked as two points on it.
What Xia Yu needed to do was to find one point from another.
He roughly locked onto three areas based on the terrain.
The first: Shisheng Mountain.
This mountainous area was near Furano City. Now Xia Yu was driving along the railway line from Asahikawa to Furano. On the navigation map, it was heading southeast, gradually moving away from Asahikawa’s downtown. The next target point was iying Town in Asahikawa.
By noon, Xia Yu was in iying Town’s downtown. This satellite city was small but complete. According to the navigation map markings, he parked the car in front of a building nad ‘iying Shrine.’ Entering it, Xia Yu was filled with disappointnt, as the shrine was teeming with tourists, and there was even a TV drama crew busy filming.
Nonetheless, Xia Yu still found the shrine’s owner and earnestly inquired about the location of Chuyun Shrine, but the person looked bewildered and said it was the first ti hearing the shrine’s na.
Leaving disappointed, Xia Yu had lunch in iying Town’s downtown, refueled at a gas station, and then drove along the straight national highway of iying Town without stopping, heading directly to Shisheng Mountain.
The car moved silently along the highway flanked by forests, at tis not encountering another vehicle for half an hour. The autumn wind rustled through the forest, bringing with it yellowing leaves.
Finally, nearing evening, Xia Yu reached the end of the highway. In front of him, there was no longer a vast wilderness but so scattered buildings.
He decided to stay at a hot spring inn for the night.
Inquiring with the innkeeper, Xia Yu learned that this was an unmarked small town on the map, nad Platinum. Not far from the inn was a three-story Platinum Hot Spring Hotel, with quite a few cars parked at its entrance, reportedly all belonging to climbing or camping tourists.
Sitting cross-legged in the room, he opened the window and looked southeast. In the distance, towering into the clouds was the ‘Shisheng Mountain.’ Xia Yu thought to himself, “First, find out more, no rush to enter the mountains.”
At this mont, there was a commotion outside the courtyard.
Hearing the noise, Xia Yu went out to see a few strong n in camouflage uniforms, pointing at his Jeep.
“What are you doing?!” He asked sternly, one hand reaching towards his bulging waist.
“Is this your car?”
The rcenaries were surprised.
“No kidding!”
“Are you from the Lily Team?” The rcenaries looked cautious.
Xia Yu did not answer, and the rcenaries sensibly dispersed. The innkeeper, also disturbed by the noise, was a middle-aged man in a kimono. He laughed and said, “Mr. Xia Yu, there’s no need to worry. They are legitimate rcenaries with valid permits. They’ve been staying here for half a month, commissioned by the Furano City Governnt to investigate the snow mountain monster.”
“Snow mountain monster?”
“Yes.”
Speaking of the matter, the middle-aged uncle appeared worried, saying, “Shisheng Mountain is a volcano, with several eruptions recorded during the Edo Period, causing significant damage. About a month ago, Asahikawa and Furano organized an observation team to enter the mountains, and then they disappeared!”
“Disappeared?”
“They were likely killed.” The middle-aged uncle sighed, “A Food rcenary Corps of ten people accompanied them, and it’s been a month with no news. Who dares to believe they are still alive?”
Xia Yu listened in silence.
“Is the situation on Shisheng Mountain Snow Mountain that bad?” he asked.
“If it was truly terrible, we would have moved back to the city a long ti ago, wouldn’t we?”
The middle-aged uncle walked away with a smile.
“By the way, uncle, does your town have a professional kitchen for rent?” Xia Yu shouted after his retreating back.
“You have to go to the hot spring hotel opposite!”
Xia Yu thought he would have to stay in this small town for two days.
During these two days, at night, he would practice in the Chef God Space, and during the day, he would search for any clues about Chuyun Shrine through the internet or in person.
…
Two days later.
The scene shifted back to Tokyo.
On October 3, two weeks later, the semifinals of Far Moon’s “Autumn Selection” officially began at ten a.m. today!
The first match was Yashan Liang VS Sen Tian Makoto!
This matchup could be described as explosive, igniting the enthusiasm of Far Moon. Through the live TV broadcast, the familiar faces in the “Moon Sky Between” guest seats indicated how much attention this autumn selection had garnered.
Backstage.
Sen Tian Makoto lay on the table, her round and delicate face close to the screen, showing no signs of nervousness before going on stage.
“Ah, how beautiful, the snow mountain!”
She exclaid, and the other end of the video call surprisingly showed the snow mountain outside the window of the hot spring inn.
“Makki, the topic for the semifinals was personally decided by . Two weeks have passed. Can you handle them?” The phone emitted Xia Yu’s voice as he lay on the windowsill, smiling and asking his childhood friend in Tokyo.
“No problem——”
“Our group got the ‘beverage’ topic, while Xiao Hui and Xingping’s group got the ‘main course’ topic…” Sen Tian Makoto’s eyes smiled like clear crescents, “For , the ‘beverage’ topic suits well. If it were the ‘main dish’ topic, it would be tricky. I’d probably lose to Yashan Liang.”
Knock, knock!
A staff mber outside said, “Sen Tian contestant, it’s ti to go on stage!”
“Okay.”
Sen Tian Makoto responded. She had already changed into her white chef’s uniform and grabbed her phone.
Keeping the video call connected, the roaring cheers from “Moon Sky Between” transmitted to the hot spring inn in Platinum town, bringing a smile to Xia Yu’s face as he looked outside at the desolate wilderness, feeling a wave of emotion.
Just three days away from the city, the cheers of the competition felt unfamiliar to him.
“Makki! Makki! Makki!”
“Go for it!”
“Senior Sister Sen Tian, I am your fan!”
As Sen Tian Makoto stepped out from the passage, her fan club erupted. Her phone cara focused on them, leaving Xia Yu from the hot spring inn montarily stunned.
An entire area, everyone draping black robes and wearing black pointed hats, had an eye-catching “F” printed on the front.
Seeing Sen Tian looking over, the leader of the fan club raised a wooden cross painted in orange-red and shouted the slogan,
“Burn!”
“Burn, burn, burn!”
“May all lovers in the world… beco siblings in the end!”
The fans shouted the burning slogan in unison, and “Moon Sky Between” was stunned by the aura of this fan group.
Sen Tian Makoto felt awkward and quickly hid behind her cooking station.
Yashan Liang, having preceded her, stood coldly at the opposite cooking station.
“Ahem, the contestants are in place!”
The female host, Kawashima Reika, cleared her throat, “Yuan Yue Academy’s forty-third ‘Autumn Selection’ semifinals, the first round, now begins!”
Clang!
The sound of the golden gong rang out.
“Yu, I’m starting now!”
Sen Tian Makoto placed her phone in a convenient spot, focusing it on her as she moved the prepared ingredients onto the cooking station. Kawashima Reika exclaid, “It seems that contestants Yashan and Sen Tian both received ingredient support from Instructor Xia!”
On the cooking station were freshly picked fruits, with “lemon peach” being just one variety.
First, wash the fruit. With a sharp fruit knife, slice the fruit.
Observing closely, it wasn’t hard to notice that Sen Tian categorized the fruits, using seven different juicers.
Then, in five different transparent glass beverage cups, she poured a type of dark brown juice first, which was grape juice… Then, Makoto held a jar filled with homade yogurt, using a spoon to carefully drizzle a thin layer of yogurt, about 2-3 milliters thick.
Next, she poured orange juice with small particles, and sared another layer of yogurt.
The cycle continued.
Just half an hour into the cooking phase, Sen Tian Makoto rang the food delivery bell, bringing the five cups of juice to the judges’ table.
“Is it about controlling the density?”
While serving, Makoto didn’t forget to keep her phone on, allowing Xia Yu to observe the entire process. He was secretly astonished back at the hot spring inn, “To turn juices of seven different densities into a layered seven-color juice, how many tis must that have been practiced?”
“And… how are the yogurt layers so distinctly separated?”
Xia Yu pondered.
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