Chapter 547: Chapter 546: The So-Called ‘Break
“Broken?”
Tiqie Ji was taken aback.
“Exactly, broken,” Xia Yu said.
“That’s right, broken—”
The five judges looked up simultaneously, their expressions complex.
Thud, thud.
Ghost Father took two steps back, his face slightly stupefied.
“Broken? Impossible!”
“With the ingredients, your ‘Demon Big Snake at’ against my ‘Gem at,’ the Forbidden Spice ‘rck’s Stars’ against my Taboo Rice ‘Star Rice’… and then, there’s the brand-new natural fats, which are no less than your Taboo Egg Liquid!”
As he spoke, Tiqie Ji’s eyes flickered, as if a drowning man about to perish had clung to a lifeline, struggling wildly.
“I admit, we are equally matched in terms of ingredients.”
Xia Yu spoke calmly, his deanor and tone steady. Despite being on the verge of victory, he showed not the slightest hint of joy.
Such bearing was simply not what one would expect from a high school chef.
Watching Tiqie Ji’s increasingly distorted face and sensing Ghost Father’s hysterical aura, Xia Yu’s eyes instead reflected a touch of pity.
From Tiqie Ji’s obsession with ingredients to his delusional attempt to turn the tide with them, one could glean his mindset—a trap many Western cuisine chefs fall into:
Ingredient Supremacy.
Elegant dishes surely correspond to precious ingredients.
However, Xia Yu had never detected such extremism or fanaticism in the culinary philosophy of his peers from Far Moon School, Dojima Yin and Saito Chiyokuro, who also hailed from the Ten Masters of Far Moon.
It’s true that good ingredients can elevate a dish significantly, but chefs can also use their skill and soul to endow even ordinary recipes with sothing utterly subli. For example, in the previous round, Dojima Yin had effortlessly crushed Leon, a top chef from Food Dominator, with his ‘He-style Oysters’ dish.
Xia Yu could simply declare his victory, but upon reflection, he suddenly realized he had overestimated Tiqie Ji—this major antagonist who stirred up chaos at Far Moon Campus in the original story.
Tiqie Ji was indeed strong and had taken a crucial step towards becoming a Lin Chef, but Xia Yu was absolutely certain that Tiqie Ji would fare no better against Dojima Yin or Saito Chiyokuro than he had against him; a crushing defeat was without question.
“…if the ingredients are matched… then why…”
“You wouldn’t understand if I explained, or perhaps, you don’t want to believe,” Xia Yu shrugged and turned back to his cooking station. He took the seventh serving box and handed it to Tiqie Ji, “You’ll know once you eat!”
He said with a grin.
Tiqie Ji shuddered, not taking it imdiately.
“What, have you even lost the courage to taste?” Xia Yu mocked.
“Heh, heh heh heh heh!”
A strange, low laugh rang out. Tiqie Ji lifted his hysterical face, his eyes bloodshot, “I don’t believe it!!”
Roaring, before taking the serving box, Tiqie Ji repeatedly stabbed chunks of snake at from the ‘Fiery Golden Snake’ on the small table in front of Eriina, dipping them in sauce and stuffing them into his mouth.
Chunk after chunk of snake at.
His cheeks puffed out, the middle-aged man’s face distorted due to the fierce chewing.
Gul gulp!
Swiftly, his Adam’s apple bobbed, and Tiqie Ji swallowed the food in his mouth; the golden kingdom in his mind began to solidify, “My kingdom is indestructible!”
He snatched the serving box that Xia Yu handed over without another word.
Click.
The mont the lid was lifted, the sparkle was still there.
The glow struck Tiqie Ji’s face, and in the high-definition cara shot, the middle-aged man’s eyes were filled with fear, as if he had seen sothing terrifying. A rumbling sound, and even the noise of decaying buildings about to collapse echoed faintly in his ears.
Sweat beaded his forehead.
“What on earth is this!” He struggled to swallow, and without even tasting it, just the brightness of the light and the sll that assaulted his nose had rendered the golden snake fortress, previously constructed in his mind, filled with cracks and on the verge of collapse.
The hand holding the spoon trembled.
The lacquer serving box also visibly shook.
The scene captured on cara, broadcasted for all to see, left the venue in utter silence.
“He lost!” Mars exclaid.
“Glowing cuisine, eh?” Lin Giant Desani stared intently at the ‘Gold and Jade’ in the food box, hunger flickering in his eyes, “I want to try it as well and see how this so-called ‘breakthrough’ led a top special chef to defeat.”
“Glowing?”
Having returned to Tang’s Team, Tang Yuqiong furrowed her brows, murmuring to herself, “Why didn’t his ‘Golden Smiles’ glow when he was dueling ? Could he have been holding back…”
Her pretty face underwent several changes of expression.
Hearing her, Lin Giant Tangshan shook his head beside her, a hint of fear flickering in his eyes, “Glowing ‘Golden Smiles’?”
He dared not imagine how terrifying the glowing dish made from ancient recipes could be, the potency of the ‘breakthrough.’
Below the stage,
Zhu Qing bit her thumb, a look of confusion on her face, “Why can it glow? When it cos to ingredients, he used three Forbidden Ingredients. The more complex and high-grade the ingredients are, the harder it is to achieve a glow.”
“There are only a handful of chefs in the country who can cook glowing dishes using Forbidden Ingredients, and it seems none of them are Lin Chefs, they must all be Dragon Chefs…” She counted on her fingers and was incredulous to find that the nas of the chefs who could create glowing dishes were all prestigious figures of this era, capable of establishing their own schools of thought.
“I don’t believe it!”
A loud shout echoed throughout the venue.
Finally, Tiqie Ji stuffed the fried rice from his spoon into his mouth.
He bit down hard!
Crack, crack, crack!
Grains of rice, at cubes, and coated eggs shattered. In an instant, an indescribable heat flowed from his mouth to his throat, then spread throughout his body.
His pores opened wide. Not only his forehead was sweating now; Tiqie Ji was like soone who had just soaked in a hot spring, drenched in sweat. After swallowing a mouthful of fried rice, his whole being seed to float, his hysterical expression gradually softened on his face, replaced by a faint sense of happiness.
“I want to eat!”
“I want to eat!”
Gazing down at the Gem at Cubes in the food container, Tiqie Ji’s lips trembled as he spoke.
Spoonful after spoonful.
The middle-aged man who had initially been resistant transford into a ravenous wolf, mindlessly shoveling down the food.
What about the golden kingdom in his mind?
Upon the first spoonful of rice, not to ntion a ruin, the remains of the kingdom lted away. His mind was in a state of rest, empty, as other emotions and desires vanished as though only the thought of eating remained!
A strong craving for food!
This ti, Tiqie Ji’s face twisted, not out of runaway emotions, but in utter devotional feasting, casting aside all else, any noble culinary philosophy, any considerations of victory or defeat in culinary battles, any manners that a gentleman should have…
“Amazing! Why is it that just by chewing food, pleasure washes over like a tide! Ahhhh!”
Standing under the azure sky, the sunlight was so tender. Tiqie Ji stretched out his limbs, closing his eyes in ecstasy as if to embrace the world in his arms.
“‘Star Rice’ is a textbook application, just like the judge said, that kind of steaming utensil called a ‘rice stear’—steaming over water, makes the Taboo Rice perfectly cooked without being too moist… And such stead rice, when stir-fried in a large pot, wait! The fat for the fried rice cos from ‘Gem at Cubes’…”
Tiqie Ji couldn’t help but to critque, “First stir-fry the ‘Gem at Cubes’ in a large iron pot until they’re seventy to eighty percent cooked, remove the at without washing the pot, then use the fat rendered from the at to fry the rice, before mixing back in the at cubes and Taboo Egg Liquid…”
In his view, he saw a young man standing before a stove, one hand operating the bellows, the other wielding a large spatula, cooking in the fierce flas of a fire as vigorous as a monster’s breath.
In the end.
Rice, at cubes, and egg mixture, all three ingredients fused together, flawlessly integrated!
“Harmony!” the word popped into Tiqie Ji’s mind.
“Why can such unruly Forbidden Ingredients be so thoroughly tad…” Tiqie Ji thought despondently, “In terms of control, I’ve been utterly defeated! Impossible, even though we both use gourt cells for control, how can he perfectly master three Forbidden Ingredients simultaneously while I appear to struggle so visibly? I cannot lose completely in terms of ingredient control!”
Why!
As Tiqie Ji asked himself this heart-wrenching question ti and again, he kept spooning the rice into his mouth.
Truly devouring it like a starving wolf!
“Snap.”
The empty lacquered wooden food box fell to the ground, not even a single grain of rice spilling out.
He rolled the grain of rice that had stuck to his lip into his mouth and chewed. Tiqie Ji stood silently for a mont, his deadpan gaze animated by a question.
“…Is it delicious?”
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