The Game of Life

Jiang Feng spent the entire afternoon tinkering in the kitchen, watching Jiang Huiqin’s cooking videos three or four times, upgrading the ingredients to better quality ones, enriching the seasonings, and following Jiang Huiqin’s steps to make the clear broth lily leaf swallow vegetable dish.

Looking at the F-grade improvement rating given by the game, Jiang Feng wore a complex expression as he stared at the dish in front of him.

The presentation was very pretty, and he had added a few vegetable leaves to enrich the color.

But the taste…

It lived up to the F-grade evaluation from the game.

Mushroom soup, quail eggs, white fungus, and luncheon meat—a truly deadly combination!

That Jiang Huiqin could turn such a deadly combination into an E-grade dish was an indicator of her superior cooking skills.

Jiang Feng quietly poured the failed dish into the swill bucket.

He simply wasn’t a chef with much of a natural talent. The game had rated his food testing skill as just basic. He’d just grown fussy from being fed by Jiang Weiguo and Jiang Jiankang since childhood, enough to bluff his way through critiquing dishes when among those who didn’t know better.

As for those geniuses in novels who are born with extremely high taste sensitivity, who could tell if ingredients were fresh with a glance, distinguish all the ingredients and seasonings with a single taste, and deduce the cooking method after finishing a dish—Jiang Feng had never even heard of them.

He didn’t believe such people existed in the world.

After all, being a chef was mostly about acquired skill—there were too few who were born to it.

Unable to figure it out on his own, Jiang Feng sought advice from Jiang Jiankang.

“Mushroom soup, white fungus, quail eggs, luncheon meat?” With each ingredient mentioned, Jiang Jiankang’s brow furrowed deeper. After a long while, he looked at Jiang Feng with a complex expression: “Son, let’s just cook honestly, no need to follow those so-called ‘innovative dishes’ you see online.”

Clearly, the trauma from the pure meat dumplings from the day before was still fresh.

Jiang Feng:…

Dad, that’s something you should say to your auntie…

After much persuasion and persistence from Jiang Feng, Jiang Jiankang finally gave in, leaving behind a “I’ll look into it” before slipping away to chop vegetables in the back kitchen.

Jiang Feng went back to his dorm to change clothes.

He had a gathering to attend later.

It was the Chess Club’s first gathering of the semester, and also the most formal, largest and most expensive gathering in the four years of the club’s history!

Jiang Feng vaguely remembered last year’s gathering where they combined the remaining funds, and Ji Yue even contributed her treasured butter hotpot base and pot hidden in her dorm, buying loads of noodles, vermicelli, rice cakes, vegetables, and enokitake as base ingredients and side dishes, with only one fish ball per person and nothing more. Eight people sneaked into a classroom to steal electricity, gathering furtively for an unconventional meal.

This year was different; the Chess Club had more than thirty members and could afford to dine in a restaurant!

This was an unprecedented breakthrough for the Chess Club, especially since Ji Yue had never enjoyed the privilege of dining at a restaurant during her three years as club president.

For this, Ji Yue even took leave from work and paid out of her own pocket to join the meal.

Poor Wang Hao, the only one left to help in the restaurant that day.

The group of over thirty people almost filled an entire bus.

The gathering was held at a barbecue hotpot buffet not far from the university, priced at 69 yuan per person, with a 15% discount for showing a student ID, making it quite affordable. Because there were so many people, Jiang Feng had reserved seats in advance—two rows, four tables in one row and five in the other, all joined together to make it easy for everyone to chat while eating.

Although the ingredients weren’t very fresh, clearly made from patched-up and frozen meat, the variety was plentiful. If you couldn’t grill, you could just dip in the broth, and thanks to the individual hot pots, there was a wide range of condiments—soy sauce, salt, vinegar, garlic paste, minced chili peppers, and various dipping sauces were all available.

Jiang Feng was seated at the same table with Ji Yue, Liu Qian, Liu Zixuan, and the Chess Club’s hopeful future talent, Wu Minqi, who was also Liu Qian’s fellow townsman.

Liu Qian carried two large plates of cooked food back to the table, sat down, set up her phone facing her, and began speaking into the camera: “Hi everyone, I’m Qianqian, and today is our club’s gathering for a barbecue buffet. This…” “Live streaming?” Jiang Feng had just brought back a plate of raw meat to grill when he saw Liu Qian speaking to her phone.

‘Tve been doing it for a week or two. You didn’t notice the phone I have with me every mealtime?” Ji Yue said nonchalantly, laying chicken wings on the grill paper.

Jiang Feng:…

He thought Liu Qian was watching a TV drama.

“Brush some oil; how can you grill without oil,” Jiang Feng reminded.

“Their oil isn’t tasty,” Ji Yue said as she picked up a plump piece of belly pork and placed it beside the chicken wings. “The oil that comes out of grilled belly pork is delicious!”

Jiang Feng:…

“Their chicken wings are marinated and taste especially good. The lamb doesn’t have much of a mutton taste, and the tenderloin is just average. Oh right, their finger rice cakes are also tasty—they’re really chewy when you boil them in the hot pot. Hey Qianqian, why aren’t you grilling anything?” Knowing the ingredients of the restaurant like the back of her hand, Ji Yue saw that Liu Qian was only eating marinated duck clavicle with dim sum on another plate and couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t know how to grill. When I went to have all-you-can-eat grill before, it would either be undercooked or burnt. Even if I grilled it, it still wouldn’t taste good. I’ll just wait for the hot pot to be ready and eat boiled dishes,” Liu Qian said.

“Which platform are you live streaming on, Liu Qian? I’ll follow you,” Jiang Feng felt that since one of his club members was live streaming, it was only right for him as the club president to offer a little help.

“Some live streaming platform, my stream is called ‘UAL University Eat and Drink Daily’.” Liu Qian was naturally happy to receive Jiang Feng’s follow.

Jiang Feng downloaded the live streaming app, entered Liu Qian’s live stream room, and was greeted by her prominent nostrils.

There were only 47 people watching, including Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng:…

With such a mystifying live stream angle, the remaining 46 were definitely true fans.

The live stream room was quiet, with nobody talking. Liu Qian was very zen; after saying a couple of words at the start of the stream, she focused on eating, not caring about the live stream, occasionally speaking a few words with Ji Yue as if she had forgotten that she was live streaming.

Jiang Feng hit the follow button and quietly exited the live stream room to focus on grilling.

Ji Yue was an experienced grill master, specifically choosing marinated fish and meat, along with the sizzling fat from grilled belly pork—it did indeed look very appetizing. Liu Qian watched the chicken wings eagerly; Ji Yue grilled four at a time, giving one to everyone.

For someone who normally couldn’t even cook vegetables, Ji Yue’s chicken wings were a resounding success.

“Sister Ji Yue, you’re amazing!” As someone who struggled with grilling, Liu Qian looked at her admiringly.

Once the chicken wings and belly pork were out, the grill was empty again.

Liu Zixuan placed his enoki mushrooms on the grill and boasted as he grilled them, “Not to brag, but my enoki mushrooms are especially tasty, and they’re not far off from Feng’s cooking skills.”

While saying this, he began sprinkling cumin and chili powder from a jar onto the enoki mushrooms.

However, as the jar hadn’t been cleaned out in a long time, the holes were all clogged, and after a long time trying, not a single granule made it out. Liu Zixuan became frantic, took the jar to the edge of the table, and gave it a hard tap before sprinkling it forcefully.

A huge clump of bright red chili powder landed on the soft white enoki mushrooms.

After a series of suffocating maneuvers, Liu Zixuan, unsurprisingly, crashed and burned.

The enoki mushrooms were too spicy, too salty, and also burnt.

He even charred the baking paper.

Ji Yue brought back a half dish of finger rice cakes, planning to put them into the pot after the meatballs were cooked.

“Ah, I really want some spicy stir-fried rice cakes,” Liu Qian lamented as she looked at the finger rice cakes on the plate. “The school’s spicy rice cakes are so bad—not truly spicy or salty. And the president’s restaurant doesn’t sell them either.”

Resentment was evident in her tone.

Looking at the fresh sheet of baking paper, Jiang Feng had an idea.

“How about I make it for you?”

With the seasoning ingredients available at this restaurant, making a spicy stir-fried rice cake should be well within his capabilities.