The Game of Life

The fact he could get up early at 8 a.m., head to the kitchen, even after getting drunk the night before, speaks volumes about his determination!

Today, Sun Jikai was still trying to maintain his image of a cool and domineering CEO.

“What nonsense did I spout when I was drunk last night?” Sun Jikai sneaked over to Jiang Feng before the lunch rush started and asked quietly.

“A lot.”

“How much is a lot?”

“Your second uncle’s family is smiling tigers, you were kicked out of your grandfather’s house, dumped by your girlfriend, your credit card was frozen, you won’t be able to pay your rent next month, the stir-fried beef hor fun is 8 yuan cheaper than Ji Xue’s, the tomato shrimp is 16 yuan cheaper than Zhang Guanghang’s, the lychee pork…” Jiang Feng started to enumerate everything Sun Jikai had said the previous night.

“Alright, stop talking,” Sun Jikai was already considering the specifics of resigning.

“Actually, all of that is not so important. Mainly, when I was taking you home later on, you kept mumbling one phrase,” Jiang Feng said.

“What phrase?”

“Thirty years in Hedong, thirty years in Hexi, don’t bully the young when they’re poor.”

Sun Jikai:…

“Honestly, you should read fewer novels. These tropes are from several years ago and aren’t even popular anymore,” Jiang Feng earnestly advised, “I have a friend who likes novels just like you; he doesn’t just read them, he writes them, too. As a result, he has to retake ‘Signals and Systems’ because he failed, and he’s probably going to fail ‘Optical Information Processing’ this term and have to retake it too. By the time we graduate, he’ll likely have to stay back an extra year.”

“You see, writing novels is a dead end!” Jiang Feng had more to say, but he didn’t mention that Wang Hao was the bloody lesson.

Sun Jikai:…

“I don’t read novels.” Sun Jikai stubbornly denied, “How could I possibly have time to read novels.”

“Anyway, that’s not what I initially wanted to talk to you about. Last night, I discussed with Qiqi, and I think for the thickening sauce of the Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon, we could start with high heat, then switch to low, and at the end turn up the heat again,” Jiang Feng changed the subject, swiftly transitioning the conversation to serious culinary research.

“High heat first, then low heat, and back to high heat?” Sun Jikai thought for a moment. It seemed that his grandfather didn’t do it this way, but Jiang Feng’s method sounded quite plausible.

“Let’s try it this noon.”

“Hmm.” Jiang Feng nodded, they would try it at noon.

“Wait, you just said you discussed it with Wu Minqi, does she also know how to make this dish?” Sun Jikai began to question his life. Wasn’t this a secret recipe of the Sun Family? When had it become so common?

“Qjqi was there watching when your grandfather demonstrated it for me, and he agreed. Although she doesn’t know the finer details, she’s quite clear on the basic steps,” Jiang Feng explained.

Sun Jikai thought about it and then suggested, “Why don’t we study it together with Wu Minqi this noon?”

“Hmm?”

“This idea came from her, so having her join us will make the process go much more smoothly,” Sun Jikai, having spilled all his secrets to Wu Minqi while drunk the day before, now clearly regarded her as one of his own.

The research on the Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon by Jiang Feng and Sun Jikai, with the addition of Wu Minqi, did not make any breakthrough progress, or more accurately, they made no progress at all.

Days flew by in the blink of an eye, and tomorrow was the 27th, the day for their dish trial, but the three of them were still at a standstill. Although the date wasn’t directly related to them, as they had no new dishes to trial, it was still an important day, because after the 27th Sun Jikai could raise the price of his stir- fried beef hor fun to 48 yuan.

In the past few days, Mrs. Wang Xiulian had gone undercover in several Chaozhou beef hotpot restaurants in Beiping, dined with her aunt and great- aunts, and investigated the price of their stir-fried beef hor fun, discovering that it was indeed priced differently from fried rice noodles.

Stir-fried beef hor fun was more expensive than fried rice noodles!

During these days, Ji Yue, who had been suffering from a lack of inspiration, suddenly experienced a burst of creativity. Her drafting speed surged.

It could have been because of Ji Xue’s vegetable tofu soup, or perhaps from eating barbeque for several days, that her blocked creativity suddenly gushed forth. Even when working until three or four in the morning, she didn’t feel tired. Ji Yue even forgot who she initially started drawing drafts for, and used her lunch breaks to sleep at her desk, no longer concerned with seeing Zhang Guanghang’s face.

To get back on track, Jiang Feng and his comrades’ progress on the Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon was far from satisfactory. If they were back at Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant, a plate of Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon, which tasted alright but lacked authenticity and soul, could be renamed and added to the menu without issue. But now, they were no longer at Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant, but at Taifeng Building, a high-end restaurant that had opened in Beiping, where their clientele was not just students from UAL University but the entire society, including many gourmands who came specifically for their food.

This cheap knockoff version of Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon would only bring shame to Taifeng Building if we were to put it on the menu.

Therefore, the Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon they practiced making was used as a staff reward, given as an extra meal to the well-performing employees of Taifeng Building on that day.

Due to menu testing on the 27th, Taifeng Building would close right after the lunch service, and apart from the furnace chefs who needed to stay for the menu practice, almost all other employees could leave work early, almost like taking a half-day off.

There are basically no days off when working in a restaurant; all the national holidays are irrelevant to those in the service industry, and the busier the holiday, the more the company shows you that getting four times the salary is not at all easy.

Although the holiday on the 27th was only half a day, it was enough to keep everyone excited for a long time.

The lunch service hadn’t even started yet when some of the young chefs in the kitchen could no longer contain their excitement, chattering about what they were going to do with the half-day off.

“Tang Tang, a roommate of mine told me about a place where the clothes are incredibly cheap, I asked her to send me the address, let’s go check it out in the afternoon!” one of the female chefs from the cold dish section invited Tang Tang.

“Ah, I can’t make it, you find someone else. I have plans to go swimming with my boyfriend this afternoon,” Tang Tang declined politely.

“Sang Ming, want to go hike the Great Wall this afternoon? I remember you said you wanted to go, Zhang Weiyu, Wei Shiheng, and I are also going,” Ou Yang invited, as Sang Ming was usually the most lively in the kitchen and had the best rapport with everyone.

Wei Shiheng, who usually lacked a sense of presence, gave a slight smile to Sang Ming.

Sang Ming was too busy talking to Ou Yang to see it.

Wei Shiheng, used to being ignored, bent his head down and kept on chopping vegetables.

“I can’t do it, I’m not free today, my sister has come and I need to take her out,” Sang Ming said.

“Your sister has come?!” almost all the chefs in the kitchen exclaimed in unison.

Even the two elderly gentlemen who generally didn’t join in the conversation couldn’t help but look at Sang Ming.

“When did your sister arrive?” asked Jiang Feng.

“She’s already here, I told her to wait for me at Taifeng Building, oh right, I need to tell Manager Fan, see if I can find a corner for her to sit and wait for me,” Sang Ming said, then turned to look at the two elderly gentlemen.

“Chef Jiang, I…”

“Go ahead,” Jiang Weiming said with a smile.

Sang Ming went out to find Fan Mei.

“Do you think Sang Ming’s sister will be pretty?” Ou Yang asked Zhang Weiyu. “Hasn’t he already said his sister is not good-looking? But isn’t his sister just in her second year of junior high? It’s quite surprising that her parents would let such a young girl come to Beijing all by herself,” Zhang Weiyu’s attention was peculiarly focused.

“His sister started school late, she was unhealthy in elementary school and even took a year off, she is 16 this year,” Han Yigu was quite familiar with the situation of Sang Ming’s sister.

“I think his sister must be pretty, Sang Ming is just fond of disparaging her,” Luo Yu asserted confidently.

“That can’t be right, I feel Sang Ming really likes his sister, maybe she really isn’t good-looking,” Zhou Shi said.

“I also think his sister might not be pretty.”

“But I reckon his sister could be quite pretty, Sang Ming himself isn’t bad- looking.”

“I think she’s probably alright too.”

“I…”

Suddenly Taifeng Building’s kitchen was split into two groups: those who thought Sang Ming’s sister was pretty and those who thought she wasn’t. “Alright, stop the chit-chat, we’ve got more than a dozen banquet tables reserved for the lunch today and we’ll be busy. Han Yigu, go help out at the cold dish counter. Zhou Shi, go check if that braised meat is ready,” Jiang Feng said, ending the discussion that would soon see its verdict.