Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, Tang Jumps Over the Wall

To be precise, what Chen Ping had recalled in that instant were fragments of memories.

They contained more than one story—rather, a whole string of similar stories.

Because situations like this always played out again and again.

Two teams of chefs would each select ingredients for a cooking contest. If the other side took the only salt or cooking oil available, how should they handle it?

The answer was simply to add a few more steps. It was no big deal.

If they lacked salt, they could look among the available ingredients for cured ham to enrich the stock, other salty sauces, or even jellyfish. Once processed, those could substitute for salt.

If they lacked cooking oil, they could see whether there was fatty pork belly or chicken skin, then spend some time rendering lard or chicken fat.

Chen Ping naturally had no idea how to make a substitute for cumin powder, but what had he been worried about before?

He had worried that the delicious foods he had recreated from Blue Star would make money and build a reputation for only a couple of days before someone copied them exactly.

And unlike Huo Yuhao, he did not possess those Master Hands that could turn ordinary food into something miraculous—hands that made even the most unremarkable Grilled Fish taste different from everyone else's.

He could only watch others earn money that should have been his, utterly powerless to stop them.

Therefore, what he needed was not cumin, but a flavor that belonged to him alone, one that was truly unique.

A flavor that would make people blurt out, "Damn," after tasting it, then savor the aftertaste for ages without being able to figure out where it came from.

Douluo Continent certainly had fine cuisine, but most of it did not concern itself with the balance of principal and supporting ingredients or layered flavors. Even the meal he had eaten yesterday was like that: chicken was chicken, duck was duck.

This was probably related to Douluo Continent's Soul Beast culinary culture. Soul Beast Ingredients were already difficult to obtain. Cooking them on their own was enough to make them rare delicacies, so why mix other flavors into them?

And as the old saying went, what those above favored, those below would pursue even more fervently.

Even the food eaten by the Soul Masters at the very top was like this. Ordinary Soul Masters, let alone ordinary people, naturally would not go against such culinary trends to study ingredients with distinct layers and harmoniously fused flavors.

That gave Chen Ping an opportunity.

The first dish he thought of was Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, which required brewing all sorts of stocks and using vast quantities of precious ingredients. It was famed for the saying, "When the jar is opened, its meaty fragrance drifts through the neighborhood; when Buddha smells it, he abandons meditation and jumps over the wall."

Though Buddha Jumps Over the Wall looked like nothing more than a chaotic stew of precious ingredients in a single jar, Chen Ping was absolutely certain that no one could reproduce it in merely two or three months.

And that window of time would be enough for him to make a fortune.

The ingredients in Chen Ping's jar and in a copier's jar might both include abalone and sea cucumber, duck legs and shiitake mushrooms, fat chicken and pig trotters, winter bamboo shoots and clams, dried scallops and fish maw.

But the flavor he made would carry the effect of the Pseudo-Huo Gua God of Food Buff, making people recognize only the taste of his ingredients and willingly pay a high price for a single mouthful.

When making Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, timing and heat were the most important things.

If the heat was insufficient, the flavors would fail to come together. If it went too far, the ingredients would burn.

Did they think they could stew it for the time it took to drink a cup of tea, burn a stick of incense, or at most half an hour, then hurriedly take it out and claim they had copied Buddha Jumps Over the Wall so they could make some quick money?

Some ingredients would definitely be stewed to mush, while a pile of others in the jar would still be raw. Go ahead and eat it—one bite, and you would be struck speechless.

Even a simplified home version of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall required an entire day to prepare the ingredients and cook it.

But the version Chen Ping intended to make was the most complicated one, requiring at least three days and as many as seven before the jar could be opened—made specifically for the rich young masters and young ladies at the school.

He would make it only once a week, perhaps even once every two weeks, with only a few jars available each time. Scarcity would make it valuable.

Rather than coming out here to compete with these small vendors while worrying about attracting the attention of Shrek City's local bullies.

Honestly, if his only goal had been to prevent others from copying him, Buddha Jumps Over the Wall would not have been the best choice. Chen Ping had an even more formidable option: Boiled Cabbage in Clear Soup.

At least with Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, people could still trace what ingredients had been used. Although they would not know how each ingredient had been handled, they would at least know what was inside.

But what about Boiled Cabbage in Clear Soup?

When it was served, it was merely a dish of clear broth and a blooming cabbage.

Fresh and elegant, with a rich, mellow fragrance and a full-bodied broth that was still clean and refreshing—neither oily nor cloying. It was a true pinnacle among dishes, bringing extravagance and simplicity alike to perfection.

This was no longer a matter of whether it could be copied within three months. Even in three years or thirty years, without someone offering guidance, no one might be able to reproduce it perfectly.

But Chen Ping did not need a dish that would take that long for others to reverse-engineer. The complexity of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall was already enough.

Besides, the greatest benefit of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall was that it made it clear where every coin of your money had gone.

When Chen Ping raised his butcher's knife to fleece his customers, the fragrant assortment of ingredients floating in the jar would at least help soothe their wounded hearts, allowing them to suffer and enjoy themselves at the same time while eating.

But Boiled Cabbage in Clear Soup? Unless someone was a true gourmet, they simply could not taste its real profundity, and they might easily feel that they had wasted their money.

Chen Ping did not have much of a reputation yet, so Buddha Jumps Over the Wall was naturally far more cost-effective than Boiled Cabbage in Clear Soup.

As for whether customers could understand the meaning behind the three words "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall," Chen Ping believed they could.

First of all, the writing system of Douluo Continent was the same as Blue Star's.

Otherwise, Tang San would not have been able to throw eighteen Soul-Breaking Blades in arcing trajectories at once back then.

He had made the Soul-Breaking Blades pierce neatly into a tree trunk, arranged in three rows with six blades in each row.

They had formed the character "three" exactly, leaving Meng Yiran utterly speechless.

And the Wrath of the Buddha Tang Lotus that Tang San had once tossed around everywhere also contained the word "Buddha," which showed that Douluo Continent had the concept of Buddha.

In fact, on Douluo Continent, Buddha was defined as one who possessed both boundless blessings and boundless wisdom.

One with infinite good fortune and infinite wisdom.

It was a Trinity description of the awakened one, the enlightened one, and the savior.

Simply put, it referred to a sacred being blessed with fortune and wisdom, capable of self-awareness, self-enlightenment, and saving all living beings.

So who did this word usually refer to on Douluo Continent?

That was right—the First Generation Angel God.

One could imagine how furious the people of Spirit Hall would be after Tang San blew them up with the Wrath of the Buddha Tang Lotus and they learned its name.

But Ten Thousand Years had passed. Seas had turned to fields, and times had changed.

Nowadays, the word "Buddha" could even be used in certain texts to describe Tang San, which happened to fit his identity as Tang Buddha.

He really was fated with Buddha.

Thinking about it that way, could the Buddha Jumps Over the Wall he made be understood as Tang Jumps Over the Wall?

Tsk.

Chen Ping clicked his tongue and began searching the streets for ingredients to make Buddha Jumps Over the Wall.

He also opened the system and immediately saw that his Scholar Points were about to fall below four digits.

Not good!

This was probably the first time in all his years as a student that Chen Ping had looked forward so eagerly to the Start of School.

No matter how one looked at it, Scholar Points were still much easier to earn at school!