Task Reward

After eating and drinking their fill, everyone leaned back in their chairs, rubbing their bellies with satisfied expressions. Even Chen Xiuxiu was no exception.

The eight dishes and one soup on the table had been completely wiped out. Not even a drop of broth remained, and the plates were so clean they looked as though someone had licked them.

If they had not been afraid of making the old man angry, Jiang Jiankang and Jiang Jiandang would not have minded licking the plates.

As Jiang Weiguo had grown older over the years, his body remained robust, but his stamina was far from what it used to be. Even during the New Year, they might not get a feast like this.

Looking at the empty plates on the table, then thinking of his useless son who could do nothing but eat and had not an ounce of culinary talent, Jiang Jiandang could not help feeling bitterly disappointed.

Jiang Shoucheng, who had been admitted to Imperial Capital Medical University and was currently on the high-speed train home, sneezed. Rubbing his nose, he thought the air conditioning on this train was a little too strong.

"From now on, Jiandang will go to the morning market every day to buy vegetables. Get fresh, all-natural ingredients. Don't put any of that pesticide-ridden, hormone-filled stuff in front of me." After Chen Duxiu and Chen Xiuxiu left, Jiang Weiguo began assigning daily tasks.

Jiang Jiandang nodded repeatedly. The quality of the ingredients directly affected the taste of the dishes.

"Xiaofeng, you'll study cooking with me every day. Learn heat control properly. If your fundamentals are this bad, how are you supposed to inherit your father's restaurant? And what was that thing you cooked this morning?" Jiang Weiguo was clearly dissatisfied with the porridge Jiang Feng had made that morning. "When you were little and learning to cook, you ran off right after practicing knife skills, saying studying was important. Important my ass! What good is an Optoelectronic Information major? You'd have better prospects as a cook."

"Back then, your great-grandfather was the head chef at Tai Feng Lou. So many dignitaries and nobles threw money around and still could not get a meal from him." The old man had clearly never gotten over Jiang Feng refusing to learn cooking on the grounds that he needed to study.

Jiang Feng: ...

He had genuinely loved studying back then!

If he did not study, he had to hang sandbags, cut potatoes, cut cucumbers, cut tofu. Even if he cut his hand, he would put on some medicine, wrap it in gauze, and keep cutting. How could he not love studying?

"Dad, what about me?" Jiang Jiankang asked eagerly, waiting for his father to assign him a task.

"Aren't you running your business?" Jiang Weiguo glanced at Jiang Jiankang.

"Exactly, aren't you running your business?" Comrade Wang Xiulian chimed in, shooting Jiang Jiankang a glare before turning to Jiang Weiguo with a smile. "Dad, I can help wash vegetables. I'll wash them every day, and I'll get them spotless."

If washing vegetables at home meant getting to eat the old man's freshly cooked dishes, this was an exceptionally good deal.

Jiang Jiankang: ...

The old man nodded slightly, indicating his agreement.

As soon as the old man stood up, Wang Xiulian and Li Mingli nearly simultaneously began clearing the dishes, saying in unison, "I'll wash the dishes!"

The old man had never cared about such trivial matters. He walked into the kitchen, brought out the chopping board and kitchen knife, selected a few potatoes and radishes from the large bag Jiang Jiankang had bought, and placed them before Jiang Feng.

"Cut the potatoes into chunks with a rolling cut and slice the radishes. Let me see whether your knife skills have gotten rusty," Jiang Weiguo said.

Jiang Feng's knife skills had naturally deteriorated quite a bit.

Under Old Master Jiang Weiguo's scolding, Jiang Feng returned to the days of his youth, keeping potatoes, radishes, and cucumbers company.

That evening, Jiang Weiguo picked out some barely passable potato chunks and radish slices to stir-fry into several small dishes. The rest were sent to the restaurant for Jiang Jiankang to cook and sell to customers.

For the next while, Healthy Snacks put all rice dishes and stir-fries involving potatoes and radishes on special every day.

Jiang Feng felt like a lowly prep cook in a hotel kitchen, holding a cleaver over a chopping board every day—chop chop chop chop chop—only for the vegetables he painstakingly cut to be criticized relentlessly by the head chef.

Fortunately, Jiang Feng had progressed from cutting vegetables to cutting meat.

At last, no one had to eat minced pork stir-fried with potatoes, minced pork stir-fried with radishes, or Shredded Cucumber Salad every day.

To celebrate Jiang Feng successfully finishing an entire chicken, Jiang Weiguo decided to use this small free-range chicken, whose body had suffered terribly during the deboning process, to make Boneless Braised Chicken.

"Starting tomorrow, you can touch the wok," Jiang Weiguo announced at the dinner table.

After spending more than ten days rebuilding his knife skills, Jiang Feng nearly wept with joy.

During this time, Chen Xiuxiu had gone from being too embarrassed to come over and freeload meals every day, to showing up uninvited at mealtimes, to arriving one or two hours early every day to help Wang Xiulian and Li Mingli with prep work. There was no trace left of the woman who had once been so determined to diet that she would rather die than eat.

The two of them reached for the same piece of chicken.

When their chopsticks collided, Jiang Feng could not help sighing. This day had finally come.

It was a piece of chicken with evenly colored caramelized skin, fried golden brown, crisp on the outside and tender within, with an excellent appearance.

"Aren't you dieting? Boneless Braised Chicken is too high in calories for you," Jiang Feng advised.

"Xiuxiu still needs to lose weight?" Jiang Shoucheng abruptly raised his head from his food, his face full of shock.

"Can't even food shut your mouth?" Jiang Weiguo snapped.

Jiang Shoucheng immediately lowered his head and continued eating chicken, following his grandfather's teachings and using food to shut his mouth.

"You need to eat your fill to have the strength to lose weight." Drawing on years of experience snatching food from Jiang Feng's bowl, Chen Xiuxiu flicked her wrist nimbly, knocked Jiang Feng's chopsticks aside, and successfully claimed the braised chicken for her plate.

"Ding! Side quest completed: Neighbor's Wish. Quest reward acquired: Porridge Cooking (Intermediate)."

Jiang Feng had been so dazed from chopping vegetables these past few days that he had nearly forgotten he even had quests.

The Chen Xiuxiu from a year ago had returned!

Looking at the braised chicken in Chen Xiuxiu's bowl, Jiang Feng did not know whether to feel happy or sad.

"This afternoon, start by practicing scrambled eggs." The old man began assigning Jiang Feng's training tasks.

"Grandpa, how about I cook you some porridge this afternoon?" Jiang Feng tried to bargain, hoping to conquer the old man with his superb Porridge Cooking (Intermediate) skill.

"Porridge, porridge, porridge! How did our Jiang family produce someone like you who loves cooking porridge so much?" The old man's temper had been getting worse lately. "You practiced knife skills for so many years as a child just so you could cook porridge now?"

Jiang Feng was left speechless by the rebuke.

Jiang Feng guessed that the old man regretted it. He had come over on a whim to pass on his cooking skills, only to discover that Jiang Feng was still beyond teaching.

To make a dish that earned the old man's approval.

Unless his great-grandfather possessed him!

After the meal, Wang Xiulian, Li Mingli, and Chen Xiuxiu competed as usual to wash the dishes. Jiang Shoucheng was ordered by the old man to help out at the restaurant, while Jiang Feng picked up his kitchen knife and continued, chop chop chop chop chop.

He still had to cut the ingredients for the afternoon's cooking himself.

He did not even have time to sneak a look at what Porridge Cooking (Intermediate) was. If he made one wrong cut, he would hear the old man's booming roar.

"Jiang Feng, didn't you eat lunch? You can't even cut vegetables properly!"

At times like this, Chen Xiuxiu would stand nearby, munching on a cucumber as she watched the show.

Heartless.

Heh, women.