Obsessed (First Update)

"Add... add daylily!" Liu Qian said hesitantly.

"Daylily?" Daylily was indeed delicious and would make a fine seasoning in soup.

"My family adds daylily to every kind of stew—chicken soup, pork rib soup, kelp soup. Why, President, are you making soup?" Liu Qian's eyes lit up as she smiled. "Remember to let me have some when it's done!"

Jiang Feng nodded in agreement.

He decided to simmer two pots of soup later, one with daylily and one without, then taste them and decide which one to use.

After tinkering around in the back kitchen all afternoon, Jiang Feng ultimately chose the soup with daylily, though it had not turned out particularly well either.

A pot of soup that had simmered too long, with unevenly cut radish and mushrooms whose strange odor had not been removed.

Following Jiang Huiqin's steps, Jiang Feng made Clear Soup with Bird's Nest Slices once more, but the rating was still F-rank.

After one taste, it was indeed F-rank awful. Jiang Feng silently poured it into the Slop Bucket.

So... was his soup-making skill really the problem?

Even with white radish and daylily added, the mushroom flavor was still far too prominent. Jiang Feng always felt that something was missing.

What was missing?

Add some corn?

Some winter melon?

Some potatoes?

But if he added that many ingredients, it would become assorted vegetable soup and basically fall outside the scope of Mushroom Soup.

What should he add?

Over the next few days, those five words lingered in Jiang Feng's mind. Every day, he pondered what he could add to the soup to suppress the mushroom flavor. He did not even chop vegetables anymore, just simmered pot after pot of soup and stared at the stockpots on the stove all day.

He had already decided that the essence of Jiang Huiqin's version of Clear Soup with Bird's Nest Slices lay in the Mushroom Soup. Once he managed to make a suitable Mushroom Soup, the Improved version of the dish would be complete.

He had even become somewhat obsessed.

Two weeks passed. Jiang Feng's soup-making skills had improved considerably, but the soups he produced were still difficult to describe.

He tried oyster mushrooms, Enoki Mushrooms, Crab Mushroom, King Oyster Mushroom, White Jade Mushroom, Button Mushroom, Tea Tree Mushroom, Button Mushroom, shiitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, Button Mushroom, Lion's Mane Mushroom, White Mushroom, Beech Mushroom, Flower Mushroom, and Straw Mushroom one by one. As a result, the back kitchen constantly reeked of mushrooms, and even the dishes Jiang Jiankang stir-fried carried a faint trace of mushroom flavor. Wang Xiulian had also put all the soups he made to good use by serving them to customers, and quite a few customers had already complained to Ji Yue that the complimentary soup had been terrible lately.

Jiang Feng was washing Enoki Mushrooms.

He washed them very carefully, soaking them repeatedly in clean water and rubbing every single strand with meticulous care.

Jiang Jiankang chopped vegetables absentmindedly while cautiously watching Jiang Feng.

He felt that his son had not been quite right lately.

It was as though he had picked a fight with mushrooms. He cooked Mushroom Soup every day, from morning to night, then used one of those pots at night to make that strange tremella, quail egg, and Luncheon Meat dish.

Should he go to a temple and get a talisman to ward off evil for his son?

Wang Xiulian carried over a basin of vegetables that had been violently washed and set it heavily beside Jiang Jiankang. The sturdy wooden table shook.

"What's wrong with our son lately?" Wang Xiulian asked in a lowered voice.

Jiang Jiankang shook his head. "I heard the talismans at a nearby temple are especially effective. Should we go get one for Xiaofeng tomorrow to ward off evil?"

"What nonsense are you talking about? You're the one possessed!" Wang Xiulian shot Jiang Jiankang a glare, then cautiously glanced at Jiang Feng. "I think we should call Dad over and let him take a look."

"What would calling Dad over accomplish?" Jiang Jiankang still felt that Jiang Feng might be possessed.

"Isn't Dad a better cook than you? Xiaofeng cooks this Mushroom Soup every day. Once Dad gets here, won't he be able to help him fix the soup?" Wang Xiulian emptied out the vegetables and carried the large empty basin back to continue washing them. "Remember to call!"

Although Jiang Jiankang felt that getting a talisman from a temple would be more useful, he could not disregard his wife's words. He obediently put down his knife and went outside to call Old Master Jiang.

After hearing Jiang Jiankang describe Jiang Feng's condition, Old Master Jiang fell silent for a long time before agreeing to find time to make a trip to A City.

After hanging up, Old Master Jiang shouted vigorously to Old Madam Jiang, "Old woman, bring out that bottle of liquor I hid on top of the cabinet!"

"What liquor? It's broad daylight! Drink, drink, drink—have you cooked the pig feed? Washed the vegetables? Swept the courtyard?" Old Madam Jiang was listening to Huangmei Opera in her room and shouted back at the top of her lungs.

Old Master Jiang was not angered by the scolding. He happily went to get the liquor himself, poured a shallow little cup, and sat at the table sipping it slowly.

Closing his eyes, Old Master Jiang began to sing an off-key tune in a wavering voice.

Old Madam Jiang came out of the room, intending to bring Old Master Jiang some liquor. When she saw that he was already drinking and humming, she knew he was in a very good mood. "Who called just now? What's got you so happy?"

As she spoke, Old Madam Jiang went to the kitchen to bring him a small dish of peanuts.

"Xiaofeng has made something of himself! The Jiang Family has an heir!"

Old Master Jiang opened his eyes and smiled.

His five sons all possessed the same talent for imitation. They learned exactly as he taught them, but how could a cook be so rigid and unable to adapt?

He had thought that this would be it for his life, that Jiang Family Cuisine would die out in his hands.

Who would have thought? Who would have thought that his ordinarily talented grandson would encounter such an opportunity at twenty?

Jiang Feng had become obsessed with studying dishes!

Being obsessed was good. Being obsessed was wonderful!

Jiang Weiguo still remembered how, when he was young, his father Jiang Chengde would spend ten days or half a month researching a dish, unable to think about food or anything else, making the same dish in the kitchen all day as though possessed.

The more Jiang Weiguo thought about it, the more excited he became. He said to Old Madam Jiang, "Contact Old Wang tomorrow and have his son come slaughter Big Flower."

"Slaughter Big Flower?" Old Madam Jiang froze. "When Big Flower weighed 260 jin a few days ago, didn't you say we should wait until it reached 280 jin before slaughtering it?"

"No more waiting. How long would we have to wait for it to reach 280 jin? We'll slaughter it tomorrow! Big Flower is well-grown, with evenly distributed meat, and it usually loves to move around. Slaughter it and take it to A City so Xiaofeng can have a proper meal and build himself up," Jiang Weiguo said.

Old Madam Jiang agreed this time. "That's right, Xiaofeng should build himself up properly. He's so thin that he doesn't even look like one of our Jiang Family. Jiankang is a cook, yet he raised our grandson to look like this."

"He is too thin. He needs to gain at least another 40 jin. There needs to be meat on those arms, or he won't even be able to toss a wok." Old Master Jiang was also considering how to fatten Jiang Feng up by 40 jin and turn him into a tall, stout man who matched the Jiang Family's standards of beauty.

"Should we bring those two old hens I'm raising?"

"Bring them, bring them. Also bring the cured game from before and the wild Tea Tree Mushroom we gathered. Oh, right, didn't mushrooms grow on the beam in the storeroom before? They're quite plump. I'll pick them later and bring them too. Jiankang said Xiaofeng has been making Mushroom Soup lately, so we'll bring them for him to cook into soup!"

Old Master Jiang made the final decision.

After writing this chapter, I'm going to take the CET-6 exam. Once I'm done, I'll make up for what I owed over the past two days—however much I write, I'll make up that much.