A contest between eastern and western cooking skills?

Ye Jin headed for the hotel kitchen.

Although his suite had a kitchen, the refrigerator was empty, with no vegetables or fruit, only a few drinks.

As he walked along, there was no one around, and everything was quiet.

The hotel certainly had taste. It was grand and imposing, with an air of old-world elegance, and the decorations on the walls were especially eye-catching.

Besides that, the hotel's amenities were exceptionally comprehensive.

It had everything from a gym and a cinema to a swimming pool and a massage room.

At the end of the corridor was a fish tank with several goldfish in it.

He tossed in some of the fish food beside it.

Their meeting was fate.

He pushed open the door and entered the kitchen.

There were some dishes inside, still untouched. It seemed that everyone had left in a hurry, setting them aside before they could be served.

"Why did everyone leave in such a hurry?"

Ye Jin shook his head.

As he passed by, he caught a sour smell.

He threw the once-exquisite dishes into the slop bucket.

Today, he was going to cook for himself.

Fortunately, although those people had left in a hurry, they had left the ingredients they had bought off to one side instead of taking them away.

He opened the cold storage room, where some meat products were stored.

The kitchen worktable had all sorts of seasonings and ingredients.

Scallions, ginger, garlic, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, chicken bouillon, starch...

His eyes lit up. With those ingredients, he had everything he needed for the dishes he wanted to make.

The viewers watching saw him walking back and forth, looking for those ingredients.

"No way, is he really going to cook?"

"He'll probably just throw something together. I've seen the Nine Domains Nation's food shows, and they're ridiculously fake. It's all just for show. Even if he makes something, it won't taste as good as our western food."

"I'm a three-Michelin-star chef, and I've seen those Nine Domains Nation food shows too. The people on them can't cook at all. You can tell just by looking at their knife skills. They're utter garbage."

"They just like putting on a show to grab attention. Do they dare compare knife skills with our western chefs?"

"I hear Chinese cuisine is known for its knife skills. If they can't even beat me, what right do they have to say it's better than western cuisine?"

"Weren't you just bragging about Ye Jin's cooking? Why don't you dare compete now? If you don't dare, get on your knees, kowtow, and admit defeat!"

Quite a few people claiming to be western chefs jumped into the comments.

One three-Michelin-star chef even uploaded a video to YouTube, openly challenging Ye Jin.

In the video, he demonstrated his superb knife skills.

In a short time, he carved a carrot into an animal that looked remarkably lifelike.

He sliced a block of tofu into more than twenty pieces and arranged them on a plate in a flash.

They were clever. Rather than taking aim at the Nine Domains Nation's culinary world directly, they made Ye Jin their main target.

After all, Ye Jin's fame on the show was at its zenith, as though he had already come to represent the Xia People.

By dealing Ye Jin a heavy blow, they would also be getting the better of the Nine Domains Nation from another angle.

Their intentions were far from pure.

"Can you people have a shred of shame? If you've got what it takes, compete with our state banquet chefs."

"Look at every one of you putting on airs. Cooking is your profession. If you've got what it takes, pick something else! Racing, wingsuit flying-do you dare? Bunch of garbage!"

"All you know how to do is scheme against people behind their backs. Who was it that issued the challenge just now? If you've got what it takes, come out and compete with me!"

The people who posted those provocative videos were clever.

They didn't confront the Nine Domains Nation's top chefs head-on.

Instead, they aimed chiefly at Ye Jin.

They didn't respond to those comments at all.

Instead, they used their resources to push their videos into the trending topics, challenging Ye Jin.

For a time, a storm was brewing.

The provocative posts from foreign sites were reposted straight into the trending topics on domestic media.

Countless marketing accounts caught the scent and sprang into action.

The topic became wildly popular on domestic social media.

In just over ten minutes, it shot to the top of the trending searches.

And it just happened to be lunchtime, when people were getting off work.

Countless people stopped what they were doing.

One after another, they opened the livestream to watch this contest between eastern and western cooking skills.

They cursed the western chefs for their cunning.

But there was nothing they could do.

Ye Jin still didn't know that he had become the focus of attention online, with tens of billions of eyes fixed on him.

Heaven was his witness: all he wanted was a simple lunch.

He had originally planned to make some simple stir-fried pork with chili peppers and Sichuan boiled pork slices.

After all, he wasn't Empress Dowager Cixi back in the day.

She needed more than a hundred dishes for a single meal.

But while looking for ingredients, he found several books in a cupboard.

He didn't know which chef had left them there.

"Knife Skills of State Banquets"

"The Culinary Artist"

"Food Studies"

"Modernist Cooking"

"Fruit and Vegetable Cutting, Carving, and Decoration"

He glanced at the books and put them back.

He wasn't planning to make a banquet, so there was no point reading them.

But the moment he closed the cupboard door, a thought suddenly occurred to him. He opened it again, took the book out, and put it on the table.

How about it?

Give it a try?

There were so many ingredients in the kitchen anyway, and they wouldn't keep for long.

He had always watched those food shows and seen how incredible the knife skills were. What if I... used my talent skill to learn them?

Wouldn't that mean...?

His eyes lit up.

He was bored with nothing to do anyway.

All he had to do was move his hands.

And so... he opened the books.

Everyone watching: ...

The chefs with ulterior motives were almost laughing out loud.

The comments practically trampled him into the ground.

"This is your eastern chef? He has to read books to cook? Good heavens, oh, my god."

"A chef who has to read books to cook is nothing but shit, garbage, worthless. I feel insulted having to compete with him."

"Competing with someone who has to read books to cook is the biggest mistake I've made in my life."

"Hurry up and surrender. If you admit you were wrong online, I'll let you off."

The people of the Nine Domains Nation were so angry their noses were nearly twisted out of shape.

They wanted nothing more than to spit a thick, old gob of phlegm in their faces.

Couldn't they have a shred of shame?

They had heard before that these people were shameless, but they hadn't known they were this shameless.

They had absolutely no bottom line.

Who the fuck had agreed to compete with them?

And they felt their cooking skills had been insulted?

Who had insulted them?

They were the ones who had shoved their faces over.

They were flattering themselves, basking in their own delusions and getting themselves off.

And they wanted the others to kneel to them?

A bunch of garbage like them?

Pah!

If they could have gone through the screen, they would have rushed over and beaten those people's dog heads to a pulp long ago.

They had seen shameless people before, but never anyone this shameless.

They made up their minds.

Even if Ye Jin lost, they couldn't let this bunch of thick-skinned people off.

Ye Jin opened each book.

He flipped straight through them, swish, swish, swish.

Five books.

He finished flipping through all of them in just ten seconds.

An electronic notification sounded in his mind.

"Ding! Learn cooking skills? Twenty points will raise you to master level. Mastering all five books requires one hundred points."

"Learn!"

"Ding! One hundred Talent Points consumed. One thousand three hundred and thirty remaining!"