Why Is Everyone Here to Curse Me Out!
The moment the knife in his hand finally stopped,
everyone awoke as if from a dream.
They had all been immersed in that vision.
In it, there seemed to be a master.
As a boy, he had shown talent and followed a master to learn the culinary arts.
As a young man, he met the woman he loved and fell deeply for her, unable to extricate himself. To pursue her, he spent every day creating new dishes for her, again and again.
His sincerity moved her, and the two finally joined hands as companions.
At twenty-six, they had their first child.
At twenty-nine, they had their third.
At thirty-five, the master hit a bottleneck. Having reached a certain level, he no longer knew where his future path lay.
By then, he had become a nationally renowned master, and even the powerful figures of the court treated him with great courtesy.
He did not know whether he should keep surpassing himself or follow the path of those who had come before him.
The first path was too difficult. He would have to put aside all distracting thoughts and devote himself to study and innovation.
But he had already taken that path to its limit, and his many innovations were largely the same with only minor differences.
If he chose the second path, however, power, fame, and wealth would be his for the taking. He already stood at the summit; as long as he stayed there, he would be a culinary saint revered by all.
At that moment, he was lost.
He could no longer find his way.
After a night of thinking in uncertainty, he finally made the choice in his heart and took the first path.
The hardest path of all.
He spent five years in pain and confusion, enduring failure after failure, until he finally succeeded.
That year, he was forty.
He had succeeded in surpassing himself.
He had once again brought the culinary arts of an entire era to their peak.
He created a culinary manual unmatched under heaven, held nothing back of what he had learned, took in disciples far and wide, and blazed a new path.
Two figures gradually overlapped.
They did not know why they had such a magical feeling. Ye Jin was so young, yet every movement of his hand carried the bearing of a master.
Could there really be someone in this world who was so capable at everything?
An absurd thought arose in their minds.
Just what kind of person had the production team selected?
He was a primordial beast that had merely been sleeping before. When he awoke, the whole world would tremble.
They looked at the other contestants with sympathy.
Those contestants probably still had no idea what kind of person they had unwittingly become rivals with!
If they knew, they would surely be so filled with despair that they would kill themselves!
They were probably thinking, What the fuck? too.
Those so-called big shots of the Western culinary world remained shameless.
"What's so great about that? He's just showing off."
"If it were me, I could do better."
"And you say you saw the bearing of a master? Don't make your bragging so outrageous. It's nothing special."
Everyone ignored these idiots who could not accept defeat.
They were dead ducks with stubborn beaks.
They could keep bragging for a little longer.
Ye Jin set the wok on the heat and poured in oil.
His knife moved, and every ingredient flashed through his hands like flowers glimpsed from horseback.
It was another dazzling spectacle to savor.
Countless people cried out in surprise.
"Could this be special effects?"
"Could what we're seeing have been prerecorded by the production team? Is this actually a movie?"
"This is just too over the top! You only see scenes like this in movies, right?"
Ye Jin's hands were incredibly steady. The wok moved so evenly in his grasp that it was as if a stabilizer had been attached to it.
All the ingredients trembled ever so slightly, releasing their own distinct aromas.
Ye Jin's proportions for every ingredient were perfect.
Not a bit too much, not a bit too little.
Together, they were just right.
All the seasonings
seemed to have been weighed out, accurate to within fractions of a gram.
After dozens of steps, the dishes were finally ready to leave the wok.
Dongpo pork, mao xue wang, and water-boiled live fish.
All three were home-style dishes.
But making home-style dishes well was where true skill lay.
As everyone looked at the dishes' shapes and colors, their appetites surged.
The food held its shape without falling apart, and its colors were bright.
Each of the three dishes had its own distinctive merits.
Ye Jin had also made some changes to the original recipes, preserving the dishes' original flavors and even improving on them.
Besides that, he had optimized the proportions of some ingredients.
That made them healthier to eat.
Their tongues tingled involuntarily, and they could not wait to have a taste.
They were simply too enticing.
Some Michelin three-star chefs could not help licking their lips as they looked at the tempting dishes.
Those were the famed dishes of the East.
Seeing them today, they truly were extraordinary.
But one of them quickly slapped himself.
How could he boost someone else's morale while dampening his own? He represented Western cuisine.
And they were the ones who had issued the challenge.
Once they admitted that the other side had won, their reputations would be dragged through the mud, and they would never recover.
Their credibility in particular would take a heavy blow.
So they would never allow themselves to lose.
Even if they lost, they would never admit it. They were watching through a screen anyway, so they could not make the fairest judgment; what was right and wrong was theirs to say.
All they had to do was buy off some media outlets and steer public opinion.
Wouldn't ruining the other side's reputation be a matter of minutes?
They began contacting media outlets, especially those prominent bloggers.
They spent a fortune hiring them to post remarks targeting Ye Jin online.
There were plenty of fucking idiots on Bluebird anyway. With a little steering of public opinion, the scales of victory would tip in their favor in minutes.
They were immensely pleased with themselves, as if they could already see the dawn of victory.
There was that Michelin three-star chef Mi Nuo, the one who had shouted that Eastern cuisine should kneel and apologize to Western cuisine.
He sneered and began posting tweets online.
He would use his influence to steer public opinion.
"Ye Jin is all show. It's all an act. The facts prove that while Eastern cuisine has decent knife skills, it looks good but is of no use and simply can't compare with Western cuisine..."
When the tweet went out, he trembled all over with excitement.
It was as if he could see himself basking in fame and success.
Soon, replies appeared under the post.
He clicked to take a look.
"You're a stupid pig. How did I ever eat food you cooked? I want to throw it up."
Mi Nuo's expression soured as he read the comment.
It had to be a viewer from the Nine Domains Nation.
So uncouth.
And they had even eaten his food?
Block, delete.
Just as he was about to put that person's comment on display to start a flame war,
his computer suddenly began chiming with notifications more and more rapidly.
"Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong..."
He was delighted. Could it be that so many people agreed with him?
He clicked to take a look.
He froze on the spot.
"What gives you the right to judge a master of Eastern cuisine? You're a pathetic clown."
"You're trash!"
"You fucking idiot, go die! How dare you insult the Eastern prince in my heart."
"You so-called Western culinary people are shameless. You're giving Western cuisine a bad name for no reason."
"And you still have the nerve to tweet here? Are you blind? Can't you see what happened?"
That was not all.
Even the major media influencers he had contacted
came over one after another to curse him out.
His expression turned extremely ugly.
What on earth had happened?
How had the tide suddenly turned so completely?!!!
Why?!!!
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