He didn’t know how much time had passed. It was so long that when Su Chen finally snapped out of his daze, he realized he had been standing there in the real world for over three hours.
’How could this be...’
Three hours ago, Su Chen had used two woks. In one, he perfectly replicated the method used by the uncle from Old Rice Bone.
After all, with several Max Level Skills, Su Chen was confident that his Braised Dried Tofu wouldn’t be inferior to the uncle’s.
But when Su Chen saw the system’s rating, he felt a bit dejected.
[Shrimp Fire Braised Dried Tofu: Rating B Level]
He then made it again using the famous recipe. During the process, Su Chen felt the urge to stop several times.
It was too bizarre!
Looking across all of Yangzhou, there probably wasn’t a single restaurant that used these side ingredients for this dish, right?
But since it was a recipe from the famous cookbook, Su Chen suppressed his curiosity and continued.
Once. Just once!
Without any thought, purely following the system’s recipe, he cooked it. When Su Chen saw the evaluation, he was so shocked he practically fell out of the practice room.
[Braised Dried Tofu: Rating S Level!]
How is that possible...
For the past three hours, Su Chen had been trapped in this confusion, completely unable to pull himself out. It felt like his worldview had been turned upside down!
’If that’s the case, it means that the truly delicious way to make this Braised Dried Tofu has already been lost to the passage of time!’
’The Braised Dried Tofu people eat now is a castrated version, or in other words, a modified version!’
’So if I reveal the truly delicious way to make this dish now, is that appropriate...’
The reason Su Chen had been in a daze for nearly three hours was precisely because he was struggling with this issue.
More than producing an S Level dish, he wished that the version from the uncle’s video was the one that was actually delicious.
To bury such a magical delicacy deep in his memories—that was definitely not realistic.
But if he just released it, not to mention anything else, just think of that Chef Sui online. He could go to someone’s restaurant, take one bite of a dish, and immediately replicate it back home.
Meiweilai Company was just a small company... and Su Chen hadn’t formally entered the culinary world. To suddenly unleash such a "big move," was it really appropriate?
’Perhaps the fact that a fragment of the famous cookbook found its way to me... this is its purpose...’
’I can’t let true delicacies disappear into the river of history, but I also can’t just sit back and do nothing while people copy these dishes!’
Su Chen could only think of one way to perfectly solve this problem for now.
He picked up his phone and called He Shuting to his office.
"Boss... you called for me alone. It couldn’t be that..." He Shuting deliberately put on a coy and shy act.
It was, admittedly, quite fetching.
"Last time we went to the Capital City, didn’t I ask you and Ah Bao to create a new account for Meiweilai Company?"
The kind without the black stockings.
"Mhm! I already set it up, but then you stopped taking us out to eat, so we never posted anything."
Su Chen hummed in acknowledgment. "Today, you can use Ah Bao’s equipment to film the first video."
"Huh?" He Shuting was suddenly overjoyed.
Even though she had been "exiled" to the second floor to manage the kids’ dining service, what former kindergarten teacher didn’t dream of being a streamer?
"Okay, okay! I’ll go find Ah Bao right now to figure it out!"
After He Shuting left, Su Chen took a deep breath.
If he didn’t want this delicacy to be lost to dust, he had to act. If he didn’t want to be plagiarized, he had to use this record to prove he was the originator of the dish.
At least, in this era!
Having wasted over three hours, Su Chen could now only battle it out in the practice room for 16 hours at most.
That being the case.
’I have to at least get the Black Pork Stew to A Level, so I don’t bring shame to this purple-grade Jingzhou-style recipe...’
Summoning the ingredients for the stew again, Su Chen didn’t rush to cook this time. Instead, he began to think.
...
「Jingzhou City, the airport.」
Jiang Wensheng had just landed. "So, is the hotel booked?"
"It’s booked, just like you asked. You worry about everything!" His wife, Yuan Suzhen, was long used to her husband’s tendency to worry about every little thing, yet dislike handling them himself.
"That’s good! Let’s take a taxi to a nearby market first. I’m going to cook personally tonight and prepare a feast for Yuanyuan, hehe!"
They say a daughter is a father’s "little padded jacket." Whether she was considerate or not, every time Jiang Wensheng talked about his daughter, he acted like an immature child.
"Aren’t you going to tell Yuanyuan first?" Yuan Suzhen asked.
"Tell her what? I’ll call Yuanyuan when the food is almost ready. I have to give her a surprise!"
To let his daughter eat the few dishes she had loved since childhood, Jiang Wensheng had specifically asked his wife to find a rental home with a kitchen.
He had even brought a few special ingredients with him, afraid he wouldn’t be able to buy authentic ones here in Jingzhou.
Yuan Suzhen said, "It’s already five o’clock. By the time you get back, unpack, and start cooking, Yuanyuan will have already eaten! I think you should just tell her first."
Jiang Wensheng stopped in his tracks. "You have a point!"
He immediately dialed his daughter’s number.
Little did he know, his daughter, Jiang Yuan, was at Meiweilai Company at this very moment.
"What do I do, what do I do..."
The closer the time came, the more nervous Brother Fang Chang became. He paced back and forth in the cafeteria relentlessly, making the few Meiweilai employees watching him dizzy.
"A son-in-law meeting his mother-in-law... does he have to be this nervous? Especially since they’ve met several times before." Bai Xiaobo was very confused by this.
’If I were meeting my mother-in-law,’ he thought, ’I’d just say one thing: whether you agree or not, you’re going to agree!’