The Game of Life - Chapter 38

Chapter 38: Dinner Party

Translator: Larbre Studio

Editor: Larbre Studio

Jiang Feng spent the whole afternoon scurrying about in the kitchen, he watched the video of Jiang Huiqin cooking three or four times over, replaced the ingredients with good quality ones, enriched the seasoning, and following the original steps of Jiang Huiqin, he made the Salix Leaf-shaped Steamed Bird’s Nest Soup.

As he saw the improved Grade F rating given by the game, Jiang Feng stared at the dishe in front of him with mixed feelings.

The plating was done beautifully. In order to enrich the colors, he had added some greens to it.

As for the taste…

It lived up to the Grade F rating given by the game.

Mushroom soup, quail eggs, tremella, luncheon meat, it was basically a concoction of death!

The fact that Jiang Huiqin could get a Grade E evaluation from this kind of deathly concoction made her a superb cook.

Jiang Feng silently poured the failed concoction in front of him into the swill bucket.

He was not a very talented cook, and the game had rated his dishes as a beginner’s. It was just that because he had eaten Jiang Weiguo and Jiang Jiankang’s cooking since he was a child, he was quite picky. He could comment on the taste of the food with others who didn’t have much culinary knowledge, and could just manage to fool laymen.

Jiang Feng had never ever heard of the geniuses mentioned in novels, where one was born with a high level of sensitivity in terms of taste, could determine whether the ingredients were fresh with just a glance, and distinguish all the ingredients and condiments, and work out the recipe after just taking a bite of the dish.

He didn’t believe that there were such people in the world either.

As chefs, they had to work hard to make up for whatever shortcomings they had, there were scarcely any people who were born to survive on plain bowls of rice.

Jiang Feng couldn’t figure it out by himself, so he went to ask Jiang Jiankang for advice.

“Mushrooms, tremella, quail eggs, luncheon meat?” Jiang Jiankang’s frown deepened with the mention of each ingredient. After a long pause, he looked at Jiang Feng with a complicated expression: “Son, let’s make food honestly. Let’s not learn to make those innovative dishes on the Internet.”

Obviously, the fear of yesterday’s Pure Meat Wontons was still there.

Dad, you should tell that to Great-grandaunt.

Under Jiang Feng’s unceasing coaxing and pestering, Jiang Jiankang finally compromised, he said he’d study it a little and then slipped into the kitchen to cut vegetables.

Jiang Feng went back to the dormitory to change his clothes.

He had a dinner party to attend later.

It was the chess club’s first dinner party this semester, and it was also the most formal, largest, and expensive dinner party the chess club had had in the past four years!

Jiang Feng vaguely remembered that last year’s dinner party was held by scraping together the remaining club funds, and Ji Yue had also contributed her collection of Butter Hot Pot Base Soups, and the pot hidden in her dormitory. They had bought a pile of noodles, vermicelli, rice cakes, vegetables, enoki mushrooms, and other ingredients and staple foods, the fish balls were limited to one per person, nothing more, nothing less. The eight of them had run to the classrooms to steal electricity. Like thieves, they had a special meal.

This year was not the same. This year, the chess club had more than 30 members, and they could even go to a hotel restaurant for dinner!

It was an unprecedented breakthrough for the chess club. After all, one had to know that Ji Yue had never enjoyed the privilege of dining in a hotel restaurant for their dinner parties in the past, ever since becoming the president of the chess club three years ago.

For this reason, Ji Yue had specially asked for leave to participate in the dinner party at her own expense.

Wang Hao was suffering because of this. He was the only help in the shop today.

The group of more than 30 had boarded the bus in a formidable array and had almost filled the entire bus.

The dining place was a barbecue and hot pot buffet restaurant not far from the school, it was 69 dollars per person, and those with student ID cards could get 15% off, making it very affordable. Because of the large number of people, Jiang Feng had reserved all the seats needed in advance. There were two rows, four tables in a row and five tables in another row that had all been pushed together, which made it convenient for everyone to chat while eating.

Although the ingredients were not very fresh, and the meat was obviously either frozen or pieced together with meat glue, it was rich in variety, and even if they didn’t have good grilled meat, they could just dunk it in the soup. Moreover, because of the small soup pot, the seasoning was plentiful. There was oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, minced garlic, chopped peppers, and all kinds of dipping sauces.

Jiang Feng, Ji Yue, Liu Qian, Liu Zixuan, and Wu Minqi, the future hope of the chess club and Liu Qian’s fellow villager, were all sitting at the same table.

Liu Qian came back with two plates of cooked food, sat down, set up her mobile phone to face her, and began to speak to the camera: “Hello, everyone, I’m Qian Qian, it’s our school club’s dinner party today, we’re having a barbecue buffet. This is… ”

“A live broadcast?” Jiang Feng brought back a plate of meat to be roasted and saw Liu Qian talking to her mobile phone.

“She’s already been doing it for a couple of weeks. Haven’t you seen her put a mobile phone in front of her every time she eats?” Ji Yue appeared used to the phenomenon and put the chicken wings on the barbecue foil grill.

He thought Liu Qian had been watching dramas.

“Brush some oil on it, how could you grill without it?” Jiang Feng reminded her.

“Their oil is not good.” Ji Yue placed the fatty pork belly on the plate next to the chicken wings, “The oil roasted from the pork is delicious!”

“Their chicken wings are marinated, and it’s delicious. The mutton doesn’t taste gamey, the tenderloins are alright. By the way, their finger rice cakes are also delicious, they’re especially chewy when dunked in the soup. Ah, Qianqian, why aren’t you getting the tools for grilling?” Ji Yue spoke of the ingredients in this shop as if enumerating her family treasures, seeing that Liu Qian was only eating marinated duck collarbone, with another plate filled with dessert items, she couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t know how to grill food. Whenever I go to eat barbecue with others, I always undercook it or burn it. It never tastes good after grilling either. I’ll eat the boiled ingredients when the pot is boiling.” Liu Qian replied.

“Liu Qian, where are you broadcasting? I’ll go follow you and give you some support.” Jiang Feng felt that since it was his own member who was holding the live broadcast, as the president, he should also give her a little help.

“Kandie Livestream, my Livestream user ID is A Uni daily feast.” Liu Qian was naturally happy that Jiang Feng would follow her.

Jiang Feng downloaded the live-streaming app, and upon clicking into Liu Qian’s live streaming room, her significant nostrils greeted his eyes.

Only 47 people were watching, including Jiang Feng.

Judging from the live broadcast’s camera angle, the other 46 people must truly love her.

The Livestream room was also very quiet, no one spoke. Liu Qian was also quite calm in the face of that situation. Other than saying a couple of sentences during the beginning of the Livestream, she had begun to eat to her heart’s content. She would speak a few words to Ji Yue occasionally, and seemed to have forgotten that she was live streaming.

Jiang Feng quietly left the Livestream and began to focus on barbecuing the meat.

Ji Yue was a seasoned barbecue expert. She would specifically choose marinated fish and meat, coupled with the sizzling of the oil from the pork belly. They had racked up an appetite just by looking at it. Liu Qian stared at the chicken wings. Ji Yue had grilled four of them in one shot, one for each of them.

As a person who usually couldn’t cook very successfully, Ji Yue’s chicken wings were considered quite successfully grilled.

“Senior Ji Yue, you are so great!” As a person who had difficulties with grilling meat, Liu Qian looked at her admiringly.

As soon as the chicken wings and pork belly were taken out, the grilling tray was empty.

Liu Zixuan put the enoki mushrooms he had taken onto the grilling plate, while grilling it, he boasted: “I’m not boasting but my enoki mushrooms are very delicious, and they don’t lose when compared with Feng’ge’s culinary skills.”

As he spoke, he sprinkled cumin and chili powder from the seasoning bottle on the enoki mushrooms.

However, since the seasoning bottle had not been cleaned for a long time, the holes were all blocked. After trying to sprinkle it for half a minute, none of it had come out. Liu Zixuan had grown impatient. He took the bottle to the edge of the table and knocked it hard, then shook it to sprinkle it with force.

A huge pile of flaming red chili powder appeared on the perfectly white enoki mushrooms.

After an astounding series of actions, Liu Zixuan had messed up unsurprisingly.

The mushrooms were spicy, salty, and burnt.

He had burnt the grilling foil too.

Ji Yue went to fetch half a plate of finger rice cakes, waiting for the pot of fish balls to cook, before putting the rice cakes in.

“Ah, I really want to eat stir-fried rice cake.” Liu Qian looked at the finger rice cakes on the plate and sighed, “The stir-fried rice cakes in the canteen are terrible. They’re neither spicy or salty. The president’s restaurant doesn’t sell them either.”

His words were full of complaints.

Looking at the newly changed grilling foil, Jiang Feng’s heart moved.

“Shall I make them for you?”

The seasonings provided in this restaurant were more than enough to make a plate of Stir-Fried Rice Cakes.