Watching the newly bought tables and chairs disappearing into thin air, Yuan Zhou shed tears from the bottom of his heart. His tears were like those illustrations in comics, with wide stripes flowing down the cheeks. To avoid further heartache, he decided to obtain the reward first to soothe his bruised soul.
After opening the mission reward, he immediately retrieved it.
The words ‘Divine Class Egg Fried Rice” transformed into a book, just when Yuan Zhou was attentively observing, dazzling light suddenly burst out from the book. The light surrounded and flooded his brain before it vanished.
Egg fried rice is one of the most basic culinary dishes in Chinese cuisine, almost anybody can cook the dish, even those who don’t know how to cook it are able to carelessly cook a plate of it.
Everyone’s cooking methods are different, egg fried rice is a dish that can be elaborated into various different dishes such as, Yangzhou Fried Rice, Xiyang Fried Rice, Spam Fried Rice, Diced Chicken Fried Rice, and more.
In every egg fried rice dish, there is a must-have basic standard: the egg must be tender, the rice must not be too soft nor too hard and the aroma from these two ingredients must blend well.
In the drama <Godly Chef Zhang Dong Guan>, it illustrated egg fried rice such that in every 3 to 5 grains of rice, they need to be wrapped with egg white. While in <Cooking Master Boy>, it was more exaggerating where it immediately turned into gold fried rice, glistening brilliantly with golden light.
The Divine Class Egg Fried Rice rewarded by the system cannot glisten brilliantly with golden light, but from choosing the rice grain, the water, the duration and degree of heat used to cook the rice, and even the size of the egg needed to correspond with the amount of rice.
After understanding the recipe, Yuan Zhou discovered that the egg fried rice that he used to cook was just a plate of pig’s feed. No! That would be an insult to pig’s feed itself.
When the light penetrated his brain, it was a process of enlightening the Divine Class Egg Fried Rice Technique to open up Yuan Zhou’s perception towards egg fried rice and its cooking technique. As if he was Xuzhu who was imparted Xiaoyao-zi’s decades of internal energy, he instantly possessed countless experiences of cooking egg fried rice.
[TL: Xuzhu and Xiaoyao-zi are characters from Jin Yong’s novel, Demi-Gods and Semi Devils.]
Opening his eyes, Yuan Zhou felt the uncontrollable power bubbling inside him.
*Dong Dong Dong*
He walked down the stairs, intending to go to the kitchen to attempt cooking a plate of the Divine Egg Fried Rice that was in his brain.
Just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he received a notification–
System: “Upgrading in progress, 8 more hours to completion.”
……
When Yuan Zhou’s intention got dismissed by the system, he felt as if he just got poured by a bucket of cold water. He quietly swallowed in his excitement and returned back to his room to lie on his bed.
Considering that there was 8 hours remaining before tomorrow comes, he envisioned by mastering the Divine Class Egg Fried Rice Technique, even if he did not sell other items in his menu, just with egg fried rice, he can miraculously walk towards the peak of his life. The thought of this made his heart beat in excitement.
Also since he had not prepare the ingredients, he needed to do some stocking up. He started to meticulously count the money he had and again considered how to make full use of every penny.
He turned and tossed around the bed, and eventually fell asleep with his body in a weird position. As for the unknown liquid found on the side of his lips when he woke up, there was no need to question what it was.
After all, being a straightforward and ambitious young man, other than dreaming of the goddess in his hard drive, only the bright red RMB notes could make Yuan Zhou excited.
Unable to wait any further to see the completed reformation of his shop, he washed up in a speed of light, rushed down the stairs, and turned on the light switch.
“What!” (In English)
Yuan Zhou who stood at the end of the staircase couldn’t help but blurt out in English.
He covered a three-step distance with two, and arrived at the centre of the store.
The entire shop was transformed into an open kitchen concept. There was a flower trellis on each two sides of the door, arranged with few pots of unknown flowers that were in full bloom. The light blue color of it and the leaves in the background matched exceptionally well.
As for the tables, they had bends to surround the cooking area like those in Midnight Diner. Inside the table were cabinets, and there was a sink to clean all kinds of cooking ingredients.
The outer of the long tables were arranged with had four snug looking high chairs, the wooden color gave off a natural and cozy feel. Both sides of the arched table were also arranged with two more high chairs. In total, the arched table was fully lined with eight of these high chairs.
[TL: The table looks something like this]
“Pricelist”
On the wall facing the kitchen, the word “Pricelist” was written in Chinese calligraphy. It was especially eye-catching and there was a piece of the wooden signboard underneath it.
After surveying the whole place, he was very satisfied. Comparing to his own sloppy renovation, this was ten folds better. The shop looked fresh and spacious. Thinking that he hadn’t miss out on anymore surprise, Yuan Zhou was already mumbling *tsk tsk* in praise when he prepared to check out the kitchen.
As he was previously too stunned, he did not notice the kitchen’s transformation. Now that he paid more attention to it, he came into realize that it was totally different from his original kitchen.
In the original kitchen, there was noodle barrel at the corner and beside the barrel was a pair of stoves with various types of seasoning surrounding it. The basin was next to the stove and not far from it was the stairs to the upper floor. Just behind the basin was the dish rack, arranged with different types and sizes of plates.
The whole kitchen used to seem narrow and cramped to the extent that two people could barely move without bumping into each other.
Now that the system had reformed the kitchen, it seemed big and spacious. At the spot that the noodle barrel stood previously, it was replaced with a water tank. The tank was looked like one of those big, brown-colored water tank made by coarse porcelain which he used in the countryside when he was young. It was filled with crystal clear water but looked deep and bottomless.
Beside it was a stove but was upgraded to a built-in one, it does not occupy much space and looked pleasing to the eyes. The pots and pans were hanging neatly within arm’s reach, the plates and bowls were exquisite and smooth, and obviously white.
Beside the stove is a row of small containers, each of them was labelled according to the various types of seasoning. Except for salt and soya sauce which occupied a full container each, the other container had two labels each, there were 22 containers, counting all together there were a total of 44 types of seasoning. Majority of them were main seasoning such as fennel that is commonly seen.
*Pa Da*
Yuan Zhou curiously opened one of the containers labelled as thyme and galangal, but unexpectedly found it empty.
“It must be my wishful thinking, these containers must be used to contain the seasonings used in the future.”
After muttering to himself, he continued to observe.
Above the seasoning containers there were several slightly bigger cabinets. They were also built-in, thus they were not obstructive. Each cabinet measured to 20 cm wide by 15 cm high and there were 12 of them in total.
Other than the last cabinet that was labelled as ‘Rice’, those that were behind was not labelled at all. Also, behind him, other than one that was labelled ‘Egg’, they were also not labelled. Looking at the two sides, it seemed like this was in accordance with the first reward.
While deep in thought, Yuan Zhou unknowingly opened one of the cabinet and surprisingly it was filled with rice, this unexpected discovery made Yuan Zhou overjoyed. He hurriedly opened the cabinet labeled as ‘Egg’ and as he predicted, it was fully filled with neatly arranged eggs.
“System, is this part of the reward?” Yuan Zhou gleefully asked.
System: “System will provide host with all the necessary ingredients for the menu that he has fully mastered.”
“I can also cook other dishes such as shredded potato.” Yuan Zhou asked with eyes brimming with hope.
System: “The current host has only mastered one dish.”
“Do you mean every dish has to be same level as Divine Class Egg Fried Rice? So can I purchase the ingredients on my own?” Yuan Zhou’s hand tapped on the clear glass table.
System: “Any ingredients used or sold by the host must be provided by the system, anything else not provided by system are banned from entering the kitchen.”
“Fine, that is actually better since I don’t have to come out with my own money to buy ingredients. In any case, I am only selling egg fried rice.” Yuan Zhou smiled guilefully just like a cat who successfully stole a fish.
System: “The price for one Egg Fried Rice is set at 188 RMB.”