Chapter 11: Ungrateful Wolf

"Go, call out Master Zhao."

Yu Zhen said to the waiter beside him with a dark face.

"Yes." When the waitress saw what happened, she left immediately, fearing that the boss would vent his anger on her.

Soon, Master Zhao arrived.

He just heard that his boss Yu Zhen was back.

But he was busy in the kitchen, so he didn't come out.

After all, being busy at work makes him look serious and responsible.

Only those chefs who are irresponsible and have no ability will run over to flatter the boss as soon as he comes.

For example, Yu Zhen’s distant relative who came to learn cooking.

You have only learned cooking for a year, but you dare to challenge him. You are totally ignorant.

He had just finished making a dish when the waiter came over and told him that the boss was looking for him.

Master Zhao took off his apron, snorted coldly at the young man who was busy at the stove, and then walked out.

As soon as Master Zhao left, the other chefs began to speak up for the young man who was busy at the stove.

"Bah! He's only learned half of the boss's skills after several years of study. If the boss hadn't passed away, he wouldn't be able to act so arrogantly here."

"Exactly. I really think his cooking skills are very good. Xiaolong has only been learning for a short year, but he has already mastered all his skills."

"Xiaolong, you are the nephew of the second boss after all. You learned the cooking skills from your Yu family. Why should you be afraid of him?"

Yu Xiaolong touched the back of his head and said with a simple smile, "Master Zhao is half my master after all. Second Uncle said that we should respect him."

After hearing what he said, the others couldn't help but shake their heads.

Yu Xiaolong was indeed a talented cook, but he was just too honest. If he wasn't Yu Zhen's distant nephew, he would have been bullied long ago.

Master Zhao walked up to Yu Zhen and said, "Uncle Master, are you looking for me?"

Yu Zhen nodded, then pointed at the chicken soup and mandarin fish on the table and said, "Did you make this dish and soup yourself?"

Master Zhao took one look at the dish and the soup, and his heart skipped a beat.

Then he quickly calmed down again.

No, he did it so secretly that the aftershock would be impossible to detect.

"I did it, Uncle Master, is there any problem?"

Master Zhao is 45 years old this year, one year older than Yu Zhen.

But Yu Zhen's elder brother is his master, so according to seniority, he has to call Yu Zhen uncle.

Although Master Zhao appears respectful on the surface, he actually looks down on his boss uncle Yu Zhen.

In his opinion, the imperial kitchen should belong to him.

After all, after the master passed away, the imperial kitchen had been able to continue operating thanks to him.

Without him, there would be no imperial kitchen today.

Apart from paying some money, Yuzhen didn't pay anything at all.

Although he is a descendant of the royal chef, he has not learned any of his family's cooking skills.

But as an outsider, he learned a lot.

Unfortunately, back then, he wanted to learn the cooking skills from Yu Zhen’s elder brother, Yu Bang.

Signed a 20-year contract with Yu Bang.

During these twenty years, he had to work for the imperial kitchen unless the imperial kitchen didn't want him.

Otherwise, if he wanted to leave, he would have to pay 30 million in tuition fees.

If it weren't for the contract, he would have left long ago.

Of course, he was paid for his work in the imperial kitchen.

Moreover, as a chef, his salary is no less than that of a chef in a five-star hotel.

But people are always greedy.

When he was an apprentice, he thought these conditions were very good.

The master taught him very attentively.

But now, it feels not enough.

Some even feel that a monthly salary of 30,000 yuan is just like paying beggars.

However, no matter how unwilling he was, he could only be ranked below Yu Zhen. After all, Yu Zhen was the boss of the imperial kitchen.

Therefore, he could only secretly earn some extra money on his own.

Originally, Yu Zhen still had hope, hoping that the dish and soup were not made by Master Zhao.

Hearing him admit it, Yu Zhen felt sad.

I feel sad that my brother and I trusted the wrong person.

Master Zhao is in charge of purchasing ingredients for the imperial kitchen.

If, during the purchasing process, someone may swap the materials.

Then when Master Zhao cooks the food himself, he will definitely be able to find it.

There would be no current situation.

After all, for a high-level chef, the most important thing is not cooking skills, but learning to distinguish the quality of ingredients.

If you can’t even tell the difference between good ingredients, how good can your cooking skills be?

So, when he heard that the dish and soup were made by Master Zhao, Yu Zhen knew that he must be the one who swapped the ingredients.

After all, Master Zhao has always been in charge of the imperial kitchen.

Yu Zhen angrily demanded, "Master Zhao, why are you trying to damage the reputation of our Imperial Kitchen?"

"Uncle Master, what do you mean by that? When have I ever damaged the reputation of the Imperial Kitchen? I manage the Imperial Kitchen with all my heart and soul, you know."

A friend of Yu Zhen said, "He's really dedicated, but he's not dedicated to helping manage the imperial kitchen. He's dedicated to making money, right?"

Another friend of Yu Zhen echoed, "That's right! If it weren't for that young man today, we wouldn't have known that the ingredients had been swapped."

Yu Zhen sneered, "It's hard for you to find ingredients that are so similar. Even though they're fake, they should still be worth a few bucks."

Master Zhao's face changed when he heard this.

Being discovered, how is that possible?

He spent a long time searching for those ingredients.

Even the senior chefs from last time didn’t notice it, how did they find out?

Yu Zhen said, "Zhao Li, I think I've treated you well, why are you doing this?"

"Not thin?"

Things have come to this point, and Master Zhao no longer tries to please Yu Zhen in a servile manner.

"Yu Zhen, although you are a descendant of the imperial chef, you have no cooking skills at all. When Yu Bang died, if it weren't for me, the imperial kitchen would have been ruined long ago."

"But I spent all my energy to save the Imperial Kitchen, and what about you? You went abroad to enjoy yourself. With my cooking skills, there are many people who want to poach me. If Yu Bang hadn't tricked me into signing that unequal 20-year contract, I would have left long ago. I wouldn't have to keep looking down on you here."

"You actually said that my elder brother tricked you into owing the contract?" Yu Zhen was furious.

"Who was it that braved the heavy rain and knelt at our gate for several hours, wanting to take my eldest brother as his master?"

"My eldest brother said that cooking skills are only passed down to family members. Yet, you took the initiative to propose a twenty-year contract with our family. You also proposed the penalty for breach of contract. Now you turn around and say it's my eldest brother's fault? Do you really think that just because my eldest brother is dead, you can make up stories about him?"

Yu Zhen never imagined that Zhao Li would have such an ugly face.

In order to learn cooking from his elder brother, he was willing to do anything.

Now that his elder brother is dead, he turns around and slanders his elder brother.

This person is simply an ungrateful person who can never be tamed.

However, Zhao Li did not think he had done anything wrong. Instead, he said confidently, "If I hadn't done that, would Yu Bang have taught me cooking? If I hadn't learned his cooking skills, your Yu family's cooking skills would have been lost long ago."

I, Shao Yuan, crossed my arms and sneered, "Haha, so you learned someone else's cooking skills, then turned around and slandered your own master, secretly replacing the ingredients in the Imperial Kitchen and damaging its reputation. And they're supposed to thank you? I didn't expect your face to be thicker than the wall outside."

Zhao Li roared at Shao Yuan in anger, "This is our imperial kitchen's business. What right do you, an outsider, have to butt in?"

"I'm an outsider, but also a customer. I spent thousands of dollars and ate unequal ingredients, and I can't say a word?"

I, Shao Yuan, asked Yu Zhen, "Boss Yu, what do you say?"

Yu Zhen said in a resounding voice, "Please rest assured, everyone. I, Yu, will definitely give you an explanation. Although I did not inherit the Yu family's culinary skills, if we allow such a person to tarnish the reputation of our Imperial Kitchen, I would rather the Imperial Kitchen become a thing of the past."

"good……"

Someone took the lead in shouting "good", and then applause broke out in the hall.

The customers who were originally angry because the ingredients were not right immediately calmed down when they saw that Yu Zhen could actually go to such lengths.

At the same time, I also feel that such principled aftershocks can be dealt with.

I, Shao Yuan, looked at Yu Zhen who was praised by the people around him, and then looked at Zhao Li who left angrily.

Somewhat thoughtful.

In order to compensate Shao Yuan and the other two, Yu Zhen had a luxurious private room prepared for them.

Yu Zhen also had a large table of food and several bottles of good wine sent to them.

After the aftershocks died down, Ding Lanlan immediately grabbed one of the bottles of wine on the table and exclaimed, "Oh my god, this big boss is so generous! This bottle of wine is ten thousand. These three bottles are thirty thousand. Add in this whole table of food, it's at least fifty thousand."

What Ding Lanlan said was not an exaggeration at all.

The dishes on the table in front of them are considered the signature dishes of the imperial kitchen.

Every dish is not cheap.

Yu Shan nodded. "He is indeed very generous. After all, just now, Your Majesty publicly exposed the problem with the ingredients in his dish. Not only did he apologize publicly, he also humbly asked for advice from Your Majesty."

I, Shao Yuan, said, "Do you really think he is humbly asking for my advice?"

"Isn't that so?" Ding Lanlan wondered, "He just asked you to try the food in public."

"Okay, stop talking nonsense and start eating. I didn't have breakfast and I'm starving."

As he said that, Yu Shan picked up the chopsticks and started eating.

Ding Lanlan also quickly joined in.

"Well, it really is worthy of being a signature dish. It's so delicious. Your Majesty, stop looking at it. Hurry up and give you this chicken wing." Yu Shan directly picked up a chicken wing and put it in Shao Yuan's bowl.

I, Shao Yuan, shook my head as I watched.

For these two people, nothing else matters as long as they have something to eat.

I, Shao Yuan, took a look at the chicken wings in the bowl but didn't eat them.

Instead, I ate the matsutake in the matsutake chicken soup, and then ate a piece of fish in the intoxicatingly fragrant mandarin fish.

Matsutake are real wild matsutake.

The mandarin fish is also real wild mandarin fish.

Moreover, the taste of these two dishes is no worse than the previous ones.

What does this mean.

This means that in the imperial kitchen, there is a chef whose cooking skills are as good as Zhao Li’s.

This also made me, Shao Yuan, more certain of what I was thinking.

It is very likely that Yu Zhen had already discovered Zhao Li's problem, so he took advantage of this incident to get rid of Zhao Li without leaving any trace.

This approach not only allowed Yu Zhen to restore the reputation of the imperial kitchen, but also completely trampled Zhao Li into the ground.

There were quite a few people in the hall at that time, and all of them were rich.

As long as what happened today gets out, Zhao Li will not be able to survive in Lancheng.

Without Zhao Li's imperial kitchen, not only did his reputation improve, but he also had a chef who was almost as good as Zhao Li.

It will definitely develop better in the future.

In this incident, I, Shao Yuan, became the detonator of Aftershock's attack on Zhao Li.

I, Shao Yuan, guessed correctly. Yu Zhen really wanted to use him to deal with Zhao Li.

This decision was made just now.

As a businessman, Yu Zhen's first reaction was to avoid the main issue and push the blame onto everyone.

If they show their determination again, the reputation of their imperial kitchen will naturally be preserved.

You can also gain a good reputation for being righteous and sincere, so why not do it?