The midday sun penetrated the ceiling of the glass walkway and shone on the faces of the two people who were talking.
But even though she was surrounded by such warm sunshine, Li Mingzhu felt cold all over.
Mingyue's question was like a bombshell, hitting the softest part of her heart.
She began to wonder what her original motivation was in cooking. Was it for her mother-in-law's approval, or for the audience's applause? She hadn't thought about this question in a long time.
From childhood to adulthood, she has always lived under the halo of her mother-in-law. The expectations of the people around her are like a mountain, which makes her breathless. She is used to pursuing perfection and trying hard to please everyone, but she has lost herself unknowingly.
"Mingzhu, as Mr. Li's granddaughter, you must not bring shame to the family."
"Mr. Li's granddaughter" is the phrase she has heard most often since she was a child, even more frequently than her name being called, so frequently that Li Mingzhu has developed a trance-like feeling about her own name.
Whether it is the elders in the family, the neighbors, or even strangers, they all have almost harsh requirements for her cooking skills.
Li Mingzhu started learning cooking at the age of five.
Her family background has indeed allowed her to stand at a higher starting line. She has the guidance of top chefs, can taste a variety of dishes, and her home is not short of fresh ingredients delivered directly from the source.
Li Mingzhu's mother, Li Xinxi, also followed in the footsteps of Mr. Li. Her cooking mainly focuses on the combination of medicine and food, but her direction is more gentle than medicinal food. Li Xinxi likes to study the combination of tea and beverages. The brand she created with her health tea formula is one of the well-known products under the Li Group.
Li Mingzhu's father is a gourmet with an extremely sensitive taste buds and has written for several well-known food magazines.
With excellent genes, a first-class teaching environment, and a family that has paved the way for her, Li Mingzhu is destined to become an "excellent" heir.
Everyone thinks so.
Of course, Li Mingzhu's family did not interfere with Li Mingzhu. They always let Li Mingzhu choose what she wanted to do.
But they are also very strict. After Li Mingzhu started learning cooking, they asked Li Mingzhu to take what she was going to do seriously and work hard. Since she had started, she could not give up easily.
Li Mingzhu knows that her family is very good, and she also wants to give back to their expectations.
But the problem is, after she left the house, she heard a lot of other noises.
Some people in the group looked at her.
"You must win this competition. Not only for yourself, but also for the reputation of the Li family."
The audience watching the cooking talk were talking about it.
"Li Mingzhu is Mr. Li's granddaughter. She will definitely win. If even she can't win, where will Mr. Li put his face?"
"Yes, Mr. Li is so amazing, how could her granddaughter be any worse? She is the undisputed champion of this competition."
"With a family background like this, and being born with gold in one's mouth, it would be really ridiculous if I lost."
"She can definitely do better than most people. After all, she is Mr. Li's granddaughter."
These words were like invisible shackles, tightly binding Li Mingzhu.
She had heard the same words too many times, so many times that she felt bored, as if people only saw her as the granddaughter of the medicinal food master Li Baiying, an accessory, not a living person.
For the first time, Li Mingzhu felt confused about the protection of her family. She understood that everything she had came from her mother-in-law, and she truly admired and was grateful to her. But on the other hand, she was suppressed under the glory of Li Baiying. A spirit of not admitting defeat surged in her heart, and she wanted to be seen.
She wanted to have her own name.
She hopes that the first thing people see when they see her is not "Mr. Li's granddaughter" or "the heir to the family", but Li Mingzhu herself.
So she worked very hard and even took the initiative to ask Mr. Li to learn his special technique - "Qi".
Learning the martial arts was tiring and difficult. Old Master Li was very strict. Even though Li Mingzhu was her granddaughter, she would sometimes be scolded so harshly that she dared not say a word.
But Li Mingzhu still gritted her teeth and persisted. She didn't want to disappoint anyone and also wanted to be recognized one day.
But that day never came.
How long can a person persist if she never receives positive feedback?
Li Mingzhu didn't know the answer, but she knew that a feeling of powerlessness had surged in her heart. She felt suffocated by these expectations and Mr. Li's achievements.
She began to doubt herself.
Can she really do it?
When I was young, I was fearless because of my ignorance.
But as she grew up, the more she learned about Li Baiying's story, the more she understood how determined it was for a woman to start from scratch and achieve her current achievements in a male-dominated profession on her own.
The only herbalist in the world who is closest to SS level.
This herbalist was her mother-in-law, whom she respected and loved, but was also afraid of her.
She was afraid of being compared with her mother-in-law because she knew very well that the gap between her and her mother-in-law could not be made up by hard work.
It's like when the sun rises, all the stars in the sky disappear.
No matter how hard she tried to shine, it could never be as bright as the sun.
The truth stung her deeply.
Since she couldn't defeat her mother-in-law, she would go and defeat other people. At the very least, she could find something to prove that she was working hard and support herself to keep going.
Li Mingzhu closed her eyes, and her mind flashed back to countless days and nights of her busy figure in the kitchen.
Those dishes carefully designed to cater to the judges' tastes, those movements practiced repeatedly to meet the audience's expectations, and those suppressed egos to gain the approval of her mother-in-law... She suddenly realized that she had not truly enjoyed the joy of cooking for a long time.
How long has she been like this?
Even in this cooking discussion with Mingyue, in order to win, she created a set meal combining three dishes.
Because she worried that the salad was too bland, the spring rolls were too boring, and the sandwiches were too ordinary.
Just combine them together, so that the preferences of most people can be accommodated, and we should be able to win.
But after eating Mingyue's food, she realized that she had indeed lost.
She did what the judges liked and wanted to follow the judges' lead in order to win.
But Mingyue's cooking convinced the judges with its deliciousness, saying, "You should like this."
“Are you happy when you cook?”
Li Mingzhu didn't even have the courage to answer this question because she realized that her answer had led to another fatal answer.
She was neither happy nor fond of her own cooking.
As a cook, she made two fatal mistakes.
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