Chapter 28 Lethal Dose of Salt
"Do you still have that crab roe sauce?" Quan Hai hesitated for a moment and finally spoke.
"Not enough?" Qi Huan teased him.
"It's not me, it's Brother Man. He thought the bottle of sauce you gave him last time was especially delicious, and asked if he could buy it. I happened to have an unopened bottle at home, so I gave it to him. I just found out that he gave it to someone else, and the other person also thought it was delicious, so he sent me a message saying he wanted to buy it. I don't have any more at home, so I can only ask you."
"We're out of butter, but we still have a bottle of crab roe sauce, but it's a bit expensive."
"How much? I'll tell Brother Man a price and let him decide for himself."
"Two hundred silver coins for crab sauce." Uncle Wan bought five bottles last time to give away, and pointed out that things are valuable because they are rare, so he asked Qi Huan to sell it at the higher the better. But Brother Man was Quan Hai's master after all, so Qi Huan simply treated them equally and quoted the same price.
"How much???" Before Quan Hai could say anything, Lando next to him was shocked, "Then how much is the bald butter you gave me?"
"Three hundred and fifty silver coins."
Rondo was stunned. The bottle of sauce that Qi Huan sent over last time was actually worth 350 silver coins? ? ?
"Is that sauce really that delicious?" He looked incredulous.
"You didn't eat?" Quan Hai asked casually while sending a message to Brother Man.
"I was very busy the day I received it, and then I just left it there and forgot about it." Rondo laughed dryly, a hint of embarrassment flashing across his face.
Qi Huan smiled knowingly, probably because he was afraid that it would not taste good, so he did not open the package. Rondo was a chef himself, so he did not have to worry about food. In addition, he worked as a kitchen helper in a restaurant in the human world before, so he must have tasted the original owner's cooking skills, so it was normal for him not to want to be "poisoned".
"That's perfect. If you don't want to eat it, it's 350 a bottle. I'll help you sell it." Quan Hai put his arm around his shoulders. Man Ge replied quickly, saying that the price was fine, but one bottle was too little, and it would be better to get three or five bottles.
Rondo glanced at Qi Huan embarrassedly, and Qi Huan waved his hand indifferently, "If I give it to you, it's yours, you can do with it as you like."
In the end, Quan Hai looted a bottle of butter and crab roe sauce from Qi Huan and Rondo respectively, and barely reported to Brother Man.
The dishes for the evening included boiled meat, braised fish fillets, braised shrimps, and scrambled eggs with purple melon. There weren't many varieties, but the portions were quite large, and it was obvious that the purpose was to fill everyone up.
Quan Hai excitedly picked up a shrimp first. After a few seconds, he paused subtly and looked at Qi Huan. It was strange. He used to think that Rondo’s cooking was particularly delicious, so why did it feel a little off today?
Qi Huan, who was sitting opposite him, was trying to pick up the fish meat and didn't notice his gaze. The bones in the fish pieces had been shaved off, and the meat was very easy to break. In addition, the automatic stir-frying machine made it impossible to pay attention to the angle of the stir-fry. In the end, it would be more appropriate to call it fish minced meat rather than fish pieces.
"You're welcome, eat more." Rondo didn't notice Quanhai's abnormality. Knowing that Quanhai liked spicy food, he pushed the boiled meat specially made for him forward.
"Why should I be polite to you~" Quan Hai pretended to roll up his sleeves, picked up a piece of meat, and wolfed it down.
The next second, Quan Hai frowned subconsciously.
This time, Rondo noticed his expression and asked with concern, "Are you feeling spicy?"
"A little bit." Quan Hai replied with a smile, and then looked at Qi Huan unconsciously. Was there something wrong with his tongue or was it that Rondo didn't cook well today? Why did it taste worse than what Ahuan usually cooks? That's not right, Rondo has a chef certificate, and he is now well-known in the entire Waste Star. His cooking skills should be better than Ahuan's, right?
Quan Hai was full of questions, but Qi Huan ignored him. He replaced his chopsticks with a spoon, scooped up two spoonfuls of fish pieces with the soup and meat, put them on the rice, mixed them, and ate them slowly.
After dinner, they returned home. The airship stopped steadily at Jinwan Street. Quan Hai, who had been puzzled all the way, lifted the handle to hold the car door and stopped Qi Huan who was about to leave. "Don't you think that what Rondo made today is not right?"
"What's wrong?" Qi Huan yawned drowsily. What was wrong? The fully automatic kitchenware performed stably and was basically the same as what he had eaten last time.
“It’s just…” Quan Hai paused, not knowing how to describe it. Finally, he scratched the back of his head and said, “It seems not as delicious as what you made.”
"Have you forgotten who I am? The third best chef in the world!" Qi Huan stretched lazily, half jokingly and half seriously.
"Go to hell! Forget about being the third best in the world. You're not even the third best useless star." Quan Hai punched him.
Humph! Qi Huan turned his head away proudly. He was angry. He was the kind of person who couldn't be appeased if he didn't help for ten more minutes tomorrow!
"Hey, do you think he has encountered some problems recently, which caused his performance to be so abnormal?" Quan Hai frowned worriedly.
"Every chef has his own unique way of seasoning dishes. Maybe you've eaten a lot of my cooking recently and got used to the taste, so you may not be able to adapt to the sudden change."
To put it bluntly, Quanhai used to eat mostly nutrient solution, and he would naturally think that the food cooked by Rondo was delicious occasionally. Now he eats his food every day, and his taste has become picky. When he eats Rondo's food again, he can feel the difference. It is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it is difficult to go from luxury to frugality.
"So that's how it is." Quan Hai suddenly realized, glad that Rondo was okay.
"I'm home~" Qi Huan yawned again, waved his hands twice to Quan Hai in a messy way as a farewell, and walked towards his own shabby house. He had to get up and sell breakfast tomorrow, so he couldn't sleep too late.
Fortunately, he went to bed early in the morning, so he wasn't too irritable when he was woken up by the first wave of diners banging on the door the next morning.
Qi Huan was so busy this morning that his feet almost caused sparks to fly. The restaurant's occupancy rate also reached 80% for the first time ever.
Within less than an hour of opening, the shop had sold six bowls of mushroom and animal meat noodles, five bowls of mahjong noodles, three bowls of crab roe noodles, three bowls of braised pork bone noodles, three caramel sandwiches, two spring breeze steamed buns, two fruit milkshakes, and two bowls of animal egg soup.
He was happily serving fruit shakes to the previous table of guests when three green-haired men walked in.
Unlike Lin Jian, the hair of these three people was darker in color, and stuck dryly to their scalps, with clumps of hair hanging down. From a distance, they looked like dried kelp on their heads, which was a little funny.
Qi Huan, who went to greet them and showed them a seat, could faintly smell the smell of the sea. Could it really be kelp? He subconsciously glanced at the other person's collar, wanting to see the animal pattern, but unfortunately, the collars of several people were tied tightly, and the pattern on the side of the neck could hardly be seen.
After looking at the menu, the three of them ordered three bowls of mushroom and animal meat noodles. Qi Huan quoted the price crisply, "Cheng Hui, twenty-four silver coins. Is there anything you cannot eat?"
There are a lot of people here today, and we’re afraid that we won’t be able to handle it all and some people will run away with their orders, so we’ve temporarily changed to a pay-first-pay model.
The three shook their heads and paid the bill.
Three bowls of mushroom and animal meat noodles were served. The guests at another table wanted a milkshake. Qi Huan rushed over and was about to ask what specific fruit flavor they wanted when he suddenly heard a loud curse from behind.
"What a rotten noodles!" One of the Kelp Heads threw the spoon angrily. The metal spoon jumped twice on the table and fell to the ground, making a harsh sound.
The originally bustling restaurant suddenly became quiet, and everyone looked over here.
Although the other two did not throw the spoons, they also had gloomy faces.
"Excuse me, what's the problem with the noodles?" Qi Huan bent down, picked up the spoon, and walked to the table of guests.
"How dare you serve such disgusting food?" The man who threw the spoon pushed his bowl of noodles hard towards where Qi Huan was standing. Fortunately, it was mixed noodles, so no soup spilled out.
Unpalatable? Qi Huan took a pair of new chopsticks from the chopstick holder, dipped the tip of the chopsticks into the sauce and tasted it. It was fresh and meaty, and the taste was normal.
“Can you tell me what I find offensive?”
"It's bland! It's so tasteless that I can't even eat it!" The man's saliva almost sprayed on Qi Huan's clothes.
"You did this on purpose. Everyone knows that we in the lumberyard have a strong taste and need to add an extra spoonful of salt." The person who had just paid also spoke up angrily.
Qi Huan: ...
He doesn't know. Can't you raise special needs when placing an order?
The customer is God, the customer is God... Qi Huan repeated this to himself several times, and forced out a business smile, "Please wait a moment, I'll add some salt right away, and also give you three servings of animal egg soup, is that ok with that?"
The man who threw the spoon snorted, which seemed to be accepting Qi Huan's "compensation plan".
"Do I need to add an extra spoonful of salt to the soup?" Qi Huan confirmed with those people before taking away the three bowls of noodles.
"Of course." The other party looked as if it was a matter of course.
Adding another spoonful of salt was a lethal amount in Qi Huan's opinion. The soup tasted so salty that it was a little astringent. However, after tasting it, the three of them showed satisfied expressions, "This is the right taste."
Your taste is really too niche, Qi Huan complained silently.
The restaurant regained its lively atmosphere, and Qi Huan breathed a sigh of relief. He decided to add a big note to the menu in the future: standard human taste, so please inform us in advance if you have any dietary restrictions or special requirements.
Live streaming sometimes requires instant reaction. Qi Huan was afraid of saying something wrong, so he decided to cram up on some information related to cooking in advance.
Some data on the Waste Star's local area network was incomplete, so he had to ask Quanhai to go to the command hall again to download the data. Quanhai was responsible for borrowing the airship, and he was responsible for the Internet fee.
In the next few days, Qi Huan's electronic pickled mustard tuber became the culinary history of this era.
Although the chef certificate is signed by the Chefs Guild, people of this era are actually more accustomed to calling people with chef certificates star chefs.
The celebrity chef industry has experienced ups and downs over thousands of years. After the advent of nutritional supplements and various standardized fast foods, they quickly became popular due to their convenience, speed and balanced nutrition. Under the pressure, the complicated and tedious cooking techniques and related catering industries gradually declined, and even the kitchen is no longer a necessary option in house construction.
Nine hundred years ago, a huge war broke out among the star fields that lasted for more than three hundred years. The Fifth Star Field, which was responsible for supplying various food ingredients, suffered a devastating pollution, almost starving half of the people in the alliance to death, and the cooking technology was directly lost.
Nearly a hundred years after the founding of the alliance, some people found some recipes from the remaining ancient books and picked up the cooking skills again.
Perhaps everything in the world is a cycle. The original residents of the star field once abandoned cooking because of the cumbersome process. After taking nutritional supplements for hundreds of years, they ate carefully cooked food again and were immediately conquered by the complex and wonderful aroma that lingered on their tongues.
Unfortunately, due to limited ingredients and fewer people who can study and cook, this kind of dish that needs to be cooked by star chefs has become a "luxury" that only very few people can afford. The recipe has also become a precious asset in the hands of the few remaining star chefs, and it will not be shown to others easily.
With the restoration research and development of the planting and breeding industry, the first wave of celebrity chefs and kitchen revival movement has been set off. Eating food cooked with natural ingredients has become an aristocratic fashion. However, there are too few celebrity chefs. Restaurant reservations start at least half a year. The few who are willing to work as chefs in aristocratic families have to pay sky-high prices.
As Star Chefs are in short supply, many wealthy and free people in the Nine Star Regions follow suit and enter the kitchen, spending huge sums of money to buy recipes from Star Chefs and try to cook by themselves.
The recipes were expensive, but the quality varied. Many people were disappointed because they could not learn the recipes. There were even many fake recipes, which brought the reputation of star chefs to a freezing point. Finally, several well-known star chefs jointly established the Chef Guild, formulated a unified evaluation standard, and divided the level of star chefs from low to high into one to five knives, which was linked to the price of the recipes. They also said that they would open classes to recruit apprentices and expand the team of star chefs, which ended this chaotic state.
Twenty years later, the Chefs Guild expanded the judging criteria to an annual chef-level examination, which became the most recognized 'pass' in the chef industry.
In the entire alliance, there are currently only two star chefs at the five-knife level. One of them is the former president of the Chefs Guild, who resigned five years ago to travel around the star field, and the other is employed and stationed in the Yao family, one of the top ten families.
There are eight Four-Star Chefs, three of whom focus on their own restaurants, two serve as president or vice president in the Chefs Guild, and three are employed and stationed in several of the top ten families.
There are 297 chefs with three knives, 16,255 with two knives, and 203,678 with one knives, totaling just over 220,000. Although some ethnic groups in the alliance are naturally indifferent to the desire for food, compared to the total population of the entire alliance of nearly 100 billion, the number of star chefs is indeed pitifully small.
No wonder Uncle Lin Sen is qualified to accept disciples. In a place like Feixing, if he can bring his disciples to the top, he will at least be ranked among the top few if not the chief.
High-level star chefs have a "noble" status and there are many easier ways to monetize than live streaming, so they disdain to set foot in this field. Low-level star chefs inherit their skills from their masters, and they don't have many recipes on hand, which are not easy to come by, and they have to use them as "capital" to make a living, so they will not easily "teach" others. This is why most of the chefs who appear in food live streaming rooms are not star chefs and their dishes are relatively simple.
The unique recipes of the star chefs will not be passed on, but they can be found in the directory. Qi Huan curiously checked the famous specialties of the five-knife and four-knife masters, and then fell silent.
The names are different, and many of the pictures can roughly reflect the dishes he is familiar with, including twice-cooked pork, hibiscus vegetable soup, wide vegetable in soup, fried dumplings, sweet and sour ribs, curry chicken, crab meat lion head, fried rice with salted fish and chicken, ants climbing a tree, noodles with soybean paste, Yangzhou fried rice, crucian carp and tofu soup, candied sweet potato, three fresh vegetables, etc., all of which are home-cooked dishes, cabbage and even vinegar-stirred cabbage, not the state banquet-level boiled cabbage he imagined.
Narrow-minded, the times and environment are different, how can we judge the present with the standards of the previous life? Qi Huan knocked his forehead, the most difficult thing to make is home cooking.
This also disrupted the plan. His original idea was to move the dishes planned for Renjian Restaurant directly to the live broadcast room, which is equivalent to opening an online store. The advantage is that online and offline can be linked. In addition to multiple online sales channels, it can also bring some traffic to offline.
Now he is a little hesitant, because there are many home-cooked dishes in the live broadcast, which is equivalent to publishing the recipes. He comes from an era where everyone is happy to share and recipes are everywhere. He enjoys the process of cooking and believes that cooking skills are more important than recipes, so he originally thought that publishing the recipes was not a big deal.
But judging from the current situation in the league, many of those dishes will conflict with the recipes that the chefs have. Although they may not be exactly the same as what they have, they are similar. If he really becomes popular, will it destroy the jobs of a group of low-level star chefs, such as Rondo?
After much deliberation, he finally decided to separate the live broadcast room and the offline store, and make some complex dishes or improved versions of ancient recipes in the live broadcast room. Firstly, they are relatively uncommon and the probability of being "checked for duplication" with the existing recipes of those chefs is low; secondly, unique things are more attractive; thirdly, they are complex and difficult to copy even if you see them, and even if they are really copied, it will not affect others.
Of course, Qi Huan was also very tempted to sell the cookbook, but now he was not well-known and he had not even passed the chef certification exam, so no one would buy it even if he wanted to sell it.
Every day was busy, and twenty-four days passed in a blink of an eye. Qi Huan remembered the nurse's instructions on the day of discharge, and on the twenty-fifth day, he deliberately did not open the morning market and rushed directly to the medical area.
The doctor said that his arm had recovered well. He needed to undergo a C-level reshaping operation to strengthen the bones, and then replace it with a simple exoskeleton support. He would allow his arm to gradually adapt and recover in ten days, and it would be back to normal.
"How much does a C-level body reshaping cost?" Qi Huan asked about the price first this time.
"Thirty thousand silver coins."
Qi Huan was a little hesitant.
"I've already chosen the best option for you. A B-level transformation and reshaping only takes five minutes, but the price is more than ten times that of a C-level. If you do nothing and let it repair itself naturally, it will take at least fifteen months to fully recover." The doctor sighed. He knew that it was not easy for these indigenous people in the base to make money, so in addition to the life-saving emergency cabin, he also chose the most cost-effective options for Qi Huan.
"Let's do as you say." Qi Huan nodded. Saving more than 300,000 yuan in ten days, the doctor's suggestion was indeed the most cost-effective.
On the way back from the medical area, Qi Huan happened to pass by Vino's store. Thinking of the 50% discount card that Brother Man had given him, he turned into the store and planned to order a knife with a weight and size that was convenient for use, a wok and a frying pan, and some kitchen utensils and molds that might be used for subsequent cooking and desserts. If you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools.
He shuddered as he entered the door. The temperature inside was at least ten degrees lower than outside. The last time he felt such a drastic temperature difference was when he followed Uncle Wan Er into the freezer of the food store.
There were many metal tools hung densely at different heights in the house, including axes, daggers, shield belts, wrenches, wheels, and all kinds of small parts whose uses were unclear. The already dim light was mostly blocked by these messy metal objects, leaving only jagged shadows, which inexplicably gave the house a spooky feeling of a haunted house.
But if you look closely, you will find that those things are indeed exquisitely made, with edges so smooth that no flaws can be found.
"Bang!" Qi Huan was dazzled by what he saw and accidentally hit his head against a long and narrow empty can that he didn't know what it was used for. The shaking empty can swayed back and forth, making a series of clanging sounds nearby.
"Who is it?" There was a creaking sound from behind the counter, and someone with messy hair stood up from the recliner and spoke lazily.
"Hello, can you order some kitchenware, such as pots, knife molds, etc." Qi Huan carefully dodged the things above his head and walked to the counter.
"Go to the command hall and buy the ready-made goods. They are 30% cheaper than what we have here and will arrive faster." The man yawned. He was about thirty years old, with a decent face, but his hair was messy, with broken hair sticking up in a mess. There was blue stubble on the corners of his lips, and his clothes were half-undone. His unkempt style was probably not much better than that of the vagrants outside the base.
"Those things look a bit special, and there are no finished products." Qi Huan explained. With the card in hand, there is no rush to spend money. If the same thing is made at 30% more expensive than Tongling Hall, it is still much cheaper after a 50% discount. What's more, Quan Hai said that the things made here are particularly good.
"Custom-made?" The man straightened his clothes, glanced at Qi Huan, and took out a long piece of cardboard from under the counter and handed it to him. "Write down the material, size, appearance reference and other requirements according to the format."
Since they were all familiar things, Qi Huan was naturally very familiar with the size and appearance. He also hand-drew the patterns. In order to design some dishes and plating, he also studied painting for a period of time. Although his talent was limited, he was able to draw pots, flowers, plants, small animals and the like quite well.
He was just a little unsure about the material. He only knew a few kinds of metal and didn't know if it would be suitable. He asked the man hesitantly, "I don't know much about materials. Could you please help me choose according to the application requirements?"
"Fill in first." The man grabbed a nut from the fruit bowl next to him and put it into his mouth. He squinted at the pattern he drew and tapped the blank space at the back.
Qi Huan was drawing a frying pan on the second card when he suddenly felt a flash of light around him. He looked up and found that the man had turned on the light screen and started to draw the picture of a frying pan on the filled-in card. A yellow bird flew out and sat on top of his head.
The bird was covered with bright yellow feathers, which were dazzlingly bright. It looked a bit like a sparrow, but its body was smaller than half the size of a fist. Each of its back feathers was combed neatly and smoothly, and there was a long crest feather on its head, which stood in the air like a wave.
The pale yellow light from the display screen made the edges of its body slightly transparent and shadowy, like a small ball of bright sunlight.
It stared at the light screen, sometimes leaning left, sometimes right, following the movement of the man's brush. It would occasionally peck the owner's hair, looking like an overseer, and the wavy crest on its head would tremble lively as it shook its head.
No wonder the shop owner's hair is so messy, it's all because of this little troublemaker who took advantage of his favor. Qi Huan chuckled and lowered his head to fill in the card again.
The structures of those kitchen utensils are actually very simple compared to automatic cookware. By the time Qi Huan finished filling out the last card, the woks, frying pans and other items in the front had already been drawn in five views with their sizes marked.
After he confirmed the sizes one by one, the final molds were drawn, with twelve different sizes.
The man calculated the price, "A total of 19,128 silver coins, ten days of construction, 50% deposit, lifetime warranty."
It's really expensive. Qi Huan couldn't help but feel a little pain when he heard the price. It was a pity that there was only one place in the base that could customize kitchenware. Then he thought about the comfort of using the kitchenware that was convenient for him. Compared with the treatment fee just now and the sky-high-priced kitchenware bought by the original owner, this price seemed much more reasonable.
Qi Huan flipped through the order sheet again, and finally sighed and removed a frying pan. It was a pan with too few functions, so he gave it up for now.
"15,628 silver coins." The shopkeeper stamped a tiger-head seal on the stack of card orders that he returned.
"I have a 50% off card but I forgot to bring it with me. Can I pay 3330 silver coins as a deposit first?" If he used the 50% off card, the total price would be equivalent to 7814 silver coins, and 50% would be 3907. He had paid for the new stent in the medical area before, and he only had three star coins and more than 300 silver coins left.
"What's the number?"
Qi Huan didn't understand what the man meant at first, but then he remembered the word "贰" on the back of the card, "Does the number refer to the number on the back? It's a capital "贰."
"That's fine. Bring the card when you pick up the goods, and then pay the balance." The man shrugged, and the little bird above his head raised its head and folded its wings, staring at Qi Huan with its little black pearl-like eyes, as if it couldn't afford any less.
"Okay." Qi Huan was amused by the appearance of the little bird. He took out his purse and took out almost all the remaining silver coins.
The man took the money and handed over a printed order. Seeing that he was smiling with curved eyebrows, he was a little puzzled, "What's the matter?"
On the corner of the order was half a tiger head in armor, the same as the one on the discount card. Qi Huan glanced at it, put it away, and waved to the man, "No, I just think that yellow pet bird you raise is very cute and interesting. See you later."
A pet bird? The man at the counter and the bird on his head, ready to peck at his hair, froze in their tracks.
A muscular man walked into the room from the door behind the counter, looked at the owner, and then looked at Qi Huan's back as he walked away. "It's rare that someone on this waste planet can see your soul beast without materializing. It seems that this kid's mental power can at least reach C level. I just don't know if he is a sentinel or a guide."
"But, he seems to be a chef." The black-haired man at the counter looked at the pile of kitchen utensils drawings and scratched his hair. Xiaoniao also tilted his head at the same time, and Doudou showed a confused look in his eyes.
Kitchen? The man who came in later was also stunned.
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