The Game of Life-Chapter 751 - 750 Phoenix Egg

Chapter 751: Chapter 750: Phoenix Egg

Chapter 751 -750: Phoenix Egg

“””

If we’re talking about who among the many here who know Chef Arno looked the most like they had just seen a ghost, it definitely had to be Tao Shu.

Nothing could be more desperate than being caught by your direct superior while fraternizing with the enemy.

Wait a second, the direct superior seems to be fraternizing with the enemy as well.

Tao Shu was momentarily confused.

Compared with everyone else’s ghost-sighting expressions, Chef Arno’s demeanor was extremely calm. His gaze immediately fixed on Jiang Feng, with a stern face that betrayed neither happiness nor anger—after all, whenever Jiang Feng saw Chef Arno, his expression was pretty much always like this.

After locking eyes with Jiang Feng, Chef Arno didn’t look at anyone else and walked to two vacant seats. In not-so-perfect but understandable Chinese, he asked slowly, word by word, “Can I sit here?”

“Of course, please sit.” Zhou Shi didn’t recognize Chef Arno and reacted quickly.

Chef Arno sat down composedly, placing his hands on the table without checking his phone or anything else, just staring straight at Jiang Feng with a keen gaze.

Jiang Feng: …

What have I done to deserve this?

“I need to use the restroom.” Jiang Feng chose to make a run for it.

After Jiang Feng left, Chef Arno switched his intense gaze to Lu Sheng.

Lu Sheng: …

“I need to use the restroom too.” Lu Sheng suddenly felt that making a run for it was truly a great thing.

After Lu Sheng slipped away, Chef Arno then turned his attention to Tao Shu, causing him to tremble with fear and nearly consider leaving first. But he didn’t dare and could only sit there honestly, trying his best to avoid Chef Arno’s stare, shaking like a sieve.

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“Who is he?” Zhou Shi was somewhat baffled; he genuinely didn’t recognize this bearded foreigner.

“I… my boss, no no, I mean I am his boss, no no, boss, not boss, I…” Tao Shu was too nervous to even speak properly. Perhaps in his heart, Chef Arno was indeed his boss, but theoretically, Chef Arno was not his boss. This caused a significant confusion in his logic and speech, his mouth moving independently of his brain, which didn’t know what it should be controlling anymore.

Zhou Shi: ???

“I just want to know who he is.” Zhou Shi said helplessly.

“Chef Arno, the head chef of our restaurant.” Tao Shu’s thought processes finally returned to normal.

“Chef Arno.” Zhou Shi was somewhat surprised.

Although he hadn’t been in Beiping for some time and was unaware of the recent strife between the top-floor restaurant and the old established ones in Beiping, he still knew of Chef Arno.

After all, not long ago, his name was the one most often cursed in the Taifeng Building staff WeChat group, with an incredibly high frequency of mentions.

“Why would he come here? I remember your top-floor restaurant not getting along with others…” Zhou Shi honestly hadn’t finished speaking when Tao Shu covered his mouth.

With a glance full of panic at Chef Arno and noticing that Chef Arno was indeed still watching him, Tao Shu said in a low voice, “He understands Chinese.”

Zhou Shi immediately shut up.

Tao Shu had known for a long time that Chef Arno was learning Chinese. After all, how could they not know when Chef Arno was always carrying around a book like “Beginner’s Chinese Vocabulary Book” or “How Foreigners Quickly Learn Chinese” in the kitchen—books that didn’t exactly scream serious Chinese learning.

But no one paid any mind because they didn’t believe that Chef Arno could actually learn Chinese just by reading those books; that would be underestimating the language far too much.

As it turned out, they were the ones who had underestimated Chef Arno.

Not only could he read it, he could understand it.

The native Chinese assistant chefs at the top-floor restaurant, who relied on the natural language barrier, often gathered quietly to discuss or complain about the foreign head chefs—formerly Rolan, and now Arno. Thinking they couldn’t understand Chinese, the complaints were usually very unrestrained, even daring to say them to their faces.

Until about half a month ago, one bold assistant chef, who was sure Chef Arno had some sort of mental illness because of his temper and personality, said as much to his face with full confidence that Chef Arno was not a normal person.

Then Chef Arno allowed him to genuinely experience whether he was a normal person or not.

After the experience, the assistant chef was also smoothly fired.

Tao Shu felt it was his turn now.

On the other hand, Jiang Feng and Lu Sheng ran into each other in the restroom, quite unexpectedly.

Thinking back on it, Jiang Feng recalled that he first met Lu Sheng in the restroom of Yonghe House; it seemed that they were both somehow fated to be with the restrooms of Yonghe House.

“How could Master Peng invite Chef Arno?” Jiang Feng wore a look of disbelief.

“I have no idea either.” Lu Sheng felt this question had reached his area of ignorance, “I also didn’t expect that he would actually invite Chef Arno, especially since we and…”

“””

“Wait, has there been any conflict between Chef Arno and Master Peng?” Lu Sheng suddenly realized.

Jiang Feng tried to recall, but it seemed there really hadn’t been any.

In the past years when Master Peng was in the United States, he and Chef Arno had always kept to themselves. Of course, it was mainly because Master Peng hadn’t been active as a chef for many years, so even if the well water wanted to reach the river, it couldn’t. In the rankings of “Famous Chefs,” Chef Arno acknowledged Peng Changping’s superiority; he was simply not satisfied with being second, thinking he ought to be the runner-up.

During this time back in the country, though high-end restaurants were making enemies everywhere and behaving arrogantly, openly suppressing Taifeng Building at one point, it really had nothing to do with Chef Arno. He didn’t get involved with the business affairs of Taifeng Building or Yonghe House; it was unrelated to him. He spent his days sipping tea, chatting, occasionally mentoring his apprentices, and taking walks nearby if it didn’t come to mind, no different from a typical retired old man.

Chef Arno’s attitude towards Peng Changping wasn’t bad either. When Peng Changping went to dine at the top-floor restaurant, Chef Arno even made a special effort to come out and introduce the details of the dishes, leaving Xu Cheng completely baffled. Even if Chef Arno’s expressions or attitude weren’t great, he was like that with everyone, not specifically targeting anyone—except for just now, when he specifically targeted Jiang Feng and Lu Sheng.

Actually, upon careful consideration, Chef Arno didn’t target anyone except for Jiang Feng.

Thinking this way, Jiang Feng really didn’t want to go back and sit in the private room anymore.

But he couldn’t stay in the bathroom forever.

“Why don’t… we go to the kitchen and see if the dishes are ready?” Jiang Feng suggested. He was familiar with the kitchen at Yonghe House, just like walking into his own kitchen.

Lu Sheng: ?

Although he didn’t understand why Jiang Feng’s thoughts had jumped so swiftly, he thought that going to the kitchen was a good suggestion. He didn’t want to stay in the bathroom either, even contemplating heading to the office to sit, drink tea, and watch the surveillance.

“Let’s go take a look, and see if we can help with serving the dishes or something,” Lu Sheng nodded.

The two headed towards the first-floor kitchen: one the owner, and the other a regular non-staff member. The cooks in the kitchen were not surprised to see them, even without their work uniforms, nothing seemed amiss.

Peng Changping was in front of the stove.

He appeared to have been busy for quite a while, a sign of how seriously he took this apprentice banquet.

Jiang Feng noticed something familiar in the pot from a distance—it looked like little dumplings.

Getting closer.

Master Peng had just finished thickening the sauce and was plating the dish.

It was the familiar dumplings, covered in egg batter, just like the ones Jiang Feng had seen yesterday in his memory.

“Check if the braised shark’s fin is ready. If it is, get ready to plate it. This Phoenix Egg comes after the braised shark’s fin, we need to be quick,” Master Peng put down his spatula, ending the battle.

Master Peng turned to find Jiang Feng and Lu Sheng had arrived. Seeing that it was already past 7 o’clock and thinking they must be in a hurry, he smiled and said, “There were some small issues with a couple of dishes earlier, which has caused a delay of more than ten minutes. Has everyone arrived? We can start serving the dishes; I’ll go with you.”

“Master Peng, abo—” Just as Lu Sheng was about to ask Peng Changping whether Chef Arno was his invitee, he was interrupted by Jiang Feng’s urgent words.

“Master Peng, what is this dish called?” Jiang Feng stared at the freshly plated dumplings covered in egg batter, his eyes shining.

“It’s called Phoenix Egg. Have you eaten it before?” Master Peng asked with a smile.

Lu Sheng also noticed the dish, finding it novel: “Phoenix Egg, that’s an interesting name. But I don’t seem to have seen this dish before.”

“It might be that chefs nowadays find it too troublesome to make. The ingredients aren’t very expensive, so it can’t be sold at a high price, but the dish itself is quite tricky to make, especially getting that layer of egg batter right—it’s almost as hard as ascending to heaven. I remember when I was a kid, the rich families in Beiping City would always have this dish on New Year’s Eve because of the auspicious name. Speaking of which, this dish used to be made best by your Taifeng Building—your great-grandfather’s Phoenix Eggs were truly like phoenix eggs,” Peng Changping said, noticing Jiang Feng’s interest in the dish, “Want to learn?”

Jiang Feng nodded frantically, not attempting to hide his eagerness.

“It’s easy to want to learn. Although this dish is troublesome and difficult, compared to other dishes, it’s not that bad. With your current skill level, you should just about manage, enough to get started. Whenever you have time, come over and continue learning Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup, and in between, I’ll also teach you this dish. With a couple of months’ effort, you should be able to get the hang of it,” Master Peng was very generous when it came to teaching dishes.

“Thank you, Master Peng,” Jiang Feng immediately forgot all about Chef Arno.

Lu Sheng: ???

Is our focus right now on teaching and learning dishes? Isn’t the focus supposed to be on dealing with Chef Arno still sitting in the private room? Isn’t anyone thinking about how we’re supposed to eat with Chef Arno later?

Wait, this dish is indeed nicely presented, and with an appealing name, it would probably sell well if added to the menu.

“Master Peng, do you think there’s a chef in the restaurant now who can learn this dish?” Lu Sheng asked.

“Learn?” Master Peng glanced at his apprentices with an amused look that made them all lower their heads guiltily, avoiding his gaze.

“The ones who need to learn still lack fire control, and the ones who don’t need to learn, you can ask them yourself,” Master Peng knew the difficulty and the hassle of the dish, and the lack of great profit, so it was normal for the chefs to be reluctant to make it. After all, the chefs of Yonghe House, especially those trained in Tan Family Cuisine, had no shortage of high-difficulty dishes that could fetch a good price.

Whether they were willing to make it was one thing, pretending ignorance was another.

Lu Sheng, after all, was a professional businessman and quickly caught on.

He made a mental note of it but didn’t say it outright, “Since the dishes are almost ready, let’s head back to the private room first.”

“Okay,” Master Peng nodded, following Lu Sheng and Jiang Feng out, leaving the kitchen.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated on Novlove.com