6 Chapter 2 Initial task

"Host's initial task."

"Prompt: As an apprentice in the kitchen, you should be independent and master a dish that will make customers satisfied."

"Reward: Recipe 'Magical Mapo Tofu' (Blue)."

What?

Xia Yu was amazed about the gift of time travellers, but he never thought that the Chef God System would give him a task.

Initial task, make a dish?

Not too difficult!

Xia Yu suddenly grinned, but who knew the system remined him coldly: "In order to complete the task, you must make customers satisfied."

"Customers? Where are the customers?" Xia Yu couldn't help laughing.

This Chinese Cuisine restaurant barely open once a month. The restaurant was not too far, but the old man had a weird temper – the type of anger that was fierce. After a while, who would come and eat?

Xia Yu used to try to drag more customers in, but the old man labelled this as a useless action.

He was very blunt, but Xia Yu was certain those were the old man's original words and he didn't add anything.

He thought with grief: 'Why did I have to match with such an old stubborn man?' Xia Yu dared not waste too much time upstairs. He rushed and used a band aid for the wound on his palm and took off his school uniform. He changed to the white work uniform with a slightly sweaty smell. He trotted downstairs.

He sat on the small bench and started to prepare the food.

In fact, he dealt with lots of food every night. Fish, meat, and all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Every evening Xia Yu came back from school, he would see food piling up in the corner of the kitchen. He never saw the provider of these food items.

Even though there was no business in the restaurant, the consumption of food was unbelievable. Xia Yu was curious and tried to find out why at the beginning, but gradually he lost interest.

In his heart, it was only the second most unbelievable event of Xia's Chinese Cuisine restaurant. 

The first unbelievable event was certainly the weird rocks in that big jar.

A big piece of fresh and fat beef was placed on the cutting board. Xia Yu was sharpening the knife in front of the cutting board.

Cutting beef required skills and this sort of skill had been mastered by Xia Yu ages ago. Cross cutting was for beef and lamb. Vertical cutting was for pork. He placed the knife at a 90-degree angle on the beef's grain. With one cut, a big piece was separated.

He cut the big steak piece by piece and decided to use them in different ways. Some were used to fry, and some were used to make into small strips mixed with other dishes.

This step moved forward, but they had a fridge to put them so that they could stay fresh. Xia Yu packed up those cut pieces of beef and put them in the fridge. Then, he started to deal with fresh seafood.

Fish needed to have the scales scraped off, as well as to remove the cheeks and internal organs. Seafood with shells were more troublesome. Xia Yu separated them into a few big buckets with water. He turned around to fetch salt and added them into the buckets. Then he got a can of vegetable oil and added a bit into those buckets. It was just enough to cover the water's surface.

As everyone knew, when oil covered the water surface, it would block oxygen. The shells would lack oxygen and open their shells up to breathe. It would get rid of sand in their system. After cooking, the customer wouldn't taste the sand and the dish would taste much better.

He was busy until midnight. The antique clock hung on the restaurant made a very rhythmic knocking sound.

"Phew."

He took off the dirty and bloody apron and it put away in the toilet. Xia Yu got a pot of clean water from toilet and started to clean chairs and tables in the restaurant.

Cooking sounds came from kitchen. Xia Yu lifted his head and saw that the old man had started to warm up the pot. It was Xia Yu's happiest hour of the day, every day.

He finally didn't have to eat bread from business district, and he would get hot supper to eat!

Tears came out of Xia Yu's eyes and he worked harder. His ears were focused on the kitchen.

Boom!

After a little while, two big hot bowls of noodles were placed on the counter. The old man took off his chef hat and said calmly: "Take it."

Xia Yu walked towards him happily and put one bowl in front of himself.

There weren't many chairs and tables in this narrow and small restaurant. If you ever watched TV show 'Midnight Canteen', you would get this kind of image easily.

The supper was a bowl of clear soup ramen. The old man was very thoughtful, and the soup was quite clear without too much spice. The oil and green onion were on the surface of soup. The fried pieces were very tasty and beef pieces had a perfect combination of color, aroma, and taste.

Fragrance floated all around the restaurant. Xia Yu took the chopsticks on his hands and he said sincerely, "I will start now!"

He lowered his head and wolfed it down.

A few mouthful noodles and a sip of soup, Xia Yu tasted the hot food and was amazed. "This is good."

He kneeled in front of the old man's culinary skills. It was not the first time. He would use his dignity and knees in exchange.

The old man's supper was made differently every night. It was the best meal for Xia Yu every day. Other meals, such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner… Damn. They were eaten during his way to school or back home.

If there was no supper, Xia Yu would not work for him at all!

Not only in this life, Xia Yu was sure that he had never eaten anything better than this old man's food. Soup noodles were only one type of skills the old man had. 

The most unforgettable was the seafood dumpling he ate half year ago. Whenever he thought about the taste, his mouth couldn't stop drooling. Xia Yu finished off the bowl very quickly and tried to get another bowl with his stretched arms. He found someone else eating his noodles. 

His face sunk. 

'What? Those are my noodles! Who are you!'

He looked at the empty counter and saw a customer lowering his head and eating noodles. He tried to stop tearing by lifting his head up.

This customer couldn't stop praising the old man, which made Xia Yu annoyed. "Boss Xia's culinary skills are fantastic. Haha, such a great night!"

His Chinese wasn't fluent. Xia Yu realized this impolite person was Japanese. He barely saw anyone who shamelessly took away others' food. To Japanese people, making trouble for others was wrong. Now, some Japanese person just stole his food and it made Xia Yu angry!

Huh?

Xia Yu's eyebrows moved.

He looked carefully and found this guy looked weird. On such a hot day, this guy was wearing a black coat and a black hat with a high collar.

Cosplaying Sherlock Holmes? Do you need a cigar prop?

Normally, anyone would be sweaty after eating noodles in such a narrow place without any fan. But this guy was not sweaty at all after he finished off the noodles.

The customer finally lifted his head and grinned at Xia Yu.

Middle-aged man. He was handsome and elegant. 

Xia Yu resisted the urge to give him a punch and grinned. "Your lips are covered with green onions."

"Really?"

After eating, the middle-aged man had an elegant and calm atmosphere. He used the paper towels at the counter to wipe off the green onions lightly and got up to throw the crumpled paper towels back to the trash can and sat back down.

Then, the middle-aged man looked at Xia Yu with interested gaze.