Chapter 24: Mysterious Quality, Strong Against the Strong

The green pepper flower juice crispy skin bamboo shoot fish had long been prepared; after a flurry of busy work, all three dishes were completed.

The skill level wasn't high, but the methods were authentic, enough to capture some essence of the state banquet Sichuan dishes even by just imitating.

It might be a bit embarrassing to enter a cooking competition with these dishes, but for a variety show like this, compared with the other male guests' cuisines, it was a total professional crush.

In such a vast world, which cuisine could outshine Xia Country's food?

The room at the end of the hallway on the second floor.

The room was dimly lit, with the curtains tightly drawn. Pei Muchan lay on the soft bed, her hands weakly covering her eyes; she couldn't sleep and felt very tired, a deep-rooted emptiness seeping through her bones.

Madame He once said that women turn over a mountain when they reach twenty-six.

She was brandishing a spatula and wrestling with the vegetables in the pan with the range hood's rumbling in the background when she turned to glance at Pei Muchan.

"I must have been blind to have fallen for your father."

Madame He had complained for half her life, starting from that winter when she was five and couldn't get rid of a high fever. That year, Madame He was just twenty-six, hugging her unconscious child, waiting for emergency care alone in the middle of the night.

Her father was in the army, too busy to look after mother and daughter. The high fever persisted, and all their money was spent.

The doctor was helpless, and Madame He cried back and forth in the freezing courtyard, eventually pulling her daughter back from death's door. Since then, she was always proud.

See, women who cry have the best fortune!

Pei Muchan was the complete opposite; she could count the times she cried on one hand.

Madame He said that women who don't cry age easily because all their troubles press down on them, and crow's feet will creep up to nest by the eyes unnoticed.

Time flies, and now it was Pei Muchan's turn to climb the mountain.

She stood at the foot of the mountain, looking up, her eyes full of exhaustion, without any of Madame He's vitality. She thought countless times that it was okay not to make it over the mountain.

Career decline, marriage pressure, insomnia.

It seemed as if all the bad luck before turning thirty concentrated into this year, in this gloomy twenty-sixth spring when all things withered.

She wasted away three months, each day struggling with insomnia, then looked up to realize it was already summer. From the start of spring's agony to the peak of summer, she neither took sleeping pills nor accepted psychological treatment.

Probably influenced by her father Comrade Pei, she subconsciously thought enduring insomnia to temper one's will wasn't a bad thing.

The good news was she succeeded; the bad news was she was left with sequela.

When the pressure was high, her head would ring, and her inner restlessness would magnify infinitely in a few minutes, but as long as she endured those minutes, everything would be fine.

Pei Muchan's mind was in chaos; she dozed off for a while, half-asleep, half-awake, hearing various noises and hardly resting well.

As she stared blankly at the ceiling, out of nowhere, she thought of Xu Qingyan. The moment his gaze met hers and he nodded, the restlessness in her heart seemed to ease quite a bit.

What was this? The miraculous effect of hormones?

The alarm went off, and Pei Muchan got up and rummaged through her clothes, changing into a new outfit. A white short-sleeve with blue jeans, her ponytail casually tied, leaving a whisp of air fringe in front of her forehead.

The whole person's temperament instantly transformed from a classic beauty into a fresh and beautiful woman, indistinguishable from a girl in her early twenties.

She left the house sluggishly, her expression still cool.

Not until she reached the end of the corridor and encountered the three women going out together did Shen Jinyue smile at her and call out loudly, "Pei sister," then waved vigorously, signaling her to catch up.

"Coming," Pei Muchan replied.

Throughout the journey, Shen Jinyue walked at the front, occasionally glancing back. Pei Muchan lagged far behind, maintaining a distance of two meters from the two people ahead.

The lunch place was a seaside restaurant in the villa's backyard. Circling around from the back door of the kitchen, the moment the backyard door was pulled open, the sea breeze rushed in recklessly.

Pei Muchan was the last one to enter. The moment she released the door handle, she looked up and caught sight of Xu Qingyan.

He was standing still, seemingly arguing with Bai Jinze about something.

Xu Qingyan's voice was initially scattered by the wind, sounding somewhat indistinct. As she approached, his arrogant voice gradually became clearer.

"Why isn't the steak cooked rare? Huh? Is it because you ran out of gas?"

"I like to tell the truth. What even is Western food? Randomly wash some vegetables, chop them up, and call it a salad, and this soup, can it even be drunk?"

"No, dude, have you been cooking up to this standard since you debuted?"

"Teacher Bai, should one drink potato soup from a goblet? I'm a country person and don't understand the city's rules. The way to drink with high-end ingredients has to be different, right?"

"Are you sick?" Bai Jinze couldn't contain himself any longer, struggling to suppress his anger, "The competition hasn't even started; you don't have to get so happy so soon, right?"

At those words, Xu Qingyan merely shrugged his shoulders.

"All these are things you taught me, Teacher Bai. I'm just returning them to you as is. What's wrong? Can't you handle it?"

He originally didn't want to bother with Bai Jinze, but since the director had given him a script, he had no choice but to create conflict according to the script. Without much effort from him to deliberately create friction, the other party took the bait in just a few words.

Bai Jinze took the lead by saying which beauty-loving girl would eat such greasy dishes with big chunks of meat. Xu Qingyan didn't show any weakness and stood up to retort.

Drop the personal quality and enjoy the shameless life.

He truly loved this job. Others might need a certain level of acting to play this part, but Xu Qingyan was just being himself; that's how he was in real life.

Accustomed to hustling in society, sometimes he really wanted to transform into an octopus and slap eight people at once.

"I won't stoop to your level; the girls have already arrived, and the result will speak for itself!" Bai Jinze took a deep breath, forcefully holding back his anger.

"You have only one face; can't you save it from being lost?" This time, Xu Qingyan was tasked with antagonizing others and didn't need to care about personal quality, just as Bai Jinze had not been mindful when being sarcastic to him last night.

"Does your cooking fare any better? Bragging like that, aren't you afraid of losing face?" Bai Jinze had been repressing his temper, smiling as he said, "You speak quite dirtily. In front of the girls, it would be better to mind your quality a bit more."

"I'm just discussing the dishes with you, Teacher Bai. I don't recall using any dirty words. Can't you hear properly?" Xu Qingyan asked with a puzzled face.

"No worries, if you can't hear clearly, I can always carve it on your tombstone later."

Behind the scenes, the members of the directorial team were dumbfounded.

What was supposed to be creating conflict had turned into a verbal fight?

Director Chen Fufeng was particularly baffled, looking down at his phone screen. He suddenly realized that the words he had sent asking for "appropriate improvisation" were completely unnecessary.

The female guests stopped in their tracks, their faces filled with confusion.

Are they fighting?

The male viewers who witnessed the entire event live streamed their reactions, and the online audience erupted, with the comments section exploding.

"F*ck, they're really going at it!"

"So hardcore, this isn't a love reality show; it's my source of joy!"

"Xu Dog is actually lively, with quality unknown, the stronger the opponent, the stronger he gets!"