Chapter 27: The Chef's First Lesson

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“Heh heh. Now that we have fresh ingredients, this old woman can teach you how to cook.”

The chestnut vendor beamed.

Chen Ye was speechless. He had never expected the ingredients to appear so suddenly.

It was almost as if they had simply materialized the moment he mentioned them...

Could it be that his [Good Fortune] had come into play again?

“Come to think of it, the [Wanderer] trait really is quite impressive. While acting out the role, it allows me to keep my luck at a consistently high level.”

With the support of this month’s Newcomer Rankings, acting was undoubtedly the players’ primary means of advancement.

However, some professions could bring hidden dangers to their users during the process of acting.

Others were simply too difficult...

The [Wanderer] was much better in that regard.

Not only was the process simple—it merely required him to keep walking—but it also increased his strangeness value while gathering good fortune.

In this dangerous world, luck was an extremely important factor.

If one’s luck was even slightly poor and one happened to encounter an anomaly beyond one’s ability to handle, the consequences would be disastrous.

Fortunately, the two powerful anomalies Chen Ye had encountered so far were not especially dangerous.

The old erhu player was a friendly fellow of his kind.

The chestnut vendor, for the time being, appeared to be a relatively neutral anomaly.

And the trait-bearing item he had absorbed—the suona—had come from the old woman’s deceased son.

As long as he did not court death, these two formidable natives would not only refrain from harming him, but would actually help him grow.

The chestnut vendor then slowly made her way to the “flesh tumor.”

At some point, a small knife had appeared in her hand.

With great care, she cut off a portion of the “flesh tumor.”

As she worked, she began explaining the techniques of cooking, her back turned toward Chen Ye.

“The entire process of making a dish is not simply a matter of cooking. Choosing the ingredients is equally important.”

“What can be eaten and what cannot.”

“What tastes good and what does not.”

“What is beneficial and what is harmful...”

“Different ingredients possess different properties. In many cases, the outcome is already determined before the cooking even begins.”

“Choosing ingredients is a skill in itself.”

The old woman’s movements were sluggish. Only after slowly reciting this long string of words did she finally cut off a piece of flesh from the tumor.

She then continued at her leisurely pace, transferring all the chestnuts in the pot into paper bags, making room on the stove for an empty pan.

By the time the entire process was finished, nearly half an hour seemed to have passed.

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If Zhao Cheng and the others had not eaten a huge amount of the candied chestnuts and spilled a small portion onto the ground, the process would probably have taken even longer.

When the last candied chestnut had finally been packed away, the cooking lesson could at last begin.

Starting the fire, setting the pan on the stove, adding oil...

The moment the chestnut vendor took up the ladle, her movements seemed to grow decades younger. They became nimble and practiced, utterly free of the awkward stiffness she had displayed before.

Every motion flowed into the next, smooth and seamless, like the work of a martial arts master who had trained for years—speed was the ultimate defense.

Once the pan was hot, the ingredients went in, producing a sizzling roar.

In the darkness, sparks flew from the pan, dazzling as stars in motion.

When the ingredients had been roasted to a certain point, the old woman repeatedly pounded them with her spatula. The entire piece of meat shrank in size and took on a spherical shape, becoming almost exactly as large as a candied chestnut.

She then poured in thick syrup, golden powder, and at least four or five other special materials whose names Chen Ye could not identify...

Then she began stir-frying everything at high heat.

Chen Ye watched the old woman’s movements with complete concentration, committing the entire procedure to memory.

The temperature inside the stove rose higher and higher. A faint red glow appeared across the surface of the pan, as though it were hot enough to forge iron. This no longer looked like cooking food at all; it resembled the forging of a weapon.

Yet the more extraordinary it seemed, the more Chen Ye realized how little he understood about this world. He had to remember every detail in order to grasp its true rules of survival.

Boom!

Suddenly, a column of flame surged from the pan, accompanied by a stream of pungent black smoke.

At the very center of the pan lay a candied chestnut, charred black and utterly unappetizing.

“Did it fail?”

Chen Ye was stunned. The thought surfaced in his mind.

Through the Eye of Fortune, he could clearly see a black halo of baleful energy surrounding the chestnut.

Even without that special perspective, it was obvious to the naked eye that the candied chestnut had been burned into something scarcely different from coal. It was as hard as stone, and no teeth could possibly bite through it.

Anyone with common sense would know that this thing was inedible, right?

It was also worlds apart from the candied chestnuts normally produced.

Had she simply made a mistake?

But the chestnut vendor remained calm, as though she had anticipated this outcome from the start. She scooped the charred chestnut out of the pan and said:

“This is a failed product made with the wrong ingredients but the correct cooking method.”

“Although I followed the proper procedure for making candied chestnuts from beginning to end, the ingredients themselves were of insufficient quality, so the result was still a failure.”

“A proper food must undergo thorough high-temperature roasting to achieve complete sterilization. Only then can the cooking method be refined further to produce a better dish.”

“Unfortunately... these ingredients were crude and inferior. They had not been processed, and they were unable to withstand such high temperatures. They must first undergo professional treatment.”

Chen Ye listened intently, his mind racing as he tried to record every detail.

When he heard that the problem lay with the ingredients, he suddenly understood. The chestnut vendor had deliberately demonstrated a failed recipe, using it as the first lesson.

Indeed, the choice of ingredients was extremely important—especially in the world of the Age of the Strange.

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The rules governing this place were completely different from those of the normal world. Even cooking methods could overturn ordinary human understanding.

Chen Ye immediately distilled three crucial points from the lesson.

“First, ingredients must be cooked at high temperatures to achieve sterilization... This is probably a universal rule. The old woman’s stove was already burning at an extremely high temperature.”

“Second, and corresponding to the first point, the food here requires high-temperature treatment, which places great demands on the ingredients. Ordinary ingredients may not be able to withstand such cooking methods. Even if the old woman uses the correct procedure, the ingredients themselves can still limit the result and produce a failure.”

“Finally, the third point is how to process and prepare the ingredients.”

Chen Ye asked the final question aloud.

The chestnut vendor chuckled. “I am merely a cook. Although I know a few cooking techniques, there are still some things I am not particularly good at.”

“As the saying goes, professional matters should be left to professionals.”

“If processing ingredients is not my specialty, then I must find someone who specializes in it.”

There it was!

That familiar tendency to quote old sayings!

Listening to the chestnut vendor, whose face was covered in age-worn wrinkles while she continuously spouted one classic maxim after another, Chen Ye could not help feeling that the scene was absurd.

His gaze fell upon the “meat sculptures” standing in the distance. After a moment’s thought, he suddenly said:

“Grandmother, when you said the ingredients were expensive, you meant the processed ingredients, didn’t you?”

“But these ingredients have not been processed. Does that mean they are not worth as much?”

“In other words... they should not be as expensive either?”

The old woman nodded in satisfaction.

“You are right.”

“Processed ingredients start at fifteen copper coins per pound, with purchases beginning at five copper coins.”

“However, these inferior ingredients are worth no more than a single copper coin.”

“That one copper coin is not the price per pound. It is a bundle price.”

“For one copper coin, you may choose any one of these ingredients.”

There were four “meat sculptures” before him.

Chen Ye’s eyes lit up, and he immediately said:

“Then, Grandmother, I’ll use three copper coins to buy three pieces of ingredients from you!”

The chestnut vendor would keep one piece to guide him through the cooking process on the spot.

The other three would be used for practice and for his own future cooking. He could keep them as provisions to sustain his life—or sell them to gain income in other ways.

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