The Gourmet Customizer

Cui Yufen’s group was originally supposed to take the high-speed rail to Jingzhou on the 15th to celebrate her birthday.

But after their small get-together that night, Wang Peixing still felt uneasy. He was closest to his Eldest Brother, so he voiced his concerns.

This Eldest Brother was no ordinary person. He had single-handedly gotten the "Yanxi Hall" time-honored brand status approved, and his mind was sharper than most.

To ensure the birthday banquet went off without a hitch, he called on Old Er to arrive in Jingzhou a day early with him.

The excuse they gave to Cui Yufen’s group was that they were scouting ahead to book the hotel.

In reality, the hotel was indeed booked, but his main purpose was to check out the situation at Delicious first.

The two of them pretended to be local diners and took another elevator straight to the nineteenth floor. After the elevator doors opened, the first things that caught their eye were the company name on the wall and two framed photographs.

"Master Lu?"

Liu Fu recognized the man in the photo at a glance. It was the man who had some bad blood with Cui Yufen!

"Looks like this Boss Su is really someone, to get a thumbs-up from Master Lu."

"Tch," Liu Fu disagreed. "I’ve had my picture taken with Zhou Runfa before. Does that make me a movie star? Besides, hanging a photo like this by the entrance probably means he lacks confidence and needs it to bolster his image. Let’s go in and see."

The nineteenth floor wasn’t locked. Liu Fu led his junior brother on a stroll around the floor, but it didn’t look like the place they were looking for.

This was clearly a corporate office!

There was no place to eat, let alone a venue for a banquet.

"Don’t tell me we went to the wrong place?"

"We shouldn’t have." Liu Fu took out his phone, opened his chat history with Bai Xiaobo, and checked it repeatedly. "He said it was here. We’re supposed to eat here tomorrow!"

So what was going on?

Before coming, Liu Fu had figured that even if this Boss Su wasn’t the owner of some grand restaurant in Jingzhou, he would at least own a decent one.

But the scene before him completely upended his understanding of the restaurant industry.

"Should we check the other floors?" his junior brother suggested.

"Good idea!"

The two went straight up to the 32nd floor and then worked their way down, floor by floor. Above the nineteenth floor, all the levels were just empty, unfinished spaces!

Then they went down.

All the lower floors were empty too!

This made it even harder for the two of them to understand. ’Could this be a damn shell company scam?’

They had already paid the 44,000 yuan for their brothers’ meal!

Liu Fu clutched his phone, feeling a faint urge to call the police.

DING!

When the elevator stopped on the second floor, Liu Fu had already made up his mind. If this floor was also an unfinished space, he was definitely calling the cops!

The moment the elevator doors opened, a sign reading "Delicious Little Cafeteria" in large characters came into view. Liu Fu read it out loud, confused. "’Little Cafeteria?’ Is this for real?"

The two hurried inside.

Good grief!

Just inside the entrance was a neat row of small wooden beds, each with a little mattress. Further in, a sign on the left read "Children’s Dining Area," and one on the right read "Adult Dining Area."

At that moment, Liu Fu had only one thought: ’This has to be some kind of sick joke!’

’We paid over forty thousand for a birthday banquet, and you have one floor as an office and another as a big cafeteria? Are you kidding me?’

’Is this the kind of environment forty thousand plus gets you?’

The two of them naturally walked into the adult area and saw a few people sitting at a table not far away.

Taking a closer look, Liu Fu whispered in disbelief, "What’s Lu Yongliang doing here?"

"That guy..." Old Er squinted, staring hard. "He looks awfully familiar!"

Their gazes fell on Jiang Wusheng. They found him familiar, but their brains short-circuited and they couldn’t recall who he was for a moment. They were certain they knew him, though.

"What do we do, Eldest Brother?"

Liu Fu calmed himself and thought for a moment. "Let’s get out of here first! If Lu Yongliang recognizes us, it’ll be humiliating before the banquet even starts."

’Wasn’t scouting ahead a sign of a lack of confidence?’

It wouldn’t sound good if word of this got out.

"Right, I’ll follow your lead!"

Fortunately, this floor of Delicious was large enough that their brief pause at the entrance didn’t attract the attention of the people inside.

Liu Fu led his junior brother out of the building.

"It seems this Boss Su can’t be underestimated. Lu Yongliang and that familiar-looking guy are both here, probably to help him hold down the fort. We need to be on our guard!"

Old Er, however, was rather nonchalant. "Anyway, Master and Lu Yongliang don’t get along. If he tries to help Boss Su, we’ll just take him down too!"

"Taking him down" didn’t mean a physical fight, but a culinary one.

Eldest Brother nodded as well. "The selection for the seeded contestants is coming up soon anyway, so it’s good to have a preliminary match. Let’s go. We’ll head back to the hotel and tell our junior brother about the situation."

The two of them walked on while waiting for the car they had hailed on their phone.

Liu Fu felt a little fortunate.

He was glad he had listened to his junior brother and come early. Otherwise, he really wouldn’t have understood the situation. The mere fact that Lu Yongliang was here spoke volumes.

It seemed this meeting was going to be more troublesome than he’d thought!

...

Delicious Little Cafeteria.

Su Chen’s spatula gently tossed the tender pork knuckle. Under the low heat of the slow stir-fry, the skin oozed juices and oil.

’Why is it like this...’

Pouring the diced shiitake mushrooms, onions, and other ingredients into the rendered fat at the bottom of the wok, Su Chen was both exasperated and amused.

There were so many famous and classic dishes that he could practice until his hands went limp, yet he could barely raise them from A to S rank. He could taste them until his mouth went numb, yet it was incredibly difficult to raise them from S to SS.

But these Sizzled Aromatic Noodles...

Su Chen had made them once in the practice room and then took a single bite.