Chapter 175: Innovative Dishes
With doubts in his mind, Song Deyue first tasted the stewed lion’s head meatball. The meat was fragrant and sweet, and the ginger taste was faint. The water chestnuts were crisp, and the most important thing was the pumpkin paste and the diced chinese asparagus. They were extremely smooth and perfectly fused.

He was extremely shocked. After chewing twice, he tasted half of it again. This time, he specially wrapped it in the pumpkin paste that was poured on the plate. After tasting it carefully, although it was slowly simmered over a small fire, the texture advanced layer by layer. It was really wonderful.

“There’s chinese asparagus inside. There’s only medicinal fragrance but no bitter smell of herbs. It was handled well in the later stages. It’s sweet and delicious. I’m very satisfied.”

As Old Master Song spoke, he smiled. The braised lion’s head meatball was also rich in sauce and the meat was firm, but it was immediately inferior to the stewed one.

The judge at the side also nodded and said, “The stewed lion’s head meatball will more or less have a fishy smell, let alone the added medicinal herbs. However, the fact that the contestants can perfectly fuse the two is enough to show the exquisiteness of this dish, so I vote for this side.”

After tasting and conferring with the judges, they began the vote, which ended 3:7.

Xu Le took a deep breath. He knew that he shouldn’t be too happy too early. After all, there was still the online voting and the live audience voting.

While he went backstage to rest for half an hour and waited for the audience to vote, Li Qing was especially happy. He said excitedly, “I knew that you would definitely be able to do it, Master. Look, this time, you’ve far exceeded the votes over the other side!”

“Don’t be too happy. The audience hasn’t voted yet.”

Li Qing reached out and patted Xu Le’s shoulder twice to cheer him on. “All the best, all the best. Our team will definitely win. I’ll help you prepare 5 kilograms of meat stuffing later!”

“Oh?” Xu Le smiled and said, “You have to mean what you say.”

“But Master Xu, you don’t need that much, right?”

Li Qing came back to his senses and quickly tried to salvage the situation. “As long as you can win, I’ll do anything for you.”

Zhang Tong was also delighted. After all, he would be able to make up for his loss soon.

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At this moment, Chen Yeqi, who was backstage, stared at the rising figures on the Internet. He did not expect so many people to participate in the voting. The millions of votes that he had originally expected were about to exceed 100 million. It had almost become a live broadcast that everyone had to watch.

This surge in popularity did not make him happy. His expression was grave and nervous.

Of course, Chen Zui knew that once the data was public and transparent, the program team would be completely unable to control the direction of the outcome. Hence, he said, “There’s still half an hour before the voting ends. You can get that thing to attract votes.”

“What bad idea are you having?”

Chen Yeqi asked in disdain. After a while, he waved his hand and silently accepted it.

The host’s voice came from the front desk. “Good afternoon, everyone. Now, please turn on your phones and search the official page to vote for your favorite contestant…”

A staff member rushed to the back and looked at Xu Le and the others. “Who wants to go up and try to ask for votes?”

“How?” Xu Le was speechless. “I wasn’t informed in advance.”

Lu Yuxi frowned and said, “The culinary competition has become a talent show? Why are we going up?”

“You can do anything.” The staff member was given instructions at at the last minute. He said, “You can sing, dance, cut vegetables, recite tongue twisters or anything. One of you can go first.”

Zhang Tong’s eyes suddenly darkened as he looked at Li Qing. “I remember someone saying that he wanted to dance the other day?”

Li Qing straightened his neck and pretended not to hear.

“You must know how to dance when you said something like that, right?”

Xu Le immediately understood and said, “Go, go. Didn’t you say that you would do anything for me to win? Now is the time to fulfill your promise!”

Li Qing looked reluctant and gritted his teeth. “I won’t… If I really go, I’ll lose all my face.”

Lu Yuxi sneered. “With your skin that’s thicker than the Yellow River Dam, are you afraid of losing it?”

With that, Li Qing was forced onto the stage. On the other side, the camera was aimed at the Master Chef’s hand. He was cutting another green cucumber.

He raised his hand and slashed down. The sound was like a dense drumbeat that was filled with rhythm. Wherever it passed, there was almost no trace.

Li Qing braced himself and chose a song. The live speakers immediately played a low and melancholic English song. He raised his arm.

“Yo!”

“Awesome!”

“Does he really know how to do it?”

The three people watching backstage were instantly ignited and their eyes widened.

The audience who were still voting below the stage looked up and saw that the person in the white chef’s suit was moving faster and faster with the music. His dance was even more unrestrained and coherent. His hat had long been thrown away, and his chestnut half-curled hair was golden and shining.

Someone immediately started discussing on the bullet screen.

“Who is he? He looks like that stinky-faced live-streamer.”

“The one playing games? His style has changed so much.”

“I didn’t even recognize who he was. He’s really working so hard. Even game streamers have to cross over to another field.”

“Didn’t anyone notice what the Master Chef is doing?”

On the other side, the Master Chef unfolded the sliced cucumbers. The cucumbers were as thin as cicada wings. He cut them until only the skin of the vegetable was connected. When they were fully unfolded, their length reached twice the initial length.

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If one hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, it would be hard to believe that it had taken only two minutes. And this two minute required skills more than many chefs could do in 20 years.

After the short dance ended, Li Qing picked up his hat and left the stage in a hurry. His face was red, and it was unknown whether it was because he was agitated or embarrassed.

Lu Yuxi took the lead and applauded. “How impressive. Why didn’t you show off your skills earlier?”

“What’s the use?”

Li Qing casually picked up the fan on the table and fanned himself. Xu Le noticed that something was wrong and reached out to snatch the colorful magazine from his hand.

On it was a poster that had been invalidated because of a printing error. It was to celebrate the victory of the Master Chef and had written the time for the press conference.

Xu Le frowned. “The 13th? Then it’s tomorrow, 2 PM tomorrow.”

He snorted and smiled. “He’s really confident in himself.”

Even though he knew that the production team and the Master Chef were in cahoots, he still came to participate in the competition calmly. Now was a good opportunity to end the inside story!

Li Qing was confused. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing. We’ll know after the competition ends.”

Xu Le placed the page with words on the table and his gaze deepened.

Half an hour was neither long nor short. He closed his eyes and entered the system again.

In the second half of the competition, he had already gotten Lu Yuxi and Xu Zhexian to complete the most troublesome steps in the ingredients processing. The most important thing was to catch the other party off guard and make them unable to guess what dish he was cooking.

Innovative dishes were extremely risky. If they were not done well, they would be completely nasty. The taste would be strange and it was easy to be criticized.

Xu Le repeated the dishes he had invented. When he was about to add chicken soup, he paused.