The Game of Life

3 Chapter 3: Smashing Cucumbers

Editor: Larbre Studio

“`

Having discovered a method to gain experience points, Jiang Feng began to covet the position of head chef.

However, the kitchen was Mr. Jiang Jiankang’s territory, where he reigned supreme as the monarch of the back kitchen. Everything from the peeling knife, boning knife, and fruit knife to the iron pot, chopping board, and gas stove were his subjects. The chance of Jiang Feng staging a coup under his nose was practically nil.

It took Jiang Feng an entire day to find a chance to sneak into the back kitchen and cook a bowl of seaweed egg soup. This was only possible because Mr. Jiang Jiankang was swamped with work; otherwise, Jiang Feng wouldn’t even have been able to get close to the pot.

At ten o’clock in the evening, when the store closed, Mr. Jiang Jiankang and Mrs. Wang Xiulian cleaned up the back kitchen and, as usual, sent Jiang Feng home early.

Before leaving, Jiang Feng swiped two cucumbers from the back kitchen.

A neatly laid out plate of smashed cucumbers—that adjective was perhaps too mediocre. Jiang Feng felt that having prepared smashed cucumbers for Chen Xiuxiu since he was young and having practiced this dish for decades, at least the description should be something like having full marks in color, fragrance, and taste, one in a thousand.

The smashed cucumbers that Chen Xiuxiu had eaten could have wiped out a whole family of cucumbers in an orchard.

Returning home, Jiang Feng stood in the kitchen and examined the two cucumbers he had taken from Wang Xiulian’s supply.

One fat and one thin, one tall and one short, with a rough surface and yellow-green skin scarred from Mrs. Wang Xiulian’s violent washing.

To smash a cucumber … how should it be done?

Having smashed countless cucumbers, Jiang Feng who had experienced both fat and thin ones fell into confusion.

How else to smash a cucumber? Was he supposed to treat it like a martial arts novel, sink his qi to his dantian, use his True Qi to examine the cucumber’s inner structure, then take out the legendary knife and with a touch of finesse, twirl the back of the knife while smashing…

Forget it, he couldn’t make this up anymore.

He took out the kitchen knife, placed the cucumber on the chopping board, and whack, whack, whack.

There was no refreshing fragrance, no attractive color, and it certainly didn’t glow.

The cucumber was still a cucumber, just smashed.

Pour vinegar, add chili oil, and two plates of smashed cucumber were done.

The vinegar was made by Mr. Jiang Weiguo himself, and the chili oil was crafted by Mr. Jiang Jiankang.

[An ordinary plate of smashed cucumbers]

[A plate of smashed cucumbers with too much vinegar]

Jiang Feng: …

Although he didn’t know why he could still see the remarks at home, these two comments were clearly upsetting.

After ten minutes, Jiang Feng went next door, holding the plate of smashed cucumbers with too much vinegar, and knocked on the door.

Five minutes before, Mrs. Wang Xiulian, who had just finished cleaning the back kitchen, had severely criticized Jiang Feng for wasting food by smashing cucumbers so late at night. With her astute judgment, she polished off the plate that was just plain ordinary and instructed Jiang Feng to take the other plate to Chen Xiuxiu next door.

"Xiuxiu loves smashed cucumbers, doesn’t she? When she was little, she would eat all the cucumber you made, no matter how much vinegar you added!”

Jiang Feng suspected that with Mrs. Wang Xiulian’s booming voice, Chen Xiuxiu next door had heard everything loud and clear.

When Chen Xiuxiu opened the door, she appeared perplexed to see Jiang Feng holding a plate of smashed cucumbers.

"Do you want some?” This question had come up countless times in their dialogues.

"Yes.” Chen Xiuxiu answered instinctively.

Chen Duxiu wasn’t home, but that was usual; ever since Jiang Feng could remember, he was often away on business trips.

Jiang Feng placed the smashed cucumbers on the dining table, where a bowl of now cold porridge sat under a fly cover, with no side dishes.

And it was a bowl with poor presentation, looking mushy and with a slightly burnt appearance.

Jiang Feng furrowed his brow and asked,

“You haven’t had dinner?”

"I don’t feel like eating.” Chen Xiuxiu looked clearly loathsome.

Seeing her expression, Jiang Feng said nothing more and went straight into the kitchen.

Compared with the Jiang family’s kitchen, which was on par with a hotel’s kitchen, Chen Xiuxiu’s kitchen was much humbler. There were two kitchen knives, a chopping board that was starting to split from moisture, one pot, a salt cellar, a small bottle of oil, and, shockingly, no other seasonings to be found.

“`

"You’re going to cook?” Chen Xiuxiu didn’t stop him, and ironically smiled,

“My place has nothing, just a pot, a bag of rice, and some meal replacement powder.”

Indeed, when he opened the refrigerator, it was empty except for beer.

"Oh, right, and the old man’s beer.” Chen Xiuxiu looked at him,

“Your home’s groceries must all be at the shop. If I want to eat, just heat up this bowl of porridge for me.”

These words coming out of Chen Xiuxiu’s mouth were enough to shock all the street food vendors she had patronized in the past.

How could the Chen Xiuxiu who used to be so picky due to Mr. Jiang Jiankang’s indulgence possibly eat a bowl of failed, sticky, slightly burnt porridge?

"I’ll cook you some plain porridge,” Jiang Feng also knew that cooking was out of the question, and his gaze turned to the only edible thing in the kitchen – the rice.

Chen Xiuxiu just sat in her chair, quietly watching Jiang Feng cook the porridge.

The Jiang Family members did not like to drink porridge, and even if they did, it wouldn’t be plain porridge. It had to be something like fresh shrimp porridge or beef porridge – the kind where you could taste the delight of the meat. Bland and tasteless plain porridge was unlikely to ever appear on the Jiang Family’s dining table.

The key to cooking porridge lies in getting the rice to water ratio right, mastering the timing of fire control transitions, and stirring evenly to ensure each grain is plump and soft.

Of course, Jiang Feng couldn’t achieve any of that.

He could only cook a bowl of porridge that was just palatable enough not to kill someone from its blandness.

"We haven’t seen each other for a long time, have we?” Chen Xiuxiu suddenly said.

"Yes, almost a year. We haven’t seen each other since you went to college,” Jiang Feng recalled carefully.

"Did you almost not recognize me at noon today? I used to be so fat… deformed, like a meatball.” As she spoke, Chen Xiuxiu glanced at her own arm.

"You weren’t that fat before,” Jiang Feng said while stirring the pot,

“at least not in my parents’ eyes.”

The Jiang Family’s definition of fat was anyone under 200 pounds didn’t count as fat but rather sturdy.

Chen Xiuxiu chuckled,

“That’s true, only you guys didn’t consider me fat.”

"Dieting and losing weight is harmful to the health; that’s what you said,” Jiang Feng remarked.

Back in high school, every time after school when Chen Xiuxiu came to eat at Jiang Feng’s shop, she would always say while eating meat and smiling happily,

“I know eating too much meat makes people fat, but I just have a big appetite. Dieting and losing weight is so bad for the health!”

"I know.”

"I initially wanted to lose weight by exercising, but it was just too hard. You can’t imagine how hard it is for a 170-pound fatty to run a lap around the track. Dieting is so much simpler; just buy some emetic drugs, and vomiting eventually leads to weight loss.”

"Then I no longer have to go to specific clothing stores to buy clothes, and no one on the street will look at me with strange eyes. Eventually, I didn’t even need the emetic drugs anymore. Seeing greasy and rich meat would naturally make me want to throw up, how great.”

Jiang Feng couldn’t comment, as the Jiang Family never lacked for overweight members. Each was robust and strong, able to take on ten men, and no one would dare to make irresponsible remarks, nor would anyone give them strange looks on the street. More often, people would just walk around the burly man with a face full of thick flesh.

Jiang Feng could only silently continue cooking the porridge.

Soon, a pot of ordinary plain porridge was ready.

[A Bowl of Relatively Tasty Plain Porridge]

This was the highest praise that the game had for the dish Jiang Feng had just cooked.

He brought the plain porridge to Chen Xiuxiu, whose face was filled with rejection.

She didn’t want to eat anything, and she was willing never to eat anything ever again.

But she couldn’t refuse Jiang Feng’s kindness.

The porridge was still steaming hot, and Chen Xiuxiu picked up her chopsticks, picking up the smallest piece of cucumber.

"Crunch.”

"Ding, you have gained 10 experience points.”

"Tastes good,” Chen Xiuxiu said softly.

Jiang Feng: ???

If he remembered correctly, the smacked cucumber had too much vinegar added!