Super Zoo

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Glancing sideways, Su Ming saw a dapper young man in a suit with an almost aristocratic air about him, a handsome fellow with a striking brow and starry eyes; by his side was a girl who looked the epitome of innocence, so much so she could be mistaken for a female student—a pretty chick indeed. Ren Chen was the only one among Su Ming's acquaintances who seemed to change women as often as he appeared.

How come the guy's here for the fishing and chef event, what's it to him?!

"Brother-in-law, you're amazing, you even know the chairman of our school!" Nangong Huang muttered admiringly on the sidelines.

With that, Su Ming remembered that Ren Chen's company specialized in educational training. Dongfang Culinary School, **** Excavator Technical Center, and a few well-known schools for college entrance exams, professional qualification exams, and civil service training were all part of Ren Chen's empire.

Strictly speaking, Ren Chen could be considered the leading figure in the private education sector of Yangchuan City and held a certain status in the national education industry as well. His several training centers were already integrated and going public, having passed inspection and currently in the listing queue.

"Leading astray!", Su Ming lamented in anguish, then turned to look at Nangong Huang by his side, patting his shoulder, "I understand now. Your previous behavior wasn't without reason, it's not your fault." His tone brimmed with sympathy as if a loving and naive young man had encountered an ignorant youth who had gone astray, not blaming him for his mistakes but comforting him instead, suggesting that society was to blame.

"Huh?" Nangong Huang was taken aback with his mouth agape.

In the blink of an eye, Ren Chen, arm in arm with the youthful girl, approached Su Ming. He greeted him with great enthusiasm, chuckling, "Mr. Su, what a pleasure, I didn't expect to see you here. Let me introduce you—this is Nana, Nana, Mr. Su is your boss's boss."

The youthful female student sweetly greeted him, "Hello, Mr. Su, please take care of me in the future." It seemed she was the little chick that Ren Chen had Wang Hao hook up for a spot on the streaming platform through backdoor connections.

Su Ming responded coolly, quite unable to grasp why Ren Chen, who was economically stronger than himself, favored these vulgar and coarsely made-up women.

Not far away, a person wearing a tall chef's hat strode to the center of the banquet hall and hammered a large gilded gong hanging in the center with a long-handled mallet.

The hall echoed with the sound of the gong...

"The annual Changjiang in Huayin County Fishing and Culinary Exchange event now officially begins."

Ren Chen waved his hand slightly, "Mr. Su, a chance meeting is preferable to a formal invitation, let's sit together."

"Ahem, Akihito Ren, I think we should each stick to our own seats," Su Ming said, chuckling. Ren Chen was not particularly detestable and might have been somewhat interesting if it weren't for Nangong's previous incident. After that, Ren Chen had taken the initiative to bow out, and Su Ming, although he didn't plan to make things hard for him, also had no intention of becoming friends with him.

Su Ming left without much courtesy, which made Ren Chen a bit awkward, shaking his head with a bitter smile.

"Akihito Ren, why are you so polite to him? He's not some big boss..." Nana pouted and complained.

"Is that something you should be saying?" Ren Chen's face darkened.

...

After the opening, everyone took their seats. Su Ming's seat was towards the back, but since the banquet hall was spacious and the guests were fairly spread out, with only the chefs who would be showcasing their skills seated in the front row, the other guests all had their own tables, scattered around the center of the hall. Even sitting at the back, Su Ming had a clear view of everything happening on the main stage.

First came the customary speeches by local leaders from Huayin County.

"Brother-in-law, you're looking to hire some chefs, right?" Nangong Huang pointed excitedly at the chefs seated in the very front row, "These are all well-known chefs! Some of them have even lectured at our school, their skills are top-notch!"

Su Ming didn't know about the skill level of these chefs, but each sat there, oozing 'pride', even without saying a word. It was clear that they all held very respectable statuses within their field.

Hiring one or two chefs of this caliber would undoubtedly benefit the development of Whisperwind Pavilion Restaurant in the future.

However, such high-level chefs would command salaries of at least several tens of thousands per month, and money alone wasn't enough to lure them away as they were backed by major restaurants.

Moreover, the more capable the person, the bigger the ego. If they didn't like what was offered, no amount of money might convince them to take the job.

Of course, throwing in large sums, say, two or three hundred thousand a month, Su Ming estimated that at least half of the chefs here would be willing to join him. But the cost would be too great, a loss that didn't justify the gain, and it might even offend the hotels behind the chefs, making him an industry pariah.

It would be impossible to hire top chefs, but it was feasible to employ a few ordinary ones. With the edge of unique ingredients like wild boar meat, mushrooms, and fish, Su Ming figured the business at Whisperwind Pavilion Restaurant wouldn't be too shabby in the future.

After the leaders finished speaking, there was a novel scene—the ceremony to worship the Goddess of the Yangtze River.

The river gods differed from place to place in Huaxia, and the statue of the Goddess of the Yangtze River in Huayin County had a somewhat fierce appearance. No matter from which angle, the statue of the humanoid goddess with a long tail on the stage resembled an upright Yangtze alligator... only with a slightly larger chest, and moreover, four breasts in two rows on her chest...

The four-breasted alligator Goddess statue was placed at the front, with other various statues lined up behind it. Su Ming, curious, asked Nangong Huang, "Do you know what those others are?"

"Oh, those are the ancestral masters of the culinary world," Nangong Huang explained.

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"My god, does your culinary line have so many ancestral chefs?" Suming almost burst out laughing. There were twelve small statues lined up in a row. Did that mean cooks had to worship a different ancestor each month of the year?

After Nangong Huang explained, Suming began to understand.

There are many types of Huaxia cuisine, geographically categorized into "Lu, Sichuan, Cantonese, Su, Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui, and Hunan" as the eight major cuisines. If categorized by the features of the dishes, there are "imperial, official, temple, market, medicinal, hall, and rustic" as the six major cuisines. Different cuisines have different lineage systems and each lineage system's chefs worship different ancestors.

For example, some worship Yi Yin, who said "governing a big country is like cooking small fresh dishes," and some worship King Zhan, the "inventor of chicken essence," as their ancestor. Some even worship Peng Zu... Among the fiercest is the worship of Yi Ya.

Yi Ya was the exclusive chef for Duke Huan of Qi during the Spring and Autumn period and was also the earliest chef to know how to blend the five flavors of salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami. But his most famous attribute was not his talent with flavors.

One day, Duke Huan, stroking his cheeks, said, "Yi Ya, I've had no appetite these days, nothing tastes good, and it's affecting my wellbeing. Do you have a solution?"

Yi Ya was shocked and panicked. This was serious; if the Duke was unwell, the state would be unwell, and if the state was unwell, the whole world would be doomed, and the common people would be plunged into misery!

In order to save the common people, Yi Ya committed an act worse than a beast; he steamed his own plump son and made him into a meat stew.

After eating it, Duke Huan's appetite greatly improved, his vitality was restored, he could sleep at night, and he could climb five flights of stairs without a sore waist or back. Tears streaming, he deeply praised Yi Ya as a loyal subject...

Suming had heard this story of Yi Ya offering his son before. As a child, he thought Yi Ya was simply a devil. But as he grew up and thought it over, he realized there might be more to the story. Maybe Yi Ya had an "Uncle Wang" living next door.

In any case, it's a cruel story, so from a certain point of view, chefs who handle knives carry a hint of a killer instinct.

Today, many chefs came from different lineages. To avoid offending anyone, the organizer listed all the ancestors they could think of, resulting in a grand assembly of ancestral chefs.

After paying respects to the goddesses, several leaders stepped off the stage, and the culinary exchange meeting officially began.

"Next, please welcome the head chef from Jiangjin City's Pingchao Building, Master Sheng Weidong."

Pingchao Building has a significant reputation throughout the province as an absolutely high-end dining club. When Suming and his classmates were in school, they'd brag by saying, 'When I make it big, I'll treat you all to a meal at Pingchao Building.'

A chef whose head was nearly as thick as his neck walked onto the stage, greeted everyone with a fist salute, and his assistant slammed a large box onto the chopping board. In front of everyone, Sheng Weidong opened the box to display its contents.

Suming craned his neck to see, expecting some rare delicacies.

But unexpectedly, the box had several compartments, and in each compartment, there was nothing but white rice... The first performer, Chef Sheng Weidong, was actually going to demonstrate cooking white rice!

Cooking white rice... white rice... rice…

Suming nearly lost it. Had he traveled all this way just to eat plain rice?

Besides rice, Sheng Weidong prepared quite a few other tools, like lotus leaves and bamboo tubes, and he started working.

The host explained on the side: The two types of rice used by Master Sheng Weidong today are special products of Jiangjin. The first is Jiangjin's little sticky rice, which is hard to the touch due to the dry weather and natural sunlight used for drying. The second type is Yangzhou fragrant rice, which is quite the opposite due to the humid southern weather. The rice is machine-dried, appearing dry on the outside but very soft on the inside...

Sheng Weidong was separately stewing the two types of rice: the little sticky rice was wrapped in lotus leaves and steamed in a bamboo steamer, with what appeared to be a layer of some unknown oil smeared on the leaves; the fragrant rice was stuffed into a bamboo tube, wrapped in a layer of mud, and placed on a stove to roast over an open fire.

Since it was being cooked in small quantities, the banquet hall soon filled with the aroma of rice.

"This is truly the work of a master!" Suming sniffed appreciatively, his mouth watering. He hadn't expected such ordinary rice to smell so irresistible, its scent like invisible hooks drawing out one's desire to eat.

You should know, he wasn't the least bit hungry at the moment. On the trip over, the three of them had bought quite a few snacks along the way.

"Lotus…" Su Meng said with a silly smile on the side, his drool already flowing.

About twenty minutes later, servers carried plates to each table, delivering a bamboo bucket of fragrant rice and a small package of little sticky rice.

Just as Suming took out his chopsticks, he looked up to find the table empty; Nangong Huang had snatched up the bucket of rice, while Su Meng was holding the scalding hot packet of lotus rice. It seemed there was just enough for him to have one mouthful.

"Is there no justice left!" Suming was furious.

————Division Line————

Chapters 353 and 354 had repeated titles, but the content is not repeated, so everyone please rest assured.