At noon, there was a restaurant, in the kitchen.

The sound of an aggressive kitchen knife hitting the board resounded to the rhythm of wild bees flying.

Yi Baitang's gaze slid casually over the pots and pans in the kitchen, while analyzing with Shang Huaiyan:

"Accustomed to eating foods heavy on oil and salt."

"Because he's a site foreman." Shang Huaiyan added.

"Add appetizers." Yi Baitang said again.

"Because they are at risk of being fired recently." Shang Huaiyan added. He felt as if he was patching Yi Baitang so that a third party other than the two could hear what they were talking about. Then, in the time when the wild bees were flying wildly, his eyes couldn't help but fall on the cutting board, only to see the kitchen knife turn into a touch of silver light and fly up and down, and several times it swept past Yi Baitang's left hand pressed on the ingredients, and he couldn't help but feel a little suspenseful:

"Do you want to look down at your movements? Be careful? ”

Yi Baitang tilted his head: "Are you afraid that I will cut my own hand?" ”

Shang Huaiyan was like sitting in the passenger seat of someone else's car, and he couldn't wait to twist the head of the driver who turned his head to talk to him!

Yi Baitang faintly: "I won't cut my fingers since I was five years old, don't worry." ”

Shang Huaiyan was stunned for a moment and found the point: "You have been chopping vegetables since you were five years old?" Learning to chop vegetables so early, has the family always been doing this business? ”

As soon as these words came out, Yi Baitang's mouth suddenly closed, his eyes instantly converged from his distraction, and in a blink of an eye, he drooped in a blink of an eye, and stayed firmly above his hands, looking very focused, as if he was afraid that if he flashed his eyes, the flying kitchen knife would cut his fingers!

Damn, why did you talk about this...... He didn't want to answer Shang Huaiyan's question at all.

Yi Baitang was secretly upset, so he had to force his eyes to stick his eyes to the cutting board, carefully chop the last meat puree, and after the last knife also fell on the cutting board, he looked up at the side of the fire on the fire, and it was very strange to divide the cauldron head into nine grids:

"It's time, the soup is boiling."

Before the words fell, the nine lattices in the cauldron bubbled one after another, and for a while, the white mist suddenly rose, and the sour and hot smell filled the room.

Yi Baitang punched out a spoonful of the soup in each of the nine grids and placed it in front of Shang Huaiyan one after another.

The order from left to right is:

Five strands of hot and sour soup with coriander.

Five hints of hot and sour soup with star anise.

Five strands of hot and sour soup with broth.

Five silks of hot and sour soup with chicken broth.

and many other changes......

The taste of hot and sour soup has been stimulating the nerves, and then causing the stomach to send out a burst of peristalsis, Shang Huaiyan first picked up the cup and drank a large mouthful of boiled water, when swallowing the boiling water, he felt a deep pressure, he seemed to have forgotten to say something to Yi Baitang, but this doesn't matter in advance, the taste of hot and sour soup is really appetizing......!

"I added chicken broth and broth, but the soup was sticky and not refreshing."

"I added coriander, astringent ......"

"The star anise is full of spices."

"Well, and-"

The conversation in the kitchen was continuing, and outside the kitchen, it was the afternoon when there were no customers in the restaurant, and the clerks on the left and right were sitting idly on their chairs to hunt flies, and suddenly, they sat up straight, sniffled, and said with a confused expression:

"Where did this smell come from, it's a little fragrant, is it time for dinner?"

After speaking, I didn't forget to stretch my neck to look in the direction of the street to see if the flow of people was coming from the direction of the office building outside the alley.

It's a pity to look left and right, the guests didn't see much, but a glance on the left, the snack of Jiasha County came out, a glance on the right, a look at the ramen in Jialanzhou, and then look ahead, the sworn enemy Chongqing chicken pot is also probing the brain!!

The waiters of the four snack chains glanced at each other, and sparks flew everywhere.

For a whole afternoon, Shang Huaiyan, who had tasted at least twenty or thirty flavors, already felt that his tongue did not belong to him.

He rinsed the taste in his mouth with boiled water again, picked up the next cup of soup, and the moment the soup was entered, before his tongue could react, the nerves took the first step to pull the vocal cords and spit out: "Okay! ”

Then Shang Huaiyan felt the taste in his mouth.

It's sour enough, it's spicy enough, but it's rare not to irritate your throat, and the moment you swallow it down your throat is as comfortable as taking a sip of wine in the snow and ice, and then a warm flame burns out of your stomach.

Shang Huaiyan was full of praise: "That's it!" What's it added to? ”

After trying so many subtle differences in the same soup, Shang Huaiyan was tired of eating, but Yi Baitang, who was always mixing the soup, seemed to be so calm all the time and did not change at all. Now he glanced at the cup of ingredients that Shang Huaiyan had eaten, and said:

"Pickled vegetables are newly added to it, and the original spicy ratio has been weakened to a certain extent......"

As he spoke, he raised his hand, took the cup from Shang Huaiyan's hand, and took a sip.

Shang Huaiyan watched and felt a bit like an indirect kiss...... But before he could think about it, Yi Baitang suddenly frowned, his complexion changed, and he directly splashed the soup in the Gu in his hand into the pool, and then the voice of displeasure came:

"It's not delicious!"

And it's not perfect at all!

Not perfect! Not perfect! Not perfect!

Yi Baitang's heart was so anxious that his face was unusually cold.

The surrounding atmosphere also seemed to feel that something was wrong at the moment, and there was a little strange gelatinization, Shang Huaiyan was stunned for a moment, and then slowly rose a kind of unpleasantness, as if the gift he was preparing to carefully select was mercilessly thrown to pieces.

This made his tone a little colder:

"If you don't think it's delicious, it's not delicious."

He took a cigarette out of his pocket and was going out to smoke it, but before he went to the door, he did not forget to say:

"I think it's delicious, but you don't agree; If you think it's delicious, I may not agree with it. You want to make every dish perfect—"

He shrugged his shoulders slightly:

"But maybe all someone else asks is to drink a bowl of hot soup that will warm up in the winter and keep you going. What difference does it make between perfect and imperfect? That repeat customer can't even solve his own affairs, so how can he be in the mood to think about your perfection or imperfection? ”

Yi Baitang was the only one left in the kitchen.

His gaze lingered on a messy pool of water, and he suddenly remembered what had happened two months ago...... It looks like something happened yesterday.

As soon as he closed his eyes slightly, the image scrambled to come out of his mind, making it impossible for people to even escape.

Of course, he didn't want to run away.

Yi Baitang thought expressionlessly.

He remembers the weather that day...... Forget it, what do you want to do with such an inconsequential thing as the weather.

Anyway, he had just returned to the village that day and found the man who had been living in the village all along.

He proposed a competition.

After studying cooking for so many years, what he has been waiting for is this day - there must be a day when he will inevitably step on the corpse of the great demon king in his life to succeed.

Of course, before this competition, he also thought that he would fail.

After all, I'm still young, and it's normal to fail once or twice.

He just didn't think he would fail in that way......

The man immediately laughed at him and said that his chef concept was not good.

What's wrong with him?

The man said that he was not even a chef with such a philosophy of striving for perfection.

Yi Baitang remembers that he was very angry at the time and decided to use facts to prove who is not a chef.

In a hurry, they began a special competition.

That is, to make an exact dish with exactly the same techniques and ingredients.

According to Yi Baitang's understanding, the taste of these two dishes is exactly the same.

And the man said that the better one must be the one I made.

The final results came in.

The other side won.

Yi Baitang's gaze refocused after a moment of dissipation, and once again clearly felt the congestion in his heart at that time.

I felt that I could already challenge that person, but I didn't even know where I was different from the other party.

This must be the most terrifying shadow of my life.

I'm a little out of sight of perfection now......

And then...... And then there's now.

Become a kitchenette in a roadside restaurant.

I cook all kinds of food all day long, but I don't know what I'm doing.

Is sautéed meat with banana ham and oranges really good?

Yi Baitang was at a loss in his heart.

Actually, I know it's not delicious.

Even if I don't know it's not tasty, I can taste it.

I seem to ...... It's been a long time since I've seriously tasted my own cooking.

Yi Baitang, who was standing alone in the kitchen, suddenly realized this.

It seemed that the whole person was splashed with a basin of cold water, he suddenly sobered up, took a deep breath, emptied his brain, rubbed the past, and left it behind, and then suddenly, he remembered what Shang Huaiyan said when he left.

"What does your perfection mean to him?"

"All he wants is a bowl of hot soup that can warm his body and stick to it."

Warm up your body and stick to it......

Yi Baitang's gaze slipped around the kitchen, and suddenly fixed in one direction.

The sky was stained with gray layer by layer, and the last bit of the sky was swallowed up.

As a week after week, Wang Zhenjiang stepped into this hotel again.

But this time it seems a little different.

As soon as he walked into the shop, he saw a bowl of hot soup in the same place where he was usually sitting.

He was stunned for a moment, looked at the small shop, and there was no third person in the store except for himself and the boss.

"Is that bowl of soup for me?"

"For you." The boss sitting behind the bar said, "Just out of the pot." ”

"Oh, thank you." Wang Zhenjiang was a little surprised. But no matter what, this unexpected treatment still made him feel a little relieved. He sat down in his seat, and it happened that there was no phone call today, so he chatted with the boss a few more words, "Boss, I don't think your business is very good." ”

"Hmm." Yi Baitang.

"It's expensive, isn't it?"

"I don't know."

"It's not easy for the boss to have a career at a young age, so you have to run it well, so as not to be thirty or forty years old and not know what you're doing."

He sighed deeply and looked up to get a response, only to see that the boss had lifted the curtain behind the bar and walked into the kitchen.

He suddenly felt bored, picked up the bowl on the table, and took a sip of the soup in the bowl.

At the same time, Yi Baitang moved a straight pot out of the kitchen.

The lid of the straight pot has been lifted, the white mist is thick, take a sip according to the mist, even if you have a cold and nasal congestion, you can smell a trace of the sour and spicy choking taste!