Da Zaojun

Chapter 50: Passing the Fire and Gathering Firewood
The rituals for the chef of the Eighth-Rank Heavenly Kitchen are divided into three parallel categories. You can choose to specialize in one of them, or you can practice two or all three at the same time to become an Eighth-Rank chef.

But Song Wuji felt that it would be more comprehensive to practice all three at the same time. If he specialized in one, it would be like what Captain Xing said: Oh my god, it would affect his career!

The first type of chef is the butcher, who is responsible for cooking dishes and requires superb knife skills. It also seems to be the easiest job for Song Wuji.

But the ritual is to release demons, and a ninth-grade demon is not enough. It can only be used for training and to accumulate some experience. To complete it, one needs to release an eighth-grade demon alive, and then prepare a banquet for all demons.

After all, back in the Heavenly Palace, the meats used in the Heavenly Kitchen were all "immortal products." Even a chicken or a duck, if brought to the mortal world, would be a thousand-year-old chicken spirit or a ten-thousand-year-old duck demon. Furthermore, the eight delicacies consumed by the immortals—dragon liver, phoenix marrow, and unicorn horn—were generally prepared by the head cook.

The second type is the Tao Zao, who focuses on seasoning and plating, that is, sublimating the dishes and giving them various functions. It requires collecting top-quality five-flavor seasonings and making sublimated five-flavor dishes that conform to the five flavors, five elements, and five emotions. After eating them in the order of the five elements, the ritual can be completed.

For seasoning, saltiness comes from salt, sourness comes from vinegar, sweetness comes from sugar, spiciness comes from chili peppers, and bitterness comes from various spices, such as cardamom, amomum villosum, cardamom, and tangerine peel.

These materials are not difficult to find in ordinary quality, but the best quality ones... can probably only be found by exploring secret realms.

The third category is the fire keeper, who mainly deals with the skill of controlling the fire, but more importantly is "inheritance", or to be more precise, "passing on the fire and collecting firewood".

To pass on the fire means to pass on the kindling of fire, and to gather firewood means that when everyone adds fuel, the flames will burn higher.

Song Wuji wants to pass on the fire of cooking to more people, and of course more people will give back to Song Wuji, which is to rekindle the flame of civilization.

To accomplish this, it must be clear that we must seize the faith, although the Kitchen God does not need a golden statue or incense.

But it disrupts the market. The incense ash from other gods sold for two taels of silver a bag is not as useful as the ash from the bottom of your cooking pot.

Other gods require statues and temples, but you don’t need that. Just put a picture in the kitchen and it becomes a temple. Every household can be a family temple.

Other gods require burning incense and candles, but the Kitchen God only absorbs the fumes from cooking. He can also bless you to have more fragrant meals and delicious cooking.

It seems that the conflict with the City God is irreconcilable.

However, it feels more in line with the "homeland". In order to recover the lost land outside the city, complete the spring plowing, and avoid being disturbed by demons, it is necessary to "pass on the fire and collect firewood", and everyone must work together to fight against the demons.

"First, carefully recruit a few qualified ones and pass down the rituals and sacred edicts. However, this stove grid, food god, and heavenly kitchen seem to be all numerology knowledge. How can I tell if I have a connection with the Kitchen God?"

Song Wuji planned to find someone who knew about fortune-telling to ask.

Early the next morning, Song Wuji met Lu Han outside the city.

Because Huang Sandian provided a key piece of information that if you give dog meat to a beggar, he will be taught how to beat a dog with a stick, so the two dogs that Huang Sandian brought back yesterday have been made into dishes by Song Wuji.

Other parts are difficult to carry, only the dog legs are easy to carry.

[Five-spice roasted dog legs]: Roll the dog meat three times, even gods can’t stand steadily. Eating it will make you walk lightly. Take it with wine, it can restore a small amount of life, true energy and magic power at the same time.

Chef Bao says that of dog legs, only the hind legs are delicious, especially the one lifted to pee, which has a richer flavor. Therefore, these five-spice dog legs, made from two dogs, four hind legs in total, are cooked over a stovetop fire with Chef Bao's own secret five-spice powder. They're first marinated, then braised, then deep-fried, and finally grilled. While the process is complex, the flavor is undeniably excellent.

Master Bao had worked hard and made great contributions. He was over 40 years old and still stayed up late at night. Song Wuji took one of the dumplings and ate it as a token of his filial piety to him.

The cat catcher smelled the scent and took one away, refusing to let go. Considering its monthly salary of three bottles of Essence Pills, I let it go.

The remaining two five-spice dog legs were used to capture the beggars in the charity cemetery.

In addition, Song Wuji also made [Fresh Meat Pancakes], which can immediately restore a small amount of health points, [Boiled Eggs], which can immediately restore a small amount of mana, and [Pure Yang Buns], which can quickly restore true energy and strengthen the Yang energy.

These are all made with ordinary ingredients, but because of Song Wuji's enlightenment, they have some additional effects. They are all placed in the fragrant cupboard and carried on his back.

When Lu Han saw Song Wuji carrying the cabinet on his back, he felt that it looked familiar, like the one behind the rat demon, but that one had been clearly burned, so he just thought that Song Wuji had hit one himself.

Song Wuji took out a lot of food and fed them in one breath: "These foods are all made by me after I reached the ninth level. Although they are not as good as the Essence Pills or the Five Ghosts Strengthening Spirit Pills newly refined by the Medical Bureau, they have no side effects. But don't eat too much, or you will feel bloated and burp easily."

After explaining the effects one by one, Lu Han's eyes lit up like light bulbs: "Can you make it in batches?"

"Unfortunately, I'm the only one who can make it right now, but maybe in the future when more people receive the Kitchen God's blessing, we can make it in large quantities."

They kept the pancakes, eggs and steamed buns close to their bodies and went to the charity cemetery together.

The cat catcher refused to go because he refused to go into the charity cemetery last time. Although it was a black cat, it was very likely afraid of the beggars. These beggars didn't care whether it was a dog, a cat or a mouse, as long as they put it in their mouths, they would think it was meat.

Outside the city walls, construction was also underway. The county magistrate planned to make the original city into an inner city and build an outer city. Of course, this project was huge, but now a large number of disaster victims were willing to work as long as they were given a bite to eat. Moreover, with more city walls, the people would be safer, so they all worked very hard. It was estimated that it would take two or three years to complete, so it was a long-term plan.

A little further away, there were officials from the City God patrolling, hunting demons, and clearing the bushes and weeds near the official road, which were growing taller and taller.

Every time these little plant demons are cleared out during the day, a new batch will grow out wildly at night, which is very distressing. Fortunately, the Medical Bureau discovered that many of the little plant demons are originally herbs with stronger and better medicinal effects, so people are specially sent out to hunt them.

After all, medicine is quite scarce in the city.

But further away, no one could be seen. Outside the official road, the weeds were taller than people, and the trees had also mutated strangely. No one knew whether they had turned into tree goblins or monsters.

If a human figure appears, it is most likely not a real person, but a ghost or a goblin.

Even if you see the village from afar, it is desolate and has basically become a ghost village. After the demons caused chaos in the world, the village was attacked and initially became the garrison of the ninth-grade demons.

Later, the tiger demon subdued these demons one by one and used [Gathering] to integrate the various demons. The demons closer to the city gave up occupying the ruined village and planned to follow the tiger demon. They did not have to worry about being killed by the human race's counterattack, and they could also get a share of the pie when besieging Taichang County.

(End of this chapter)