Who gave this heretical practitioner permission to cook?

Chapter 13: The score is now 60! Are they truly invincible?!
What the hell? Say it again!

【Bald eggs??? Holy crap, the smell's coming!】

Wow, they know they're going to be eliminated, so they're pulling off something special? Soy milk and balut? Isn't that just a classic "Old Eight" combo meal?

[Those in the East Third District, come and collect your pet bald eggs!]

[What nonsense are you talking about upstairs? This is a specialty of the Henan region!]

We don't eat this in our Yu District; it's a specialty of Daning District, one of the specialties of Liuhe District in Daning!

[Da Ning is eating mango eggs, this stuff is clearly from the Beijing area!]

[You can argue all you want, we from the Greater Mongolian region are backing down, we really don't have any there!]

After netizens confirmed that Xia Ming had made balut (a type of edible egg), they became extremely anxious.

This one says it's a specialty of another region, that one says it's a local product of another region, they've mentioned every major region in China, but apart from Mongolia, where you really can't find this stuff, it's mentioned in many other places.

There's no way around it, because this product is only sold in regions where it's popular; it doesn't actually have its own exclusive production area.

Furthermore, as one of the certified brands on the list of "dark ingredients," most people, even those in their thirties, probably don't know the difference between "live pearls" and "balut."

To put it simply, the former is a chick that failed to hatch after ten days or so, or a hybrid egg.

The latter is a chick that was incubating in the second half of the process and was about to succeed, but unfortunately failed to hatch. It is a chick that was "half-meat" before it was "fully meat" and was killed by the Fate Mage.

In the past, when people were poor, eggs were a precious commodity and could be given as gifts. Naturally, they could not be wasted easily. Therefore, based on the principle of thrift, these two unique ingredients were developed.

In Xia Ming's eyes, they are just a type of food with their own unique taste, and he has no sense of resistance as some netizens claim.

If he saw the comments, he'd probably laugh.

"We can eat eggs without any guilt, we can eat chickens without any guilt, and we can even eat chicks without any guilt, but when it comes to balut (fertilized duck egg), there's controversy?"

"It just goes to show that people in the city live too well. If you went to the Nine Provinces Continent, especially to the Western Wilderness where those bald monks run it, the ingredients wouldn't be plentiful. You'd be lucky if they didn't serve you 'cultivators' at the table, let alone make you pick and choose!"

Of course, he didn't use balut (fertilized duck egg) entirely to cause controversy among netizens.
Well, it does seem a bit controversial, since he's already been criticized so much that a little more criticism wouldn't hurt.

It's the same situation as before with "Nine Turns Intestines"—there's not much difference between being infamous and being famous. As long as you can keep standing in front of the camera, you can keep getting free shows!

You should know that even if you lack talent or spiritual roots, you can adjust them as long as you are a disciple of the Demonic Sect. But you absolutely cannot have a bad mindset.

In the city, those who are criticized or attacked might at most get rotten eggs thrown at them or post a few insults online.

In some regions of the Nine Provinces Continent, demonic cultivators are viewed as a plague. Once inside, the righteous sects not only launch a siege but also find an excuse to "slay the demon." If your mentality isn't strong enough, you really can't be a disciple of the demonic sect.

So no matter what the contestants on site or the netizens in the live broadcast room said, it didn't affect Xia Ming, who was cooking seriously below.

At this moment, he collected the chicks that had already taken shape one by one, then took a pair of tweezers and began to quickly pluck their feathers.

As the fluffy feathers in the iron basin in front of him piled up higher and higher, Xia Ming finally turned his eyes to the pigeons beside him.

Quickly bled, plucked, and gutted, the pigeon soon lay in the soup pot alongside the plucked little white chicken.

Xia Ming adjusted the steaming time and then exhaled.

"With that, the preliminary work is done."

After saying that, he looked up at the opposite side and found that "Micahs" was cutting a lemon.

Looking at the incredibly fresh fruit, Xia Ming smiled slightly, then quickly began processing the remaining steps.

On the second floor, the already defeated "bald cook" stood alone to the side, watching Xia Ming below. He had already learned from the "banquet graduate student" that Xia Ming had judged him to be a failure from the very beginning.

Unlike "Banquet Graduate Student" and "Little Flower", "Bald Cook" is probably the contestant with the best impression of Xia Ming among all the contestants present.

He has the arrogance of youth, but he's not an empty-headed fool. He can make bold statements, but he never believes in absolute luck.

He felt that the other contestants only saw Xia Ming's barely qualifying move, but didn't see Xia Ming's courage to overturn the dish and start over in the last 20 minutes. The bald cook's brow furrowed.

"I'm already eliminated, but you absolutely have to advance, kid! I'm still waiting for you to return my charcoal!"

Seemingly sensing something, Xia Ming raised his head slightly, meeting the gaze of the "bald cook," but he only glanced at him before continuing with his work.

Time passed slowly amidst the flames of the boiler stove.

The fourth and fifth groups of contestants still did not achieve any results after the judges tasted their dishes.

Chef Lai Chi-On wins, score: 3:0

Chef Dong Jiaqi wins, score: 2:1

After being down 5-0 at the start, the players on the second floor were no longer as calm as they had been at the beginning.

"Are you kidding me? We lost like this!"

"Are the judges deliberately targeting us? I think we could have won in the third round!"

"It's highly unlikely that it will happen; perhaps the time was too tight, making mistakes more likely!"

"But it's okay, the sixth group is 'Xia Yuxingye,' and he's good friends with 'Yang Yanbin' on the other side. Their sparring matches have been evenly matched, so he has a much better chance than the others!"

"Yes, he has a very good chance here!"

"I think Group 8 also has a chance!"

The contestants were discussing among themselves, but they all tacitly skipped over Xia Ming's group, number seven.

Because everyone except the "bald cook," even the "banquet graduate student," didn't think that douzhi (fermented mung bean juice) and balut (fertilized duck egg) was a winning combination.

Although from a nutritional perspective, the salty and sour taste of fermented mung bean juice can remove the fishy smell of chicken, theory is just theory. In practice, finding the balance point is extremely difficult.

Xia Ming's is even more outrageous. The fishy smell of the balut is several times stronger than that of a regular chicken. If it weren't for his superstitious tendencies, almost no one could eat it!

At this moment, Xia Ming's preparation was also nearing completion. He poured out the simmering pigeon soup from the pot, then took the yolk eggs that had been boiled for a long time and began to crush them one by one.

After each egg was steamed, some mysterious broth remained inside the shell. Xia Ming collected it, mixed it with pigeon soup, and tasted it.

"Beautiful, this is exactly the taste!"

He licked his lips, poured the mixed soup into a container to chill, and then quickly made a hawthorn paste with hawthorn and soy milk. After sprinkling some powdered sugar on it, he placed some red fruit peel on top of the hawthorn paste.

Looking up, Xia Ming saw that the "Micahs" meal was still being prepared. He glanced at the ingredients beside him and realized that it was still a while before it was finished.

At the perfect moment, he took out three white eggs that had already molted and were covered in a little bit of fuzz, and then put them straight into the oil pan next to him.

As the eggs bubbled in the oil, a light brown crust formed on them after just over a minute. Xia Ming then removed the eggs and quickly placed them on a nearby grill to bake.

This series of actions left the contestants upstairs completely bewildered. After a long while, a soft laugh finally came from upstairs.

"What's this guy doing? Grilling balut? Has he already forgotten that his competition theme is 'Beijing-style fermented mung bean juice,' not balut?"

"I don't know if the balut (fertilized duck egg) will taste good after he does it this way, but the flavor of 'Beijing-style fermented mung bean juice' will definitely be gone!"

Just as the contestants were laughing and joking, the big screen next to them announced the results of the sixth group.

Chef Yang Yanbin vs. Contestant Xia Yuxingye

Rating: 3:0

Chef Yang Yanbin wins.

Upon seeing this news, all the contestants present fell silent.

The score in the 1v1 is now 6-0 for Chef! A complete victory!!!
(End of this chapter)