Chapter 806

Chapter 806: Ice Sculpture

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The system displayed, “The fresh beer will be supplied without limit during business time . ”

“Without limit? So that’s why . ” Yuan Zhou understood then .

“What about the price?” Yuan Zhou continued asking .

The system displayed, “The fresh beer is 302 RMB per cup . ”

“That’s weird! System, doesn’t the price normally end with 6 or 8? Why did it change to 2 this time?” On seeing the price, Yuan Zhou noticed this problem .

With regards to Yuan Zhou’s query, however, the system didn’t give any answer .

After he checked the beer, Yuan Zhou directly went to the second floor and conveniently carried a barrel of beer upstairs . After all, he had too much pride to ask Shen Min to carry the heavy barrel . A barrel of beer was at least 30kg and with the barrel itself, it would be almost 35kg .

As soon as he went upstairs, Yuan Zhou caught sight of a row of glass cups that had newly appeared on the countertop . They were all narrower at the lower part and wider at the mouth . It was a tall and slender cup that could hold 600ml .

“The beer glass looks fairly nice . ” Yuan Zhou set down the beer barrel and picked up a cup thoughtfully .

The cup in Yuan Zhou’s hand wasn’t small, but just this kind of cup could best express the taste and foam of the beer as well as its unique fragrance .

But this cup was indeed very big . Its capacity of 600ml was even more than that of a big bottle .

“302 RMB per cup with an unlimited supply . It seems I need to consider for a while . ” Yuan Zhou put the glass cup down gently and then went back to the kitchen .

As he was preoccupied with this matter, Yuan Zhou didn’t sculpt in the morning . Instead, he carefully tidied up the first floor of the pub . Even if the system had already cleaned the dust when it offered the reward, Yuan Zhou still cleaned the room again out of an abnormal fear of dirt or contamination .

The whole morning passed while Yuan Zhou was cleaning the room . Lunchtime arrived on time and ended on time . When it came to the afternoon, Yuan Zhou took out the ice block prepared the previous night and prepared to sculpt .

That’s right . Yuan Zhou prepared to continue sculpting pieces of ice as it could improve his sculpting skills .

In order to sculpt a piece of ice well, Yuan Zhou had also found many videos of talented people and their ice sculptures recently in the hope of being inspired .

He didn’t get inspired, but found out something else instead .

First of all, most of the videos Yuan Zhou could find on the Internet came from abroad . Besides, the protagonists of these ice-sculpting video weren’t all chefs . They covered various occupations including artists, sculptors, bartenders, and some other occupations .

Some people had excellent sculpting skills while some others had inferior skills . However, none of them could finish the work with the kitchen knife like Yuan Zhou did .

That’s right . Yuan Zhou had evolved from using the professional carving knife back to using the kitchen knife . He was definitely an exotic flower in the ice-sculpting circle .

Coming back to the story . That didn’t mean there were no talents from China in this circle . Precisely speaking, the ice-sculpting activity first originated from China . And the reason why he couldn’t find any video of Chinese sculptors was probably that most folk talents liked concealing their strength and not showing to others .

Yuan Zhou could clearly remember, the old man who drove the rickshaw once mentioned about a person who could sculpt an ice dragon .

This ice-dragon old man was said to have been crowned the champion twice in the Harbin Ice Sculpture Competition . However, he was reluctant to show his capabilities to others even if he was starving .

One would never know about the difficulties if one didn’t do it himself . After the hard practice recently, Yuan Zhou got to understand how hard it was to sculpt an intact ice dragon .

“As a successful achiever, is it a must to retain a final card? Like pulling a punch,” Yuan Zhou muttered to himself, but he immediately ended this thought .

Never think of pulling a punch . Quite a few good things failed to be handed down from past generations because of such kind of thoughts .

Yuan Zhou’s thinking might be heading to the extremes . He believed that for craftsmanship, it was better to make them known to everybody rather than burying them underground . It was quite exaggerated . Due to the great difficulties of certain craftsmanship, it was unlikely to popularized . However, wasn’t it at least better to let more people know them?

“The ice sculptures can finally be taken out to show others . ”

While Yuan Zhou was muttering to himself, he had started working . The washbowl-sized ice block gradually took shape under Yuan Zhou’s kitchen knife .

The technique for sculpting ice was quite different from that of sculpting vegetables . The vegetable sculpting was particular about “carefulness, exquisiteness, and ingenuity” and also required more skillful force .

However, the ice sculpting was particular about “steadiness, precision, and restraint . ” Yuan Zhou raised the kitchen knife slightly in his hand and restrained 70% of the strength at the knifepoint going downwards . Then, the sharp tiger eyes came into being .

The vegetable sculpting required skillful force while the ice sculpting required restraint . Many failed ice sculptured were the result of excessive strength from the sculptor rather than insufficient strength .

If there was a ranking of the ice sculptors, those who could sculpt a deer were at the first level while those who could sculpt the head of a dragon were at a higher level . Just as mentioned previously, one could be called “great master” if he could sculpt an intact dragon .

Yuan Zhou himself had a high degree of professional proficiency after his hard work in sculpting the radishes or vegetables . Though the sculpting skills required were different, he had a very solid foundation . So after the hard training for quite a while, his sculpting skills were pretty good .

The first ice sculpture was not only seen by Ji Yi, but also by some other customers . They all saw the failed sculpture at that time . So Yuan Zhou had devised a plan for a very long time to restore his reputation .

He remembered clearly who they were . Apart from Ji Yi and Liu Zhang, there were five customers who saw his first failed ice sculpture . As for whom the five people were, he didn’t want to tell others . Anyway, he finally waited until all five customers appeared in his restaurant .

He must avenge the insult .

Therefore, Yuan Zhou bought a big ice block . He was going to sculpt it into the profile of “Two Dragons Chasing A Pearl”, which was of greatest difficulty .

The difficulties of this lay not only in the sculpting skills but also in the artistic conception of “chasing” . To achieve this goal, the dragons he was going to sculpt must be very realistic .

Yuan Zhou carried the ice block on the table, took up the kitchen knife, observed it very carefully and looked for where to start .

Meanwhile, the onlookers at the side couldn’t help discussing .

“So Boss Yuan wants to do an ice sculpture?”

“Yeah, I guess so . ”

“It’s probably not easy to sculpt it since it’s so large . ”

“Exactly . It was a small one last time, but this time, he suddenly changed to a large one?”

“No . I remember it was as big as a washbowl . Boss Yuan directly sculpted a pond with it and the fish inside felt like real fish . ”

“What will Boss Yuan sculpt with the ice block this time?”

“Considering the size, it’s going to be a big sculpture . ” A man with glasses said with seriousness .

“Nonsense . ”

It was a reply from somebody else who heard the person’s mysterious answer .

The clamor of the customers actually didn’t affect Yuan Zhou’s work . Before he started to work on the ice block, Yuan Zhou specially turned his head and took a look back .

“Good . Everybody is here . ” Yuan Zhou nodded his head secretly in his heart before he started to sculpt the ice block .

The blade of the kitchen knife was awfully sharp . Whenever he waved the knife around, it was like a silver thread flickering across the ice block and then a piece of ice dropped down at the sound of the cut . The cut was neat and smooth and there weren’t any knife scratches at all .

“Shua Shua Shua” . Along with the waving of his kitchen knife, the ice block under his hand gradually took shape . The rough image could be clearly recognized

Another difficulty of sculpting the ice block was how to cut the ice block and meanwhile maintain its intactness . And one more difficulty was the speed of sculpting . Otherwise, it would be quite embarrassing if he still couldn’t finish it when the time was up .

The current craftsmanship of Yuan Zhou could basically meet the two requirements of quick action and vigorousness .

EMPTY