Jing Yang’s restaurant was about to have its grand opening, before the opening, he spread out some news. For example, saying that he was opening the restaurant under Lu Deyuan’s name, the restaurant would be called Lu De Ji, the food would be the most authentic Lu family dishes, and furthermore the food would definitely be better than Lu family restaurants that had already changed their names.

Once these news spread out, it immediately attracted many people’s dissatisfaction.

Thanks to Zheng Jianlin’s propaganda, as long as you’ve heard about Lu Jingyu, who doesn’t know that he’s just a wastrel who only knows to drink and play, completely doesn’t know how to cook, not only doesn’t have any talent but also not willing to diligently put in the effort. So he (ZJL) had no choice but to first choose to cultivate Zheng Junming, and Zheng Junming was both hardworking and talented.

The older people who still remembered Lu Deyuan were dissatisfied with Jing Yang using Lu Deyuan’s namesake to open the restaurant, and even boasted shamelessly that he would be able to make the most authentic Lu family dishes. They felt that this completely was corrupting Lu Deyuan’s reputation.

And those people who liked Zheng Junming and Zheng De Ji were even more using all types of comments, saying that he had no , saying that he was deliberately using sensationalism to promote the restaurant. These comments are all considered light, there were also some who cursed quite vulgarly, as if Lu Jingyu before was their , hating that they couldn’t . These ’ abuse potential indeed was considerably strong, profanities and curses, all kinds of language were brought out to scold him.

In order to collect the ingredients that Jing Yang needed, Chen Rui spent two whole months constantly running to over ten places, most of them were even in some extremely remote mountain villages. But after he finished arranging the purchasing points, in the future he would no longer need to personally go every time.

In fact these ingredients could all be bought in the capital city, but Jing Yang had very picky demands for the ingredients. If he could buy free range, he would definitely not use domesticated, if he could buy ingredients caught or fished from the , he would absolutely not use ones kept on fodder.

Jing Yang let people carry out a careful inspection again on the ingredients that Chen Rui had brought back, and after he ensured that there were no problems, they organized them to refrigerate. In order to preserve these ingredients, he had put in a lot of consideration. He even especially made a big warehouse that could regulate temperature and air moisture, the inside was separated by glass walls so they could be organized and preserved.

“While I was still outside, I already saw that there were a lot of people condemning you online, the cursing was really quite unpleasant. Waiting for the grand opening time, would there be people coming to deliberately stir up trouble, purposefully saying that the food isn’t good?” Chen Rui asked somewhat worriedly, he felt that even if those brainless fans online didn’t come disturb them, the Zheng family pair of father and son would definitely not watch without doing anything.

“Don’t worry, I’ve already made arrangements, I won’t let them get away with it.”

Jing Yang properly arranged everything, now they only had to wait for the day of the restaurant grand opening.

On the day of the grand opening, they opened the doors, officially starting to welcome the customers. The number of customers who came was really not small, basically all of the tables were filled. Only that the majority of them came carrying somewhat pessimistic attitudes, their main reason for coming was to teach Jing Yang not to boast shamelessly.

Some media journalists and gourmet critics also came, one side to wait for interviews and the other side waiting to be interviewed. This matter had already been heatedly debated for a while now, the heat continued to increase, on the net they scolded even more enthusiastically. They just have to go along with the netizens’ desires, come have a meal, and then disparage it from all kinds of perspectives.

When he heard that Zhang lao had arrived, Jing Yang placed all of his matters aside and personally went to the entrance to receive them. Several white-haired elderly men came along with Zhang lao, these old men al had distinguished identities, in each of their individual specialties, the antique circle, the literature circle, the circle, and many other circles, they all had considerably high status.

The reason that Jing Yang used Lu Deyuan’s face to invite Zhang lao was exactly in order to let these people to come along and help him suppress the scene. In the situation that these elderly all speak well of his food, would those people still dare to go against their conscience to speak ill of him?

Jing Yang brought the elderly men into a private room especially prepared for them, then politely left to go continue bustling around in the kitchen.

The elderly men chatted while having tea.

“This building was actually done quite well, simple and elegant yet unique.”

“This tea is also great. If that food is truly unpalatable, just with this tea, it could be considered that we didn’t come here in vain.”

“Lao Zhang, we all know that you love to eat, and your standards are especially high, these dishes made by Lu Jingyu, are they really able to enter your eyes? You even brought us here with high spirits.”

“That’s right! Everyone says , this surnamed Lu youth looks like he’s only in his early twenties, his time learning to cook should not be long, what kind of good food would he be able to make.”

“You also can’t say it like that, there are some young people who can cook well. I have eaten Zheng Junming’s dishes, for his age, those were made quite well. But this Lu Jingyu…, then that’s hard to say, really hard to say.”

“…” Zhang lao placed down his teacup. “I won’t say too much to you, whether it’s good or not, you can judge after you eat. Today we’ll just take as us old fellows gathering together and casually eat some simple cooking. If you think it tastes good, you can come back in the future if you want to, if you don’t want to come then don’t come, and if it doesn’t taste good then…, just like lao Xie said, drink some more tea. En, this tea is indeed not bad, in a while when we finish eating I’ll let that kid give me some to bring back home to drink.”

“Hey hey, also give me some to bring back, even I have never drunk this type of tea before, we likely won’t be able to buy it outside.” Xie lao, who loves tea, promptly said.

Zhao Bocheng also let people reserve a private room early on, this day he brought several friends to come together, waiting for their dishes in the room. He stood at the window looking at the view of the courtyard. In this not big not small place, being able to make out such an atmosphere with special appeal is not easy.

One of Zhao Bocheng’s friends is from a design company, once he walked in the entrance, he constantly exclaimed in admiration about the interior design style. He didn’t even wait to enter the private room and already ran off to look around the place.

Another of Zhao Bocheng’s friends Wu Haoxun walked up to him and leaned against the other side of the window. “Bocheng, how did you think of coming here to eat? That Lu Jingyu is quickly going to be drowned in other people’s spit, speaking honestly, I also don’t believe that he would be able to make some sort of good food.”

“That’s right.” Someone else agreed. “He even said something about being the most authentic Lu family dishes, he likes confronting Zheng Junming so much, if he really could make good food, wouldn’t he long have Zheng Junming about cooking.”

Zhao Bocheng’s that design company friend quickly walked in, animatedly saying, “This place was really done very well, I asked the manager here who designed it, you guys guess who he said.”

“Guess what, we barely know any designers, you just say it directly, but even if you say it we might not know him.”

“That manager said that it was Lu Jingyu himself who drew out the architectural designs, and then he found people to do it. I just thought, this restaurant of his sooner or later won’t be able to stay open, at that time I’ll think of some way to take over this place, even if I don’t open a restaurant, doing other things here is also not bad, like making it into a studio or something. And conveniently also ask if Lu Jingyu has any interest in coming to our company to become an architect.”

“How would you know that this restaurant will close down sooner or later?” Zhao Bocheng asked.

The other people all laughed. “Is this not an obvious thing?”

Zhao Bocheng also smiled, and didn’t continue saying anything.

Even though the kitchen was busy, yet it did not seem chaotic at all. Instead, everyone was yet rapidly doing their respective tasks, and Jing Yang was plating dishes while loudly calling, “Start serving.”

Several tens of neatly uniformed waiters and waitresses split into more than twenty small teams, each team of five started serving the customers.

Every server’s tray held one to two dishes, once the fragrant smell dispersed, many people couldn’t resist standing up to look. Just the look and smell really raised their appetite, they just didn’t know how the taste would be in the end.

Jing Yang was always in the kitchen controlling the situation, he had no way to leave. For Zhang lao’s private room, the CEO Chen Rui personally accompanied the servers to bring the dishes.

The dishes served to the several elderly were all personally made by Jing Yang, their dishes included chicken stewed in coconut soup, crab meat lion’s head, , Longjing bamboo shoots, , and Wensi tofu. These dishes were all the ones that Lu Deyuan, when he was alive, was most proficient in making.

Zhao Bocheng’s group’s order included , simmered lion’s head, shrimp tofu, beef onigiri, honey duck slices, etc.

After the dishes for the upstairs private rooms and the first floor’s three halls were basically done, Jing Yang finally took off his apron and transferred control of the kitchen to the uncles and their disciples that he had especially invited. Then he himself went to visit Zhang lao’s private room to see how they were doing.

“Jingyu has neglected you, did you eat well?” Jing Yang entered the private room and immediately saw that the several elderly men had no interactions, instead all in their food.

“Really neglected, neglected.” Xie lao raised his head and called. “Quickly make another serving of this Longjing bamboo shoots to apologize.”

“Also add another serving of this assorted mushroom goblet.”

“Also add another Wensi tofu.”

“And the crab meat lion’s head.”

Zhang lao said, “You might as well give us another serving of everything here, and add another beef and potato stew.”

The other several fellows raised their heads to look at Zhang lao doubtfully. “Where is the beef and potato stew on this table.”

Zhang lao said, “If there’s none on the table then I can’t order it?”

After Jing Yang came in he hadn’t even been able to say two sentences, just listening to the several old men ordering dishes. It wasn’t that he wasn’t willing to make them another table of dishes, but these elderly men were all getting on in years, so he didn’t want to cause some unfortunate occurrences by overeating. So he advised, “How about you wait until tomorrow to come back, and I’ll make the same table of dishes for you all again, otherwise if you overeat your body will be uncomfortable.”

“Then we’ll just only have another serving of the Longjing bamboo shoots, the others can wait until tomorrow to come and eat again. Overeating indeed will not be good.” Xie lao responded.

“Why?” Gu lao was unwilling. “We’ll have another serving of crab meat lion’s head, the others can wait until tomorrow to come and eat again.”

“Yours are all meat, eating too much will be hard to digest.” Hu lao said. “Give us another serving of Wensi tofu, the others can wait until tomorrow to come and eat again.”

“Hey hey, how could it be that you have the final say, I just want this one…”

“What, do you fellows even know how to eat, obviously…”

Jing Yang froze in place for half a day, they still weren’t able to come to a conclusion, when he saw that these elderly men were almost going to start fighting, he could only go to appease them and agree to make another serving of every dish on the table. Then the several elderly finally stopped arguing.

When Jing Yang was leaving the private room, Zhang lao still called out, “Remember to serve the beef and potato stew ah.”

All of the big and small private rooms were all calling that they wanted to add more dishes. In Zhao Bocheng’s group’s room, these several friends were even more persistent and resolute, they definitely had to add dishes. The server had no way, these several customers seemed like they would not be good to offend, he could only call over the manager Chen Rui.

After Chen Rui came over, he explained, “We’re really sorry, our dishes here are limited, the ingredients we prepare are limited, so even if you all want to add dishes, we also have no way to make them ah.”

“Limited?” Wu Haoxun remembered, in the publicity before the restaurant’s grand opening, there really was this line. At that time there were even many people ridiculing, it wasn’t even definite that people would go, they even said that they were limited, really hilarious.

“Then what should we do?” They looked at each other.

Zhao Bocheng said, “What else can we do, we’ll just come back tomorrow. , if there’s not enough ingredients, other people also won’t be able to make dishes.”

When he finished explaining to this room, Chen Rui was called by the servers again to other private rooms to explain. Talking without stopping, his mouth was already dry, he didn’t even have time to drink any water.

In fact they did have ingredients, the dishes also could immediately be made, but Jing Yang had said to him already, this was called the . No matter how well a dish is made, if you constantly eat it without stopping, once you overeat to the point of vomiting, then you will quickly get tired of eating it. Only when you can’t eat enough of it, when you have the feeling of wanting to eat it yet not being able to eat it, then you will be able to stay interested in a dish for a long time.

Of the reporters who were burying their heads in the food, one of them suddenly raised his head and remembered a matter. He said to his two colleagues, “We seem to have forgotten to take pictures.”

The other two people also froze, that’s right, they even forgot to take pictures, originally they wanted to first eat a bite to taste, but after they did, they couldn’t resist continuing to eat another bite, then a third…, and then they completely forgot the matter of taking pictures.

One of them said, “Quite a few reporters came today, and many food critics, they should have taken pictures, later we’ll just ask them to borrow a picture to use.”

Another one said, “That would be a waste of a favor, we might as well just order another table of dishes.”

“If we order another table, would the company reimburse us? These dishes are still pretty expensive.”

“Such good dishes, even if they don’t reimburse us then we’ll just pay for it out of our own pockets. It is a little expensive, but this flavor is definitely worth it.”

“All right! Then we’ll decide to do that, order another table of dishes.”

The sound of the first floor asking to order dishes again , the servers could only explain to each table individually, our restaurant’s dishes are limited, every table can order every dish only once, once they’re out then there’s no more, the kitchen already doesn’t have ingredients anymore…

———

[1] – 冷嘲熱諷, idiom, literally frigid irony and scorching satire

[2] – 自知之明, idiom, literally knowing oneself

[3] – 殺父仇人, literal meaning. I’ve seen this in English at least a few times, but I really can’t think of the proper phrasing so that it doesn’t sound this awkward. I’ve been finding that my English rapidly degenerates when I’m actually trying to translate. Maybe later on I’ll remember it and come back to edit this.

[4] – 生吞活剝, idiom, pretty common in Chinese LNs.

[5] – 腦殘粉, slang for fanboys/girls, but I don’t feel like picking either gender so we’re going with brainless instead

[6] – 山林湖海中捕捉打撈, literally means captured or fished out from the mountains, forests, lake, or ocean, I’m just going to shorten that to the wild…

[7] – 書畫界, painting and calligraphy again

[8] – 這嘴上無毛，辦事不牢, a quite literal proverb

[9] – 你們啊, I’m trying to imagine a white haired old man saying “you guys” to his friends. Maybe he’ll say “you all” instead? “You fellows”??

[10] – 賞心悅目, idiom, literally warms the heart and delights the eye

[11] – 一決高低, idiom, literally fight it out to see who is best

[12] – 井然有序, idiom, literally everything clear and in good order

[13] – 鮮香蝦滑, tbqh I have no idea what this is. Literally it means fresh fragrant shrimp slippery…and I’ve seen translations of 滑蝦 something to prawns with egg so…

[14] – 雜菌盅, apparently they cook mushroom and then stuff them into a pumpkin…

[15] – 佛跳墻, okay but this is the best food name ever, and it uses literally like almost every animal product

[16] – 埋頭苦吃, idiom, burying themselves in work

[17] – 理直氣壯, idiom, bold and confident with justice on their side

[18] – 巧婦難為無米之炊, idiom, you can’t cook anywhere without equipment

[19] – okay, so I just Googled this and updated this term: Wikipedia

[20] – 此起彼伏, idiom, literally up here down there