Chapter 88: Chapter 88: Wild Bluefin Tuna Cuisine

Tongtong went back into the room.

She guiltily burrowed under the covers.

Jiang Liu checked his Douyin account.

He now had over three thousand followers,

and the fishing post he’d made had more than four thousand comments.

He was only a few hundred positive review points short in his system’s backend. Jiang Liu estimated it would take about an hour to unlock the next dish.

The little bear clock on the wall read 9:35.

After putting Tongtong to sleep, Jiang Liu started preparing the fillings for the next day.

...

Jun Qingmeng lay on her bed, her delicate toes wiggling restlessly.

She was so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open.

Although she was mostly over her illness, her body felt exhausted.

Guo Jia finished her work and came over, asking with concern, "Mengmeng, are you still feeling unwell? Why aren’t you sleeping?"

Jun Qingmeng groggily opened her eyes to look at her and said in a weak voice, "I don’t want to sleep. Jiang Liu hasn’t said good night to me yet."

"Huh?"

Guo Jia was dumbfounded.

’Did Jiang Liu cast some kind of spell on my best friend?’

Before she confessed, she was still normal.

Now that she’d confessed, her obsession with him and her lovesick tendencies were getting worse and worse.

She was sick, staying up late... and for what? To wait for Jiang Liu.

Guo Jia helped Jun Qingmeng pull up her covers.

"Just get some rest. Stop waiting for your Prince Charming. Jiang Liu might already be asleep. Are you planning to wait until dawn?"

Jun Qingmeng peeked her head out from under the pristine white summer quilt and said softly, "I can’t. I haven’t heard Jiang Liu say good night to me yet."

Guo Jia was unexpectedly hit with a face full of their public display of affection.

She was completely speechless.

"How about I say good night to you?"

Jun Qingmeng shook her head. "I don’t want to hear it from you."

Guo Jia felt a sting. She sucked in a breath through her teeth. "Well, if you don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to say it anyway."

"Do you need more medicine? I can get it for you."

"No, I feel like I’m pretty much better."

As she spoke, Jun Qingmeng glanced at her phone again.

Seeing this, Guo Jia sighed.

It looked like her best friend had fallen head over heels in love—a one-woman show, at that.

"This obsession is a sickness. Get some rest, my lady."

"Mhm, I know. You go to bed first."

After Guo Jia left,

Jun Qingmeng fought to keep her heavy eyelids open as she waited.

Half an hour passed...

Jiang Liu rubbed his sore arms.

Chopping fillings and prepping ingredients for dozens of minutes straight was a bit tiring.

But at least the prep was done.

He divided the ingredients into the iron basins he’d brought back from the shop, covered them with layers of plastic wrap, and placed them in the refrigerator.

’The refrigerator is getting a bit full. I’ll have to buy a second-hand one to make do soon.’

The house Jiang Liu rented had not only a refrigerator but also a top-loading chest freezer left over from when the previous owner ran a convenience store. It was a bit old, but the important thing was that it worked.

He checked his positive review points again.

Still a few hundred short.

Jiang Liu had no choice but to lie on the living room sofa, sipping juice and waiting patiently.

He took out his phone, intending to make a note of what he needed to buy.

For some reason, a thought suddenly struck him, and Jiang Liu remembered that Jun Qingmeng had asked him to let her know when he was going to sleep.

As if moved by some strange impulse, he opened WeChat.

Jiang Liu hesitated, not really wanting to reply.

But after some thought, he worried that Jun Qingmeng might be waiting for him.

Besides, they were friends, after all. Maintaining too much distance would be strange.

Jiang Liu typed, "Going to sleep. Good night."

And hit send.

Jun Qingmeng lay on her soft, fragrant bed, staring blankly out the window as the top of the large banyan tree rustled.

She was a little homesick, and yet she wasn’t.

She didn’t know what it was she longed for.

Her phone vibrated!

Jun Qingmeng immediately perked up.

She reached out a slender, fair hand and unlocked her phone.

It was a message from Jiang Liu!

Jun Qingmeng happily replied, "Good night!"

"Sweet dreams."

Jiang Liu: "Okay, you too."

Jun Qingmeng typed out: "I like you. Be my lover. You don’t have to rush to refuse, because you might just say yes in your dreams."

After agonizing over it for a moment, she deleted it.

Before she knew it, she drifted off into a deep sleep.

She was just too tired.

After replying to the message,

Jiang Liu waited a little longer, and his points finally reached 100,000!

Jiang Liu could barely contain his excitement and asked inwardly:

’Can I unlock it now?’

The Gourmet Album quivered.

[Spend 100,000 positive review points to unlock?]

Jiang Liu immediately said yes.

[Congratulations on unlocking purchasing rights for wild bluefin tuna otoro, chutoro, and akami.]

[Unlocked purchasing channel for premium wasabi from Japan.]

[Unlocked rare delicacy. Random reward: five points to physical constitution. Augmentation will be complete in five hours.]

Jiang Liu was confused by the last part. ’What are five points to physical constitution? And what kind of operation is "augmentation"?’

Before he could even ask,

a warm current flooded his mind.

Another stream of familiar yet strange memories entered Jiang Liu’s consciousness.

In those memories, he was in a dark room, repeatedly practicing how to precisely handle tuna and the technique for grinding natural wasabi.

There were also memories of the physiological structure of tuna, plating techniques, freshness windows, and so on.

This time, there weren’t many new techniques.

Jiang Liu frowned, reviewing the new memories carefully.

Natural wasabi was a condiment with a texture far superior to common horseradish paste.

When ground into a coarse paste, it releases a fresh, natural plant fragrance. It’s slightly sweet on the palate, followed by a clean, sharp heat.

Compared to the common horseradish paste, true wasabi has many advantages.

It isn’t as overwhelmingly pungent, and the texture is much better!

’So it wants me to make tuna sashimi this time?’

Jiang Liu wondered if he could learn on his own online and use the tuna to make other kinds of dishes.

He shelved that idea for now, afraid he’d poison a customer and send them straight to the funeral home.

’What are the prices for the third page?’

[Otoro: 500 yuan per jin.]

[Chutoro: 350 yuan per jin.]

[Akami: 200 yuan per jin.]

[Wasabi: 50 yuan per jin.]

[Secret-Recipe Soy Sauce: 10 yuan per jin.]

[Fresh Lettuce: 3 yuan per jin.]

Jiang Liu nodded.

He didn’t know the market price for wild bluefin tuna.

Such a thing was rare on the Hua Country market.

But since it was from the Gourmet Album, the price was undoubtedly a steal.

Jiang Liu quickly grabbed a basin and placed it on the table.

"Please give me... fifty grams of each."

The next moment,

Jiang Liu received a text message on his phone. His China Merchants Bank account had been charged 1,110 yuan.

Suddenly, three pieces of meat, an unlabeled plastic soy sauce bottle, a wasabi root that looked like a long, thin daikon radish, and some lettuce appeared on the table in front of him. Apart from being exceptionally fresh and crisp, the lettuce didn’t look much different from the ordinary kind.

The three cuts of meat were beautiful, like works of art.

The otoro was a pale, pinkish-white, resembling some kind of marbled "snowflake" beef. It was rich in fat; a gentle press left his hand slick with oil.

The chutoro was pink with a few faint white stripes.

The akami was a deep red, its flesh fine, firm, and tender.

’Looks like I can only buy it by the jin, huh?’

’How am I supposed to eat all this meat?’

Jiang Liu felt a pang of regret. He wasn’t a wasteful person.

’Oh well. I’ll put it in the fridge and sell it to customers tomorrow.’

’It should be fine.’