The Game of Life-Chapter 728 - 727: Gone Viral

Chapter 728: Chapter 727: Gone Viral

After the Taishi Snake Soup came the Baiwei Soup. The Baiwei Soup had no fixed ingredients, recipes, or even methods of preparation. How it was made and which ingredients were used depended entirely on the chef’s mood and whether the chef felt suited for the task at hand.

In a sense, Baiwei Soup was Schrödinger’s Soup. Even the chef might not be clear on the flavor of the soup until the lid was lifted.

Sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, and salty, all possibilities were open.

This final dish was also the closing dish, meant to leave an impression fitting for the climax of the Midsummer Feast, yet lingering and unforgettable. Jiang Weiming’s Baiwei Soup was made with ingredients left over from previous dishes.

Half a pot of stock, a few stalks of choy sum, excess minced chicken, stray pieces of snake meat, fresh vegetables left from the Ding Lake vegetarian dishes, and, of course, a bit of the marinade used by Sir for the Dezhou Braised Chicken.

This pot of Baiwei Soup didn’t taste particularly light, nor did it taste extremely heavy. Due to the marinade, the color of the soup leaned toward brown. With a light thickening, it looked a lot like Jiang Weisheng’s signature Hodgepodge Soup from a distance, but a gentle stir with a spoon revealed that this soup was entirely different.

The ingredients in the soup didn’t seem to match a typical dish.

Before the soup was served, Jiang Feng tasted it with some trepidation. The flavor was okay, without the weird taste he had feared. The aftertaste of snake meat was recognizable. Overall, it was a bit salty, with a fresh undertone from the stock.

But no matter how you looked at it, it was just an ordinary hodgepodge.

Jiang Feng even felt that this Baiwei Soup was not as delicious as the one Jiang Weiming had casually made at Jiang Yong’s home previously.

“Granduncle Weiming, I feel that this Baiwei Soup tastes a bit ordinary,” Jiang Feng said tactfully.

He didn’t just find it ordinary, he even thought that instead of serving this soup, it would be better to have Jiang Weisheng make a pot of his Hodgepodge Soup to serve, at least it would be characteristic of the Taifeng Building.

“This pot of soup is the most suitable,” Jiang Weiming said with a smile.

Jiang Feng: ?

After the Baiwei Soup was served, only the dregs remained at the bottom of the pot. Sun Maochai, who had never tasted Baiwei Soup before and was curious, scooped up some dregs to taste. He was still chewing when he heard the conversation between Jiang Feng and Jiang Weiming, and quickly swallowed the dregs to help explain for Jiang Weiming.

“The final dish doesn’t need to have an astonishing flavor, it just needs to be suitable,” Sun Maochai said.

“Since we chose Taishi Snake Soup as the highlight dish when we arranged the menu, it’s destined that the grand finale can’t be too stunning to prevent it from overshadowing the main attraction. It’s like the old times when opera troupes performed Peking Opera. We all know that the climactic act is the penultimate one, usually performed by the main actor. The last act is generally a full martial arts show, a bit like a curtain call, a farewell play. Many of the audience would begin to leave when they see the last act starting, and our banquet courses work similarly.”

“If it’s a very lavish feast, they may choose to place the best dishes at the beginning since there are so many dishes that guests may feel tired and unable to eat more towards the end. At the Midsummer Feast, with fewer dishes, this isn’t an issue. But since we’ve set the highlight dish, we need an opening, continuation, turn, and conclusion. The Baiwei Soup that wraps it up is that conclusion. It doesn’t need to taste extraordinary; as long as it ensures a solid ending, not falling flat, with everyone having a bowl, making the guests feel that the banquet has ended, wrapped up neatly, finished satisfactorily—that’s enough.”

Jiang Feng nodded, somewhat understanding.

Sun Maochai was right; Jiang Weiming’s Baiwei Soup indeed provided a fitting close to the Midsummer Feast.

The beauty of this Baiwei Soup was that all its ingredients were taken from the previous dishes, and its overall flavor resonated with the entire banquet’s offerings.

After a bowl of soup, a small, unnoticeable belch would occur, and the joy of having enjoyed delicious food, along with the satiety signals from the stomach to the brain, would leave one feeling relaxed and happy.

The ordinary lucky diners who won the lottery and had never enjoyed such a grand feast were pleased, as was Xu Cheng, who could eat top-notch delicacies like everyday meals.

If you were to debate which dish from the Midsummer Feast was the second best, there might be disputes. Some might say it was Ding Lake Vegetarian Dishes, others would argue for Steamed Green Eel, and there are those who believed Taishi Snake Soup was excellent, with even a minority with unique tastes considering the Texas Braised Chicken quite good.

But if you were to ask which dish of the Midsummer Feast was the best, it was unquestionably the Chicken Bean Curd Pudding—indisputably, unanimously.

The dishes were all finished, and the final fruit platter was served. Many patrons were still savoring the earlier dishes and reluctant to leave.

The diner sitting to the right of Peng Changping, who had overheard much of Peng’s conversation with Xu Cheng, finally guessed who Peng might be.

It wasn’t his fault that he spent the whole meal guessing only to figure it out afterwards; Peng Changping was really hard to recognize.

Many people knew that Peng Changping had returned to the country and that he stayed year-round at Yonghe House. Many others, misled by rumors, thought that Peng Changping had taken Jiang Feng as his closing disciple after coming back. Some regulars at Yonghe House perhaps had even bumped into Peng Changping without realizing.

But they definitely wouldn’t recognize who this elderly man was.

Peng Changping, although permanently stationed at Yonghe House, rarely took action personally, usually providing verbal guidance. If he passed by and saw something, he’d just say a few words, even when instructing Jiang Feng, he had only demonstrated hands-on twice.

Jiang Feng had complained before that due to Lu Sheng’s personal tastes, Yonghe House boasted the best tea water quality among Beiping’s major restaurants, selling more tea during the late afternoon than the average teahouse. Many seniors liked to visit Yonghe House in the afternoon for tea, or they’d arrive in the morning and stay for lunch after their tea, occupying the tables, making early customers feel as though they had entered a teahouse — all the elders with thermoses filled with tea leaves and water.

Peng Changping’s hobby was to dress in his favorite loose and casual clothes, mobilizing with a thermos of tea leaves and water throughout Yonghe House. Having become familiar over this period, he often chatted with the seniors in the afternoon, leading many to believe he was a newly arrived elder.

For average customers to recognize Peng Changping among so many seniors at Yonghe House would require stalker-like behavior, secretly observing the place every day. After 10 to 15 days of observation, they might be able to deduce which one was Peng Changping through process of elimination — but it would cost a fortune, having to dine there every time, making quite a hefty expense.

The diner seated to the right of Peng Changping, upon suspecting that it might indeed be Peng Changping, couldn’t help being a bit excited and asked in a low voice, “Excuse me, are you Master Peng, Peng Changping?”

Peng Changping nodded with a smile without saying a word, which was taken as acknowledgment.

The person was extremely excited, hurriedly sending a WeChat message to a friend to tell them that they were sitting next to Peng Changping at a meal, and that Peng Changping was also attending Taifeng Building’s Midsummer Banquet.

In the midst of everyone’s lively discussions, the Midsummer Banquet came to an end.

As usual, Fan Mei and Ji Yue asked every guest invited to the Midsummer Banquet for their opinions on the banquet and whether they had any particular comments on the dishes. Everyone cooperated in the inquiries, mostly giving five-star rave reviews with no criticism, the only comment being that there was too little of the chicken beancurd.

It would have been better served in the bowl used for snake soup.

At 9:13 AM on August 6, the Midsummer Banquet ended successfully.

Beyond feeling a little panicked and worried after the chicken beancurd was served, Jiang Feng didn’t have many other emotions. Although he sat at the serving window in a very twisted and peculiar posture, attempting to gauge the customers’ reactions, he couldn’t see anything clearly due to the lack of binoculars.

He only learned about the customers’ feedback after they left and he asked Ji Yue and Fan Mei.

Jiang Feng was pleasantly surprised by the high praise for the chicken beancurd. Reading the comments, it seemed that many wrote at length about it, but what Jiang Feng didn’t know was that their reviews didn’t fully convey their genuine feelings about the dish.

Many people felt that the chicken beancurd was truly delicious, superb, perhaps the best dish they had ever had in their lives, but they lamented their poor writing skills and lack of elegant vocabulary. Unable to call their company’s employee responsible for writing product descriptions to work overtime and draft a promotional piece for the chicken beancurd at such a critical time, they struggled to describe the dish’s deliciousness with words, so they simply chose not to write or to leave comments such as “very delicious, I am satisfied,” which were faultless but lacked distinctive traits.

Like always, Jiang Feng went home with Wu Minqi after work to take a bath and sleep, ready to face another monotonous day ahead.

Then, when Jiang Feng woke up, he found that his QQ and WeChat were blowing up.

A deluge of congratulations.

Jiang Feng: ?

Congratulations for what? He wasn’t even married yet.

Jiang Feng casually opened a message from an elementary school classmate he had forgotten the face of and hadn’t contacted in nearly 10 years, only to be further perplexed by the words.

‘Congratulations man, I only found out from Weibo this morning that you’ve become so amazing. Really, congratulations, and let’s get together sometime when we are free, it’s been many years since we had a gathering of our elementary school classmates.’

A message from a junior high classmate went something like —

The source of this c𝓸ntent is freewebnøvel.coɱ.

‘Congrats, I saw the Weibo posts this morning. I never thought I’d have such an impressive classmate. It’s been years since our junior high classmates gathered, let’s arrange a reunion if we get the chance.’

Jiang Feng hadn’t yet looked at his high school classmates’ messages, but he already sensed that something was slightly amiss.

He didn’t use Weibo, having uninstalled it previously during a cleanup because it was taking up too much memory. In his memory, Ji Yue was likely the most frequent Weibo user. So without even getting out of bed, Jiang Feng immediately called Ji Yue.

“Hello, Ji Gezi, do you know what today’s Weibo…” Before Jiang Feng could finish, Ji Yue’s extremely excited and exuberant voice drowned him out.

“Jiang Feng, you’ve gone viral! Your name’s even trending on Weibo, and Taifeng is up there too. Our sales for this month are going to explode, Mrs. Wang got up early to change the prices of your dishes. My bonus is going to be huge this month, I’m going to be rich, ha ha ha ha ha!”

Jiang Feng: ???

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