The Cheat Emperor of the Culinary World

In the private room out front, Hao Liang was chatting away enthusiastically with Gao Wenjing, who had specially come over to see him.

Last year, Hao Liang’s son suddenly fell seriously ill. The whole family was thrown into chaos, and he ended up missing the day he was supposed to visit his late wife’s grave.

They hadn’t seen each other for two years, and Hao Liang clearly looked even older now.

Maybe it was because he’d spent years toiling away in the back kitchen, always doing physical work. Now that he was getting on in years, it was starting to show in his face.

Hao Liang took a sip of tea, quite pleased, and said, ”Hey, that’s a good thing, Xiaogao. This counts as a promotion for you!”

Gao Wenjing pressed her lips into a smile and said, ”Yeah, staff turnover’s been pretty high at the restaurant these past two years. After this round of restructuring, basically all the old-timers got promoted.”

Hao Liang nodded. ”You’re very capable, it’s just that you’re still too young. Give it a few more years, you should still be able to move up another step or two.”

Gao Wenjing quickly waved her hands. ”I wouldn’t dare think that far. The way things are now, I’m already quite satisfied.”

The two were in the middle of talking when a server came in with the dishes.

When he saw the big white porcelain bowl set on the table, Hao Liang paused for a moment. ”Chuan-style pork in clear broth?”

Gao Wenjing looked over as well and said in surprise, ”Huh? Didn’t the restaurant take this dish off the menu ages ago?”

Because the flavor of this dish was too similar to the fresh fish slices in broth, and the restaurant had always marketed live, fresh seafood as its main selling point, this dish had quietly been removed from the menu a few years back.

He hadn’t expected the kitchen to make it again today.

But it was probably because Hao Liang was reminiscing about the old days and wanted to taste one of the restaurant’s old-school dishes.

Gao Wenjing could really understand how he was feeling, so she said with some emotion, ”Sigh, actually this dish used to be really popular.”

”I originally thought it was one of the restaurant’s old traditional dishes, but later I heard it was actually your own specialty, Chef Hao.”

Before he resigned, Hao Liang had always been head of the back kitchen, the proper executive chef. Even Zhao Meng and Gu Yunwu had been trained up under him.

Looking at the Chuan-style pork in clear broth, its soup crystal clear, Gao Wenjing was flooded with emotion, while Hao Liang seemed preoccupied, sitting there without saying a word, his face flushed and almost burning.

Noticing this, Gao Wenjing hurriedly asked with concern, ”Chef Hao, what’s wrong? Is it a bit too hot in here? Should we turn on the air-conditioning?”

Hao Liang’s expression was complicated. Staring at the carefully prepared Chuan-style pork in front of him, memories from back then surfaced, and he couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty.

Seeing that something was off, Gao Wenjing couldn’t help looking more closely. She saw Hao Liang’s face had gone bright red, and his expression didn’t look quite right either.

She was startled. ”Chef Hao, what’s going on? How come your face suddenly got so red? Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”

Hao Liang quickly waved his hand. ”Oh, it’s nothing, I just suddenly thought of some things.”

Gao Wenjing was puzzled. ”What things? Is there anything I can help with?”

Hao Liang couldn’t help letting out a sigh. ”Sigh, this dish was specially made for me by Xiaozhao.”

Gao Wenjing was taken aback for a moment. ”Ah? What’s wrong with it? Is there something off?”

Hao Liang asked himself honestly: every time he’d come back to the restaurant after visiting the grave these past few times, it was always Zhao Meng who took care of him—cooking for him personally, comping the bill and throwing in drinks. Sometimes, even when he was busy, Zhao Meng would make a point of coming over to talk to him and share a drink.

Yet, back in the day, his attitude towards Zhao Meng had never been all that warm.

He hadn’t expected that after he truly left, the one who still remembered his little kindnesses would end up being Zhao Meng.

Sometimes when he thought about it, he really felt a bit embarrassed. He’d always prided himself on his sharp eye for people, on being able to judge character, but it turned out he’d let his own bias blind him. The more he thought about it, the more he felt a bit guilty, and there was some vague regret he couldn’t quite put into words...

Normally, Hao Liang wouldn’t open up like this. But in that moment, sitting in the place where he’d once worked, eating a dish he knew by heart, with an old colleague by his side—

That kind of feeling, for no clear reason, gives you a strong urge to spill your heart out.

Hao Liang paused, then said, ”No, nothing wrong with the dish. I just suddenly thought of how things were back then. Before I left, I was in the back kitchen, right? I had Xiaozhao and Xiaogu working under me.”

When Gao Wenjing heard this, she thought, oh, that must’ve been twenty years ago. Back then she hadn’t even started working at Qianlima yet, so she had no idea about any of this.

Hao Liang let out a long sigh. ”At the time, Xiao Yao wanted me to really train the two of them. Once they were fully up to speed, the plan was to promote them.”

”You know what Xiaozhao’s like—pretty straightforward, a bit rough temperament-wise, and the way he talks and handles things doesn’t exactly make people warm up to him. Xiaogu was different—had good instincts, knew how to read a room. When you put the two of them side by side, even though I was supposed to be training them both, of course I had my bias.”

”When I taught them cooking, I’d always have Xiaogu stick close by my side. As for Xiaozhao, I just let him practice on his own. If he ran into something he wasn’t good at, I’d only give him a bit of guidance here and there.”

”And there was this one time I remember really clearly. I was cooking sweet-and-sour carp. I had too many orders coming in at once, all four burners going at the same time, and I was already struggling to keep up. Then a customer decided to make trouble, and when my attention slipped, I lost control of the oil temperature while frying the fish—the carp ended up a bit overdone.”

”Honestly, that kind of situation happens a lot. Usually you just do a bit of fixing up, and as long as you don’t get some super picky customer, you can basically get away with it.”

With heavy-flavor dishes like sweet-and-sour fish or spicy shrimp, even if there’s a slight issue with the ingredients, most people can’t tell at all.

”But that time, after I finished frying the fish, I hurried off to deal with the customer dispute and handed that dish over to Xiaozhao to finish.”