Chapter 9

Jiang Jiankang, after a busy day at work, returned home and his face turned green when he saw the pot of still warm porridge in the kitchen.

His son, Jiang Feng, had recently become obsessed with cooking porridge, and during this period, Comrade Jiang Jiankang had been both pained and happy. For a long time, Jiang Feng had shown no great interest in cooking, and since he had only seriously learned culinary skills a few years before his third year of junior high, Jiang Jiankang had once doubted that he would have no successor and could only hope for his future grandson.

Jiang Feng's sudden enthusiasm for cooking porridge gave him a glimmer of hope.

But why porridge of all things?

How could a chef in the Jiang family make porridge their signature dish?

Jiang Jiankang had been drinking porridge for several days in a row, feeling as if he had finished all the porridge he would ever need in his life.

He sniffed it; it was century egg and lean meat porridge.

Well, at least it was a meat porridge.

Jiang Jiankang resignedly picked up the ladle and scooped a spoonful.

Things were different now; he was in debt and his son was still naive. He needed to save and not waste food.

Hmm, today's porridge...

Jiang Jiankang looked at the porridge in the pot with surprise.

The quality was almost on par with his older brother, Jiang Jianguo!

Although the cooking time wasn't quite right, the ratio of ingredients was impeccable, clearly the result of his own experimentation, not just following some random recipe online.

In the Jiang family, culinary skills were divided into strict levels. Grandfather Jiang Weiguo was at the top of the food chain, followed by Comrade Jiang Jiankang, then the four uncles of Jiang Feng at the third level, and Jiang Feng barely made it to the fourth level. The rest of the cousins didn't even qualify to enter the food chain.

Today's porridge from Jiang Feng meant he had finally progressed from the bottom to the second-to-last place!

He was now tied for the second-to-last place.

His son was finally showing some promise!

Comrade Jiang Jiankang was overwhelmed with mixed feelings.

"Son!" Comrade Jiang Jiankang, without even finishing his porridge, put down the ladle and rushed into Jiang Feng's room.

Jiang Feng was sitting on the bed, checking his attribute panel. Comrade Jiang Jiankang's sudden burst into the room startled him, almost causing him to fall off the bed.

"Come, Dad will teach you how to cook!" Comrade Jiang Jiankang was full of enthusiasm, eager to pass on all his culinary skills to Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng: ???

Dad, it's eleven o'clock at night, wake up!

After much persuasion, Jiang Feng managed to get Comrade Jiang Jiankang to go back and drink the porridge. Jiang Feng didn't even have time to close his attribute panel, and with the words still visible on his face, he almost became cross-eyed trying to keep up with Comrade Jiang Jiankang.

Comrade Jiang Jiankang, looking pleased, held the large pot and drank the porridge heartily. Comrade Wang Xiulian, who was applying a face mask in the room, came out to check the situation.

The face mask, which was so large it covered her entire face, was tightly stretched. Comrade Wang Xiulian, with her head slightly tilted back, glanced down at Jiang Jiankang and asked, "What's your dad up to at this hour of the night?"

"He said he wants to teach me how to cook," Jiang Feng replied.

Comrade Wang Xiulian sighed and patted Jiang Feng's head, almost knocking him out: "With all the debt we suddenly owe, your dad is under a lot of pressure. Don't cook porridge anymore; look what it's done to your dad, he's lost so much weight from not eating well."

In the kitchen, Comrade Jiang Jiankang was still broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, with a face full of muscles and a neck and chin that seemed to merge into one.

No, there was a bit of a neck.

Jiang Feng nodded, feeling for his father's struggles.

"He's really lost a lot of weight! Mom, don't worry, I've asked my friends to promote our new store on their social media, we won't lose money!"

"Good son!" Comrade Wang Xiulian was greatly relieved and went back to her room to continue lying down with her face mask.

"Ding, achievement unlocked: Diligent Learning."

"Ding, hidden task available: Passing on Knowledge."

The system's notification sounded, and Jiang Feng hurried back to his room to check.

His attributes had changed to—

Achievements:

Diligent Learning (no attribute bonus)

Humble Inquiry (no attribute bonus)

Diligent Learning (no attribute bonus)

Hidden Task Available: Passing on Knowledge [Yes/No]

Titles: None

Items: None

Evaluation: A novice just starting out

After choosing to unlock the hidden task, the achievements section was cleared, and a new hidden task appeared under the side quests.

Hidden Task: (Triggered under special circumstances)

[Passing on Knowledge]: The biggest regret in Jiang Weiguo's life is having five sons who couldn't inherit his culinary skills, and these five sons had four more who couldn't either. Cook a dish that earns Jiang Weiguo's approval. Task progress (0/1)

Task Hint: Jiang Weiguo is in his eighties and desperately needs a successor to carry on the Jiang family's culinary legacy. The player can seek Jiang Weiguo's guidance to complete the task.

Task Reward: Unknown

One of the "little rice buckets," Jiang Feng: ...

He had never known that his grandfather had such grand ambitions to promote the Jiang family's cuisine.

Regarding the Jiang family's cuisine, Jiang Feng often heard his grandfather talk about it during his summer and winter breaks when he went to learn cooking from him. Being a chef was a hereditary profession, with at least seven or eight generations of chefs in the family. According to legend, there were even imperial chefs, but this was unverifiable. During the ten golden years of the Republic of China before the outbreak of the war, Jiang Feng's great-grandfather, Jiang Chengde, truly promoted the Jiang family's cuisine.

Before Jiang Chengde, the Jiang family's cuisine was part of the Shandong cuisine tradition. During the Republic of China era, the owner of the restaurant where Jiang Chengde worked moved the restaurant to Beijing, a city that gathered the best of the four major cuisines. Jiang Chengde learned from the best and transformed the Jiang family's cuisine from a single Shandong tradition.

He almost reached the peak of what a chef could achieve in an era without imperial chefs.

Jiang Weiguo had six older brothers, each with exceptional culinary skills, any one of whom could have been a master chef at a state banquet.

But before Jiang Weiguo could fully learn the Jiang family's cuisine, they all died during the war.

The Jiang family's cuisine was thus interrupted.

Before junior high school, Jiang Feng thought the Jiang family's past glory was just exaggerated stories from Comrade Jiang Weiguo. But on his first day of junior high, when he ate the school cafeteria food...

Jiang Feng, who had only ever eaten food cooked by Jiang Weiguo and Jiang Jiankang, was shocked. What was this swill?

It was even worse than the pig feed that Comrade Jiang Weiguo cooked for pigs!

Yet, his classmates were eating it happily.

At that moment, Jiang Feng realized how fortunate he was to be born into the Jiang family.

Jiang Feng's great-grandfather was almost a god in his eyes.

Now, Comrade Jiang Weiguo hoped to find a god to promote the Jiang family's cuisine, which was in a semi-lost state.

Jiang Feng thought Comrade Jiang Weiguo was indeed a visionary and ambitious old comrade.

But Comrade Jiang Weiguo was now in the countryside, obsessed with raising pigs to provide the family with green, organic pork. He had no time to taste the dishes cooked by this "little rice bucket."

Impossible, impossible.