The Game of Life-Chapter 852 - 851 Lost (Added for Alliance Hierarch Zou

Chapter 852: 851 Chapter: Lost (Added for Alliance Hierarch Zou Shou Xing!)

Chapter 852: 851 Chapter: Lost (Added for Alliance Hierarch Zou Shou Xing!)

Ji Xia’s grandmother asked Jiang Feng for some more time, promising that she would ensure Ji Xia made a choice that would satisfy him. Naturally, Jiang Feng chose to trust Ji Xia’s grandmother. If he had to choose two people in the world who loved Ji Xia wholeheartedly, he was sure it would be Ji Xue and Ji Xia’s grandmother.

Compared to Ji Xue, who, because of her own regrets, wanted Ji Xia to achieve what she hadn’t, imposing too many unbearable thoughts and demands on her, Ji Xia’s grandmother was clearly more suited to guiding and persuading Ji Xia.

She understood Ji Xia better, cared for her more, and most importantly, she was the person Ji Xia trusted and believed in the most.

Ji Xia was completely unaware of this and continued, as before, to visit various attractions in Beiping every day with her aunt and grandmother.

Meanwhile, Zhang Xi had become like a new apprentice in the Taifeng Building’s kitchen, punching in for work every day just as if she didn’t need to attend classes, volunteering her work.

Of course, it was true that Zhang Xi didn’t need to attend classes since it was the exam month, but Jiang Feng seriously doubted whether she would be able to pass her first university finals safely, considering she was using such precious time meant for last-minute studying for volunteer work at Taifeng Building.

After all, Jiang Feng’s first encounter with university finals was a lesson in humility by the university.

It was an experience of making things up as one goes along, plugging the gaps, creating something out of nothing, calling a deer a horse.

As long as one chooses the right major, every year’s finals are like taking the gaokao.

Jiang Feng remembered that Zhang Xi was a good student and supposed to be a college-ace; otherwise, she wouldn’t have gotten into the Chinese department at the Foreign Language University, a program with incredibly high standards—at least its entry scores were even higher than those required for the physics department at UAL University where Jiang Feng studied.

He was worried that Zhang Xi, needing to volunteer at Taifeng Building while also preparing for exams, would not be able to handle the physical and psychological stress.

To Jiang Feng’s surprise, Zhang Xi turned out to be very well-suited to the pace in the kitchen.

Actually, from the earlier Good Taste culinary competition, it was evident that Zhang Xi had a solid foundation in cooking skills; her basics were strong. Coupled with her excellent sense of taste and seasoning skills, which were better than those of her peers, her dishes were considered excellent among young chefs of her age.

Of course, her shortcomings were very obvious. Zhang Xi’s work with fire was significantly lacking—her wrist and arm strength wasn’t comparable to male chefs of her age or even to Wu Minqi, Ji Xue, and Ji Xia.

In Jiang Feng’s view, what Zhang Xi urgently needed was not anything else, but to train her strength with sandbags, even the most basic of basics.

Not every female chef could do what Wu Minqi did, compensating for physical shortcomings with doubled effort and an enormous amount of practice. Although Wu Minqi wasn’t considered one of the top furnace chefs at Taifeng Building nationally, she was definitely among the top female chefs and could even be considered top-notch in terms of working with fire.

Even Ji Xue relied on signature dishes and seasoning to succeed, as her fire and knife skills were somewhat lacking. However, she had worked various physically demanding jobs over the years in addition to cooking, giving her more strength in her arms and wrists than an average female chef.

Not to mention Ji Xia, who, as a rebellious girl once holding scripts from a drama academy, could turn fighting into her forte thanks to her wrist and arm strength.

Nationally and even worldwide, the number of well-known, ranked “Red Female Chefs” could be counted on one’s fingers.

Inside the industry, countless people envied that Taifeng Building had two attractive red female chefs, and one of them was even single.

Having the chance to work while seeing pretty young women—who would prefer facing a group of large, burly men sweating profusely?

Good-looking men were even worse. Working was already hard enough, but to work with good-looking men—that would be asking for trouble, wouldn’t it?

Of course, these were digressions.

Although Zhang Xi’s shortcomings were obvious, her strengths were also very clear.

She was a chef with great awareness.

Jiang Feng suspected that Zhang Xi, like Wu Minqi and Sun Jikai, might have spent her childhood in restaurant kitchens. She was very familiar with the kitchen, quick to learn about division of labor and cooperation.

The first day, Jiang Feng didn’t let her handle chopping tasks, fearing she wouldn’t adapt to the demanding pace of kitchen work and would make mistakes. Now, the workload in Taifeng Building’s kitchen was enormous, almost over capacity, and any mistake would add chaos and trouble for everyone. Jiang Feng didn’t want to increase others’ workload just because he was considering taking on an apprentice.

He let Zhang Xi, like Ji Xia, do miscellaneous tasks in the kitchen—tasks that were unassigned but where she could help as needed and learn some things without causing disruptions.

As a result, Zhang Xi performed the miscellaneous tasks exceptionally well, even better than Ji Xia.

Zhang Xi had become an incredibly useful “brick” in Taifeng Building’s kitchen, moving wherever needed.

She could handle chopping vegetables, meat, preparing ingredients, and even plating; she was also quick with dish passing. Zhang Xi was very good at reading the room and timing. Even if others didn’t ask for help explicitly, she could still discern who needed help and who didn’t, almost like a veteran employee of Taifeng Building’s kitchen.

Sun Maochai was quietly amazed and asked Jiang Feng where he had dug up such a promising prospect.

Jiang Feng told him that she had come to him, and if he had to trace it back, it would be through Han Guishan’s introduction.

Sun Maochai: ?

After three days of doing miscellaneous jobs, on the fourth day, Jiang Feng let her take charge of the chopping block.

This promotion speed left Sang Ming in tears of envy and jealousy.

Sang Ming’s current struggle was to become a chopping block chef, with an ultimate goal of becoming a furnace chef, though everyone felt it was unlikely—he was more likely to become a master mahjong player than a furnace chef.

Follow current novels on ƒreewebηoveℓ.com.

And so, Zhang Xi began her unpaid internship at the chopping block of Taifeng Building. After a week of chopping, she took only a half-day off for two exams during the period. Wu Minqi couldn’t help but ask her if Chinese really was that easy to learn?

It should be noted that though Wu Minqi appeared to be a dominating CEO on the surface, her academic performance during her brief university career was absolutely dreadful. Every exam resembled those from idol dramas where geniuses fall for idiots—the idiot’s exam results.

Of course, such dismal results had much to do with her major.

Chemistry really isn’t for humans.

——Wu Minqi

To those struggling academically, Zhang Weiyu found it more baffling that they found final exams difficult. He claimed that if you study diligently throughout the semester, you don’t even need to review before the exam month.

Jiang Feng told this chopping board chef to shut up and just focus on his chopping board.

So what if you’re academically excellent? Haven’t you noticed that even Sun Jikai next door isn’t saying anything? And he went to Wharton!

The other young chefs in the back kitchen had even less to say. Forget university; many of them hadn’t even attended high school.

When Zhang Xi had completed her ten-day chopping duty, Jiang Feng decided to accept her request to become his apprentice.

The daily workload at Taifeng Building was not light, and during these ten days, Jiang Feng treated Zhang Xi as an official employee. In such a high-intensity workload, she also had to review for exams and, apart from the exams, never took a day off, never complained, and never asked for a break.

Not taking such a talented and hardworking apprentice would have meant Jiang Feng’s brain was kicked by a donkey.

Jiang Feng believed if he said no, Sun Maochai would be the first to snatch her up.

In the circle of chefs, female apprentices were exceptionally rare, especially those willing to endure hardship, talented, and trained in Red Chef techniques—truly hard to find even with a lantern.

Meanwhile, Ji Xia had finally finished showing her mother-in-law all the scenic spots she could think of; all that was left was waiting for Jiang Feng’s final competition to take her mother-in-law to watch.

Unfortunately, the organizers were still playing dead, having not released any information nor provided any notifications to this date. The variety show for the semi-finals had already aired, yet there was no sign of the finals.

Ji Xia’s aunt had to return to Guangdong Province for work, and Ji Xue rented a short-term apartment near Jiang Feng’s neighborhood for her mother-in-law. During this time, she and Ji Xia moved out to live with her, causing Ji Yue to suddenly find herself living alone, also losing the loving breakfasts from Ji Xue every morning.

Although Jiang Feng had decided to take Zhang Xi as his apprentice, he didn’t intend to make a grand announcement through a ceremony like Peng Changping did by hosting a banquet for friends.

Now ranked sixth in the reputable chefs’ list, taking an apprentice couldn’t just be a formality witnessed by relatives and friends over tea like when he took Ji Xia as an apprentice before.

The proper pomp was still necessary.

Choosing an apprentice also meant picking an auspicious day.

What was most critical was to seek the consent of Zhang Xi’s parents. Although it was her own wish to take Jiang Feng as her master, Jiang taking Zhang Xi as his apprentice wasn’t just her own affair.

Once Jiang Feng truly took Zhang Xi as an apprentice, it meant that all her previous plans for the future, including her parents’ aspirations for her, would be completely disrupted and overturned, embarking on a brand-new path. She and Ji Xia were different; when Ji Xia became an apprentice, it was considered the best option available at the time—at least that’s what she and Ji Xue thought then.

Zhang Xi was different—she would have a bright future even if she did not become a chef; there were many seemingly excellent options available to her. Therefore, Jiang Feng wanted Zhang Xi to first communicate thoroughly with her parents before preparing everything needed to formally hold the apprenticeship ceremony.

All of this was unknown to Ji Xia. Ji Xia only knew that she was going to have a senior apprentice sister several years older than herself, and she was very excited.

“Master, does that mean from today onwards I’ll start teaching my senior sister how to chop radishes?” Ji Xia’s enthusiasm was at an all-time high on her first day back at Taifeng Building making pastries and mooncakes.

Jiang Feng: …

Although he didn’t want to crush Xiaxia’s confidence, sometimes he still had to tell the harsh truth.

“Xiaxia, if anyone should teach, it should probably be your senior sister Zhang Xi teaching you how to chop radishes.”

Ji Xia: “What?”

Ji Xia was stunned.

She realized her master’s new apprentice was not quite what she had imagined.

On her first day back at work at Taifeng Building, Ji Xia did not make pies or fresh meat mooncakes in the morning.

She watched Zhang Xi chopping vegetables all morning.

She did it exceptionally well, whether slicing or julienning, each cut perfect in thickness and uniformity, far better than her own.

Ji Xia felt she shouldn’t be the senior sister; Zhang Xi should be the senior sister, as she wasn’t qualified to be Zhang Xi’s senior sister.

It had been a while, but Ji Xia once again felt a sense of loss.

Feeling unimportant, inadequate, inferior, and even a bit lousy, like she should just disappear—familiar feelings of loss.