Today Jing Yang went to pay a visit to one of Lu Deyuan’s old friends, this elderly man has a very high status in the , you could describe him as a person of high virtue and prestige.

When this Zhang was young, he really enjoyed eating Lu Deyuan’s cooking, so the two of them became friends. Why Jing Yang would go to call on him, besides the fact that he had a very good relationship with Lu Deyuan, was because this elderly had a very extensive network, people from all walks of life would give face to him.

When Lu Jingyu was very small, he had accompanied Lu Deyuan to see Zhang gentleman a couple times, then never saw him again. So when Jing Yang suddenly came to visit him, was somewhat surprised.

That year when Lu Deyuan suddenly died, Zhang lao was also very sorrowful, so when today his ’s only grandson came to call upon him, even though he knew that he definitely had some request, but on the basis of he and Lu Deyuan’s former friendship, he still courteously received him.

Jing Yang also didn’t bring up the reason for his visit and only chatted with Zhang lao, he had already experienced over a thousand worlds, so he completely didn’t need to worry about not having anything to talk about with Zhang lao. Even if it were on literary topics, his own attainments in that field also wouldn’t be worse than Zhang lao.

In the process of chatting, Zhang lao actually admired him more and more, the two people chatted with great enthusiasm. Before, Zhang lao would sometimes hear people mention him, he heard that he was , every day he would only gather his friends to drink and play, very degenerate. For this he had actually pitied his old friend for a while. But from today, it seems like rumors still couldn’t really be taken seriously.

Zhang lao’s children and grandchildren all had their own activities, and he also enjoyed peace and quiet, so he did not live with his children, instead living by himself in a small mountain villa. In the villa he had a cook and two servants to help take care of his daily life. When it came time to prepare dinner, Jing Yang took the initiative to request making this dinner.

When Zhang lao was young, his most favorite dish was beef stew with potatoes. Now that he’s older, his teeth aren’t as good, and eating too much meat isn’t good for his digestion, so he only eats the potatoes in the beef and potato stew. Plus he has very high standards for the potato taste and texture.

Zhang lao was sitting in the drawing room drinking tea and reading the news when he smelled a great fragrance floating out from the kitchen. His saliva almost overflowed and his stomach also started rumbling. He was a famous foodie in his youth, otherwise with his manner in those days, he wouldn’t have rushed to make friends with Lu Deyuan only in order to borrow the friendship to be able to eat good food at any time.

Several decades later, Zhang lao could be considered to have eaten gourmet food from all over, and his standards for his food became higher and higher. His home chef’s cooking, to other people was already very good, yet when he ate it, he only thought it was ordinary. But today, for this beef stew with potatoes, just the fragrant smell was enough to strongly stimulate his appetite.

Zhang lao couldn’t sit still anymore and walked to the kitchen door with his hands behind his back, staring intently at the pot on the stove still stewing potatoes and beef.

Jing Yang turned his head and saw the elderly man standing at the kitchen door. “You’re hungry? I’ll be able to serve once I make a couple of appetizers, the vegetables in your vegetable garden are really great, pretty fresh.”

“En, ok.” Zhang lao straightforwardly nodded, urging, “Not doing the other dishes is also fine, it’s only us two, we can’t eat that much. Just finish this beef and potato stew and we’ll be good.”

“All right.” Jing Yang agreed. “I’ve already finished making the hibiscus steamed eggs with the meat stock, once this pot of vegetable soup is done then I’ll serve dinner, I won’t make the appetizers.”

“You also made hibiscus steamed eggs with the meat stock?” This was also one of Zhang lao’s favorite dishes, he finally couldn’t resist walking into the kitchen. “Open it and let me see.”

Jing Yang opened up the steamer, after the hot air dispersed they could see a bowl of tender yellow hibiscus steamed egg. Zhang lao had already eaten countless numbers of hibiscus steamed eggs, just from looking at the color and degree of tenderness and softness, he could see if the bowl of steamed eggs was good or not. For the bowl of steamed eggs in front of him, its texture would definitely be not bad, he was already to taste it.

Once the dishes were served, Zhang lao held his chopsticks in one hand and his spoon in the other, hesitating on whether to eat the potatoes or the steamed eggs first, he wanted to eat both of them immediately.

Jing Yang said, “The steamed egg is still too hot right now, let it sit for a bit, it’ll be better when it’s no longer so hot. You first try the potatoes, see how they taste.”

“Good, good.” Zhang lao picked up a potato with his chopsticks and bit it, and then put the entire piece into his mouth.

“Be careful not to burn yourself.” Jing Yang reminded.

Zhang lao closed his eyes and chewed slowly, carefully tasting the flavor, and then opened his eyes and gave Jing Yang a thumbs up. “Good, really great, the flavor is even better than how your grandfather used to make it. You are really ah!”

Jing Yang laughed. “You flatter me. You can now try out the steamed eggs, see how it compares to how my grandfather used to make it.”

Zhang lao tasted a mouthful of the steamed eggs and nodded. “Not bad not bad, soft, slippery, fragrant, and tender, melts in my mouth, delicious juicy taste. Those hibiscus steamed eggs that I ate before completely can’t compete with this.”

Two dishes and one soup, Zhang lao ate more than half of them by himself, even the meat that he had not eaten for many years was swept clean by him. Luckily Jing Yang didn’t make too much, otherwise he would really be concerned about the elderly man’s body bursting open.

In the evening after Jing Yang accompanied Zhang lao for a walk, he finally brought up his purpose for paying a visit. “With my cooking, what do you think about me opening my own restaurant?”

Zhang lao put down his teacup, leaned back on the sofa and pensively said, “Speaking truthfully, the three dishes that you made today were definitely the three best dishes I’ve ever eaten. However, if you’re only relying on three dishes, I’m afraid it’ll be very difficult to support a restaurant. Of course, this also needs to look at how big your restaurant will be, if it were only an ordinary small restaurant, it’ll be completely enough.”

“I’ve already finished a pretty large restaurant, three connected buildings in the shape of a 門 (upside down U), each building has three floors, there’s a courtyard in the front and the back as well as two side courtyards. Just the lot area is already not small. If I were only able to take out today’s three dishes, I would definitely not dare to come here to invite you.”

“Invite me?” Zhang lao asked. “Invite me to do what?”

Jing Yang took out an invitation and gave it to Zhang lao. “My restaurant will have its grand opening next month. Because I was not sensible earlier, I offended some people, I’m afraid that they will deliberately come to discredit my restaurant, saying that my food is not good. For this reason, I wanted to invite Zhang lao to go guard the stage, if you could bring a few friends there, those people would definitely not dare to .”

Zhang lao opened up the invitation to see. “Lu Jingyu, you this is…”

“Before, the Lu family restaurants were all called Lu De Ji, ever since my grandfather died, they were slowly changed to be called Zheng (正) De restaurant. In the current generation of youths, I’m afraid that not many people still remember Lu De Ji anymore. I want to use my grandfather’s name to revive the Lu family restaurant.”

Lu Jingyu remembered that at the very beginning it was called Lu Ji restaurant, when it came to his great-grandfather’s hands, it changed to Lu Jia restaurant, and then when it came to his grandfather’s hands, it was changed again to be Lu De Ji. After Lu Deyuan died, Zheng Jianlin slowly changed those restaurants to all be called Zheng (正) Ji restaurant, he ultimately still had a guilty conscience and didn’t dare to directly change them to be called Zheng (鄭) Jia restaurant. He wanted to wait until Zheng Junming inherited the family property to change it again.

Zhang lao placed the invitation on the tea table at the side, lightly tapping it with his finger, and finally opened his mouth. “I received your invitation and will be there on time, I’ll just take this as giving your maternal grandfather face.”

“Thank you.” Jing Yang sincerely expressed his gratitude.

Zhang lao raised his hand. “But I’ll warn you beforehand, I’ll only help you out for your grandfather’s sake once, if your cooking isn’t proficient and fails, you wouldn’t be humiliating only yourself but also your maternal grandfather’s reputation. Then in the future, you don’t want to ever mention me helping you again.”

“If my cooking fails, I guarantee that from then on I will never appear in front of you.” Jing Yang was very clear, if not for his two dishes and a soup satisfying Zhang lao today, he would definitely not agree to help him so easily, so he needed to continue to display his skills to let Zhang lao’s mind be more certain. “I leave tomorrow at noon, so tomorrow morning I’ll make breakfast for you, you can try out my cooking again.”

“That won’t do, you can only leave after you make dinner. Plus you need to make me that beef and potato stew again before you can leave.” After that Zhang lao stood up, placed his hands behind his back, and returned to his room.

Early the next day before the sky had turned bright, Jing Yang already got up to make breakfast. Elderly people sleep less, every day they wake up very early and eat breakfast once they finish their morning exercise. He definitely couldn’t let him keep waiting for him to finish making breakfast, since he has something to request, naturally he needs to take out absolute sincerity, plus in the future he still had a lot of places where he needed to rely on Zhang lao.

Besides , lean pork and century egg congee, shrimp dumplings, and other breakfast foods that Zhang lao enjoyed eating, Jing Yang also made some simple pastries to leave for Zhang lao to eat in his free time. He had already prepared most of the ingredients last night and only needed to prepare two servings of breakfast, so he wasn’t very rushed.

When Zhang lao came in, Jing Yang was also already done preparing, only what he didn’t expect was that Zhang lao had also brought two other people back.

“Do you guys have some pressing matters? You came over this early in the morning.” Zhang lao walked in the door while asking the two people behind him.

The older one responded laughingly, “Where would we have urgent matters, it’s just that I obtained a landscape painting recently and wanted you to help me appraise it. I heard that your home chef’s cooking is really good, so we came over as soon as possible to .”

“Then you guys really haven’t eaten good food, just my home chef’s skill is worth you guys especially coming over this early in the morning to freeload?” Zhang lao smelled the appetizing porridge fragrance wafting out of the kitchen. “But today you guys actually coincidentally came at a good time, you could be considered to have .”

Jing Yang came out and just prepared to tell Zhang lao that breakfast was ready when he saw the two people following Zhang lao and froze for a moment. In the two people, that younger one, he earlier had already used the system to understand, so he knew who he was, and was also very clear about his status.

The two people’s gazes just happened to intersect, his (JY) heart suddenly throbbed, this made him very doubtful, could it be this body’s instinctual reaction? Normally, this shouldn’t be true, this body from inside and out, from top to bottom, already completely belonged to himself, it wasn’t possible to have any reactions that didn’t belong to him.

After breakfast was served, the middle-aged man bit the soup dumpling, inhaling the delicious smell inside and the broth that wasn’t the least bit greasy, and couldn’t resist praising it. “Your home chef’s cooking is truly , you think that even this is not good enough? You might as well just give me this chef, let him go to my house to cook.”

“Today this breakfast absolutely was not made by my home chef.” Zhang lao looked at Jing Yang. “See, he made them.”

The middle-aged person and young man both looked at Jing Yang. The middle-aged man with unordinary bearing asked, “Oh? You are…”

Zhang lao responded, “This is my deceased old friend Lu Deyuan’s grandson, called Lu Jingyu.”

When the two people heard that he was Lu Jingyu, even though their expressions remained serene and their eyes showed no waves, but Jing Yang this person who had lived for countless years knew that these people were definitely inwardly astonished, just that they were worthy of people who stood at the top, their inner mood was not expressed outwardly in the least.

Jing Yang only prepared breakfast for two people, plus those people both could eat a lot, thus the four people had all not eaten their fill.

This feeling of eating delicious food and then suddenly not having any more while their stomachs were still half empty was definitely not comfortable. Zhang lao looked at Jing Yang, “How about you make some more?”

“I made you some simple pastries.” Jing Yang looked at those two people and then said, “But it’s probably still not enough, I’ll go make some wontons.”

By the time Jing Yang served the wontons, the plate of pastries was already empty, sure enough it wasn’t enough. These two people were not only really able to eat, but also totally , eating in a very lively manner. Even though their movements were still very elegant, but their speed was definitely not slow.

These two people both had rare excellent stature and appearance. Plus their appearance had a six points resemblance, but the two people were not father and son, but uncle and nephew.

The younger man was called Zhao Bocheng, he was the successor of the Zhao family conglomerate, not yet 30 years old yet already controlled the sovereignty of the Zhao family conglomerate. The Zhao family’s influence was very large, both in the light and in the dark, in politics, business, and the celebrity world, they have a say in all walks of life, and their authority was also quite big.

This Zhao Bocheng could be considered as having indirectly caused Lu Jingyu’s death. Zhao Bocheng had a cousin named Qian Xiang, the son of his aunt, the Qian family could also be considered a big family and business. It was also because he had this layer of relationship with the Zhao family that Qian Xiang’s character was arrogant and despotic, not many people dared to offend him.

But Lu Jingyu just happened to offend him, because this bad personality and Qian Xiang just happened to be conquered by Zheng Junming’s cooking, and was very good friends with him. Lu Jingyu opposed Zheng Junming everywhere, this naturally made Qian Xiang angry, the property auction matter was precisely a trap that Qian Xiang had joined hands with the Zheng father and son to give him (LJY).

In the previous life Qian Xiang framed and trapped Lu Jingyu everywhere, he dispatched people to crash into his car on the street, and even manufactured the facade of a ferocious street brawl to cause Lu Jingyu’s death. What he relied on was the Zhao family’s influence, just because his cousin was the successor of the Zhao family, so he could kill Lu Jingyu this kind of person, without any scruple.

———

[1] – 書畫界, literally calligraphy and painter world

[2] – 張老, 老 after a surname means old/venerable, but it seems a little strange to write it out in English…maybe I’ll write gentleman?

[3] – still on the topic in note 2. I give up, I’ll probably just keep writing [surname] lao instead. If there’s a good way to express the respect in English, please lmk

[4] – 故友, old friend, also deceased

[5] – 不學無術, idiom, literally without learning or skills

[6] – 清高, also means noble and virtuous, I feel like aloof from material pursuits works well here?

[7] – 迫不及待, just found out it’s actually an idiom, may have missed it before, but it just means impatient/in a hurry

[8] – 青出于藍而勝于藍, idiom, literally it means blue is made out of indigo but more vivid than indigo lol

[9] – 睜著眼睛說瞎話, literally speaking drivel/lying with their eyes open

[10] – 灌湯包, I’m not quite sure what these are, but I think they’re the same as 小籠包?

[11] – 蹭飯, lol at least they’re honest about it

[12] – 口福, literally like mouth fortune, they have good luck at finding/eating good food

[13] – 絕了, slang for awesome/dope

[14] – 不客氣, literally means impolite (usually it means you’re welcome but not in this case lol), but in this case it’s not really that bad, more of a unrestrained sense

[15] – 眼高于頂, literally means his eye height is too high, metaphor for being arrogant

[16] – 無依無靠, idiom, literally no one to depend on or lean on