The Game of Life TGOL

Chapter 760: Chapter 759: The Tears of a Tough Guy (4600 words) Chapter 760: Chapter 759: The Tears of a Tough Guy (4600 words) Ever since Taifeng Building changed the way they sold their pure meat dumplings from bowl by bowl to piece by piece, the number of customers coming to the store to cry had noticeably increased.

According to the original customer base, had it been only the simple art students eating the pure meat dumplings, even if it had expanded to include art professors, thirty servings a day would have been enough.

But times had changed, and as that wonderful video from the school had become widely circulated, people from all over China found out about the legendary source of the pure meat dumplings through various relationships and channels. They traveled long distances to Taifeng Building, united by the same inspiration, not for anything else, but to taste the legendary dumpling that could bring a tear to one’s eye.

This led to Taifeng Building having many new and familiar faces crying at the same time every day.

But Chef Arno’s tears were definitely milestone tears, as no foreign friend had ever thought to eat pure meat dumplings before him.

Jiang Feng, to highlight the uniqueness of these pure meat dumplings, deliberately made them even more unpalatable.

Not only was the cooking time longer, but he also specifically picked out a large bowl for Chef Arno and scooped in plenty of the awful-tasting dumpling broth.

The large white porcelain bowl was full of broth, with a single small dumpling floating in it.

Upon seeing such a bowl full of sincerity and pure meat dumplings, anyone would have to praise it with a phrase:

“Bah, swindlers!”

Once the dumplings were ready, Ji Yue personally served them, with Jiang Feng following behind, but not too close, only watching Chef Arno from a distance, ready to sidle up once he began to cry.

Chef Arno was flabbergasted upon seeing the dumpling.

“One?” Chef Arno wasn’t new to eating dumplings, but he had never seen a single dumpling served in such a large bowl.

If there’s only one dumpling, what’s the big bowl for?

Ji Yue nodded, her face adorned with a professional smile, and in the tone of a customer service representative, said, “Yes, that’s also a feature of our restaurant. We sell dumplings by the piece, and one only costs one yuan.”

Round it up and it’s practically free!

Chef Arno still found it somewhat unbelievable. He picked up a spoon, scooped up the only dumpling in the bowl, and just as he did, the dumpling’s skin tore, splashing a couple of drops of the hot broth onto his face.

Chef Arno: …

He suspected that Jiang Feng had intentionally made this shoddy dumpling to disgust him.

Although Chef Arno felt there was something peculiar and not quite right about the dumpling, he still bravely took it in one bite, swallowing it without even chewing.

“Shit!” Chef Arno exclaimed angrily.

Was this even fit for human consumption? It was worse than shit; any random dog on the street could make something better.

Having just finished chicken bean jelly, Chef Arno’s tongue, which had upgraded, couldn’t tolerate such a disgusting dumpling.

Chicken bean jelly could enhance the diner’s taste sensitivity, making good food taste even better, while accordingly, bad-tasting food would taste even worse. However, those who ate chicken bean jelly wouldn’t typically eat pure meat dumplings, and those who ate pure meat dumplings usually didn’t have the chance to eat chicken bean jelly. The customer bases for the two were inherently separate with no overlap—until Chef Arno’s magnificent arrival.

And he ate them one after the other.

The mere thought was enough to bring tears to one’s eyes.

Chef Arno truly wanted to cry, and not just in his thoughts; his tearful eyes took action too.

Though he had swallowed quickly, unfortunately, his tongue was so powerful, its retention and memory of flavors far beyond ordinary, that even if he didn’t want to recall that suffocating taste, his tongue persistently reminded him.

Bad taste is differentiated; the poor taste of ingredients is because their flavors might not be good, requiring the skills of cooking and processing to become appetizing. But when a dish tastes bad, it is often truly unpleasant, deliberately so, infuriatingly so, deep into the marrow so.

The pure meat dumplings were undoubtedly among the champions of bad taste.

Having taken a bite of such a dumpling, Chef Arno was about to lose his temper and curse loudly, but a sudden surge of memories stopped the words right in his throat.

Chef Arno cried.

This must be what it looks like when a tough guy breaks down.

Even Chef Arno’s crying was different from that of the average diner, who, upon eating pure meat wontons, often cries out of sadness, anger, or even deep grief, wailing in a way that made others unable to help but feel sympathy, and then they would go and hug him, offering a tissue for him to wipe his tears.

But Chef Arno was different, his tears were tinged with anger and helplessness, like a venting, like a scream, like a roar.

Even his crying had such a commanding presence that people didn’t dare to approach.

Ji Yue turned her head and made frantic gestures at Jiang Feng, who was watching from a distance, basically signaling him to come over quickly because he had started crying.

Jiang Feng quickly walked towards Chef Arno.

Chef Arno was crying very sincerely, filled with true emotion, and he was so immersed in his weeping that he seemed completely lost in sad memories, not noticing that Jiang Feng had already approached him.

“Shit!” Chef Arno roared, startling the customers at the table next to him, who almost didn’t manage to hold onto their chopsticks. They looked over and saw a bowl of wonton soup in front of him, which made them resume eating their meal as if nothing unusual had happened.

Then Chef Arno suddenly hugged his head, crying out loud like a child in collapse and helplessness.

His intense reaction scared both Jiang Feng and Ji Yue a bit.

“Isn’t his reaction a bit too exaggerated? Maybe you should go and comfort him?” Ji Yue tentatively asked.

Jiang Feng shook his head repeatedly, not daring to approach. What if he managed to snap Chef Arno out of it, and once he came to his senses and realized something was wrong, he lashed out in a real fight? With Chef Arno’s burly physique and muscular arms, he feared he wouldn’t last three moves before he had to surrender and beg for mercy.

Not to mention that Mr. Jiang Jiankang probably wouldn’t be able to come to the rescue in time.

Jiang Feng and Ji Yue walked nearby, waiting to see how things would turn out after Chef Arno’s bout of crying. Customers who ate the pure meat wontons usually didn’t cry for too long, as the bitter memories were often not particularly lengthy, and the bitterness was only in those one or two moments.

Gradually, Chef Arno seemed to calm down a bit. Just as Jiang Feng was thinking of saying a word or two of comfort, Chef Arno suddenly became very agitated and slammed his fist on the table, roaring in perfect Chinese.

“Peng Changping!”

Jiang Feng: ???

Jiang Feng was confused, Chef Arno looked up and saw that Jiang Feng was also confused.

The atmosphere became incredibly awkward for a moment, so awkward that Ji Yue wanted to slip away to serve the dishes, so awkward that Jiang Feng wanted to join Ji Yue in serving dishes.

“You…” Jiang Feng chuckled dryly, wanting to say something to ease the atmosphere, but ultimately he shut his mouth.

This atmosphere was too awkward, absolutely irredeemable.

Chef Arno also felt the awkwardness, particularly because he had lost his composure in public, and Jiang Feng had seen him, though he wasn’t sure how much Jiang Feng had witnessed—social death.

The only consolation was that Chef Arno didn’t think there was anything wrong with the pure meat wontons. He felt that his recalling that particular episode was entirely because the wontons were too distasteful, which reminded him of some unpleasant things.

Chef Arno felt he should say something.

And so, he spoke.

“Your restaurant’s wontons are really too awful to swallow,” he said.

Jiang Feng: …

I think it was nice when you kept your mouth shut just now.

For some reason, Jiang Feng thought that Chef Arno’s aura had weakened quite a bit, and he seemed a bit easier to talk to.

“I’m really sorry, I made today’s wontons, but the specialty of our restaurant is that the wontons taste bad,” Jiang Feng said honestly, “How do you find today’s chicken tofu flower?”

As he spoke, he also took the opportunity to sit down opposite Chef Arno.

At that moment, Chef Arno finally remembered why he had come to the Taifeng Building this afternoon. He said, “Very excellent.”

Jiang Feng was taken aback. He suspected he had heard wrong.

Chef Arno was actually praising someone.

No, to be more precise, Chef Arno was actually capable of praising someone.

“I apologize for my doubts about you yesterday. You truly are a genius, a genius who might not be inferior to me,” Chef Arno said seriously, “although the wontons you made were really bad.”

Jiang Feng: …

If you’re going to praise someone, just praise them—no need to emphasize how bad the wontons were, really.

“So… about the competition…” Jiang Feng tentatively asked.

“I will contact the show’s producers to have them come up with a set of fair competition rules and procedures as soon as possible. Once they get back to me, I will share the rules and procedures with you too. If you have any comments, feel free to make them. The people who set these rules and procedures sometimes have their heads as if they’re covered in crap; unless you remind them, they will never realize just how unreasonable they are,” Chef Arno said.

For some reason, Jiang Feng felt that Chef Arno had suddenly become very friendly towards him. Maybe it was because after eating the chicken bean flower dish, Chef Arno saw Jiang Feng as a worthy competitor, showing a little bit of respect for his opponent. Or perhaps Chef Arno felt a slight bit guilty after Jiang Feng witnessed his moment of social death.

Anyway, Chef Arno’s attitude had suddenly improved, making Jiang Feng somewhat uncomfortable.

Keep in mind that just yesterday, Chef Arno was acting like the drama’s lead antagonist. How did he suddenly become a friend overnight?

“Is there something wrong?” Chef Arno noticed Jiang Feng was looking at him with a strange expression.

“Why did you suddenly call out Master Peng Changping’s name earlier?” Jiang Feng felt he really was too bold, risking his life for some gossip.

Someday he would surpass Pei Shenghua, the King of Gossip in the culinary world, and become the real Gossip King himself.

Chef Arno: ?

Jiang Feng thought Chef Arno wouldn’t answer, that he might get angry or ignore him, especially since he had instantly regretted his impulsive question right after asking it.

Unexpectedly, Chef Arno actually answered.

This took Jiang Feng by complete surprise.

Upon reflection, Jiang Feng figured out why Chef Arno didn’t hesitate to share his story—it was quite simple. Their ways of thinking were entirely different. Chef Arno was hot-tempered and straightforward. After Jiang Feng saw him lose his composure, Arno felt that nothing could be more embarrassing than that, so he didn’t mind talking about his own humiliating past.

He saw Jiang Feng as his rival, and he didn’t mind his rival understanding his situation.

Everybody knew Master Peng’s business philosophy was simple: open a restaurant, run it, wait until it succeeds, wait for the neighboring restaurant to go out of business, and then take over the neighboring space to expand his restaurant.

But what nobody knew was that the neighboring restaurant belonged to Chef Arno.

That year, Chef Arno was only in his twenties.

Youthful and vigorous, he commanded presence and was filled with youthful arrogance, a culinary prodigy lavishly praised by everyone, a sparkling new star rising in the culinary world.

Arno was as wild as Zhang was back then—so wild he was a thousand times, no, ten thousand times wilder.

The exceedingly arrogant young Arno, armed with his father’s money and his own savings, took over a shop in an excellent location, ready to start his own restaurant. He wanted to grow it into a successful business, not only to become the number one chef in America but also to be the owner of the number one restaurant.

And then his restaurant went bankrupt.

That was the only failure in Arno’s life.

After the collapse of his restaurant, Arno immersed himself in improving his cooking skills, practicing in seclusion. When he felt his culinary skills were mature enough to challenge Peng Changping, Peng had already become the most outstanding Chinese chef in America.

Although Chef Arno was arrogant, he did have some self-awareness. He knew he was not yet a match for Peng Changping, so he practiced even harder, striving to become the best Western chef in America. Just as he dreamt of a battle between the best, keen to show the world who the real top chef was, Peng Changping retired.

Chef Arno was dumbfounded.

After all those years of hard work, aspiring to be able to compete with Peng Changping, the man retired.

After his retirement, Peng Changping kept a very low profile, with his disciples and children running the restaurant affairs. Chef Arno couldn’t even find an opportunity to face him, much less challenge him.

Of course, Chef Arno did try other methods. He once tried to squeeze Peng Changping’s restaurant the same way he recently pressured Taifeng Building, which did indeed cause some minor trouble for the business. Chef Arno hoped this would lure Peng Changping back into the fray, but Peng Changping didn’t care at all, thinking, “Since I’ve retired, the restaurant is no longer my concern; let it be.”

The reason Chef Arno rushed from the United States to Beiping as soon as he heard the news was because he thought Peng Changping was coming to support Yonghe House, which is why he couldn’t wait to join the top-tier restaurant contest and challenge Peng Changping.

And yet, the contest didn’t happen.

Listening to Chef Arno recount his decades of crazed pursuit, never finding the opportunity nor succeeding, Jiang Feng was moved to tears.

It was too sad, sincerely too sad. It seemed that playing the villain was also a tough gig these days; striving to be a worthy antagonist was no easy task.

Wait a minute.

Jiang Feng suddenly realized something was off.

“If you wanted to coax Master Peng out of retirement, why did you squeeze our Taifeng Building? Shouldn’t you have targeted them, Yonghe House?” Jiang Feng found Chef Arno’s thought processes to be utterly baffling.

Why attack Taifeng Building, a restaurant that had nothing to do with either Chef Arno or Peng Changping?

“What’s the use of troubling Yonghe House? It’s not Peng Changping’s personal restaurant. If he doesn’t even care about his own restaurant, how could he possibly care about Yonghe House?” Chef Arno asserted confidently.

Jiang Feng: ?

“Causing trouble for us is even more pointless!” Jiang Feng really wanted to pry open Chef Arno’s head to see what was inside, shit maybe?

“At first, I thought you were Peng Changping’s junior disciple, didn’t everyone say so?” Chef Arno was also angry, his long-standing efforts to provoke a confrontation had failed again.

Jiang Feng: ??

“Even if I really were Master Peng’s junior disciple, that wouldn’t help!”

“How could it not help? Taifeng Building is your family’s restaurant!”

Jiang Feng: ???

“Master Peng doesn’t even care about his own house, how could he possibly care about mine?” Jiang Feng felt like he was shouting.

“Isn’t that how you people in Huaguo are? The senior folks always favor their youngest children or junior disciples, offering whole-hearted support and giving them the best,” Chef Arno believed his logic was flawless, “and isn’t it normal to ‘strike the small and provoke the big’?”

Jiang Feng felt surrounded by question marks and even thought Chef Arno’s last sentence sounded strangely familiar.

“That’s not us, where did you get that idea?”

“I read it in a book, written by your own Huaguo authors.”

Jiang Feng: …

Tell me, are you and Sun Jikai reading the same book?

This time, Jiang Feng really felt like crying, but now the tears were for himself.

Damn it, reading those crappy novels when you’ve got nothing better to do.

Okay, read them, but why on earth did you believe them?