The Game of Life

That night, Good Taste officially announced the list of the top 32 contestants nationwide.

At ten in the evening, with a can of ice-cold diet soda in his left hand and a roast chicken leg bought from the dormitory building underneath in his right, Wang Hao munched on the chicken leg and sipped his drink, craning his neck’ to look at the list published on the official forum alongside Jiang Feng. Feng, look, the first place in the Beiping division is indeed that Zhang Guanghang. The first place in the Guangdong Province division is Ji Xue, only nineteen, my God, even two years younger than me, and the first in Hang City division is Gu Li. This dude looks so-so; he’s probably gonna have a tough time,” Wang Hao said with a mouthful of roast chicken flavor.

What’s the point of looking at someone’s appearance? If judging by appearance alone, just give Zhang Guanghang the first place,” Jiang Feng continued to read down the list.

Wait a minute, speaking of skill, Zhang Guanghang should indeed be the first… Ah, this world always has someone who is handsomer than you, taller than you, comes from a better family, and has superior culinary skills than you. When God closes a door on you, he somehow manages to seal the windows too. “Hey, this Gu Li is a chef from Taste House, right? Their dishes are pretty tasty. I ate there last summer when I went to Hang City on vacation with my parents,” Wang Hao remarked.

Look at this,” Jiang Feng pointed at the computer screen, “Zhang Xi, 16 years old.”

This girl was the last place in Jiang Feng’s division, the high school student who had screamed and rushed into her mother’s arms that morning.

“From Alan City’s First High School, a real academic achiever, tough to get into. I had to pull some strings and buy my way in, but she’s in the last place, nothing worth focusing on. Feng, look at this: the third place in the Beiping division, Zhao Shan, a chef from Eight-treasure House, a famous restaurant!” Wang Hao exclaimed.

Beiping City is full of famous restaurants, but look at this Sun Jikai, fourth place in the Guangdong Province division, a chef from Jubao Building, the restaurant I mentioned to you before that sells Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall for 1888 yuan per pot,” said Jiang Feng, “My grandfather knows the previous head chef of that restaurant, also surnamed Sun; this Sun Jikai is definitely his junior.”

“What a gathering of hidden dragons and crouching tigers! Feng, you’re going to be famous!” Wang Hao couldn’t help but marvel upon hearing Jiang Feng, “Isn’t this Good Taste culinary competition just a non-governmental contest? How come there are so many professional chefs participating?”

Go check what the prize for the champion is,” Jiang Feng said.

Wang Hao clicked on another official post and stared at it for a long time without figuring it out, “100,000 yuan in prize money and a cover feature in Taste magazine, and the top 32 will be broadcast live in the form of a reality show, nothing special… right?”

“Taste was founded by Xu Cheng,” Jiang Feng said as he took out his phone and showed Wang Hao the encyclopedia information for Taste.

Initially, Jiang Feng had also thought that Taste was just an ordinary food review magazine, but it wasn’t until Wu Minqi explained to him that he understood just how prestigious this magazine was within the global culinary circle.

Xu Cheng could also be considered a celebrity, of Chinese descent from Singapore. His father had once made it into the top five on the Forbes Asia list. Undoubtedly a rich heir born with a golden spoon. Xu Cheng loved to eat and knew how to appreciate good food, having traveled the world and published several books evaluating gastronomy, from starred restaurants to street corners. As long as he liked something, he would not refuse it, enjoying a great reputation among gourmets. Any restaurant or dish he recommended would have gourmets from all nations flocking to it.

Xu Cheng was over fifty now. Taste magazine had been established for almost a decade, going from an initial monthly release to an annual publication. Xu Cheng’s taste had become increasingly refined and strict. Last year, Taste only released one issue, with only one of the 27 food reviews personally written by him, and for the past three years, no restaurant had made it onto the cover of Taste magazine.

On the other side was the so-called Michelin restaurant rating, which was never too friendly to China and mostly irrelevant to most Chinese people, many of whom didn’t care or even know about it.

Take Liu Qian for example; she thought that Wu Family Restaurant owned by Wu Minqi’s family had a Michelin star, but in reality, the restaurant only had a sous-chef who had come from a one-star Michelin restaurant in Hong Kong City, purely a move for reputation and supposedly sharing ingenious similarities with an 800-year-old tradition.

Currently, there is not a single Michelin-starred restaurant on the mainland. Michelin restaurants don’t cater to the mainland crowd, and so the mainland doesn’t play along with them. For those who truly appreciate food, rather than concern themselves with Michelin selections that don’t match their tastes and that they cannot even experience, they’d be better off perusing the past years’ food reviews in “Taste” magazine, which is far more trustworthy than so-called online food recommendations.

Hence, one can see just how tempting the champion’s reward of the Good Taste Culinary Competition is in the eyes of chefs from these prestigious restaurants.

Jiang Feng guessed that Han Guishan must have quite a good personal relationship with Xu Cheng, otherwise, with his fortune, it would be unlikely he had the clout to convince Xu Cheng to hand over the cover of “Taste.”

Wang Hao spent over ten minutes reading the encyclopedia section of “Taste” magazine, occasionally looking up information that he didn’t quite understand, impressed. After reading two reviews personally written by Xu Cheng, he looked at the cheap grilled chicken legs in his hand, costing 5 yuan each, and suddenly found them tasteless.

Even the chilled soda, which was supposed to bring happiness to any homebody, failed to cheer him up.

“Feng, if you win the championship, you’re going to be famous all over the world,” Wang Hao sighed. “When one man achieves enlightenment, all those around him ascend to heaven. If you reach wealth and rank, don’t forget about the rest of us!”

“I think it should be the cover of the China region edition,” Jiang Feng analytically said. “Taste” magazine is divided into the China region, Southeast Asia region, Central Asia region, Europe region, and America region. Except for the reviews written by Xu Cheng, which are published in all editions, other reviews are specially tailored according to the local regions. There might be some overlap, but it’s not very likely.”

Jiang Feng had even seen online discussions about how much money Xu Cheng loses with each issue of “Taste” magazine he publishes.

Having the cover in the China region is pretty impressive too. No wonder such awesome people lower themselves to participate in the competition. Sigh, enough talk, I’m off to write something. Feng, you keep reading,” said Wang Hao as if he had discovered a new world and went back to his desk to create.

Jiang Feng:…

He had an inkling that something bad was about to happen.

He felt that “Taste” magazine was going to suffer.

Meanwhile, Xu Cheng had just landed in Alan City.

Han Guishan was there to receive him at the airport. Jiang Feng’s guess was not wrong; Han Guishan and Xu Cheng were old friends for over a decade, with a very close private relationship. During the competition, Xu Cheng would serve as a judge in the final round. Before that, he would watch the competition from the audience seats as a spectator.

“Han Guishan, you’ve done quite a good job with this competition. I see that on the advancement list are Old Sir Wu’s granddaughter, Grandpa Sun’s grandson, and Abel Durand-you must have drawn them all over. Your company’s stock ‘ price is probably going to rise quite a bit, huh?”

“Mr. Xu, you’re being too modest. You don’t need to play dumb about why they came. Haven’t eaten yet, right? So, where shall we go?” Han Guishan said with a smile.

“Imperial Meal Tavern. That’s about the only place here where the food is still worth eating,” replied Xu Cheng.

Han Guishan’s assistant opened the car doors for the two bosses and instructed the driver in front: “To Imperial Meal Tavern.”

“They’re still open this late?” questioned Xu Cheng.

“I certainly don’t have the influence, but it’s different for you, Mr. Xu. Even if you were to go at two o’clock in the morning, Chef Zhang at Imperial Meal Tavern would fire up the stove for you,” said Han Guishan, stopping his teasing to take a briefcase his assistant handed to him. He pulled out a few documents and handed them to Xu Cheng. “These are the profiles of the judges we’ve booked. Have a look and see if there’s anything amiss.”

Xu Cheng took the documents and started to

examine them closely..