Reborn in Japan as a Chef God
Chapter 254 - 253: Splashing Paint (Please Subscribe)

Chapter 254: Chapter 253: Splashing Paint (Please Subscribe)

Xia’s shop, across the street.

"Move out—"

Watching Xia Yu mount his bicycle and ride away, Lancelot, who had not slept all night, sternly addressed the several men in black suits behind him.

Now, there were only a few households left in the shopping district. The streets in the early morning were empty and quiet, much like the middle of the night.

Several men in black emerged from what was once a toy store, each carrying a bucket of paint.

"Splash!"

The young leader gestured and the men split up, two at the front door and the rest along the side wall to the back door. In just a few minutes, Xia’s shop within Lancelot’s view turned into a splash of colors, looking like a building set for demolition in a redevelopment area.

Meow!

One of the men who had finished splashing paint was passing by the courtyard wall when, unexpectedly, a shadow swiftly pounced.

Scream.

The paint can hit the ground, and the man covered his face, which had been scratched by cat claws.

"What happened?"

Hearing the noise, others gathered around, and Lancelot also cast an attentive gaze from the house across the street.

The group searched angrily for the cat but returned half an hour later without success.

Lancelot made an overseas call with respectful tone, "Instructor, I have followed your orders to ’force’ that chef to seek us out for a culinary battle. Also, for the few remaining businesses in the district, I plan to use forceful measures to drive them out in the next few days!"

"Handle it properly, try to minimize IGO’s scrutiny of us," the person on the other end replied indolently.

"Yes!"

Lancelot answered, and then hesitantly inquired, "If he accepts the culinary battle, who should we send to face him?"

"What do you think about Smith?"

"That...", Lancelot expressed some concern.

"Don’t worry, the special domain isn’t as simple as you imagine. Besides the cooking itself, there’s so much more to compete over, like the superiority of the ultimate flavors, and also... ’the chef’s heart’!"

The man on the phone chuckled lightly, "Do you know about Smith’s ’chef’s heart’?"

Lancelot was puzzled.

"Smith’s hometown is Greenland, an overseas territory of the Danish Kingdom!"

"Greenland is the largest island on Earth, a realm of ice and snow, according to Norse mythology, the first discoverers of Greenland were actually a group of crude and vulgar Viking Pirates..."

The man laughed again, then his voice suddenly turned cold, "Smith will not lose. Go ahead and pull that boy into the ’dark culinary battle’, let yourself loose!"

"I followed that faint clue and found more and more evidence, that street district, at one time or even now, must have hidden a piece of ’legendary kitchenware’..."

"Regardless of whether the kitchenware is still there, take control of the street first! I will come over in a while to look for more clues!"

Click.

The call ended.

Lancelot turned back and coldly looked at Xia’s shop, "Sorry."

...

Around noon, Xia Yu, who was fiddling with tofu molds in the White Seagull High School kitchen, received an urgent call summoning him back to the shopping street.

After hanging up the phone, Xia Yu was still a bit dazed.

"What’s wrong?"

Eriina, who had just turned off the stove valve, gave him a puzzled glance.

"I’ve got some urgent business, I’m heading home first!"

Xia Yu hurriedly put on his coat.

"Uh...? Wait for me!" Eriina quickly put on a mask, donned a bat jacket hiding her hair in the hood, and jogged after Xia Yu.

Today Eriina had not asked her driver to wait, so when she saw Xia Yu pedaling his bicycle out of the school gate, she bit her lower lip and decided to just go for it, plopping down on the bike’s rear seat.

"Hold on to me!"

Feeling someone sit on the bike behind him, Xia Yu casually instructed and then kicked into high gear.

"Yo-you, slow down!"

The young lady clearly had never ridden a bike before; she swung from side to side in the back, her entire being in a fluster, even letting out an astonishing scream as the bike turned a corner—drawing the astonished gazes of passersby along the whole street.

"Hey, I said hold on tight!" Xia Yu had no choice but to slow down and look back helplessly.

With her cheeks flushed red, Tiqie Helinai looked around irritably and complained, "Where do you want me to hold on to?"

Xia Yu pointed at his waist without another word.

"If you don’t hold on, I’ll throw you off the bike!" Xia Yu said, unpleased with her dilly-dallying.

"Al-alright!"

Tiqie Helinai practically gritted her teeth as she conceded. If she was thrown off, which way should she walk to Xia’s shop through the twisting and turning streets? She had to admit to herself that she was directionally challenged.

She gently wrapped her hands around Xia Yu’s waist.

Xia Yu nodded and pedaled at full speed. With his current physical condition, speeding with a passenger was a piece of cake, rushing through the roads like a gust of wind.

In less than ten minutes, they returned to the shopping street.

"Get off—"

He said to the girl behind him, slightly out of breath.

Tiqie Helinai let go and jumped off the bike, covering her mouth in shock at the sight of the little shop, now unrecognizable due to the paint.

Bang.

Xia Yu let go, allowing the bicycle to fall to the ground at an angle, his gaze sweeping over the disfigured building, a vein throbbing on his forehead.

"Damn it!"

The rage was more hidden within his chest; his mental age was certainly not that of a sixteen-year-old boy, and he would not lose his reason to anger, becoming a thug driven by negative emotions.

"Yu..."

A middle-aged man with a straightforward and honest appearance hurried over from the other end of the shopping street.

This was Sen Tian Makoto’s father, Morioka, now one of the few residents still holding out in the shopping street.

He too had a face full of anger.

"Uncle Morioka, what happened?" Xia Yu asked.

"I only discovered it at noon myself, by then the paint had already dried, it must have been at least three or four hours." Morioka sighed, his brows knit with worry, "Yu, it might have been those real estate developers’ thugs!"

"I guessed as much."

Xia Yu said in a heavy tone.

Had Smith and Lancelot been frightened by his cooking the evening before, and then switched to these despicable tactics?

A cold smile played inside his heart as Xia Yu made a call; shortly after, Feng Zhizi arrived with her construction crew.

"Is this it?"

Feng Zhizi called over some professionals. These workers, wielding scrapers and specialized paint remover, immediately got busy at a feverish pace.

"Interesting!"

Feng Zhizi propped up her chin and, after watching for a moment, turned to Xia Yu with a twinkle in her eye and said, "Instructor Xia, to be honest, I had also planned on using a similar tactic to force you to give in. I didn’t expect it to be someone from the Tokyo Three Tigers Construction Company actually doing it."

"Next step, breaking into the storeroom and destroying the ingredients, so my shop can’t operate, right?" Xia Yu said with a faint smile on his lips.

Startled for a moment, Feng Zhizi chuckled and replied, "Instructor Xia, you’re really smart."

"And the third step?"

Xia Yu’s face was expressionless.

Feng Zhizi shrugged, her gaze suddenly turning dangerous, emitting a chilling aura.

"I’ve seen enough of your real estate developers’ dirty tricks," Xia Yu said, hands in his pockets, as he walked a circle around his own house. When he came back, he was holding a mischievous Hua Mao cat.

He wasn’t going to make it to class today. Watching Feng Zhizi and her crew leave, Xia Yu stood at the open door of his shop, lost in thought.

’Burglary’ was a warning bell.

Then, this act of vandalism, the blatant provocation, the slap in the face kind.

How should he retaliate?

A food battle, perhaps?

Xia Yu shook his head gravely; it wasn’t as if others had to accept a food battle just because he issued one.

If the ’Gourmet Society’ was determined to trouble him with underhanded tactics, Xia Yu thought for a moment that he really had no way to contain them. Was he expected to stand guard at home every day?