Reborn in Japan as a Chef God
Chapter 403 - 402: The Unreplicable "Finisher" Dish

Chapter 403: Chapter 402: The Unreplicable "Finisher" Dish

Crack.

The ice crystals spread across the ground.

Chiyoda Aichi was stunned, looking down at the ice creeping beneath her feet, a chill rising from the soles of her feet, making her shiver uncontrollably.

She looked up.

The other three judges seemed not to have noticed the oddness of Yuchuan Abbot, each picking the ice feathers affixed to slices of Mountain Carp, sea bream, and Crucian Carp before taking a bite.

"Sea bream, slightly cool, associated with metal..."

Tiqie Xianzuowen murmured to himself, his chopsticks gently touching the seasoning dish.

Huh.

His white eyebrows suddenly twitched.

The shining slice of fish, on touching the sauce, transformed, faintly enveloped in a pale golden light.

His pupils contracted, for on his chopsticks was not a slice of fish, but a sharp blade!

If he were a common person, he would have dropped the chopsticks in fright, but Far Moon Commander was only slightly surprised, yet still opened his mouth and swallowed what was on his chopsticks!

"Ha—"

He transformed.

Chiyoda Aichi hadn’t yet processed the change in Yuchuan Abbot, when suddenly, in her view, the Food Demon King’s clothes burst apart, his previously white hair stood on end, turning gold from root to tip.

If someone handed this Demon King a celestial weapon, this scene would have been the epitome of a heavenly soldier descending to earth, full of striking imagery.

"Crucian Carp..."

Master Yizhen’s chopsticks twirled a thread of the fish.

As the fish touched the seasoning dish, a dull earthy glow appeared, and as Master Yizhen began to chew, there was a rumble, and he heard the sound of mountains crumbling, and saw a vision of a stone giant, as tall as the heavens, slowly rising and pounding his chest with a thunderous roar.

"Mountain Carp! Warm nature, wood!"

Chiyoda’s hair grew lengthy, turning lush and vine-like, and to her astonishment, a flourishing red maple tree materialized behind her.

Whirling, whirling.

The wind rose and the red maple leaves scattered.

The goddess heard the whisper of falling leaves, her eyes filled with rapture.

Chiyoda Aichi was shocked. "Ayaka, Ayaka, do you see this?"

In her stupor, she had forgotten to use formal address and called out Yuchuan Ayaka by name.

"I see it!"

Yuchuan Ayaka’s face turned deathly pale, all color drained.

As Chiyoda Aichi watched dumbfounded, Yuchuan Ayaka, trembling, took up her chopsticks and finally stepped forward to tear off a small slice of pufferfish from the fifth feather of the Ice Peacock.

At the same time, she heard Xia Yu’s light laughter: "Pufferfish, hot in nature... belongs to fire!"

Fire!

Without Xia Yu’s reminder, Yuchuan Ayaka was already trembling the moment she dipped the morsel into the sauce.

Reflected in her eyes was a flame on the chopsticks!

The heat, as if it was about to devour her, assaulted her face.

Yuchuan Ayaka’s breath caught. She glanced at the smiling young man standing nearby and bit her silver teeth, crying out in her heart: "Let’s see your true face! ’Killer’ won’t lose!"

"Gulp~"

Swallowing it all at once, her entire body melted into a sense of ecstatic paralysis; the scream never left her lips as she drowned in bliss.

She heard the flow of magma.

The air was thick with the biting scent of sulfur, but Yuchuan Ayaka found it so comfortable, so pleasant.

Her eyes, now containing majestic flames, opened and gazed down from high above upon the inner world of fire elements. In this moment, Yuchuan Ayaka was indeed the exalted Flame Queen, the sovereign of this world.

But suddenly, the sound of horse hooves came from beyond the sky.

Four horses of different colors, with wings on their backs, pulled a cage flickering with five-colored divine light, their momentum ferocious.

Yuchuan Ayaka realized she was imprisoned.

A faceless executioner stood before her, wielding a flaming whip.

Snap!

The whip came down fiercely, and even though this was her element world, her divinity, Yuchuan Ayaka felt a potent burning pain, involuntarily arching her back against a pillar, lifting her neck and letting out a low moan.

Her exposed spine touched the scalding pillar.

"Ah..."

She couldn’t control her scream.

"Submit?"

A voice thundered from beyond the sky.

Yuchuan Ayaka immediately clenched her teeth and endured, defiantly staring into the sky and shouting: "Never! I will not fail!"

Clang.

The cage suddenly opened below, the chains stretched out, and Yuchuan Ayaka screamed as she fell from the cage, landing directly into the scorching lava of the volcano’s crater. Her body was being eroded by the lava, her fair skin scarred and marred.

"Submit?"

That voice asked again.

Yuchuan Ayaka was completely lost and rendered speechless.

Reality.

Ordinary spectators saw nothing but exaggerated illusions, including Yuchuan Ayaka and the other contestants and judges, who tried the sashimi dipped in sauce and just petrified without any extravagant visions.

But Mars, Guan Xingchen, and others, a group of special chefs and Lin Chefs, all wore solemn, shocked expressions.

After a moment, all four judges broke free from the world of gastronomy.

"Good!"

Tiqie Xianzuowen gave his one-word appraisal, simple and crisp.

He faced the camera, his eyes hiding a sharp vigor. Many viewers watching the broadcast felt a thud in their hearts, instinctively shrinking in their seats.

"Complete!"

The Yuchuan Abbot exclaimed with a thrill, "The ’finisher’ dish is truly complete now!"

Chiyoda remained silent, picking a purple ingredient from the strands on the seasoning dish with her chopsticks.

"Perilla leaves..." Chiyoda gently bit into one, her facial contours softening, "So that’s it. The perilla leaves are indeed the key to this sauce; they unite all ingredients with a kind of love, melting them into one dish."

"Yes, what kind of perilla leaves are these? A stroke of genius!"

Master Yizhen from Shi Lin Temple murmured, "It’s just a common sauce dish, yet with it, it becomes an essential piece of the ’finisher’ recipe!"

"It’s not just about adding color, that simple!"

"Structure!"

"Turning decay into wonder!"

The four judges were completely oblivious to the camera, exchanging tasting notes with one another.

In the end, all four judges turned around simultaneously.

"Where did you find such perilla leaves?" Master Yizhen frowned, "Without them, there would be a lack of a crucial primer."

Xia Yu just shrugged, "I stumbled upon them by chance, and I only have one bunch."

"What a pity!"

The four judges continued their discussion.

After a while, Chiyoda Aichi plucked up the courage to come forward and asked, "Excuse me, Chef Xia, is there any suspicion of foul play?"

"Foul play?"

The Far Moon Commander shook his head, "The sauce was completed by him during the 3-hour cooking segment, service and tasting time is not counted."

"And moreover..."

"Moreover, what?" Chiyoda Aichi pressed on.

"We actually tasted two versions of the sashimi dish," Tiqie Xianzuowen revealed with a slight smile.

"Eh...?!"

Chiyoda Aichi was puzzled.

"Earlier, we tasted Chef Xia’s sashimi assortment in a sequence, devouring five types in one go."

"But now, we ate them separately, each type of sashimi bringing a whole new experience."

"So, you should understand why Chef Xia presented the sauce so late..."

Not only did Chiyoda Aichi understand, but the audience did as well.

A surge of astonishment.

The same assortment of fish slices, yet it felt like two different dishes?

Two forms!

Xia Yu listened on the side and chuckled to himself.

Without the sauce, it was just an appetizer, a journey through the nascent world of the Five Elements entwined.

With the sauce, each type of raw fish slice had a different world of attributes.

Competing in diversity, richness?

Unfortunately, when his ’finisher’ truly showed its colors, it would undoubtedly not be outdone by Yuchuan Ayaka’s ’Seven-colored Sea Cake’ in this aspect.

The sauce was a very crucial link in the ’finisher’ puzzle.

Without the sauce, one couldn’t talk about the various ultimate tastes and flavors.

"Pity..."

Xia Yu also sighed inwardly with regret.

Because that bunch of perilla leaves was too precious, he had researched them late into the night.

Due to the limitation of the perilla leaves, if he wanted to create this ’finisher’ dish again in the future, he would have to change the primer for the sauce.

To put it simply.

The dish at hand, from a material standpoint, was unrepeatable.