Reborn in Japan as a Chef God
Chapter 563 - 562: Before the Finals

Chapter 563: Chapter 562: Before the Finals

Before the final match, the official interviews would continue for three days.

This was a consistent promotional tactic before the competition, where two filming teams would be stationed at Far Moon and White Jade Tower’s lodgings, capturing live footage of the final teams’ preparations and creating a tense atmosphere for the ultimate showdown.

Among them, the battle between Xia Yu and the youngest special chef member from White Jade Tower garnered the most attention.

Not to mention the Japanese internet, the online community in Mainland China was also abuzz.

Of course, amidst the noise, there was another voice from the Chinese Cuisine World—

The two most watched young chefs were both compatriots!

Thus, bursting with pride, the public didn’t care who won or lost, as long as these two young talents drew the world’s attention and made the world exclaim; wasn’t that bringing fame to the Chinese Cuisine World?

The day before the competition.

The villa where White Jade Tower stayed.

Li Han was browsing Weibo, checking the barrage of encouraging private messages.

Undoubtedly, this Li Family scion was very famous, with countless supporters. In China, he was as popular as the nation’s husband from another Earth’s timeline, with a terrifying number of Weibo followers.

"Hmm, let’s tweet at him!"

The great battle was tomorrow, but Li Han wasn’t very nervous. After glancing at his private messages, he posted a tweet and tagged Xia Yu:

"Chef Xia, let’s both do our best tomorrow!"

Unexpectedly, right after his tweet was posted, he got a response:

"On the night of the full moon, at the summit of the Forbidden City—"

"Let’s battle!"

On the night of the full moon, at the summit of the Forbidden City?

After a moment of surprise, Li Han’s blood boiled, and he sprang up from the couch, replying, "Battle! Battle! Battle!"

Following the text were rows of flexing muscle emojis.

"This Li Han is kind of interesting."

At Ookura Mountain Villa.

Coincidentally, Xia Yu was also checking his private messages on social media platforms like Weibo, Facebook, and Twitter. His fanbase had exploded over the past few days, and his fans were unhappy with his Divine Dragon-like elusive presence. So, after learning about his fans’ sentiments from Sen Tian Makoto and the Yuchuan Sisters, Xia Yu made time every day to interact with his fans on social media.

His interaction with Li Han immediately drew a crowd, with the replies and shares breaking a hundred thousand in just half an hour.

Apart from the words of support, fans also asked Xia Yu to share more cooking knowledge and take them into the world of gourmet chefs.

In response, Xia Yu happily obliged. Each day, he cooked a dish filled with his personal style, took a photo, posted it on social media, and shared the recipe, allowing his skilled fans to try and recreate the dish. Over the last two days, quite a few fans had submitted their ’homework’, tagging him for review and affectionately calling him ’National Instructor Xia.’

"Please, Instructor Xia, check my homework!"

A Weibo friend posted cheerfully, sharing a direct video link with him.

This was from a well-known culinary blogger named Mu Xiaoyue. She was a compatriot Xia Yu had entertained when he first took over Xia’s shop. Half a year had passed, and their contact was sporadic.

Curious, Xia Yu opened the video, which was hosted on the popular Chinese bullet-screen website Bilibili. The video began with a sweet female voice saying:

"Firstly, I’d like to thank our Chef Xia for sharing such an interesting recipe. As a devoted fan of Chef Xia, I didn’t hesitate to go out and buy the ingredients as soon as I saw the Weibo post... whew, let me catch my breath—"

The scene switched to a home kitchen with a cozy style.

Mu Xiaoyue waved to the camera and smiled with dimpled cheeks, "So, please take a look at the quality of my homework."

Then, she turned, took cleaned vegetables like onions and carrots, and chopped them finely.

She started by stir-frying the side dishes before Mu Xiaoyue took out jujubes, pitted them, and cut them into small pieces to soak with rice.

"Chef Xia said that the jujube bits should be mixed with rice in a soy milk machine to pulverize into a paste," the culinary blogger explained, noting many little details to pay attention to, like "the rice needs to be crust from the bottom of the pot, as it’s better for the texture when blended..."

The video swiftly showed the blending of jujube rice paste and brown sugar syrup, and Mu Xiaoyue cheerfully said, "Those who like brown sugar can add more. Chef Xia’s recipe indicates it tastes good without brown sugar, but adding more won’t ruin the flavor."

Xia Yu watched with relish.

It was a very ordinary "Breakfast Egg Crepe Roll" recipe. However, it included his little touches of creativity; for example, mixing date paste with brown sugar and rolling it into long strips to serve as a filling within the egg crepe. When eaten together, it can invigorate the blood, replenish Qi, nourish the blood, and elevate blood sugar levels. Don’t underestimate this breakfast recipe; Xia Yu, after all, had imbued it with the traditional medicine philosophy of "food and medicine sharing the same origin", making it both healthy and nurturing.

The video lasted about 20 minutes.

He watched from beginning to end, and finally, Mu Xiaoyue held up a plate of red date paste-filled crepe dessert with delight and said to the camera, "I hope Instructor Xia won’t skimp on his comments!"

During the process, there were quite a few bullet comments, and the content was very interesting; it was apparent that Mu Xiaoyue had a lot of fans.

After watching, Xia Yu tagged Mu Xiaoyue on Weibo:

"There’s not much to say, just that the heat control when frying the crepe was a bit off, but the flaw doesn’t obscure the virtues. I give you an excellent score of 90 points!"

"Yay~"

An immediate reply came from the other side, along with a smiling emoji, "Thank you, teacher, for your correction."

"Teacher, please do your best tomorrow!"

Mu Xiaoyue added one more comment.

Xia Yu turned off his phone, feeling quite pleased. He stood up from the living room couch and stretched lazily. The afternoon sun streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, warming his body. He walked to the window and looked out to see a busy scene at the villa’s gate. For a moment, he felt no irritation at all; instead, a sense of desire to fight gradually grew in his chest...

"That’s right, I have to do my best."

"The final showdown of the last Championship must be a splendid victory, a perfect cadence to my winning streak in the tournament," Xia Yu thought to himself.

The Sapporo Legendary Kitchenware Competition had three stages.

The first stage, "Special Chef Showdown," was open to the world. The public could watch the flair of each special chef via live broadcast.

But starting from the second stage, "Lin Chef Showdown," the event became closed.

The battles of Lin Chefs would not be open to the public, and each duel had a limited number of viewing seats available. To obtain a ticket, one had to apply through the official website of the event committee, and only those with the status of special chef or higher stood a chance of getting tickets. Of course, the wealthy and powerful surely had their private channels.

So, the final showdown of the "Special Chef Showdown," with the officials going to such lengths to promote it and build momentum for the two teams, could be seen as the last hurrah.

Standing for a while with nothing to do, Xia Yu decided to go to the kitchen to practice.

It’s been a while since he got his hands on the "Four Divine Seafood Eight Treasure Soul Suppressing Dumplings" recipe, but progress had been sluggish. Xia Yu planned to delve into it wholeheartedly after the finale.

...

A seemingly tranquil night passed like that.

The following day.

November in Hokkaido had already entered winter. The air was cold in the early morning, but the number of cars surrounding the villa showed no signs of decreasing. The media arrived on time for their stakeouts as if heading for work.

Inside the villa’s dojo.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

Dojima Yin, dressed in loose clothing, pulled open the doors of the dojo. It was then that he discovered a young man who had gotten up early and was practicing his punches and kicks on a sandbag in the corner. He had been at it for a while, and the evaporating sweat had even formed a mist of vapor above his head.

"Ha, you’re pretty relaxed."

Dojima Yin stood with his arms crossed and laughed heartily.

Xia Yu stopped, found a towel to wipe his sweat, and grinned at Dojima Yin, "General, fancy a spar?"

Hmm?

Dojima Yin narrowed his eyes, assessing his features, and suddenly said, "You have a murderous aura."

"Truth be told, I can’t hold it back anymore..." the young man didn’t deny, but instead said with a smirk.

"In another 2 hours, we’ll be heading to the venue."

With that, Dojima Yin stood in the center of the dojo and waved the young man over, "So, before that, let’s spar to get rid of some of that fire. Honestly, my blood is heating up too..."