Terra Nova, outside the Abyssinian Palace, West Court.

The large cooking room was busy with players in white shirts and blue pants around wooden cases and stoves.

In five days, Emperor Fuchiya's fifteenth birthday will be celebrated, and not only will there be a large-scale celebration dinner at the palace, but an all-day parade and festival will be organized throughout Kyoto.

"Faster, faster, the hour for the king to pass the meal is almost here, and later on your handmade delicacies will be the basis for whether or not you can stay as a loose cook."

The woman in charge, Apricot Leaf, is in her thirties, with a purple shirt and pants, wandering around every corner of the cooking room with a stern look, urging the contestants with her mouth, and repeatedly scrutinizing their cooking techniques with her cold and warm gaze.

The twenty casual chef applicants came from Terra Nova folk, both men and women, and most of their referrals were cooks and assistants who worked in the big cookhouse.

His eyes abruptly stopped, Master Apricot Leaf stopped his footsteps in front of the wooden case near the corner of the wall, and his cold eyes stared directly at the middle-aged woman behind the wooden case with a white chignon and a bland and uninteresting appearance.

"Hey, dumbass, what are you cooking?"

Master Apricot Leaf's gaze was slightly downcast, looking at the woman's chopsticks constantly stirring the egg liquid in the wooden bowl for a moment, his brows tightly locked revealing extreme dislike, and he could not help but ask a muffled question in Terra Nova.

The woman hurriedly stopped the work in her hand and looked up to smile at the mistress of the house, whose brow was cold and disdainful, and nodded her head curtly.

"Che, you're dumb anyway, you won't answer even if you're asked, just wait to be brushed off as a handyman!"

Master Apricot Leaf rolled her eyes and gave the mute a blank stare, chanting to herself as she walked away.

The smile lines rippling at the corners of the middle-aged woman's lips abruptly closed, and the clear light in her eyes flickered with complexity.

This mute woman who couldn't speak was none other than Yun Shi's disguise.

The day before yesterday, she had accompanied the Heavenly Diffraction Sect Protector Nan Zhujiao to find the disciple who had retreated from the sect, and with his help, she had accompanied his Terra Nova wife to smoothly enter the Kyoto where Emperor Genya was located.

After a few weeks of maneuvering ensued, she finally managed to blend in with the big cookhouse.

As the saying goes, everything changes.

Being in a foreign country, the environment is unfamiliar, but there is not much difference between Yingren's cookhouse and Da Yi.

On the first day of entering the Grand Cookhouse, Yun Shi also remembered the former head of the Grand Cookhouse, Sakata Akira, who had followed Great General Genkura on his mission to Da Yi, and who had competed with her in front of the square of the Golden Hall in a competition of culinary skills, but who had become unlucky because of it.

The reason why Yun Shi had disguised herself as an old woman in her forties to blend into the Yuan Ya Clan's palace was simply to minimize unnecessary trouble.

For many days to come, she would eat and live in the small courtyard of the West Court outside this palace.

On the way to Ying Kingdom, Yun Shi had patched up the Ying language with the two guards, Xiao Wu and Hei Liu.

Right now, she could fully understand some simple Terra Nova, she just had trouble with conversation.

For this reason, she simply passes herself off as a mute.

The current head cook, Apricot Leaf, is extremely snobbish and does not care about a mute person applying for a job as a cook.

So at the beginning of this test, she intentionally made things difficult for Gu Yunshi, distributing to her only some eggs and a few seasonings.

In the eyes of Master Apricot Leaf, this mute was born with the life of a handyman, and later on, with just a few eggs, let's see what kind of superb cuisine she can make to conquer the Emperor's stomach.

As soon as the allotted time was up, the matron immediately called out, ordering all the conscripts to stop work and put down their cooking utensils and stand behind the wooden case.

Twenty wooden cases, twenty plates of food, each exquisitely shaped and seductively colored.

The hostess walked slowly, browsing carefully, and a slight smile finally appeared on her stereotypically cold face.

Suddenly, her pupils tightened and a plate of something yellow was clearly reflected within.

"Mute, what the hell are you, what the hell are you doing?!"

Master Apricot Leaf pointed his finger at the strange food on the sweet white porcelain plate on the wooden case and questioned Gu Yunshi with two glaring eyes, the whites of his eyes propped up to the limit in a very creepy manner.

Mute to make something like a cake is not a cake, like a soup is not a soup, it is like a big soft cake battered the whole plate.

However, although its appearance is slimy and shapeless, it is yellow in color and moist, which makes it extremely eye-catching when put together with the many delicacies that are either raw chopped food, soup noodles or fire wheel rolls.

Yun Shi's disguised mute didn't care how Master Apricot Leaf's expression was, he did what he had to do.

Unperturbed, she opened the jar of cinnamon sauce and stirred up a spoonful of the sweet-smelling honeyed syrup with a wooden spoon to drizzle over the edges of the soft, golden pancake.

With full curiosity, Master Apricot Leaf bent down to sniff at the soft cake, and a rich aroma of egg yolk mixed with the sweetness of cinnamon rushed into her nostrils, then slipped into her esophagus.

The hostess couldn't help but swallow, her eyes baffled, revealing a hint of surprise.

"Hey, what's the name of this dish anyway?"

She was finally willing to lift her noble sight and take a proper look at Gu Yunshi.

Yun Shi's mouth was half-open, emulating a mute's voice by making incomplete syllables "ah, ah" and gesturing back and forth with both hands.

Master Apricot Leaf immediately dodged eight feet away, followed by waving his hand at her in boredom: .

"Hey forget it, no one can see what the hell you're gesticulating about. Anyway, even if this dish is offered, the king won't like it!"

She raised an eyebrow with a grim grin and turned toward the door of the cookhouse and high-fived it.

A line of male attendants entered in an orderly fashion, incorporated the beauty of the conscript's handiwork into a lacquered tray, and lined up for the palace.

The rules for Emperor Fuchia's meals differed little from those of Emperor Da Yi.

In the case of daily meals, each dish is presented to the Emperor's table and is tasted by the head of the Grand Cookery Room before it is served.

In the case of a banquet, it is served to the ministers at the banquet table after the master of the big kitchen has tasted it.

This was done for the sole purpose of preventing the cooks from poisoning the Emperor's meals.

However, right after the Emperor of this dynasty, Yuan Ya Qing, ascended to the throne, the rules for meals at his banquets were additionally added by the three auxiliary generals, that is, the food that was tried and tested to be non-toxic was to be set aside additionally and distributed to the three auxiliary generals.

Only after the Emperor had eaten did the three of them agree to eat.

In this way one cannot help but feel that the three auxiliary ministers, Genkura, Kamagawa and Kazushige, seemed to have a much higher status than even the Emperor.

Today is the day the Emperor selects the chefs for the Birthday Banquet, and the evening meal will be served according to the banquet style, with the Emperor leading the Shogun Wamo and the ministers.

Master Apricot Leaf followed the maitre d' to the banquet hall on the first floor of the palace and prostrated himself on the floor in homage to Emperor Fuchi Masaharu.

Then, as a rule, she held the chopsticks and saucer and took a little taste from each of the twenty dishes, then passed it on to the ministers in the seats on the right and left.

When pinching the unknown thing that Gu Yunshi had made, the sticky and soft body of the cake unexpectedly slipped and rolled back from the chopstick head into the porcelain plate.

The hostess frowned and went for a second chopstick, which still didn't come up.

What the hell!

Cursing inwardly and with some annoyance, the hostess went straight to poking the golden soft cake with her chopsticks, pressing a deep pit into its smooth surface.

The chopsticks were only raised, and the crumbled pastry was gathered up a little in front of her eyes, returning to its original shape.

What the hell is this!

Could it be that the mute was dissatisfied with the ingredients assigned and intended to get back at me?

The matron pressed the end of her brow in dark speculation.

"Hey, what are you doing! Hurry up and try the food, and pass it on to the other ministers!"

A male waiter, empty lacquered tray in hand, stood in front of the mistress's low, square table, disgruntled and prodding.

"Good, good ......"

The hostess smiled in embarrassment, and had no choice but to replace the bamboo chopsticks with a wooden spoon and cut a small piece from the soft golden cake, holding it tightly with her chopsticks, into her mouth.

Full of flavor ......

The female principal's plump body seems to be instantly fixed in general, thoughts empty, only the lips and teeth slightly wriggling, with a stunning and a sub suppressed want to be moved to cry out of the impulse, savor that in the tongue _ between the teeth of the sweet and tender marvelous feeling.

With a look of impatience, the male waiter slanted a hard look at the hostess's lack of talent, copied the plate and left.

Unbeknownst to her, the scene where she repeatedly used her chopsticks to fetch the food without being able to do so was all clearly seen by the Emperor on the chief.

A teenager, he had never seen food as interesting as that.

The dishes, which had been tried and tested by many, were presented to the table, but despite the pleasing colors and flavors, they were all traditional Terra Nova cuisine, with little to distinguish them from one another.

The young tianzi slowly took the lacquered and carved bamboo chopsticks and tasted them in turn, his expression listless without much change.

It wasn't until the soft, golden pancake was placed in the hands of the waiter that the teenager's eyes lit up.

The otherwise round, golden pancake had been divided to the point where it was nothing more than a small, shapeless corner, lying alone in the center of the flat plate, like a wounded beast.

To the teenager's eyes, it looked funny.

The teenager looked at, the corners of the shallow arc of the lips slightly moving, a small "pfft" laugh out loud.

He carefully under the chopsticks, through the mutilated soft cake picked up, repeated a good moment to see before a few mouthfuls of food into the belly, by and by, showing a look of intent.

"What is the name of this dish?"

Asked by the sudden Emperor, Master Apricot Leaf was inwardly shocked.

The look on the King's face suggests that he's in love with this strange food?

But, but the author of its hand is a mute, who knows what she has been gesticulating about in the cookhouse in his time.

What should I say to the King when he asks?

This delicacy is derived from egg yolks and has an oily_smooth_bead-like ...... appearance!

The hostess was inspired to run and worship and answer.

"Back to the king, this dish is called 'Gui Xiang Oil Egg'."

The teenager stopped speaking and threw the plate into the lacquered bucket of the attendant at his side.

The bottom of the plates holding the twenty dishes each have a different marking engraved on them, corresponding to the embroidered pattern on the left arm of each casual chef candidate.

Later, the person whose sleeve emblem corresponds to the markings on the bottom of the plate will be chosen to be the loose chef for the Emperor's birthday banquet.

If they were any better at that time, they would probably be hired by the Grand Cookhouse and become full-fledged cooks.

Master Apricot Leaf's eyes were fixed on the lacquer bucket.

She was simply stunned, not at all expecting that the four-alarm dish, which was not in her favor at first, to be favored by the Emperor.

"Slow down! Has the king taken a fancy to this osmanthus-scented oil egg?"

The question came from the first seat on the right side of the lower head of the man with a round and fat body, he squinted two bloated as a bubble of goldfish eyes, seemingly smiling, not smiling, looking at the upper head of the teenager, snorting.

"This general does not think that this dish is good at all, and the author of it is not qualified to be a loose chef of the Great Cookery."

The young man's clear eyes blinked, and he turned his head to look again into the lacquered bucket in the waiter's hand, before he said to the fat courtier.

"I think ......"

"Hmm?"

"......"

Look at each other, see the fat man's stern eyes and fierce eyebrows, the young man immediately looked grave, lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, Nuono said.

"I, I think...it's delicious ......"

"Yes?"

The fat man got up with a sneer and walked over to the maitre d' in full view of everyone, reaching down to pick up the porcelain plate with cinnamon sauce stuck to it from the bucket and casually flinging it out.

The plate fell to the floor, the sound of shattering ringing especially harsh in the peaceful silence of the banquet hall.

The fat man looked around at the ministers on both sides who buried their heads in silence, and laughed wildly on his back for a few moments, the corners of his eyes flying wantonly: .

"The things that I and Maocui have done are naturally for the good of the king, so the king can just accept them. I have already said that the author of this dish's handiwork will never make the cut!"

The teenager sits straight up to silence, his face receding inch by inch into numbness, and eventually he lowers his head in a felicitous compromise: the

"Yes, General Kazuma is right. This dish is not good...its conscripts cannot be casual cooks."