“What’s the matter!” Yu Antong exclaimed angrily, “Look, they all laugh at me because I looked like a penguin.”
“Aren’t they praising you for being cute?” Xing Lixuan pointed to a comment as a rebuttal, “No one laughs at you, everyone praises you.”
Yu Antong snorted. “That’s because I’m good-looking, so I can wear any clothes.”
“Well, you’re the best,” Xing Lixuan agreed with him. Then, he coaxed, “Stop swiping your phone and go to bed early.”
Yu Antong rubbed his stomach. ‘Smelly baby, making me unable to stay late.’
Yu Antong lay down in bed, counted the days, and muttered, “Why is pregnancy so long? Time flies too slowly, I feel like I have been pregnant for ages. But counting it, there are still quite a few months left before the due date.”
“This kind of thing can’t be rushed. You think it’s slow, but I think it’s too fast.”
Xing Lixuan saw that Yu Antong’s due date was getting closer, and he became more and more worried. Although the current medical field is very capable, even a woman’s pregnancy could still be life-threatening, let alone a man like Yu Antong who has no such precedent case.
Compared to Xing Lixuan’s worries, Yu Antong was much more worry-free. “By the way, our baby’s name still hasn’t been decided. Have you ever thought about it?”
Ever since he decided on the nickname Xiao Nian, they have been calling their baby this. The baby’s official name was still up in the air.
Xing Lixuan replied honestly, “I haven’t thought about it yet, I’ll buy a dictionary later.”
He had thought about names a lot, but every name he thought of was ill-fitting in various ways. Naming the little baby was much more difficult than negotiating business for him.
While the two were talking, Xing Lixuan’s cell phone rang. It was Xing Yin, Xing Lixuan’s aunt.
Yu Antong asked, “Why did Auntie call?”
“I don’t know,” Looking at the caller ID, Xing Lixuan had a vague guess in his heart. He answered the phone.
Xing Yin’s hearty voice came. “Lixuan, good evening. Hope I didn’t disturb your rest.”
Xing Yin lived in the United States, and there was a large time difference from China. It’s already 9 PM here, but it was still morning on her side.
“No trouble. Do you have any relevant doctor’s information?”
When Xing Yin returned to the United States after the New Year, she promised to help Yu Antong by searching for information about doctors. Xing Lixuan guessed that Xing Yin’s call at this time should be about this.
Sure enough, Xing Yin said, “Bingo! I really can’t hide anything from you. I found out about a doctor who had encountered special cases of male pregnancy. I sent his information and contact information to your email.”
Xing Lixuan was overjoyed, he was worrying about this matter, Xing Yin sent good news, he said: “Sister-in-law, thank you for taking care of us, I will contact the doctor as soon as possible.”
“Don’t be polite to me, how is Antong recently?” Xing Yin asked.
“He’s fine,” Xing Lixuan handed the phone to Yu Antong, and Yu Antong chatted with Xing Yin for a while before hanging up.
After talking with Xing Yin, both Yu Antong and Xing Lixuan felt much more relaxed. Now they knew that there existed a doctor who had handled such a case before.
“Go to bed first,” Xing Lixuan kissed Yu Antong. “I’ll go to the study to check the doctor’s information.”
If possible, he would send someone to invite the doctor here tomorrow.
“Mm,” Yu Antong nodded in agreement. But until Xing Lixuan came back from the study, he hadn’t fallen asleep yet.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, Yu Antong turned over, tilted his head and asked, “Have you finished researching him? How is it?”
“Not asleep yet?” Xing Lixuan lifted the quilt. He laid down next to Yu Antong, and held him in his arms.
“Can’t sleep.”
He was used to sleeping in Xing Lixuan’s arms, and when Xing Lixuan was not by his side, he couldn’t fall asleep even after a long time.
“That doctor is from a well-known American university, with rich clinical experience,” Xing Lixuan briefly told Yu Antong about the doctor’s information sent to him by Xing Yin, “As for the male pregnancy case he handled, because of patient secrecy, the information in this aspect has not been disclosed. I don’t know where Auntie got such information, so I can only find out the specific situation after seeing the doctor himself.”
“Yeah,” Yu Antong felt sleepy and yawned in a daze.
“Go to sleep.” Xing Lixuan didn’t speak any more, and fell asleep with Yu Antong in his arms.
Early the next morning, Xing Lixuan sent someone to the United States to contact Dr. Smith.
Fu Xin rested for three hours and was woken up by the alarm clock. He rubbed his face, got up and sent Yu Antong the details of the funds he worked overtime last night, and then called him.
“Mr. Yu, I have sent you the completed fund details, please check it.”
Yu Antong saw the file sent to his email. He replied, “Okay, I received it.”
Yu Antong checked all the figures, and after confirming that they were correct, he asked the big boss for his hard-earned money that he got by “selling his body”.
He called Xing Lixuan, and continued to play the role of little white flower, “Hello President Xing.”
Xing Lixuan received Yu Antong’s call, and heard this sentence as soon as he answered the call. He massaged his brows. “You’re still playing!”
“Haha!” Yu Antong laughed twice before talking seriously to Xing Lixuan.
“I see. I’ll go to the bank later and transfer the money to you.”
“Chu chu! Sending love~” Yu Antong turned on the video call, and kissed Xing Lixuan twice via the phone.
Xing Lixuan smiled. “Call me husband.”
This doggy man, whose face was so stinky when Yu Antong called him “husband” in the past, now keeps asking him to call him that with every occasion.
Character development truly existed.
“Husband!” Yu Antong groaned inside, but he still called him very sweetly.
After receiving the funds, Fu Xin worked overtime to carry out various plans, striving to open 10 branches as soon as possible.
Yu Antong was also preparing for the second shooting of “God of Chefs!”
Together with Jiang Yuxiu and Lin Haoning, he came to the program recording site in the Jiangcheng Radio and Television Building again. It was different from the crowded and lively scene last time. For this second episode shooting, there were only 24 groups of contestants left. This huge studio suddenly felt empty.
Yu Antong and his team put on their custom-made uniforms this time.
The upper body was a moon-white chef’s uniform with straight sleeves, a finger-width stand-up collar, gold-edged side-breasted buttons, with slim trim on the waist. They all wore black loose trousers underneath, and a white apron with pockets around the waist.
With this uniform, they all looked neat and professional. The red logo of Immortal’s Banquet was printed on the upper left-chest area.
Yu Antong was glad that his belly protrusion was not obvious. With an apron covering it, nobody would notice any abnormality.
After the first round of competition, many people were secretly looking at Yu Antong and his group.
Although the goal of the first round of the show was to win the approval of the judges, the judges only judged whether they passed or not, and did not rank them among those who passed. However, everyone knew that Yu Antong and his group were regarded as the uncrowned king.
Yu Antong didn’t care too much about other people’s stares. He wanted to go to the bathroom a little bit. Ever since he got pregnant, his frequency of bathroom trips had increased. He asked the staff and said that there was still a while before the recording started.
Thankfully, there was still quite a time, so Yu Antong and Lin Haoning went outside to the corridor area.
When he went to the bathroom, he happened to meet Jia Sibo, one of the judges and the sponsor of the show.
Jia Sibo was washing his hands next to him, and Yu Antong greeted politely. “Hello, Jia-laoshi.”
“Hello,” Jia Sibo nodded to him, took out a tissue to wipe his hands, and didn’t say much.
When Yu Antong walked in, he always felt that there were eyes staring at him from behind. He turned his head and saw that Jia Sibo was throwing the tissue into the trash can with his head down, and he was not looking at him.
Is he thinking too much?
Jia Sibo tidied up his clothes and walked out of the bathroom. Yu Antong didn’t think about it any more, and returned to the studio after solving his physical problems.
Not long after, the host appeared on stage, and the recording of the show officially began.
First, several groups of pictures of flowers blooming were played on the large electronic screen, including golden winter jasmine, pink and white pear blossoms, and large white magnolias…
The host came up and went straight to the topic. “Spring is coming! The weather is getting warmer, and many beautiful flowers are quietly blooming. The theme of our food this time is ‘flowers’.”
“All contestants here have five minutes to think about the dishes you made today that fit the theme, and then enter the gourmet supermarket specially sponsored by our Red Sun Rice Cooker to choose the ingredients you need. The countdown starts… now!”
Many flowers could be processed into delicacies, and it’s not too difficult. Taking flowers as the theme, the test was about ingenuity, to see how they can make food delicious and beautiful.
After five minutes, everyone had an idea. They ran to choose the ingredients they needed, and then returned to their places.
Yu Antong and his group chose sweet-scented osmanthus and some other ingredients. The scent of this flower was strong, and it could easily be the star of the show as long as it’s cooked well. It’s a good choice.
However, when everyone was ready to wait for the host to signal the start, the host said something shocking enough to stun everyone on the spot.
“Now, everyone, please put down the ingredients in your hands. The contestant next to each other will switch places.”
Seeing the disbelief on everyone’s faces, the host showed a villain-like smile, as if he was the cat that got the cream. It made some contestants want to rush forward and beat him up.
After everyone was stunned for a second, someone yelled reluctantly, “Ah! No way, exchanging the ingredients??”
“How can this be? Can we not change it?” A girl looked at the ingredients selected by the person next to her, and complained bitterly, “You actually took honeysuckle! Isn’t honeysuckle used as medicine or tea? I’m going to be cheated to death by you!”
Yu Antong, Jiang Yuxiu, and Lin Haoning looked at each other. There was some surprise, but they were not too surprised. What they expressed in their eyes was – the director really had some creative ideas!
When he was just choosing the ingredients, Yu Antong told them that the program team didn’t do anything in this episode, and they just honestly asked them to cook, which didn’t fit the tone of last episode, which had many ups-and-downs.
Sure enough, the program team was still as stubborn as ever. Although they would be late to do things, they would never be absent!
The program team should have also seen the online netizens’ comments on the first episode. Among these contestants, Yu Antong from Jiangcheng and Fu Fengxing from Shancheng were the most popular. At the same time, they were also the most handsome.
It wasn’t known if the staff actually put those two in the same table, so in this round, they had to switch places.
Fu Fengxing chose roses, including dried roses, fresh roses, and mint leaves.
Roses were also a relatively common flower that could be used for cooking. It was not difficult to cook with other ingredients. The thing is, Fu Fengxing also chose cuttlefish!
Lin Haoning scratched his ears and cheeks. “Master, how do we cook this?”
Yu Antong rested his chin and looked carefully at the ingredients Fu Fengxing had selected. He chose shrimp, chicken breast, sea salt, white pepper, ginger, garlic, rice wine…
‘What is this guy trying to do? He even took a food processor.’
‘Wait–’
An idea flashed in Yu Antong’s mind, and he snapped his fingers. “I see!”
Both Lin Haoning and Jiang Yuxiu came together and asked, “What?”
“I know what kind of dishes these ingredients can make,” Yu Antong said, “Huazhi balls1花枝丸; huāzhī wán. It’s quite a popular street food snack.! That is, cuttlefish balls.”
“These are indeed ingredients for Huazhi balls,” Jiang Yuxiu was still puzzled, “But Huazhi balls don’t use roses. The theme of our issue this time is flowers. How should roses be added?”
Yu Antong replied, “This requires us to innovate.”
Yu Antong recalled Jiang Liushen’s evaluation of Fu Fengxing’s beef noodles in the last episode. He said that he hoped to see his innovative dishes in the next episode. So, this means that Fu Fengxing planned to combine roses with Huazhi balls in some way to meet the judge’s expectation.
Cuttlefish is also called Huazhi in some places. When making Huazhi balls, there was “flower” in the first character of the name2花 “hua” means flower. The biggest problem with the theme was that roses must be cleverly incorporated into it.
Yu Antong thought for a while, and said to them, “We can mix rose extract with cuttlefish and chicken to make a puree. Thanks to the rose’s pigment, the puree should turn pink or red. After cooking it, we can carve it until it looks like a rose.”
Jiang Yuxiu and Lin Haoning nodded in unison. “This method is feasible!”
It’s much easier to make Huazhi balls after thinking about it. Jiang Yuxiu handled the cuttlefish, Lin Haoning peeled the shrimp, and Yu Antong squeezed the rose petal to gain its extract and put it aside for later use. Then, he washed the chicken breast and put it in the food processor, medium setting. The machine processed it until it was almost pureed, then he took it out.
Jiang Yuxiu removed the cuttlefish’s head, tore off a layer of film on the cuttlefish with his hands, and then cut it into small cubes, so that it would be easier to mash it later.
Lin Haoning peeled the shrimp, removed the shrimp vein, and took the meat.
After the two of them finished processing the ingredients, Yu Antong put the shrimp meat, diced cuttlefish and the chicken breast he had just pounded together into the food processor, added the rose extract, then mixed them all together.
Then, he added flour, ginger juice, rice wine, white pepper, and other seasonings. He vigorously beat the meat paste on the chopping board several times until the gluten was developed.
“Haoning, start the pot and boil the water.”
Yu Antong used his hands to roll the meat paste into an arc shape at the lower part and a slightly larger diameter at the upper part, so that it can be carved into roses later.
He put the meat paste into the boiling water, and took them out when the balls floated up. After it cooled down a little, Yu Antong asked Lin Haoning and Jiang Yuxiu to carve them into flowers, while he made a cup of mint tea with dried roses and mint leaves for the drink.
After the two of them finished carving the cuttlefish balls, they could put them on the plate.
Five pink “roses” were clustered together, and a piece of green rose leaves were placed on each of the four corners of the square porcelain plate. Red flowers and green leaves, it’s beautiful.
This dish was not time-consuming. When Yu Antong raised his hand to signal the host, some contestants were processing the ingredients while hesitating, what kind of dish they should make.
The host walked up to Yu Antong and said, “You are the first one to complete it today. I will let you know in advance that today the judges will select the top three among you. Do you have confidence in yourself?”
‘Since I had finished cooking, do you think it’s okay to disclose it in advance because I wouldn’t be able to re-cook it anyways?’
Yu Antong complained in his heart, but answered him with a smile. “I can’t guarantee to get first place, but I’m confident that I will place in the top three.”
“Good luck,” The host said and waved towards the gate where the judges were. The gate opened from the middle to both sides, and Yu Antong walked in with his dish.
After recording the show and returning home, Yu Antong remembered the strange sight of Jia Sibo staring at him when he went to the bathroom. No matter what he thought, it didn’t seem like his illusion. He searched Jia Sibo’s personal information.
The moment he checked his information, Yu Antong immediately understood why Jia Sibo seemed familiar at first sight.
Apart from being the boss of the Red Sun Rice Cooker Company, Jia Sibo also has another company, which was the entertainment company that Sang Yu worked for before.
He bought his shop from Sang Yu, and the reason why Sang Yu sold his shop and factory at a low price was that he had an extramarital affair with the boss of the company and was involved in scandals. In order to compensate for the high liquidated damages, he had to close the shop and sell it at a low price…
The boss of the company who fell in love with Sang Yu was Jia Sibo.
At that time, he wanted to buy Sang Yu’s store, and he saw Jia Sibo’s photo when searching for Sang Yu’s information, so he had a little impression of him. But at that time, he only thought it was gossip, and didn’t remember it seriously.
