Xing Lixuan was jealous to death, but he also knew that the showrunners deliberately enlarged some details in order to cater to the market. He only regretted not investing in this program and winning the right to speak.
Xing Lixuan was bubbling with sourness, but still pretended to be unaffected. “It’s okay, you continue to read yours, I understand.”
“What do you understand? You understand what?!” Xing Lixuan wasn’t jealous, but Yu Antong was not happy. “Why aren’t you jealous? Do you care about me anymore!”
In the last issue, some netizens called him “husband”, and Xing Lixuan was very unhappy. This time, some people matched him with other men, but Xing Lixuan didn’t express anything.
Xing Lixuan didn’t expect that Yu Antong would react like this when he pretended to be unaffected. The discomfort in his heart disappeared. Yu Antong really always finds an unexpected way to cheer him up.
He laughed and said, “Why am I not jealous? I’m actually going to die by drowning in vinegar. Isn’t it because I don’t want to affect your mood that I deliberately said it’s okay? You little heartless imp, you actually said that I don’t care about you. Don’t you remember that I just spent hours massaging your feet?”
Xing Lixuan pressed Yu Antong into his arms. Yu Antong could only smell the pine scent on Xing Lixuan’s body. He smiled and raised his head to kiss Xing Lixuan’s Adam’s apple, hugged his waist and apologized softly, “Husband, I was wrong.”
Xing Lixuan’s Adam’s apple is quite sensitive. Xing Lixuan was afraid that Yu Antong would provoke him, because Yu Antong’s current body was not suitable for doing certain exercises, so he quickly stopped Yu Antong’s movements. “Don’t make trouble, aren’t you still watching the show?”
Yu Antong kissed him, and said obediently, “It depends.”
The phone hadn’t paused the video, so now the host was talking to Cai Yingying.
“Cai Yingying, the other contestants have started to process the ingredients, but you are the only one who hasn’t moved yet. Do you have any ideas for your dish?”
Cai Yingying was wearing a short black A-line dress, a pair of high heels, and only a white apron around her waist. Her makeup was exquisite, and she looked incompatible with food variety shows.
She put a strand of hair hanging down behind her ear, and complained, “I hate honeysuckle the most. I never thought I could use it in dishes. I really don’t know how to deal with it. Can I change it to another ingredient?”
The host said, “No, other contestants also aren’t exchanging theirs. Fifteen minutes have passed, you have to hurry up.”
Because Cai Yingying acted too much, no one mentioned Yu Antong and Fu Fengxing in the barrage anymore, they were all scolding her.
[I just wanted to say that she kept complaining from the beginning!]
[Yes, the other contestants started to work after they were surprised. At most, they complained that the show crew was too ruthless. Only she kept complaining about her situation.]
[So incompetent!]
[Although… honeysuckle is really a bit too hard to cook.]
[Zhuang Zhouyang must’ve thought that honeysuckle can be used to make dishes. She couldn’t do it herself and blamed others for choosing the wrong ingredient. I’m really speechless.]
[Yes, it’s fine to complain once, but all she does now is just complaining non-stop. It would be too disrespectful to act like it’s all not her fault if she failed.]
Cai Yingying showed a look of indifference at the end. She washed the honeysuckle, put them in a pot and added water to boil, then filtered out the impurities and left only the soup. She put ginger and ham slices in it and boiled for 20 minutes. After a few minutes, she added winter melon into the soup, then seasoned it with MSG, salt, pepper, and chopped green onion.
[The more you look at her, the more you hate her. Can the show skip her part already!]
[Don’t worry, I bet she’ll be eliminated.]
Yu Antong looked at the barrage and thought that they would be disappointed, because he knew that Cai Yingying was not eliminated.
An hour later, the judges had tasted all the contestants’ dishes.
Sun Ming: “After discussion among our five judges, we unanimously selected the top three contestants in this round, and then we think the three contestants with the worst dishes will leave here.”
“And the top three will get 3 points, 2 points, and 1 point respectively. Every time a contestant accumulates 3 points, they have a chance to nullify an elimination. It’s equivalent to getting a resurrection card. So, if you perform poorly on one occasion, you can still safely make it to another round.”
Then everyone nervously waited for the judges to reveal the ranking.
Jiang Liushen first said, “Your salmon roll with osmanthus plum sauce perfectly combines the tenderness of salmon, sweet and sour plum, slightly spicy pepper, and the aroma of osmanthus. It is a very delicious dish. For a successful innovative dish, we decide you, Fu Fengxing, to be the third place.”
Fu Fengxing seemed a little dissatisfied with this result, a look of disappointment flashed across his face, but then he bowed to the judges to thank them.
Then Qing Ning continued, “Yu Antong, your rose-themed Huazhi balls are beautiful, and the taste is astounding! It harmoniously combines the unique taste of cuttlefish with a rose’s elegance, which fits the theme of our issue. Congratulations on your second place!”
Yu Antong bowed to the judges. “Thank you for your compliment.”
To be honest, Yu Antong felt that it was fair for him to get the second place in this episode, because the ingredients limited his performance, and at the beginning he didn’t know that this episode would be ranked. For this matter, he didn’t exert 100% of effort into the taste, instead focusing on making the most visually-appealing dish instead.
–It was precisely this arrogance that he felt short of first place. This taught him a lesson.
Jia Sibo announced that the first place was Zhuang Zhouang.
Zhuang Zhouyang is a middle-aged man with an ordinary appearance, the kind that would be unrecognizable in a crowd. In the first episode, he was remembered as the “kind-looking” uncle, but he unexpectedly became the dark horse of the second episode.
[As expected of the big brother who dares to choose honeysuckle.]
[I really want to know what kind of dishes this big brother originally planned to use honeysuckle.]
[I agree!]
Immediately afterwards, the judges announced the last three to be eliminated, and they would leave directly.
[What? Cai Yingying isn’t one of them?!]
[Her stewed winter melon soup doesn’t taste good at first sight.]
[Didn’t you notice that the part where the judges tasted her dishes seemed to be cut? Only Jia Sibo commented that it was okay, no other judges commented on her at all.]
[Since she wasn’t eliminated like this… could it be that, there’s someone behind her?]
[Does a food variety show still do this?]
Yu Antong frowned. In this show, as long as the contestants prepare the dishes within the specified time, they could raise their hands for the judges to taste. This process will be projected on the large electronic screen, and other contestants could also see it. It was open and transparent.
So he knew the evaluation of Cai Yingying by the five judges at the scene. Jiang Liushen’s evaluation was: “Honeysuckle tastes sweet yet bitter, and it’s cold in nature. It’s classified as a heat-repellant and detox agent in traditional medicine. It’s a very good idea to incorporate it into a winter melon soup.”
Sun Ming said, “The taste is smooth. If honeysuckle is decocted for a long time, it will make the soup have a pungent taste. But I didn’t taste it in your soup, showing that you handled it well.”
Shen Yuexin said, “The taste is mediocre, but it’s not easy to add honeysuckle and make it not bad.”
In short, the evaluation of her by several judges was not bad. He didn’t understand why the showrunner edited her like this.
To dispel his curiosity, Yu Antong called Han Lele. “Hello? Lele, have you watched the second episode? What’s going on with Cai Yingying’s editing? I think the discussion on the Internet is quite fierce.”
Han Lele said, “Don’t mention it, the company was too careless when it recruited sponsors for this show, so Jia Sibo became one of the foremost sponsors.”
“Is there something to do with Jia Sibo?”
“Yes. Did you know about Jia Sibo cheating scandal with Sang Yu last year?”
“I know that.”
Han Lele explained, “He cleans up very well. When the company was recruiting sponsors, he looked fine. But I didn’t expect that he would dare to have an affair again after being exposed once. He really can’t change his shit. I don’t know the details, but he has an affair with Cai Yingying, and he promised her that she would be allowed to enter the final.”
The more Han Lele spoke, the angrier he became. “Actually, this Cai Yingying is quite capable, but it’s a pity that she didn’t follow the right path and insisted on messing with Jia Sibo. Cai Yingying can last a few rounds with her own strength, but with the current contestants, it’s doubtful whether or not she can last into the final. The company must not agree to Jia Sibo’s request, otherwise a good show will be ruined. However, that bastard Jia Sibo actually threatened us to withdraw his investment if we didn’t agree to his request! This editing is a warning from the company, showing that we will not easily bend to his whim.”
Yu Antong couldn’t figure it out. “This isn’t a celebrity talent show, right?”
“I only found out about the messy situation after I got to work,” Han Lele lamented, “Cai Yingying is very ambitious. It seems that she is planning to use this fame to directly become a controversial celebrity, as there’s no such thing as ‘bad publicity’. Then, she will sign with Jia Sibo’s entertainment company and made her debut. With that, she would be quite famous at debut.”
Yu Antong became worried. “But editing like this will have a great impact on the reputation of the show.”
Han Lele assured him, “It’s okay. The reason why I found Jia Sibo as a sponsor at the beginning was because the ratings of food variety shows were not optimistic. No one was willing to invest. When Jia Sibo agreed to invest, the company had no choice but to agree. Now that the first episode of this show is popular, I’m optimistic that even if Jia Sibo withdraws his investment, we can easily get another one.”
“As soon as he withdraws his investment, the company will find someone to reveal the inside story, and the misunderstanding can be cleared up immediately. The show then will gain a good reputation as a ‘clean show that will not open any backdoor’.”
Yu Antong didn’t expect that there would be so many twists and turns. As long as it can be solved, he will not worry. He just wanted to put on a good food variety show and promote the Immortal’s Banquet, so he didn’t want to talk about so many things.
“You’ve been annoyed by this recently.”
“Fortunately, I have my brother to help,” Han Lele’s brother is still reluctant to let Han Lele get involved with these messy things. So he was very involved with the show, and would resolve problems as quickly as possible. Han Lele was only responsible for some normal business of the company.
Yu Antong chatted with Han Lele for a while before hanging up the phone.
Xing Lixuan listened to the general idea beside him. He was regretting that he didn’t invest in this program at the beginning. But now, a golden opportunity came.
The author has something to say:
President Xing: Let me see who dares to set up a CP for my wife!
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