When Du Tang returned from his run, Lin Jianghe had already fallen asleep. Looking at Lin Jianghe’s quiet sleeping face, Du Tang walked over to him like a ghost.
He had run for an hour to calm down because of his words, and he had fallen asleep so heartlessly?
Du Tang’s expression grew colder and more solemn as he reached forward and pinched Lin Jianghe’s nose.
The sleeping Lin Jianghe frowned slightly because of his breathlessness, and it was only when he opened his slightly pink lips that his expression returned to its previous tranquility.
Looking at the slightly pink lips which were lined with white teeth, Du Tang’s heart started thumping.
The hot breath exhaled from Lin Jianghe’s lips tickled his palm, and Du Tang withdrew his hand as if he had been electrocuted. He turned and ran away without a word.
Looking at Du Tang’s back, Lin Jianghe almost laughed out loud.
[This is a bit too lame, isn’t it? I didn’t expect the black-bellied film emperor Du to be this kind of person. He’s kind of cute like this, when he’s thinking about the sun1想太阳: slang slang slang again! woohoo fck my life 🥰 Ahem. This one took way too long to research and I only managed to find that this phrase meant getting thirsty/ something s*xual right when my mom was staring right into my laptop to see what I was doing! It’s a good thing she needs a long time to actually understand and read english or I won’t be alive enough to post this chapter. This has one hell of a wordplay, and according to baidu, this is supposed to be a “Southwest slang”. The sun (阳) is written the same way as yang (which stands for men or masculinity). Missing the sun or thinking about the sun just means being thirsty…well I could be wrong tho, so if you think you have a better suggession feel free to let me know in the comments..]
[……]
[When we have a child, we’ll call them Du Ke ai2可爱 kě ài adorable; cute; lovely. MC has already thought of a name for his future baby, what do you think?]
[Yes, but do you have that function of fertility3It took everything I had to not write this as ‘Are you submissive and breedable?’ but Idk if anybody will appreciate the joke wheeeze?]
[No.]
Xiao Jiejie was unusually indifferent, [Oh, then stop daydreaming.]
[But it’s nighttime.]
[Just go to sleep already!] Xiao Jiejie was annoyed.
[Okay, okay.]
Lin Jianghe took it easy, and didn’t try to challenge the bottom line of Xiao Jiejie.
……
The next day, Lin Jianghe appeared in the studio with two dark circles under his eyes, and ruthlessly glared daggers at Du Tang’s back.
Last night he had dreamt that a group of children was chasing after him and calling out for their mothers. And just ‘calling’ was an understatement, because each one of them was noisier than the other. As a result, the entire night had been a peace less ordeal for him.
Du Tang turned around suspiciously and noticed Lin Jianghe, whose entire body was oozing resentment, as well as the two huge black circles under his eyes, and suddenly felt a little weak.
“Andy, you help Xiao Lin with his make-up.”
Andy was Du Tang’s personal stylist and had immaculate make-up skills.
“Okay Brother Du, Mr. Lin please come over for a moment.”
Lin He didn’t mean to refuse either, so he sat in front of the makeup mirror. Half an hour later, he came out with a refreshing and fresh face.
After the crowd had finished their breakfast, today’s show officially began.
“Hello dear viewers, this is your favorite Tao Ge4brother. Sorta like hyung(used by boys) or oppa(used by girls) in korean.!”
The barrage booed.
[Tao Ge, where’s your face5where’s your face: Do you have any shame?? ]
[My favorite person is obviously my male god, okay? ]
[The male god is handsome again today! ]
[Ha, ha, ha, I got up early successfully! ]
[Congratulations! ]
“Today’s game is called ‘I love cooking delicious food’.”
“In the previous two games, the norm was to get the ingredients first and then make the food. However, this time, we will change the order and let each group prepare the food first to get a score. This score will determine the kind of props our participants get for the next round.
The time limit for today’s food preparation is three hours, and this time, it will be the artists who will prepare the dish for evaluation. The chef can be on hand to guide, but cannot help directly.”
[Tao ge is up to something again! But I like it hehehehehehehehehehe]
[Upstairs is so creepy!]
[+1]
[Ah, I’m so jealous of the two chefs who can have the dishes cooked by my husbands6I hope y’all know this is not actual husband, just the affectionate (yet creepy) way a fangirl calls her idol or bias.!]
[I want to eat the goddess’s cooking too.]
[+1]
[+10086]
When she heard the ‘good news’, Guang Ling’s smiling face froze slightly, Liu Jingjing was also lost a bit of her smile, but Shen Zhizhi was confident; she usually cooked something at home tp eat occasionally, a simple dish would not be that difficult for her.
Du Tang’s face was devoid of either sorrow or joy.
Lin Jianghe looked at Du Tang, who seemed calm, and nodded his head, as if the result of this morning’s competition was already predetermined.
“What kind of dish are you planning to make?”
“I don’t know.” Du Tang glanced at Lin Jianghe, his tone light.
Lin Jianghe looked at him suspiciously, “Could it be that there are too many dishes that you know how to cook and you don’t know which one to pick?”
“I don’t know how to cook.” Du Tang touched his nose and spoke with some embarrassment.
Lin Jianghe held his forehead with one hand, feeling very tired, “I can understand that you don’t know how to cook, but why are you so confident?”
“Because you’re there7Alright, so maybe I’m kinda warming up to ML with this?.”
Du Tang’s eyes shone brightly as he looked at Lin Jianghe, who blushed and hurriedly turned his face away.
“You’re right, since you don’t know how to cook, we’ll just make a simple dish today.”
Lin Jianghe paced around while thinking for a moment and then looked up at Du Tang.
“Let’s just make some braised pork, how about that?”
“I’ll do whatever you say8都听你的: As you wish, I’ll obey you, whatever you say. This phrase kinda sounds romantic to me, am I alone in thinking this?.”
Looking at the two people getting along so well, the viewers in front of the pop-up screen were going crazy with sugar9eh… you can consider this as fanservice… but since their ship name is also considered as some sort of candy/sweet dessert, I thought I’d point that out….
[Ahhhhhh, so sweet!]
[The bowl of dog food10dog food is like pda. I think most of the ppl reading this know this already….. PDA = public display of affection in my hand suddenly doesn’t smell good anymore! Can’t we give single dogs a chance to live? It’s everyone’s responsibility to care for animals, don’t you know?]
[Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet!]
[The two are just partners, can CP fans please not bring up the rhythm11creating a topic or making something gain heat on social media?]
[Candy12Fan group name of Du Tang. This is the individual fans of ML who probably don’t want him to date fans have rushed to control the field.]
[I’m here to take away my little crane13Fan group name of MC. Cuz his livestreaming nickname is dinghe which is a type of crane (sowwy I forgot his exact name) child, no dates, no dates, we don’t date.]
[Crane fans have also rushed over.]
The CP fans were hammered by both sides’ fans and hid while shedding tears, not daring to venture out again.
By this time, Lin Jianghe and Du Tang had already returned to the kitchen with the ingredients they had chosen.
Lin Jianghe nodded in satisfaction as he looked at the ingredients that were enough to make three servings of roast pork and still leave some ingredients remaining.
“Let’s start processing the pork belly first. Heat the pot, then put the pork belly skin down into the pot.”
Du Tang did as he was told, and when Lin Jianghe saw that the meat had been cooked for a long enough time, he hurriedly asked him to take out the meat, which had turned golden brown in color.
“Now clean the pork, wash it and put it back into the pot, add water, add onion, ginger and wine, and boil it over high heat ……”
Du Tang was rusty, but still managed to do it step by step.
Lin Jianghe nodded in satisfaction, “Now cut the pork into pieces, be careful not to cut your fingers.”
Du Tang followed the instructions and picked up the kitchen knife and cut it up.
“You are holding the knife incorrectly,”
Lin Jianghe held Du Tang’s hand from behind and helped him change his posture.
“How’s that? Is it much more stable now?”
“Yes.” Du Tang spoke softly, as if sharing a whisper between lovers.
Lin Jianghe suddenly blushed a little and loosened his grip on Du Tang’s hand.
The CP fans were screaming madly inside, but they didn’t dare to say anything after having been scolded so badly14Getting hammered in their dog head: Dog head = stupid. silly, getting hammered: getting scolded. This idiom means getting scolded for their silliness by the other fans.
Under Lin Jianghe’s guidance, Du Tang managed to cut a portion of large and small pieces of meat.
‘I guess it’s not that hard to teach people how to cook.’ Just as Lin Jianghe thought this, the potato Du Tang was peeling rolled into the bin.
Looking at the pitted potato, Lin Jianghe was speechless.
“Forget it, don’t peel it, you can eat it with the skin on.
The two plates containing large and small potatoes and large and small pieces of meat were placed next to each other in perfect harmony.
Lin Jianghe turned his head away, not wanting to look at them, but Du Tang was a bit excited; it was his first time “cooking for himself” and it was quite interesting.
“Now let’s prepare the ingredients,” said Du Tang, who had successfully completed this step with the help of a weighing balance.
Lin Jianghe couldn’t help but praise himself for asking him to bring the scales just now.
He was so resourceful!
By this time, the preparation of the dish had reached its climax.
“Heat the oil in a wok, put in the pork first, then stir-fry.”
Due to Du Tang’s heartfelt efforts, a piece of pork belly fell out of the pot and Lin Jianghe pretended not to see it.
……
After two hours of hard work, a colorful and flavorful roast pork15
was finally ready, and by this time there were only ten minutes left before the stipulated time.
Looking at this bowl of braised pork, Jiang He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Instructing Du Tang to cook was much more tiring than cooking by himself.
Du Tang was also very tired and at the same time decided to give the cooking auntie16Not an actual aunt, it’s just basic courtesy to call others like this in Asian countries. a pay rise when he got back, cooking was just too hard!
“Time’s up, please send over your dishes for the two judges to taste.”
Liu Jingjing gave Zhang Tao a resentful look and brought out the vegetable salad17
she had only managed to make halfway through; there was no way around it, the talent of making a mess as soon as she started frying something was not a skill that everyone had.
Qian Jin squatted to the side sorrowfully and began to doubt life.
[Hahahaha, Chef Qian looks so pitiful like this!]
[Crying with laughter.]
[2333333318slang for loud laughter]
Shen Zhizhi confidently brought out the shredded apples19
she had spent all morning making.
Guang Ling expressionlessly brought out a plate of tea eggs20
.
What could he do? He was desperate too, okay!
Liu Jingjing was suddenly less upset when she saw Guang Ling’s tea eggs.
The first thing Zhang Ji tasted was the vegetable salad. As soon as the dish went down, Zhang Ji suddenly looked at Liu Jingjing with tears bubbling up in his eyes.
Girl, doesn’t the salt cost anything?
Liu Jingjing looked at Chef Zhang with a puzzled face. Was it so delicious? Look at him, all moved to tears! Did she have a talent for cooking? Wait, if Chef Zhang wanted to take her as his apprentice, how was she supposed to refuse him?
Zhang Ji swallowed hard, and Liu Heng, who had noticed his misery, picked up a vegetable leaf from the side21basically, since Liu Heng already noticed Zhang Ji’s misery, he decided to be prudent in what he chose to eat, and picked up a vegetable leaf from the salad to taste it..
Then came the shredded apples, which was not necessarily that good, but it was much better than the vegetable salad earlier.
Then were the tea eggs. They tasted moderate.
Finally, they turned their attention to the roast pork, and after the lesson they had just learnt, they only dared to pick up a small piece of potato and put it in their mouths.
Hmm? It actually tasted pretty good!
After finishing the dish in the small bowl, the two began giving their feedback.
“First is Group A. This dish is nowhere near the standard of Lin Jianghe’s own level, and the potatoes and pieces of meat are cut in large and small pieces, but it tastes pretty good.”
“Second is Group B. The shredded apples were well done and looked like they should be your specialty, it’s just that the number of ingredients in it was too small for it to be called a proper dish.”
“The tea eggs also tasted okay, but the skill level required for this dish wasn’t high enough, so they came third.”
“As for the vegetable salad, I suggest you just have rice for lunch.”
Liu Jingjing glanced at Zhang Ji suspiciously, feeling skeptical as she picked up a piece of tomato and put it in her mouth, her eyes glazed over and she almost forgot to spit it out straight away due to the jarring taste.
Then she grabbed a glass of water and gulped it under a single breath.
[Is the person who just said she wanted to eat the goddess’ cooking still there?]
[Leave the child alone!]
[Hahahaha]
Looking at Liu Jingjing’s miserable state, Guang Ling suddenly had a feeling that he had become the fox who grieved for the rabbit’s death22兔死狐悲 tù sǐ hú bēi lit. if the rabbit dies, the fox grieves (idiom); fig. to have sympathy with a like-minded person in distress. Fortunately he stopped in time, but he still had some doubts in his heart.
“How did you grasp the correct amount of seasoning, Brother Du?”
“Weighing scales.”
It suddenly dawned on the crowd. Why hadn’t they thought of this great idea before? Worthy of being Emperor Du!
Du Tang saw the crowd turn their reverent eyes to himself and realized that they might have misunderstood something, “This was Jiang He’s idea.”
The crowd turned their gazes to Lin Jianghe again. As expected of Chef Lin!
Awww ngl this chap made me feel that Du Tang was a bit endearing…… both of them are like those shy teenage boys experiencing puppy love in high school…. Sweet, awkward and innocent….. reminds me of my highschool days……….which were bland af. Ahem, moving on from my already forgotten shitty highschool memories, I want to tell y’all that I will, once again, go MIA for the next few weeks cuz my written exams are knocking the door. I will, however, post a few chapters now and then but I’m not sure if it will be this one or IAB (which I am also working on simultaneously). IAB is easier to translate because it has less idioms and/or slangs. I can normally translate 2-3 IAB chapters (which are double the length of the chapters from this story) in the time it takes to translate one chapter of this story. (this chap, for example, took me FIVE WHOLE HOURS tho that might be cuz I was a bit distracted by my friends panicking over the exams in the group chat… haha.. noobs…. I only study when my anxiety doesn’t let me sleep…. QWQ save me
I actually have caffeine intolerance and even a small amount of caffeine gives me hell, but if you want to donate a kofi for me, go ahead and I’ll bye a milk tea boba with it wheeeze
