Liuxiang

The chopsticks in Yi Baitang's hand suddenly stopped in mid-air.

What just happened?

He hesitated, chewing the food in his mouth in disbelief.

Longxu noodles are good, smooth, springy and chewy.

The ingredients are also okay. The noodle soup is cooked with seafood, which is quite sweet. There are cuttlefish, shrimp, and clams in the ratio of 1:3:3; mushrooms, vegetables, and eggs needless to say, can be seen intuitively with the naked eye; the rest The seasoning is nothing special, a spoonful of salt, a spoonful of ginger wine, and a quarter spoonful of pepper; Press the juice into the noodles, then turn off the heat and cover, and then slowly simmer for a period of time to finish, and finally start the pot.

Yi Baitang was a little puzzled: "Is it just like this..."

Dong En said with a dark face: "Yes, that's all. I'm sorry, I really let you down because I don't have enough unique skills."

It was only then that Yi Baitang realized that he hadn't paid attention to it just now, and directly told all the steps of his mother's making dragon beard noodles.This is just right, he seriously commented: "It looks like something coming out of the assembly line, not serious enough."

This bear boy!

Dong En was angry: "20 years ago you thought my cooking was bad, and 20 years later you still think my cooking is bad?"

Yi Baitang: "...forgot."

He thought about it again. I was a three-year-old child 20 years ago. At that time, I would have hated my mother's cooking.

Dong En sneered: "At that time, you were still a little old, and as soon as your head came out of the stove, you would move a small bench, step on the small bench and stand on the stove to make things for yourself. On that day, I I also made a bowl of noodles for you, and put these things in it..."

She was slightly dazed, and her eyes became distant because of memories: "At that time, I just divorced Yi Bingkun, and I was determined to make achievements in cooking. After returning home, I followed my father's teachings and did a lot of cooking. Dishes. But your grandfather and I have different ideas about cooking... Your grandfather is not tired of fine food and fine stew. He can prepare from raw materials in order to fully develop the taste of a certain dish in his imagination, no matter it is Whether he visits every market in the city or grows it himself, he will not give up until he achieves his goal. The longest time, he spent three years preparing a dish from start to finish.

"Perhaps since then, I have not been able to understand your grandfather.

"I also tasted that dish that took three years, but in the end I didn't think it was delicious. Maybe to some extent, that dish is indeed perfect, but even if it's not that perfect, I don't think it's delicious. I don’t believe those diners at that time could taste it. Anyone can taste it if there is a spoonful of sugar and salt or a spoonful or less; A quarter, or a tenth, how many people can really taste it? Are there five out of a hundred people?"

"Mom." Yi Baitang interrupted Dong En, and said objectively, "You are not suitable to inherit your grandfather's culinary skills."

long silence.

The woman's distant gaze fell from the wall back to Yi Baitang.

Time folds here.

The child sitting in front of her was getting shorter inch by inch, getting smaller little by little.

At the same time, the spacious and fashionable residence collapsed like dominoes, flipped over, and gradually turned into a small yellow old house that will always be shrouded in memory.

The mottled blue bricks, the stone stove, the firewood stacked at the foot of the wall, the fishing nets and miscellaneous things are stacked together, making people feel impetuous.

It seemed like a summer.

Last night, her father said this to her:

"Sizhen, you are not suitable to inherit my culinary skills."

Only this sentence easily erased all her hard work for a while.

Anger made her eager to have a big fight with her father.But no matter what she said or how she yelled, her father stood there forever, watching her silently like a mountain.

She didn't fall asleep all night, and perhaps eventually did.

But the next day, she had a headache that was about to explode, and she was sitting in the kitchen in a daze.

Baitang came in at this time.

The little child didn't know if he had heard the quarrel between her and grandpa last night. When he entered the kitchen, he pushed her lightly, but without getting a response from her, he moved the bench and stood by the stove automatically.

At this time, Dong En suddenly found that his memory was a little fuzzy.

She said just now that Baitang disliked the noodles she made 20 years ago.

Did she really make noodles for Baitang to eat?Did Baitang say anything?

She has forgotten.

But she remembered what happened next.

Standing in front of the stove, Baitang boiled water, added ingredients, and boiled the soup. It seemed like a long time, and finally brought a bowl of noodles in front of him.

She sat there in a daze for a long time, and when she received the bowl of hot noodles, she was indescribably moved.

She gave up everything during the divorce just to take the child away. Now, the little child tried every means to comfort her.

She picked up the noodles with a smile and took a bite.

Then... everything changed drastically.

From the bowl of noodles, she tasted the taste of her father's cooking.

She immediately remembered what she said last night.The question that was not uttered due to various reasons turned into a tsunami and turned upside down in her mind, screaming and furious, repeatedly questioning her father who was not here, and questioning herself.

I am your daughter!

You said that I am not suitable to inherit your cooking skills, so who else is suitable?

If you don't give the secret recipe to me, who else do you want to give the secret recipe to?

Anger occupied her whole mind, and she recalled the suggestion her father had made when she came back from divorce: Should I change Baitang's surname?

If Baitang is changed to Dong, then everything, secret recipes, guidance, connections, will it be a matter of course that the male heir will inherit it?

Even if it's just a little three-year-old?

She didn't know what she did in that moment of rage.

The crisp sound of shattering porcelain brought her back to her senses.

The noodle bowl fell to the ground, and the noodles, soup and other ingredients were all smeared on the ground, and the soup splashed far and far, so far away that it touched the winding blood.

She looked up, following the trail of blood spattering, and saw her child lying under the stove.

His eyes were closed tightly, his face was pale, blood flowed from his hair to his ears, dripped from his ears, and fell to the ground, forming pools of blood.

20 years time.

She has no way to face Baitang, because she has no way to face herself back then.

The cowardly and ugly self back then.

Yi Baitang looked at his mother.

At a sudden moment when he had just finished speaking, Dong En, who was sitting opposite him, suddenly covered his face with his hands.

Yi Baitang was taken aback.

Before Yi Baitang figured out what happened, drops of transparent liquid suddenly seeped out from between Dong En's fingers, and the choking and sobbing began to become uncontrollable as the liquid gathered, and each sound became more vivid.

Yi Baitang was forced.

Then he calmly, or at least pretended to be calm, dialed Yuan Hui's phone number and asked him to come back quickly to take care of his mother.

On the phone, Yuan Hui thought that something had happened and if he couldn't come back, he would have nothing to do next. He was so scared that he put on his wings and flew back. After entering the door, he saw, okay, his stepmother was hiccupping from crying, and pulled Yi Bai Tang's hand repeatedly said sorry; as for Yi Baitang, who was said sorry, his gaze was like seeing a savior, not to mention how shining it was.

Then Yuan Hui went up to help his adoptive mother hold Yi Baitang back, and gave Yi Baitang a comforting look: "A dead fellow Taoist is not a poor daoist, anyway, it's just this one time, just let it pass."

Yi Baitang: ...Damn it, I made a mistake, I should have called Little Sapling just now!

In the end, when Shang Huaiyan finished handling the company's affairs and came here, Yi Baitang had already figured out everything that happened in the past.

Apart from being serious the first time he listened to it, he was distracted throughout the second half of the journey, seriously thinking about why the noodles made by his mother were obviously not good enough, but it could open up his sense of taste that was temporarily closed due to frustration.

……

In fact, Yi Baitang understood in his heart.

It's like what the Great Demon King has always told him, cooking from the heart.

His mom's meals are only good for him.His meals are only good for young saplings.

But Grandpa has always been committed to it, and has successfully made the "heart" part of his cooking useful to all diners.

The mountains stand up.

It was also at this time that a vague feeling gradually became clear in Yi Baitang's mind.

Seems like a long time ago...

He seems to have eaten a dish.

He forgot what that dish was, and he didn't even know when he ate it, but the unknown taste had been remembered by his soul.

He knows that dish is delicious, delicious, and delicious.

He became obsessed with cooking, and wanted to reproduce the dish that Jun engraved in his soul.

But while tasting more and more different flavors, this flavor gradually faded from his memory.Later, he and his mother embarked on a similar but different path. They were not as good as the Great Demon King, so they went abroad to study, chasing the ultimate skills, and even tried to find a new path through dark cooking, but failed one by one.

The more tools, the finer the skills, and the dark cooking afterwards, the farther the distance between him and the diners was, and the distance between him and the big devil was getting farther and farther.

Because no matter how many amazing flavors he makes, the Great Devil always insists on hiding his full heart in the cooking and giving it to everyone. The Great Devil never admits that he is the King of Chefs.He only considers himself a good cook.

And he didn't realize it in time.

In the beginning and in the end, cooking is just a happy thing, a satisfying taste.

that is it.

That night, Yi Baitang couldn't sleep a little, and turned over and over on the bed.

Shang Huaiyan, who was sleeping next to him, yawned, thinking that after finally gaining his appetite, did he suffer from insomnia again...

He hugged him and asked lazily, "Honey, why aren't you asleep, or let's do some pleasant things in the adult world——"

Yi Baitang: "Huai Yan."

Shang Huaiyan: "Huh?"

Yi Baitang thought for a long time and asked, "What was your past like?"

Shang Huaiyan was taken aback: "Why do you ask this question suddenly?"

Yi Baitang: "I used to only think that the present is important, but now I realize that the past is as important as the future."

Shang Huaiyan carried some imperceptible contempt: "Let me think about it, there is nothing particularly novel..."

"Shang Huaiyan." Yi Baitang interrupted the other party, he called the person by name with a very serious expression, and then he made up his mind.

"I like you."

"Let's all be together in the future."