Chapter 44: A Bite Of China’s Challenge
Boasting in front of others feels great for a moment, but brainstorming alone afterward is a funeral pyre for brain cells.
This was Xiang Chuan’s real experience after returning home.
“What to do… what should I do…”
She had the servant move a chair to the kitchen, sat in front of the refrigerator with both hands propping up her chin, frowning at the ingredients and fruits in the refrigerator just like cosplaying a certain commander.
What is the most suitable assessment question for modern people?
This was truly a brain cell-draining task for Xiang Chuan, whose memories were mostly 21st Century common knowledge.
After all, she still couldn’t understand even now why modern people didn’t consider heating ingredients, didn’t consider processing food (of course, not that so-called processing into liquid food and solid food), and even resisted using internally heating kitchen equipment like the oven… These issues were too complex for Xiang Chuan, who was currently still worrying about the lack of ginger and soy sauce, so she put them all aside.
Not thinking about it naturally meant she wouldn’t make any “giveaway” moves, but it also left her worrying about the club assessment question at this moment.
Text questions were ruled out first; if they were actually used, probably only a few genius first year high school students researching plant biology could answer one or two, let alone the even harder recipe questions—not everyone has a Geegle on their terminal.
So the only solution was to come up with something practical that could both highlight the features of their own Ancient Food Club and serve as an assessment question.
But now she was stuck right here.
“Sigh…”
Xiang Chuan rubbed her head, messing up her hair into a disheveled mess; Xiang Xue ran to the kitchen and was startled by her sister’s hairstyle.
“Wow! …You scared me, it’s Sister; how did you mess up your hair like this… Could this be an ancient popular hairstyle?” Xiang Xue curiously circled around Xiang Chuan a few times, examining this “new hairstyle.”
“I just accidentally messed up my hair, don’t go learning everything… By the way, why did you come to the kitchen? Didn’t the servant just bring dim sum over?”
Xiang Chuan asked.
“The servant was called away by Father and Mother to help, so I had to come get it myself; is there anything to drink?”
Xiang Xue tilted her head and looked at the things in the refrigerator.
“There’s juice and milk, but it’s a bit cold… Have the kitchen AI heat the milk and make fruit milk.”
So the two sisters casually chatted about school daily trivia while waiting for the kitchen AI to make fruit milk; hearing that her sister was doing well at school, still like a little princess surrounded by stars just like in her previous life, Xiang Chuan felt slightly relieved. She had originally worried that Xiang Xue setting up a live stream room would be too eye-catching and attract targeting from peers, but now thinking about it, with so many surveillance equipment in the modern era, if someone really did something to hurt Xiang Xue, Father and Mother would check and the culprit would have nowhere to hide.
[Beep—Miss Xiang Xue, fruit milk is ready.]
The two turned their heads and saw the kitchen AI’s iron arm extending from the ceiling, holding a tray with a pot of fruit milk and several cups on it.
“I’m just thirsty; pour me a cup first.”
Xiang Xue said.
[Beep—Understood.]
The iron arm deftly picked up the milk pot and poured a cup eight-tenths full without spilling a drop; Xiang Chuan watched and couldn’t help admiring the precision of modern machines, though she was still dissatisfied with how this thing usually criticized her somewhat casual cooking methods.
“Mm… so fragrant… Huh?”
Xiang Xue picked up the cup, enjoyed smelling it, then suddenly frowned with a puzzled expression on her face.
“Xiao Xue, what’s wrong?”
“Mm…” Xiang Xue doubtfully sipped the fruit milk, frowning even deeper; she handed the cup to Xiang Chuan and said, “Sister, the taste of this fruit milk is off.”
Huh? Off? Could the recipe have been changed?
Xiang Chuan quickly took the cup and drank a sip, stunned, then laughed out: “It’s just that the apple was swapped for a peach.”
“Hm?” Xiang Xue picked up the cup and tasted it again, slowly nodding and saying, “It does seem… a bit like peach; the taste is pretty good.”
“You’ve eaten so much cake lately that you can’t even remember the taste of peach?”
Xiang Chuan teased her.
“I only eat peach during evening dim sum, and besides, our family never ate fruit before; fruit was all for decoration.”
Xiang Xue hurriedly defended herself upon being teased by her sister.
Xiang Chuan shook her head, smiling without speaking; she had seen her sister like this many times as a child—that was the anxious expression when making excuses.
By the way, using such high-quality fruit for decoration… She really couldn’t understand modern people’s ideas. Xiang Chuan sighed inwardly.
…Hm? Fruit? Fruit milk?
Xiang Chuan pulled out the ingredient warehouse inventory list, checked the remaining amounts of milk and various fruits, and gradually got an idea.
The third day of school, the last day for new students to choose clubs; if they didn’t make a choice, they would have to participate in public welfare activities, which was too boring for playful high school new students, so many had already figured out their final targets in the morning and headed straight to their chosen clubs in the afternoon.
And Class Eight Grade One’s current focus was naturally the (theoretically) very easy Ancient Food Club and the (seemingly) fun Performance Club.
Chou Manman received the information Xiang Chuan had compiled last night based on 21st Century stage play troupe training content, simply wrote a club introduction to dissuade many curiosity seekers looking for fun, but actually got two or three people to join after deep consideration, which thrilled Chou Manman.
As for Xiang Chuan, she vanished in the afternoon; during morning break, everyone came to inquire about the club assessment content and curiously asked why there were no buns today, but she mysteriously refused to answer, piquing their curiosity, so the current non-members of Class Eight Grade One and new students from other classes who heard the news all went to the Ancient Food Club club activity room during club activity time.
The club activity building was now fully decorated; the outer walls were painted white as per Xiang Chuan’s request, and the roof and eaves red, making it very conspicuous among the cold-toned dormitory buildings.
In front of the club activity room door hung two nearly two-meter-high light screen promotional posters with the text: Don’t miss out passing by, participate in the entry testing to receive one piece of fruit cake! The mysterious assessment will test your taste buds; use your experienced tongue to accept the challenge of ancient gourmet food!
Students from other classes who hadn’t tasted buns or steamed buns looked at each other: Taste buds? Tongue? What is this testing?
Classmates who had tasted buns or steamed buns: There’s good food again!
In the crowd, Ouyang Yating frowned, Liang Gong took a deep breath, the brown-haired boy glanced at the sign, showed a bored expression, and left the scene.
Oh wow, finally the official part for recruiting little partners… Guess who will line up first?
