Chapter 500 – Hovering Between Life and Death
Ai Mi and Xiong YaoYue were both driven by an impulse and the ingredients they used in they kitchen were all high-cla.s.s, especially the lobsters and crabs that were far above an average size. It made the beggars suspicious that those were genetically modified organisms and they were caught for human experimentation.
The beggars who couldn’t contact with the outside worlds because they had their cell phones temporarily confiscated (There were 15 iPhone 5s among 20 beggars) worried deeply about their fate.
I don’t know how they cooked the lobster, but it turned green and emitted a faint fluorescent light.
The crab was clearly boiled in the same pot, but it had turned dark yellow with a suspicious layer of mucous membrane over the surface.
According to the photos Xiong YaoYue brought to me later, my first impression was that the dish should be named “Alien vs Predator” because both ingredients were crustaceans and the horrible color was in line with the aliens.
The beggars, who were forcibly seated at a long table like the “The Last Supper“, were dumbfounded when they saw the first dish. It was a green fluorescent lobster along with a slimy yellow crab, they absolutely believe they were genetically modified organisms. Not only were they genetically modified, they were also fed sulfuric acid and melamine, so no one dared to take the first bite.
Don’t even mention the “honey braised sea cuc.u.mber” that was served next, the so-called “honey sauce” was just soy sauce! They even added needles into the sea cuc.u.mber, in addition to the excessive amount of cooking time, the sea cuc.u.mber that already had an unappetizing appearance was now an inflated voodoo doll. The beggar who hara.s.sed Gong CaiCai at the station fainted when he saw it.
Because of eating the “fried dogstail gra.s.s” which caused incessant abdominal pain, 004 and 005, in the spirit of “we’re all going to suffer together”, splashed cold water on the beggar’s face to bring him back from the dead and confront the table of colorful food in front of him.
By this time, more dishes had been served. Most of which were the results of Ai Mi;s bright ideas and Xiong YaoYue’s personal efforts. The two could be described as a perfect fit, cooperating seamlessly, as each new recipe was an outstanding contribution to the world of dark cuisine.
“Kobe beef”, which is ranked sixth among the “world’s top nine ingredients”, is normally eaten as steak, teppanyaki, or shabu-shabu hot pot, but Ai Mi and Xiong YaoYue skewered the beef and grilled it over the flame, to the point where it was all burnt.
Ever since the outbreak of mad cow disease in j.a.pan in 2001, China has banned the import of Kobe beef. That means Ai Mi’s Kobe beef would have been rerouted from the United States, which strictly speaking, is considered smuggling, The beef traveled miles and miles around half the world just to be burnt by you?
Lobster, crab, sea cuc.u.mber, and Kobe beef wasn’t even all of the ingredients. The rest of the ingredients were butchered by a knife and burnt in a fire, so you can no longer see their original form, kind of like Pica.s.so’s abstract paintings.
So the predictable result was: no one, dared, to, eat, it.
Ai Mi observed the reaction of the beggars through a one way gla.s.s and wasn’t satisfied, she ordered Peng TouSi.
“Go in and scare them a little with a gun. Winnie and I worked hard to make the food, but they wouldn’t even touch it, that’s so rude.”
Xiong YaoYue, who wiped her oily hands straight onto her ap.r.o.n, said:
“That’s right, the color might be a bit special, but the taste should be okay. I deliberately didn’t use salt this time, instead, I used soy sauce as a subst.i.tute.”
How naive! You think it wouldn’t be salty if you didn’t add salt? Soy sauce is 20% salt, so there’s no difference than adding salt and the color will also change.
Peng TouSi first emptied the bullets in his pistol, then aimed the muzzle at the wry-mouthed beggar with the most resistance and said to him gently.
“If you don’t want to eat a bullet, then hurry up and eat the food. d.a.m.n it, hurry up and eat it.”
Peng TouSi wasn’t able to keep calm as he was worried if the beggars wouldn’t eat it, then the bodyguards would have to finish it.
A voodoo doll sea cuc.u.mber was in front of the wry-mouthed mouth beggar. He saw Peng TouSi fiercely pointing a gun at him, and he thought he might die either way, so he made a decision and shouted:
“I’m sacrificing myself for my country.”
He picked up a sea cuc.u.mber with a fork and stuffed it into his mouth.
“c.r.a.p, it’s too di…”
As the wry-mouthed beggar was about to shout “too disgusting”, Peng TouSi held the trigger and threatened: “Say it’s delicious, or I’ll kill you.”
“Too… too delightfully delicious.”
The wry-mouthed beggar wailed out as he was forced to change his words and at some time, two streams of tears flowed down his cheeks.
Inspired by Peng TouSi, the other bodyguards also aimed at the beggar’s backs with a gun and asked them to please sample the delicacies in front of them.
So all twenty of them shed tears.
“Ah, I heard that the greatest food can move one to tears.” Xiong YaoYue was overjoyed and said, “We did it, we did it!”
Ai Mi, however, didn’t look particularly happy.
“Hmph, that’s expected. I’m obviously a culinary genius, but the kitchen is greasy and dirty, and I have to take a thorough bath every time I go, so it’s too much trouble.”
After they “proved” they were good at cooking, Ai Mi completely lost interest in the beggars. He instructed Peng TouSi he could do whatever he wants with them, either release them or bury them.
After being forced to finish most of the questionable food, the beggars were all weeping tragically, their hands and feet twitched, their pupils dilated, and looked like they were about to die.
Peng TouSi made a prompt decision and gave the beggars a large amount of laxatives and emetics. It’s good these fake beggars had tough bodies, otherwise they would have already pa.s.sed away.
After they stabilized, Peng TouSi handed out ¥1000 to each of them while threatening:
“There was poison in the food you ate. If you don’t want to die, then report to me every day and I will have an antidote for you. But the antidote has to be taken for forty-nine days to take effect, if any one of you tells anyone about this incident, then the rest of you can forget about getting the antidote.”
The beggars were already afraid of Peng TouSi and the others because they have guns, so they only nodded and say they won’t tell anyone. In addition, they believed from the bottom of their heart the food was poisoned, otherwise it wouldn’t have been so disgusting.
Xiong YaoYue and Ai Mi firmly believed: their cooking skills were at a master level, but it just didn’t have a good appearance. Xiong YaoYue even proposed she should invite some friends (such as Loud Mouth and the cla.s.s leader) to come over and taste her cooking.
The reason she wanted to invite Loud Mouth was to get over her past shameful experience, and she wanted the cla.s.s leader to come over because she wanted to boast to cla.s.s 2-3’s “food G.o.d”, right?
Even if the cla.s.s leader doesn’t die from food poisoning, she will die from being p.i.s.sed at your wasteful behavior.
Anyhow, at 9:30 on Sat.u.r.day, I met up with Xiao Qin at the downtown zoo.
I saw Ai Mi’s car in the parking lot, that means she and Xiong YaoYue arrived a step earlier.
Will we run into each other during the zoo tour?