The Urban Successor of God of Gluttony

Chapter 10 –   If You Want it Done Well, Do it Yourself

Yet another test, he should"ve known. This Immortal pellet wasn"t too amazing and this Fried egg Cooking Skill wasn"t easy to learn either.

Gu Zheng somewhat understood the device spirit"s reasoning. If he wanted to receive benefits from it, it wouldn"t be so easy. Just the test for opening the Great Desolate s.p.a.ce left him half dead. If he knew in advance that he would"ve received another test, he definitely wouldn"t have agreed to this additional reward.

He couldn"t reject the test, which basically didn"t give Gu Zheng any choice but to partic.i.p.ate. It gave him a little bit of comfort that this time his life wasn"t on the line, however that punishment of suffering a hundred strokes from a whip? Would he have to whip himself?

"Flogging is a punishment that has been used for a long time in the Great Desolate. I"ll give you a taste what it feels like to be whipped by an Immortal whip!"

"No…way!"

Gu Zheng suddenly screamed. When the spirit device spoke of sampling he had a bad feeling, unfortunately it didn"t wait for him to say "don"t try"! He felt a burst of pain from his behind that felt like dozens of blades cutting into his behind at once.

Gu Zheng bent over from the pain, with cold sweat exuding from his forehead.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

Gu Zheng couldn"t help but curse. It was an awful feeling and felt as if a knife was cutting into his flesh. In fact, it felt like more than one knife, but more like dozens of knives.

Think about it, from just one hit it felt like dozens of knives cutting him. Not to mention that the punishment included one hundred of these strikes. He couldn"t imagine what he would be like if he was whipped one hundred times. Gu Zheng once again felt that if he was whipped a hundred times, he might as well just have died.

No matter how Gu Zheng cursed, the spirit device didn"t respond. He could only return to his bedroom, and lie down on his stomach to rest. He still felt the burning pain and didn"t dare to lie face up or sit down.

While lying on his stomach, Gu Zheng began to consider this time"s test.

Fifteen days was not a lot of time. However, Gu Zheng can accept it. He didn"t like remaining in one place for too long, nor did he like to stay with one job for too long. Otherwise, he wouldn"t have chosen to work as a food critic. Although his cooking skill was less than his father"s, with his father"s influence, being a general chef at a hotel was no problem.

A chef"s income was much higher then one of a gourmet food critic. However since the job of a chef was too restricting, while a gourmet food critic had more freedom, he chose to be a food critic in the end.

Fifteen days was an acceptable amount of time, however, how would he find a place in that amount of time. Was it even possible to sustain a stand on the main street? Just directly selling omelettes? He wasn"t scared that other people wouldn"t buy it. In fact, perhaps even the city management uncle"s would quickly become his most faithful clients, and chase after him daily.

He couldn"t sell it on the main street. What about opening a shop? That was even more impossible.

What kind of shop would only sell fried eggs. Besides, Gu Zheng had no idea how to open a show, and he didn"t like to be restricted. Furthermore, he didn"t have any funds to open a shop.

The moment he thought about money, Gu Zheng"s eyelids once again twitched.

In order to complete the test from earlier, he had been forced to spend a lot of money. With the price of the honey, sorghum rice, and wild ginseng he hadn"t used up too much, however with everything else combined, he had spent somewhere around 5,000 RMB. Luckily, he still had a case of water, as well as decent amount of sesame oil remaining.

Even so, the cost for making that mean should be around 5,000 RMB. Gu Zheng"s monthly income was only 5,000 – 6,000 RMB, so this was far from a small sum of money.

For creating the fried eggs, he didn"t know how much money he would have to spend. The ingredients were limited to second-cla.s.s. Essentially, he couldn"t use any ingredients below second-cla.s.s quality. With his water, the thought of having to use his 18 dollar imported mineral water to clean plates, Gu Zheng really couldn"t help but feel vexed.

He had water, he also had oil. The sesame oil was perfect for fried eggs, but where would he find eggs?

Not mentioning other eggs, just using the most common eggs, they had to reach the G.o.d of Gluttony"s requirements. These eggs must be from a chicken that wasn"t  agriculturally farmed or impacted by any form of pollution. For these types of eggs, not talking about the price, even finding them would be difficult. That’s how stringent the G.o.d of Gluttony"s standard was. He feared that if the hen even ate a small bit of feed, it would directly affect the egg"s quality.

Gu Zheng could remember that silkie, first of all it had grown up on the mountain. Second, it had eaten some second-cla.s.s ingredients, in the end it only reached second cla.s.s.

After thinking to this point, Gu Zheng once again cursed the spirit device. Unfortunately, he couldn"t touch the spirit device, he felt like beating it up. If only he could interact with the device.

After cursing for half an hour, he felt that his behind no longer hurt as badly. Gu Zheng struggled to get up, and cursed ruthlessly. However, he couldn"t ignore this test. The spirit device had allowed him to taste what the punishment, something called flogging. He definitely didn"t want to experience such a thing for a second time.

Gu Zheng took out his phone and began to call: "w.a.n.g Zong, this is Gu Zheng. Right, right, it"s me who wrote that article for you. I wanted to ask you something, hey…"

The person he called was a manager of an agricultural villa. That villa"s owner had primitive agricultural. It was completely green, with no pollution. The food was all planted and cultivated by themselves, there was once a time where they invited Gu Zheng to write an article about them, they even offered Gu Zheng additional payment. (T/N: *cough* that sounds kinda like bribery >.>)

Gu Zheng didn"t want the bribe, but he still did wholeheartedly write about their ingredients. The ingredients were decent, however the cooking skills were so-so. He evaluated according to what the people"s opinions would be. This kind of a.s.sessment towards the agricultural villa was as if saying it might as well not exist. Obviously, they didn"t have any good impressions towards Gu Zheng.

"Boss, I"m Gu Zheng. That Gu Zheng? Last time"s articles…"

During the second phone call, fifteen seconds didn"t pa.s.s before the other side had hung up. This was chef of a large hotel and the large hotel"s had a relatively large channels to acquire stock. He had only wanted to casually ask, however, in the end, after the other party  learned of his ident.i.ty, they directly hung up.

Gu Zheng held some suspicions. He didn"t remember offending the boss, he also seemed to have written positively about them so why did he hang up?

He knew that he had written decent comments about them, their food was also decent. However, he had added a single final sentence. When they were talking about their dishes, he thought they were being too prideful. As the saying goes, culturally, a first ranked officer was not lacking compared to second ranked officer. One"s conduct as a chef should be equivalent as well. However, due to that sentence, they hated him at the moment. They thought that he was too wordy.

"Zhu Zong…"

"Old Zhao…"

"Captain Guo…"

After calling several times, there was only one positive response. However, he didn"t know who he was, in fact, he asked if he was unemployed as whether or not he was looking for work.

"My popularity is so bad? this shouldn"t be possible!"

Holding the phone, Gu Zheng was quite confused. Typically he didn"t accept other"s bribes and only wrote his honest opinions. Although he received less royalties, he held a clear conscience. However, he didn"t know that because of these additional comments didn"t make the businesses happy. They had wanted to be praised, thus, he ended up offending quite a few people.

However with both magazines and online sites, the food reviews can"t be blindly positive. There were always differences. Gu Zheng"s controversy is precisely this kind of subtle difference. He was quite law abiding, people also wouldn"t think that he had been bought out,so Gu Zheng"s ma.n.u.script would be published from time to time.

"Lala, I"m a spinach, veggie, veggie, veggie, veggie…"

Gu Zheng"s phone suddenly sounded. He had used this ringtone for several years. w.a.n.g Tao had told Gu Zheng before that he ate only good food, even his cellphone ringtone had food.

He quickly picked up the food, however Gu Zheng"s face immediately revealed disappointment. He had that that the people he had called before had replied to him. However, he hadn"t thought that it would be his old cla.s.smate, Hu Yue Yue"s phone.

"Gifted Gu, have you been busy recently?"

Hu Yue Yue was a cla.s.smate from University, she was a masculine woman. She was always somewhat crazy. After graduating from university, Gu Zheng rarely contacted his fellow students. He was a little introverted, and didn"t like to take the initiative to contact others. Only Hu Yue Yue would call him for nothing.

"Everything"s alright, what"s up?" Gu Zheng replied to the question.

"Gifted Gu the gourmet, what’s going on? You seem dispirited, is it difficult to work so hard in the middle of the afternoon?" Hu Yue Yue joked with a strange voice, then spoke: "I was looking for you to ask where we can eat something delicious. Also, to inform you that our cla.s.smates are gathering the day after tomorrow. You promised me you"d come last time, so you have to come!"

Hu Yue Yue was talking about the student meet up. After graduating, there were some other university students who had stayed within the city. It was a small number, around twenty people. Hu Yue Yue and the others often organized some kind of gathering. Each time, they would ask Gu Zheng which hotel was good to eat at, and then meet up there.

Gu Zheng had partic.i.p.ated a couple of times before, however, he had gradually lost interest. Last time, Hu Yue Yue had invited him and he didn"t go. But, in order to not get entangled with Hu Yue Yue, he promised to attend the next meeting. It seems he couldn"t dodge it this time.

"Qichuan Road"s Full Moon House should be alright, that place"s honey chicken is decent!"

Gu Zheng thought for a moment, then made a sound of agreement. He had not eaten enough of the honey chicken earlier. Although he knew someone else"s wouldn"t be nearly delicious, after she mentioned eating, he immediately remembered honey chicken. Thus, he recommended a restaurant whose special dish was honey chicken.

"Alright, Full Moon House. I"ll see you the day after tomorrow at six o"clock, you better show!"

Hu Yue Yue quickly hung up the phone. This phone call had reduced Gu Zheng"s bad mood somewhat. If he wanted it done well, he would just do it himself. So what if others didn"t want to help him, he would just search for it himself.