Looking at Wang Daji's fawning expression, Mo Bai seemed to understand the situation.
Two large, bolded words popped into his mind: "Substitute chef."
He was no stranger to this kind of operation. In the era of rampant streamers before he transmigrated, it was common to see a girl on stream chirping 'oppa' a few times, while some guy was off-camera, working himself to death mashing the keyboard.
"Isn't this... a bit inappropriate?" As an upstanding young man, Mo Bai was committed to resisting such unfair competitive practices.
"Brother Mo! You just have to help us!" Wang Daji looked like he wanted to hug Mo Bai's leg and roll around on the floor. "The three of us brothers only know how to fish. How could our skills possibly compare to our dad's, or to yours?"
"The competition starts tomorrow morning. Brother Mo, if you don't help, we'll really have no choice but to forfeit."
"Forfeit? Is it that serious?"
While the culinary skills of the three Wang brothers—Daji, Zhongji, and Xiaoji—were certainly average, they worked with fish all the time. No matter how bad they were, they should at least be able to hold their own in a neighborhood competition.
Wang Daji's staunch attitude of rather forfeiting than competing piqued Mo Bai's interest.
Could it be some kind of major competition?
"It's not a neighborhood competition?"
"Of course not!" Wang Daji craned his neck, his eyes wide as he spoke with intensity. "We're participating in a genuine, bona fide grand tournament!"
"All the participants in the competition are well-established fish shops that have been open for over thirty years."
"Hokkaido?" The only culinary competition Mo Bai knew of in the Far East was in Hokkaido.
"No!"
"The Akihabara Summit Battle!"
"Broadcast live on Far East Television!"
"The first-place prize is a whopping fifty million yen, plus a mysterious grand prize from the Chiba Shrine."
"How much is the prize money?" Mo Bai cupped his chin, slightly doubting his own ears.
"Fifty million!" Wang Daji spread his hand wide, his expression as fierce as Mo Bai's.
"I'm in! If we win, we split it fifty-fifty."
This was fifty million yen! Fifty million yen!
Even half of it was twenty-five million yen.
If he won this prize money, Mo Bai wouldn't have to worry about his income for a long time.
For Mo Bai, who couldn't find any big spenders to fleece and had just spent two hundred fifty thousand yen to sponsor a fresh-faced middle school girl for half a year, this was an opportunity to escape his stable daily income of zero and make a fortune. With no customers in the shop, he couldn't just go out and catch a flasher every day, could he?
Huh? It seemed like a rather delicate phrase got mixed in there.
"Deal!" Wang Daji beamed.
What Mo Bai didn't know was that before seeking his help, their neighbor Old Wang had told Wang Daji that if Mo Bai was willing to be their substitute, it would be fine to give him the entire prize if he won. All their fish shop needed was the fame from being on TV.
Having eaten Mo Bai's semi-finished Soul Repose Noodles, the Wang family had no doubt that Mo Bai's culinary skills could clinch first place.
Under these circumstances, with Mo Bai essentially handing him twenty-five million yen with a single sentence, how could Wang Daji not be in a good mood?
Mo Bai was still too young, too simple.
"What a good man!" Mo Bai and Wang Daji gazed at each other like kindred spirits, both silently thinking the same thing.
He happily accepted the substitute gig...
Bah! When a chef does it, can you call it being a substitute?
This was friendly assistance, full of warmth and the brilliance of humanity!
Mo Bai packed some things, locked up the shop, and swaggered off with Wang Daji.
"Did I forget something?" Boarding the train to Akihabara, Mo Bai was showered with the kind of praise Wang Daji would reserve for his own son, and he quickly pushed the doubt from his mind.
"Hey, Xiao Bai. As my System Sprite, isn't this the time you're supposed to give me something?" Mo Bai offered a blatant hint.
"You want a quest? Should've said so sooner~" Xiao Bai caught on immediately.
[Quest: Obtain First Place in the Akihabara Summit Battle]
[Quest Reward: Twenty-five million yen, one mysterious grand prize]
This reward felt a little familiar.
"???" A look of utter confusion spread across Mo Bai's face. "Wait, this... huh?"
"Host, you know I just changed careers and my entire shop is empty. Where did you get the idea that you could squeeze another profit out of me?" Xiao Bai sighed.
"Weak-ass system!" Looked down upon by Xiao Bai on an intellectual level, Mo Bai's face truly turned dark, black as pitch.
"Sigh! Host, with a temper like yours, you're going to get beaten to death easily," Xiao Bai lamented. "Seeing as you're my host, I'll give you a gift out of friendship."
An item, Basic Boxing, was added to the quest rewards.
"When you have time, practice your cooking more. When you get tired of practicing, do some boxing. Stop living in a dream world all day."
"Uncle Wang, how's your recovery?" Arriving at the hotel where Wang Xiang was staying, Mo Bai learned that Wang Xiang had caught a cold from the sea breeze.
No wonder they needed a substitute. The image of a chef cooking with a runny nose was too beautiful to behold.
Just thinking about that image made Mo Bai feel a wave of nausea.
"Cough cough, we're counting on you for the competition, Little Mo." Wang Xiang, wrapped up tightly to avoid infecting Mo Bai, shook his head. "Xiaoji, tell Little Mo about the competition rules."
"Cough cough cough, I'll go back to my room first." Wang Xiang seemed uninterested. Being unable to represent the shop he had poured his life's blood into for half a lifetime was a considerable blow to him.
His state could be described in four words: his morale was completely crushed!
"Hi, Brother Mo." The sturdy young man, Wang Xiaoji, who was built from the same mold as Wang Daji, seemed to have an extra spark of cleverness about him.
"Mm," Mo Bai said, waiting for him to continue.
"The Akihabara Summit Battle is held on the rooftop of the Akihabara building. The competition is divided into two parts: the elimination round and the final. The elimination round is based on the results of the fish aging process we submitted. Based on those results, contestants are divided into four groups: A, B, C, and D."
"We submitted a Leopard Coral Grouper. Dad personally oversaw the aging for twenty-four hours straight, and we finally got placed in Group A."
"So for the competition tomorrow morning, Brother Mo, you can just use that directly." Wang Xiaoji gave a carefree thumbs-up, completely ignoring his father who had just turned away, his battle-scarred old heart in desperate need of comfort. "I believe in your cooking, Brother Mo. It'd be a crime if you don't take the championship."
"If you need any ingredients, just tell my big brother. I have to go relieve my second brother guarding the fish storage." Under Wang Xiang's furious fatherly glare, Wang Xiaoji fled in a panic.
"Leopard Coral Grouper? Xiao Bai, what do you think?" Mo Bai rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
[Leopard Coral Grouper, Plectropomus leopardus (Lacépède, 1802), a species of fish in the family Serranidae, genus Plectropomus...]
"Cut the useless jargon. Give it to me in one simple sentence."
"How do I cook it?"
[...]Xiao Bai was deeply shocked by Mo Bai's brazen self-righteousness.
[Steamed, or in a seafood hot pot.]
[However, in the Far East, the best method is still sashimi.]
"Sashimi?" Mo Bai raised an eyebrow. "Xiao Bai, you get what I mean, right?"
[Yes! I get it!]Xiao Bai seethed through gritted teeth.
As a mature kitchen knife, no one in the world could compete with it when it came to precision knife work.
The issues of the fish and the knife skills were perfectly solved.
"So, what's next is the sauce, right?"
"Xiao Bai! Time for the Mental Time Chamber!"
Mo Bai activated his cheat time.
This time, Xiao Bai didn't bicker with Mo Bai, uncharacteristically opening the Time Chamber, which had been renovated to look like a modern kitchen.
[No matter how cunning you are, you could never guess that I didn't assign any points for this quest.]
From an angle Mo Bai couldn't see, a sinister smile appeared on Xiao Bai's blade.
[Based on the points contributed by the judges this time, I'll consider the points for future quests and daily income accordingly.]
[Wahahahaha~]
The system and the host were two peas in a pod; neither could judge the other.
===
Midnight.
"Fumika, you're still not asleep?" The silver-gray short-haired girl beside Sagisawa Fumika rubbed her eyes and sat up in bed.
"Yeah, I can't really sleep." Sagisawa Fumika's hand gripped her phone tightly, but that, along with her chaotic eyes, betrayed her.
For some reason, the short-haired girl felt that Sagisawa Fumika was very dangerous at this moment and that it was better not to get close. So, she decisively hid in the bathroom.
"Why? Why is this happening?"
"Why won't he call me back?"
"Why, why, why..."
An empty voice, seeming to drift from nowhere, nearly caused the girl hiding in the bathroom to break down.
________________________________________
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