Arena Broadcast: "Contestants of Arena 99, please proceed to the stations corresponding to your drawn numbers. The competition will begin in half an hour."
Hearing the broadcast, Liang Cong patted Gan Lan on the shoulder and encouraged her. "The competition is about to start. Go on in. Good luck!"
Gan Lan stood up, nodded at her teacher, and followed the other contestants into the arena.
She had drawn station number nine. The competition venue utilized Isolation Shields, the exact same kind used during her cooking duel in the school square. Once this type of Isolation Shield was raised, people outside could only smell the aroma of the food; everything else was completely obscured from view. This was because cooking techniques and methods were extremely precious in this era. Although Gan Lan had always cooked openly during her livestreams, she didn’t want to act like a total anomaly right now. It was best to just honestly follow the competition rules.
She carefully inspected the exceptionally advanced-looking kitchenware. Finding no issues, she quietly waited for the competition to begin.
Arena Broadcast: "The preliminary exam topic for Arena 99 is: How to use egg-based ingredients to create a simple yet delicious dish. The competition time is one hour."
Only one hour? Gan Lan thought. And this topic was far too broad. As long as eggs were used, did it count as an egg-based dish? With such a short time limit, it seemed the word "simple" held a deeper meaning.
Still, the topic itself was quite easy. There was an incredible variety of ways to prepare eggs, which meant she had so many options she wasn’t even sure which one to choose. After thinking for a moment, she finally narrowed it down to two choices: Golden Egg Fried Rice and Tomato Stir-fried Eggs. Which one should she make?
Realizing she had just wasted three minutes agonizing over this, she decided to stop stressing and just make both. Even though the broadcast specified creating "a dish," making both Golden Egg Fried Rice and Tomato Stir-fried Eggs within an hour would likely still leave her with time to spare.
Inside the arena kitchen, there were two buttons: one blue and one red. The blue button was for selecting ingredients; by using voice input to state the required items, the system would automatically allocate and teleport them over from the competition’s pantry. The red button was to be pressed upon finishing the dish, prompting the system to lower the Isolation Shield and display a "completed" status.
This advanced technology was truly powerful. When Gan Lan first learned about these functions, she had been thoroughly shocked. It was incredibly convenient—the person who invented this was definitely a genius among geniuses!
Gan Lan pressed the blue button and spoke the names of the ingredients she needed. Two minutes later, everything materialized in front of her. She immediately got to work, washing the rice, placing it in the pot, and pressing the start button to begin cooking. The high-tech pot was wonderful to use; the cooking time was several times shorter than in her original world, so boiling the rice wouldn’t take long at all.
There were many judges for the event. If every contestant had to make a physical portion for each one, there wouldn’t be nearly enough time, so the evaluation was conducted via Star Network taste-testing. Furthermore, with a thousand contestants in just one arena—totaling a hundred thousand overall—the judges wouldn’t be able to finish eating even if their stomachs burst.
While the rice was cooking, Gan Lan began prepping the secondary ingredients. She handled the shrimp first—peeling the shells, removing the heads, and dicing the meat into small pieces. This process was a bit tedious, but fortunately, her hand speed was excellent, allowing for high efficiency. She finished it in no time. Next, she finely diced the carrots and chopped the scallions.
She separated the egg yolks from the whites, adding a suitable amount of salt to the yolks and mixing them evenly. For the egg whites, she cracked in a few more whole eggs, added a pinch of salt and a little water, and whisked everything together. Adding a tiny bit of water would make the cooked eggs much fluffier. She set these bowls aside for later.
Heating some oil in a wok, she tossed in the diced shrimp and stir-fried them until they changed color. She then blanched the diced carrots, peeled the tomatoes, cut them into small chunks, and plated them for standby. All the prep work was done, and the rice was fully cooked, taking just over ten minutes in total. She scooped the cooked rice out first, placing it into a high-tech rapid-cooling device. Then, she began to stir-fry the eggs.
She heated the wok and poured in a generous amount of oil. Once it was hot, she poured in the egg mixture. As the liquid egg gradually solidified, she used chopsticks to scramble it apart. After briefly stir-frying until the eggs were completely set, she transferred them to a plate.
Restarting the wok with some fresh oil, she added the tomatoes and stir-fried them over medium heat until their red juices began to seep out. She then added a suitable amount of sugar and a tiny bit of salt, continuing to stir. Once the tomatoes had broken down into a rich sauce, she tossed the cooked eggs back in, quickly mixing everything together so the eggs were fully coated in the tomato juices before plating the dish.
A visually beautiful and richly fragrant plate of Tomato Stir-fried Eggs was complete. Gan Lan placed the dish into a temperature-controlled box to the side and moved on to the Golden Egg Fried Rice.
Taking the cooled rice, she poured in the beaten egg yolks, mixing thoroughly until every single grain of rice was coated in the yellow liquid. She heated some oil in the wok, poured in the rice, and stir-fried it until the grains were dry and separated. Next, she added the cooked shrimp and diced carrots, followed by a pinch of salt, rapidly tossing the wok to distribute everything evenly. A dazzlingly golden and tantalizingly aromatic fried rice was finished.
Gan Lan checked the timer; she had only used a little over half an hour. She took the Tomato Stir-fried Eggs out of the temperature-controlled box and placed it side-by-side with the Golden Egg Fried Rice. Then, she pressed the completion button, and the Isolation Shield lifted.
System Broadcast: "Station Number Nine has completed two dishes. Total time: 36 minutes and 8 seconds. Now activating the Star Network taste-testing function. Voting will open in 23 minutes and 2 seconds, and the voting period will conclude in 24 hours."
A hundred judges were seated at the judging panel. Surprisingly, Liu Changyi was among them. How could he possibly miss out on such a glorious opportunity to taste thousands of different dishes in a single day? Although some of the "food" might mentally poison him, the tasting was safely conducted via the Star Network, and there would definitely be plenty of actual delicacies! He had known for a while that the little girl who made those unforgettable meat skewers was participating. He had specifically asked around to find out which arena she was assigned to so he could come and act as a judge.
Half an hour had passed. While quite a few contestants had already finished, the taste of their dishes left much to be desired; they could only be considered passable. Then again, maybe he had just eaten too much good food recently, and his palate had been spoiled.
"Fatty Liu, you really never miss a single year, do you? Wherever there’s a competition, there you are. I’ve gotta hand it to you! Hahaha!"
Liu Changyi, who had been leisurely wading through a sea of food, heard an old acquaintance call out to him. He immediately disconnected from the Star Network tasting and looked over.
"Wherever there’s good food, there I am. Hehe!" Liu Changyi said proudly.
"Baldy Miao’s prized disciple is in Arena 66. Why didn’t you go there? Arena 99 doesn’t seem to have anything worth looking forward to," another judge chimed in.
"The judging panel for Arena 66 was packed to bursting ages ago. He probably couldn’t squeeze his way in, so he just randomly picked a different arena."
"It looks like there are a lot of unfamiliar faces among the judges who came to Arena 99 today. Who are they here for?"
"Haven’t you looked at the Star Network? It’s that little girl who issued a challenge to Ge Feng. She talked big and made Ge Feng so mad he started hitting people right on the spot. It was absolutely hilarious! They’re probably here for her."
"I’m here for her too. I want to see exactly what kind of skills this little girl has to think she can defeat Ge Feng."
Hearing this, Liu Changyi grew displeased. Mingzong’s dark horse was right here in this very arena, and her skills were immense! What was so great about Ge Feng anyway?
Hmph, these people just needed to wait and see. Liu Changyi didn’t bother replying, nor did he return to his Star Network tasting. He was just going to wait for Mingzong’s dark horse to reveal herself and deliver a resounding slap to all these people’s faces! He could already picture the scene, feeling so delighted he almost laughed out loud.