Gan Lan bid farewell to the two elders, planning to head back for a nap to recharge for her afternoon match.
Sister Xiang and Yan stayed behind to continue watching the competition, promising to catch her match later that afternoon. With their energetic demeanor and youthful faces, it was hard to believe they were over three hundred years old.
An hour before her match began, Gan Lan arrived at Arena 99 to find it already packed to the brim. Mr. Liang walked ahead of her, while Gulu trailed behind.
Originally, she had wanted Gulu to stay in the room, but the guy was incredibly stubborn. Mumbling something about wanting to go look at pretty girls, he ignored her completely and followed her, looking around eagerly. That expression made him look like a total pervert. He didn’t even have the equipment for that, okay? Gan Lan shook her head in helpless exasperation. What kind of anatomical structure did this robot even have?
"Gan Lan, Combat Robots aren’t allowed inside the arena area, though this one doesn’t look particularly reliable anyway," Liang Cong whispered as he dropped back a few paces to walk beside her.
"No matter how quietly you whisper, I can still hear you! You’re the unreliable one! I am a Super Combat Robot, and I have a name! I’m Gulu!" Gulu protested in dissatisfaction.
Liang Cong was left speechless. Well, the robot’s hearing was sharp, at least. But whether he was actually a "super" robot remained to be seen. With his pastel pink outfit and double-bun hairstyle, if it weren’t for his height of over 1.8 meters and perfectly flat chest, Gulu would look exactly like an underage teenage girl.
Gan Lan’s eyes had been truly assaulted by Gulu’s getup today. What kind of fashion sense was this? It was headache-inducing.
"Gan Lan, sit here for now. The match won’t start for a while." Liang Cong led her to a seat near the front. Once she was settled, he added, "The Dean is here today too, but he’s not in this section. I’m going to go check on him and I’ll be back in a bit. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself—just maintain your usual standard."
"Mr. Liang, go ahead and do what you need to do. I have Gulu here with me; nothing will happen." Gan Lan smiled at him and pointed at Gulu, who was sitting next to her with his legs crossed, his eyes darting around wildly.
Liang Cong glanced at Gulu with an indescribably complicated expression. One look was enough; he had zero desire to take a second glance.
Gan Lan waited in silence for the match to begin, while Gulu stared at the pretty girls with a lecherous look on his face. Whenever he spotted someone especially beautiful, he would tug at Gan Lan to make her look too. If he wasn’t a robot, he’d probably be drooling by now. His expression couldn’t be any more perverted. Never before had Gan Lan been so impatient for a match to start.
"Oh, Sister Lan, you’re here so early! Are you nervous? Relax, your skills are obvious to everyone!" Seeing Gan Lan sitting with her head lowered, wearing the same expression as she had that morning, Xiang Xincai spoke up to comfort her.
Hearing the voice, Gan Lan looked up and smiled at the arrivals. "Sister Xiang, Yan, you’re here! I wasn’t nervous; I was just spacing out."
Xiang Xincai looked at Gan Lan’s confident smile and nodded in satisfaction. "You look like you’re in good spirits. I take it you’re feeling confident?"
Gan Lan smiled and nodded. "I wandered around several arenas today and got the general gist of it. There are lots of common and ordinary ingredients, and they’re easy to work with. But what I don’t quite understand is: what exactly counts as ’extraordinary’?"
"As long as it’s loved by the majority of the audience, it’s an extraordinary delicacy," Yan Yongchang explained. "The two dishes you made earlier used ordinary ingredients, yet you took first place with them. Therefore, Golden Egg Fried Rice and Tomato and Egg Stir-fry are extraordinary delicacies."
Hearing Yan’s explanation, Gan Lan felt even more assured. This prompt was similar to the last one; the only difference was the ingredients and the requirement to make at least two dishes, which bumped up the difficulty a bit. But she wasn’t afraid. She possessed the recipes of an entire planet—why would she be scared?
Arena Broadcast: [The Top 100 Qualifiers match for Arena 99 is about to begin. Contestants, please prepare yourselves and proceed to your designated numbered stations.]
Hearing the announcement, Gan Lan stood up and smiled at the two elders. "Sister Xiang, Yan, I’ll head in for the match now."
"Go on, you’ve got this!" Xiang Xincai pumped her fist to cheer Gan Lan on.
The arena, having eliminated nine thousand contestants, now felt somewhat empty. After arriving at Station 9, Gan Lan double-checked the cooking utensils she had inspected during the preliminaries. Nothing had been moved; they had only been cleaned. Gan Lan was quite satisfied. She had been worried they might have been swapped out for tools she wasn’t accustomed to using. In the future, she’d definitely have to upgrade her own kitchen with this advanced high-tech equipment. It was simply far too convenient and easy to use.
Arena Broadcast: [All contestants in Arena 99 are now in position. The match prompt will now be announced.]
Arena Broadcast: [The prompt for the Top 100 Qualifiers match in Arena 99 is: Please use the most common ingredient, ’rice’, to create an extraordinary delicacy. You must prepare at least two dishes. The time limit is two hours. Exceeding the time limit will be considered a forfeit.]
When Gan Lan heard the ingredient "rice," she wasn’t entirely surprised. Having noticed its absence that morning, she had guessed it might randomly appear in one of the afternoon arenas. She just hadn’t expected it to be assigned to Arena 99. "Rice" was a broad category. There were so many varieties—regular rice, glutinous rice, purple rice, colorful rice, and more. Consequently, there were countless recipes to choose from. That was precisely the difficult part: deciding which two to make. Her decision paralysis was acting up again. Gan Lan’s face scrunched up in conflict. For someone prone to indecisiveness, having too many recipes wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
In that case, she would make five-color tangyuan—glutinous rice balls that were both visually stunning and delicious. For the second dish, she’d make steamed rice sponge cake, also known as fa gao. Though the name sounded a bit plain, fa gao could also be made to look incredibly appetizing!
Having made her decision, Gan Lan began selecting her ingredients. Fortunately, she was intimately familiar with these recipes, making the selection process relatively simple. When it came to coloring the tangyuan, however, this era offered an overwhelming abundance of options. There was a vast array of vibrantly colored fruits and vegetables available. Gan Lan promptly picked out eight different kinds, including the Golden Liquid Fruit and the Flame Fruit, simply because their hues were far too beautiful to pass up.
After selecting eight fruits of varying flavors and colors, she hit a snag with the glutinous rice flour and regular rice flour. The competition only provided whole grains of glutinous and regular rice. They apparently didn’t know what rice flour was—if she wanted it, she’d have to make it herself! Gan Lan felt helpless. Thankfully, she had advanced technology at her disposal. Otherwise, it would have been truly impossible to produce both types of flour in such a short amount of time.
However, after gathering the remaining ingredients for the steamed rice sponge cake and the tangyuan fillings, she decided to start with the simpler tasks. She used a high-tech device to rapidly soak and soften the glutinous and regular rice. Even so, it would take a few minutes before she could proceed with milling the flour. She set the soaking rice aside for the time being and moved on to her other prep work. She thoroughly peeled and seeded seven of the fruits before juicing them all. Since the Golden Liquid Fruit was already a liquid, it didn’t require juicing. While juicing, Gan Lan also began washing regular rice to cook, which she would need later for the steamed sponge cake.
Next, she started preparing the filling for the rainbow tangyuan—or, given the ingredients, fruit tangyuan. Gan Lan opted for a traditional black sesame filling, as its flavor profile was versatile enough to pair perfectly with anything. She toasted the black sesame seeds in a pan until they began to CRACKLE and POP, indicating they were done. She then ground the seeds, mixed in an appropriate amount of white sugar and butter until evenly combined, and set the mixture aside.
The fruit juices were ready, leaving her waiting solely on the glutinous rice flour. With nothing else to do for them, Gan Lan placed the juices into a temperature-controlled box for preservation. She realized she was actually quite lucky. The two dishes she had chosen were straightforward and took little time to make. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had a spare moment to produce the rice flour from scratch.