Gourmet Food Supplier

“Hu.”

Little Guo exhaled deeply. After arranging the documents on her hands, her expression, and her clothes, she knocked on the door.

“Come in,” a serious voice sounded from the other side of the door.

“He’s here. I’m really lucky,” muttered Little Guo inwardly as she pushed the door open.

“Hello, Mr Lee. I am the event organizer for the Sichuan Exemplary Restaurant event. We are hoping to invite you to join this event as a judge to help select the exemplary restaurant,” said Little Guo in a clear and concise manner.

This was learned from experience. Otherwise, she might be rejected before she could even finish her words.

“This event again?” Lee Yanyi raised his head and frowned.

“Yes. This is the itinerary and the participating restaurants. I hope you can accept this invitation,” Little Guo nodded and placed the document down.

“It’s only a bunch of restaurants that care too much about fame. What’s interesting about it?” Lee Yanyi sneered before even looking at the documents. Little Guo did not dare to make any comments about this remark.

Lee Yanyi started flipping through the pages and just as he was about to reject the invitation, he saw a familiar name among the participating restaurants: Master Chef Restaurant.

Little Guo knew that she would be rejected, but she still couldn’t leave without a formal rejection. And thus, she stood there silently waiting.

Suddenly, Lee Yanyi raised his head and picked up the document.

“This restaurant is participating as well?” Lee Yanyi pointed at Master Chef Restaurant.

“Yes. That is the restaurant nominated by Chairman Zhou,” Little Guo answered despite the bewilderment she was feeling.

“Ok. I accept your invitation. Notify me when the time comes,” Lee Yanyi decided.

“Sure. I hope we will have a chance to cooperate in the future… Wait. You accepted?” Little Guo gave an instinctive reply before she suddenly reacted in astonishment.

“Um,” Lee Yanyi nodded and did not say much.

“Ok. I will send the plan to Yan Jia. When the time comes, we will notify you,” Little Guo stopped blanking out and replied professionally.

“Ok,” said Lee Yanyi as he waved his hand, signifying that Little Guo may leave now.

“Ok. Then, I’ll be taking my leave,” Little Guo nodded. She wasn’t able to speak coherently anymore, and after taking her leave, she turned and left.

“Popular Mouth Lee has accepted?” Little Guo was still in shock even after leaving.

“I need to let Director Gu know about this as soon as possible,” muttered Little Guo as she rushed towards her car before speeding off to her office.

Meanwhile, Lee Yanyi was also in an astonishment.

“I never expected that geezer to be so crafty. He had actually recommended Yuan Zhou to join,” Lee Yanyi snorted coldly.

It was a fact that Lee Yanyi disliked the Exemplary Restaurant event. For him, rather than wasting their time fighting over fame, those chefs might as well spend the time improving their skills.

When they gained reputation and customers through their cooking, fame would come naturally. What was the point of fighting for fame in some events?

But since Yuan Zhou was also participating, Lee Yanyi had to join in on the fun.

For now, the joy Director Gu was experiencing after receiving Little Guo’s good news was not worth mentioning. As of this moment, Yuan Zhou had encountered a problem.

“There is actually such a requirement?” Yuan Zhou spoke to the phone in astonishment.

“I knew you haven’t read the rules. Yes, there is such a requirement. Think about who to select,” Zhou Shijie answered.

“To select people to represent my restaurant, I need to have people to select. You know I’m the only chef in my restaurant,” said Yuan Zhou helplessly.

“Kid, rules are rigid while humans are flexible. Sure, you can’t change the rules of your restaurant. But the requirement did not mention that you must select a chef as your representative,” reminded Zhou Shijie while not forgetting to tease Yuan Zhou for being so rigid with rules.

“Ok, I understand now,” Yuan Zhou instantly understood the meaning and answered with a nod.

“Ok. Don’t delay it. It’s better if you can submit it by tonight,” Zhou Shijie said.

“Ok,” Yuan Zhou replied.

“Remember, you need to select two people,” Zhou Shijie reminded.

“Thank you, chairman,” Yuan Zhou replied.

“Ok, go select your people,” Zhou Shijie said and ended the call.

As for Yuan Zhou, he blanked out with his phone in his hand.

The call was made by Zhou Shijie after noticing that Yuan Zhou had not submitted the representatives of his restaurant.

That’s right. The evaluation process of this event was rather different.

In total, there were four judges in the evaluation committee. One was Zhou Shijie, the chairman of China Chefs’ Alliance, the second was chairman of Sichuan Cuisine Alliance, Li Changfeng, the third was the chief editor of Food Discovery Dog, and the fourth was an additional judge nominated by the organizers.

To ensure fairness, the 10 participating restaurants each needed to select two representatives that would be accompanying the four judges to the participating restaurants for food testing.

The evaluation committee would be visiting the restaurant during business hours and they would eat where the other customers were. No advanced appointment could be made so as to test the business capabilities of the participating restaurants.

This would avoid having the result clouded by those who cooked much better food than they usually did for the sake of this event alone.

“What we want is to catch them by surprise.” This was the reasoning of Director Gu.

Each time, the four judges would select two among the 20 representatives to accompany them when food testing. Of course, the two selected representatives would also be from different restaurants instead of the same restaurant.

Although the 20 representatives held no vote for the final result, they had the power to make their suggestions. And one could say that their suggestions were rather important as the suggestions would be taken into consideration when deciding on the final result.

And if representatives from restaurants that were enemies were selected for the food testing being done at those two restaurants as well, things would get very entertaining.

Yuan Zhou was being troubled over the representatives he should send. Other restaurants would normally send their sous-chef in this kind of situation. That was, in fact, an unwritten rule.

Yuan Zhou had completely overlooked this requirement, thus causing Zhou Shijie to remind him today. And because of that, his head started aching.

“I can’t really send Shen Min and Zhou Jia, right?” Yuan Zhou frowned.

“System, can you create two people out of thin air so I can send them as representatives?” Yuan Zhou asked.

The system displayed, “This system is a Master Chef System and does not have the ability to create a living being.”

“Fine,” Yuan Zhou sighed.

“Compass, it’s noon soon. Why are you sitting outside? Time to prepare your ingredients,” Wu Hai’s voice came from the second floor across the street.

Every day at noon, Wu Hai would peek downstairs. And the moment he saw Yuan Zhou entering, he would get down to start queuing.

Today, two minutes had passed since the usual time when Yuan Zhou would start preparing ingredients yet Yuan Zhou was still sitting outside. Wu Hai could not help but give a reminder.

“Wu Hai?” Yuan Zhou raised his head, seemingly having thought of something as the tone of his voice became gentle when calling Wu Hai’s name.

“What is it? Compass?” Wu Hai eyed Yuan Zhou cautiously.

“Come down,” Yuan Zhou felt uncomfortable talking while looking high up.

“If you are trying to take leave, forget it. I won’t agree to it. Think about it. If you take a leave, I will starve to death. I will never agree. If you are sick, I will remind you to take your medicine. I can even deliver you the medicine. Don’t worry,” Wu Hai started mumbling to himself.

But Wu Hai was mumbling quite loudly as he headed downstairs, and thus, Yuan Zhou heard every word of it.

That immediately reminded Yuan Zhou of the time when Wu Hai called him every four hours.