Chapter 365: Chapter 365: The Center of Attention

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Xianyu Arena!”

At the centre of the arena, the host’s impassioned voice echoed throughout the entire venue, inciting cheers from the tens of thousands of spectators.

After briefly introducing the eleven Food Recommenders and thirty senior judges on stage, the host made a broad sweeping gesture, and instantly, the images of every contestant appeared on the electronic screen.

“The Xianyu City Cooking Contest held every three months has begun once more. This time we have thirty-nine contestants. Some of them are old friends we’re familiar with, and some are new faces.”

“In today’s scoring competition, we will get a closer look at these contestants. However, after today’s Scoring Competition, only eight contestants will remain and advance to the next round!”

“And the subject of this scoring round is— ”

“Pasta!”

The host raised his voice abruptly, trying to heat up the atmosphere. However, his usually effective tactic lost its power this time.

As soon as the word “Pasta” was spoken, the audience seats fell into an eerie silence. A suffocating feeling hit all the contestants.

Would the pasta they prepared really be approved?

A glint of helplessness flashed in the host’s eyes. Obviously, he had anticipated such a situation. He took a deep breath and spoke in an even louder voice, “Let’s give our applause to the contestants and wish them the best!”

Suddenly awakened, scattered applause began to resurface from the audience seats, gradually warming up.

Despite dissatisfaction with the theme of the scoring competition, the well wishes for the contestants were still heartfelt.

The atmosphere eased, and the host let out a slight sigh of relief. “The competition is about to begin. As you can see, behind me, thirty-nine competitive standard kitchens are being raised.”

“Each competitive standard kitchen has a nameplate of a contestant. Next, the contestants will complete the designated cooking in the kitchen.”

“At this time in the past, we would have been entertained by the wonderful song and dance performance of the art troupe, but today— ”

“The arrangement of the competition will be adjusted to a certain degree!” “Because today there will be two contestants cooking in transparent mode!” As the host’s words fell, cheers immediately burst out from the audience seats. Anyone who knows about provincial-level cooking competitions would not be unfamiliar with the transparent mode.

Even if they didn’t know, it didn’t matter. The host gave a simple introduction on what transparent mode was.

The cheering was even louder for a moment.

On-site, the contestants about to cook could not help looking at their competitors around them, their eyes filled with unease.

They were guessing which two contestants were going to compete in such a fierce mode.

Soon, the answer was revealed.

On the left and right sides of the large screen in the middle of the field, the close-ups of Shen Qian and Qin Lang appeared respectively.

“Contestant Shen Qian from Yue Hu City and contestant Qin Lang from Tianhua State, they will publicly display their entire cooking process!”

The cheers and screams in the field became more and more intense. Many spectators even shouted the names of the two, seemingly becoming their fans in an instant.

On the competition field, the other thirty-seven contestants who have identified their targets cast complicated gazes at the two.

It’s you two who are making us compete fiercely?!

Damn it!

Seeing the atmosphere on the field being pushed to its peak, it seemed that the negative impact of announcing the theme for the scoring competition just now had completely disappeared. The host immediately proceeded to the next step of the process, “Let’s leave the rest of the time to the contestants.”

“Please, contestants, enter your competitive standard kitchens!”

The thirty-nine contestants did not dare to delay and ran towards their respective competitive standard kitchens.

“I announce that the first scoring competition of the Xianyu City Cooking Contest is now beginning!”

After an electric bell sound that reverberated across the field, a countdown animation of three hours appeared on the big screen.

The walls of the thirty-seven competitive standard kitchens turned from transparent to opaque at the moment of the ringing of the electric bell. Only two kitchens remained transparent, and everything inside could be clearly seen from the outside.

On the big screen in the field, the situations inside the two competitive standard kitchens in transparent mode were displayed side by side.

For a moment, all eyes were on them!

“Next, everyone outside will be able to see our cooking.”

Qin Lang glanced at the bustling scene outside the wall.

From his kitchen, he could see countless cheering spectators in the audience seats, but standing inside the kitchen, he could not hear a single sound, as if he was watching a silent film.

This design was made to avoid causing interference to the cooking process.

“Let’s start!”

He glanced at the two enthusiastic little ones beside him, then picked up a bag of high-gluten flour, added it to a basin along with water, and began kneading the dough in a familiar manner.

“Thump!”

“Thump!”

“Thump!”

After the flour was thoroughly kneaded into dough and could maintain its shape even after leaving the basin, Qin Lang directly grabbed it and slammed it onto the countertop. Then he used his hands to knead, slam, and knead again, repeating this process.

Under Qin Lang’s precise control of strength and countless repetitions of kneading, the surface of the dough was smooth and reflected under the light, presenting a fairly even state.

And this was just the beginning.

Wrapping the dough in cling film, Qin Lang put it aside and began preparing garnishes such as scallions and ginger.

The processing of the dough was handed over to Spicy.

“We can see that contestant Qin Lang is very proficient in kneading dough. It surely results from a lot of practice!”

Outside, the host was simultaneously narrating Qin Lang and Shen Qian’s cooking process, “There are two types of dough: dead dough and yeast dough. Contestant Shen Qian added yeast to her dough, which will give it a fluffy and soft texture.”

“Contestant Qin Lang, on the other hand, didn’t add anything but water and flour while kneading his dough. The final dough will have a chewy texture. For this, Qin Lang chose high-gluten flour with the strongest gluten content.”

“Now, contestant Qin Lang has completed the kneading process. He wrapped the dough in cling film to rest it. This step is called resting the dough, which is to let the flour and water blend more evenly…”

“Contestant Qin Lang used a Food Skill! It’s Cooking Acceleration!”

“With this food skill, the dough resting process can be greatly shortened and he can move quickly to the next step. I didn’t expect contestant Qin Lang to have such a trump card!”

“That’s it! It only took him a minute. During the process of cutting scallions and ginger, the dough rest was already completed! During this process, we also saw the food skill of Qin Lang’s other Food Spirit, it’s Fresh Full!”

“These two food skills are what every Spirit Chef dreams of. We have to say that contestant Qin Lang is very lucky.”

“So now, he’s starting the next step!”

‘Wait… what is contestant Qin Lang doing?!”