Strange World Little Cooking Saint

 Chapter 37.4 Matsutake Meat Roll (d) 

Translated by Ultra

Edited by Gumihou

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Yay! Happy birthday to me! ^_^

The middle-aged man did not look particularly happy. By now he had more or less given up hope that anyone would be able to pay the price he wanted.

He raised his eyes and saw that the person in front of him was a young girl. A very young girl if her height and rounded chin was any indication. His expectations dropped even further as he said, “The price is a 500-year-old-old Ice Lingzhi, do you have it?”

“Of course.” Shiyu quickly took out a box from her space ring, then exaggeratedly looked left and looked right before pushing it urgently into the man’s hands. “Quickly, quickly, make the trade, make the trade now! It would be bad if Father discovers me here.”

Excitement stirred within him, but he restrained himself enough to say, “Please wait, I need to examine this.”

“Be quick about it!” Shiyu flapped an imperious hand at him while keeping her face averted. Exactly like how a spoilt young miss who had stolen a treasured Ice Lingzhi to be exchanged for an invitation letter would act.

A short while later, the middle-aged mad handed over the invitation without a word. It was unclear what was going on in his mind, but he also stuffed a few other odds and ends into her arms.

Shiyu had no intention of attracting any more attention than she had, so she just accepted the stuff which may or may not be junk for all she knew and flounced off. Leaving a trail of people gossiping about a certain spoilt young miss with more sense than money who had blown through their trading establishment that morning.

Shiyu ran out the trading establishment, veering left, then right and ducking into unexpected places to escape the eyes of whoever might be following her. Through one of the blind alleys, she took off the robes and tucked them into her ring. Her human face mask disappeared and she was once more sedately strolling through the streets as an ordinary girl.

With the invitation letter at hand, she could now attend the Palace Banquet for a look around. The reason Shiyu wanted to go to the Palace Banquet was to try some of the local delicacies of this world. As someone who was fully confident with her cooking skills, she had suffered her first confidence blow at the Lin Estate when Lin Fan’s father had tasted her roasted meat and told her that it was lacking compared to the one he had had at the Imperial City.

[Gumihou: I added more explanation of why she wanted to go to the Banquet and her curiosity for a cooking society]

How could she not be curious what the best of the best chefs had to offer at the Imperial City? In the original novel, Lin Fan never join the Cooking God Society, instead, he broke through suppression of Heaven and Earth by himself, and rushed into the Higher Heaven.

Since there were a few more days until the day of the Palace Banquet, she would use the time to choose a dress to wear and the necessary accessories to go with it. Ah, what a headache, just what should she wear, ah ~

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The day of the Palace Banquet finally arrived.

To enter the palace edifice in the clouds, you must first climb a flight of stairs on foot, all 999 steps of it. Everyone within the Eastern Martial Empire had some martial skills, so this was nothing to them.

For the banquet, Shiyu had chosen a pink Upper Chest Ru Qun [1], with a thin white cotton muslin top. A mutton fat jade tucked discreetly into the lapel of her clothes. Her long pink skirt looked fresh and pretty, fitting for a young girl. Between the pleats of her skirt were embroidery done in dark threads that could only be seen at the swing of her skirts, giving a more edgy and mysterious impression to her fresh young look.

Her current body was very young, so it was better to keep everything simple. Her hair was done up in the simplest trailing cloud bun [2]. She had chosen a hairpin decorated with a light pink peony made from rose quartz. With this kind of make-up, though her beauty was not the level that could conquer nations or devastate cities, it could be described as elegant and lively. 

In fact, Shiyu felt that she was quite talented when it came to this dressing up business.

However, before one even reaches these 999 steps, one has to pass through layers of security. Shiyu’s letter proved to be genuine as it passed one inspection after another. Finally, she was at the bottom of this amazing staircase. She could not see the top as was covered by clouds. The steps were wide enough for several people to walk abreast, and little groups of people walking up the stairs in graceful strides like elegant wild cranes.

Suddenly, Shiyu felt very lonely. It was the unique loneliness that one felt in the middle of a crowd. Throngs of people passed her by, but she knew not a single one of them. A feeling of homesickness came over her and she began to wonder what happened to the people she had left back at Qing Shan City. Are Xiao Qi and Lao Er doing well studying under the Lin Clan? Is the restaurant doing well under Xiao Wu and Xiao Liu? Surely it will all be fine with grandpa to supervise them? He was a former scholar and a learned man after all.

[Gumihou: Ahh, I wonder what happened to the kids…] 

[1] Pink Upper Chest Ru Qun 

https://item.jd.com/47903908089.html

[2] Cloud bun tutorial

https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDEzNjA5ODYyOA==.html