Strange World Little Cooking Saint

Chapter 40 Sashimi (e)

Translated by Ultra

Edited by Gumihou

The Old Man was the being living inside the jade pendant worn by Lin Fan.

It should be noted that, without this old man, Lin Fan’s rise to power would not have been half as fast.

At the Old Man’s cryptic words, Lin Fan was reminded of the first time he encountered Shiyu. If Shiyu had not returned this jade pendant to him, he would have missed out on this unique mentorship.

“Her Cultivation pace is a bit slow.” Lin Fan stated. Now that Shiyu had entered the College, he could see that her Cultivation stage was probably the lowest among the students.

The Old Man narrowed his eyes at Lin Fan, “Within the Hidden Treasure Pavilion of this College is a special precious item. If you give this item to your little friend, her Cultivation rate will no doubt increase. However, these old College fuddy-duddies are a greedy lot. It can only be redeemed at the price of 10 million Contribution Points.”

“10 million, is it?”

“Oh yes, if you are interested. This venerable one has done the calculations for you. According to the College rules, if you challenge someone and win, you get half their Contribution Points. Killing a 7th Rank Spiritual Beast gets you 100,000 Contribution Points. Donation of one Arcane Tier precious medicinal plant rates a cool 100,000 Points… in other words, if you battle one hundred students a day, kill a 7th Rank Spiritual Beasts or locate an Arcane Tier medicinal plant in your vast free time, you could probably reach 10 million Contribution Points in, oh, about 10 years. Probably.”

Lin Fan, “… …”

Do you think 7th Rank Monsters and Arcane Tier medicinal plants grow on sidewalks like Chinese cabbages?

Lin Fan dropped down and sat cross-legged before his mentor as the Old Man continued, “Of course, there is another way. Challenging the Listed fighters. Once you reach First Place, the Contribution Points and rewards awarded should be enough for you to exchange for that special item. Naturally, you must be strong enough to get into the List in the first place, then you must fight your way to the top.”

Lin Fan nodded, “This disciple understands. This disciple will Cultivate his strength as quickly as he can.”

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As master and disciple were witnessing the sunrise, Shiyu was also waking up in her room downstairs. Rather than waking up, it was more accurate to say that she was being woken up. The long-forgotten San Pang, who had somehow managed to sleep through the move from the inn [1], being placed in a new location, as well as the cleaning and restoration of Bamboo Villa, was now awake.

Annoyingly, this Radish Demon was currently screeching and smacking at Shiyu’s face, “Wake up! Wake up! What is this place! [1]”

Still half asleep, Shiyu grabbed the little arm smacking her cheek and flung it in the direction of the window. The Radish Demon flew through the air, smacked against the closed window and dropped headfirst into one of the flower pots she had left there from yesterday’s planting spree [1].

Oddly enough, getting flung through the air did not deter the Radish Demon who ran back to Shiyu, this time covered in fresh potting soil and smacked his dirty hand against her face. [1] He sailed through the air a second time, and then the third time. Finally, Shiyu could not stand it anymore and sat up. She shouted, “You try that again I’ll slice you up!”

Slice you up.

Slice you up.

Slice you up. [1]

San Pang froze in place, not daring to move.

After shouting at the stupid Radish, Shiyu gave up all attempts to sleep and got up with a stretch. “Aren’t you the one who keeps harping about getting into the Imperial College?” [2]

When the Radish Demon shook himself out of his frozen state and rushed for the door, she narrowed her eyes and said, “Personally, I’d think twice about leaving this place if I were you. If someone spotted you and decides to chop you up for soup, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

San Pang froze up again.

Shiyu got out of bed, padded over on bare feet, scooped him up and beamed at him, “By the way, what Attribute are you again, my good child~”

The sudden mood shift threw San Pang off, however, he was still sharp enough to sense danger and killing intent in the air, “W-water Attribute…”

“Very good,” Shiyu’s smile widened and she squeezed him, hard. “Then you must be very good at cleaning. Make sure to clean my sheets before going out to play, understand?”

Trembling with fear, San Pang finally noticed what had prompted this uncharacteristic display of anger. There were muddy radish prints on the sheets from his numerous climbs to smack Shiyu on the face. Not to mention the tiny footprints on the floor…

After enslaving the Radish Demon, Shiyu went downstairs to prepare breakfast.

It took her a few tries to open the backdoor that led to the kitchen garden. Why was it so dark today…? [4] Finally, she managed to force the door open and was nearly caught within the sprawling ivy vines that had grown over the door. The kitchen door was not the only thing covered in vines. Windows, balconies… in fact, the entire building were all covered in the little triangular leaves. 

Shiyu gaped at the Jolly Green Giant that had replaced their perfectly fine Bamboo Villa. [4]

Had all this really grown up in just one night? Have I accidentally cultivated a bunch of spiritual plants?

Oh, but having a green fluffy house like this is nice too. It looked much cosier than before, a little like one of those ivy-covered European cottages. Ah, but I’ll have to trim away those bits covering our windows and doors. [4]

She spent some time hanging about the garden, studying her other plants to see if they showed any spiritual inclinations and admiring her new fluffy house. After counting the days, she estimated that today should be the day she had invited Feng Luo over for a meal. He had done so much for her, though it was basically payment for the Lotus thing, it would benefit her to maintain a good relationship with sane and generous people. Treating him to a meal should be the least of it.

After a simple breakfast, Shiyu waved good-bye to Lin Fan, who was still meditating on the roof, and left the courtyard. There was shopping to be done, and a guest to bring over. [4]

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She soon returned with Feng Luo.

Shiyu pushed past the gates and happily entered her newly landscaped home. It took her a moment to realise that Feng Luo had stopped at the gate. “H-have we come to the wrong place?”

Shiyu coughed into her hand, “You might not believe this, but, this all happened suddenly, all on its own. I have nothing to do with it.”

Feng Luo looked at her with amazement. However, he did not press the subject. Instead, he made his way into the courtyard, unable to really take his eyes off the green fluffy. “I must say that you are making me more and more curious about you.”

“Please don’t, I am merely basking in Lin Fan’s reflected glory.” Shiyu was determined to push any weird or wonderful events onto Lin Fan’s person.

Well, there was no denying Lin Fan’s ability. Since Shiyu refused to disclose any details, he kept his questions to himself.

While Shiyu went to the kitchen to put her shopping away, Feng Luo made himself at home. He was currently occupying a corner of the loft and smiled up at Shiyu, “The Wood Element in your courtyard is so much more active than the world outside. I can feel how active my Spiritual Power has become just by sitting here. No need to entertain me, I’ll just stay here and Cultivate for a while.”

Shiyu, “… …”

Well, as long as her guest is happy…

Since the guest did not need entertaining, Shiyu busied herself with the meal. First, she netted a fish from the pond and used it to practice her Sashimi slicing skills.

The Supreme Indifferent was extremely sharp, fish aside, this dagger could probably cut through iron like tofu. Shiyu pondered over the Sashimi Issue. The problem can’t be related to the sharpness of her knife. Could the overall presentation be the real issue?

Technically speaking, to make Sashimi, all she had to do was skin the fish, slice it, and then arrange it on the plate in the most aesthetically pleasing manner. Was it the lack of condiment?

Does Fat Cat want Wasabi paste?

Shiyu was about to duck into the secret space when a black blob appeared on the corner of her kitchen counter. The blob grew and grew and eventually grew into the shape of a fat cat. Fat Cat stepped over to Shiyu, its steps oddly delicate for such a round feline. Its glass-like eyes peered unblinkingly up at Shiyu

“Your slices are too thick, the meat is too loose and you’re using the knife wrong. [5]” Fat Cat said lazily. 

Shiyu blinked, her mind was still stuck on the part of just how is this cat here?! [5]

“The fault is not in the knife or condiments. You must master your cutting technique.” When Shiyu did not say anything, it narrowed its eyes and padded over to the block of fish Shiyu had prepared earlier to practice her slicing skills. With a swipe of its claws, something fell off the block. The thing looked paper-thin, almost transparent.

When she picked up the paper-thin item, Shiyu realised that she was looking at a very, very finely sliced piece of fish. It was so thin that she could see through it, the grains of the fish was clearly visible, but somehow, even when she was holding it up, the flesh did not come apart.

Just what kind of slicing technique is this?

Also, is this still sashimi?

[Gumihou: Uh no, dubious fact alert! Check note 6]

As a professional chef, Shiyu thought her knife work was not bad, but seeing how casually the cat had made the cut, she finally realized why she was not recognised as a first-rate chef.

“When you can reach this level of skill, you may go to the next step.” Fat Cat said with a sense of finality before stretching out right in front of a sunbeam. It was not long before a series of zzzz… was heard.

Some odd, unnameable feeling welled up within Shiyu’s chest at the sight of this snoozing creature. Had she just received a protagonist worthy magical pet? Well, she’s no protagonist, but having a magical pet meant… something, right? [7]

Right, let’s not think too deeply about it. [7]

Keeping her head down, she blocked away all unnecessary thoughts [7] and focussed on the block of fish she had prepared. The flesh of the fish was firm and cool to the touch, the colour alternate between yellow and white. Her knife came down, sliding across the grain gently, as though following the lines like guiding arrows. The pattern looked perfectly even without any tearing, but it was not as thin as the one made by Fat Cat. So she made the second slice, and the third slice… she will slice on and on until she could see sunlight shining through the thinly sliced flesh.

There were not many dishes for lunch, but Shiyu had given the meals a lot of thought. There was a dish of Vermillion Meat, which she had gone through a lot of trouble to obtain the recipe, a plate of Grilled Matsutake, a plate of Onigiri Meatroll [8], as well as a large pot of boiled fish slices.

The scent of good food attracted the attention of both Lin Fan and Feng Luo, waking them out of their respective meditations. Both came down to find the table already set and dishes steaming invitingly.

The three sat down to eat. Feng Luo, the guest of honour for the day, ate a few bites and paused.

“What is it? Is there something wrong with the food?”

Feng Luo shook his head. He was a little emotional as he said, “There’s nothing wrong with the food. What is wrong are the people. To think that Liu Yi actually received such good treatment on the road…”

“The feeling of having one’s kindness taken for granted is really awful, [9]” Shiyu’s face sank into shame and misery. She had been taken in by Liu Yi’s good looks and assumed that his character would be as good as his face. Who would have known, ah?

As the two began to warm up to the topic, Lin Fan placed his chopsticks o the table and leaned forward, “Who is this Liu Yi?”

[Gumihou: …I guess we know who he’s going to challenge first?]

[1] Added more details and change structure type: This scene is supposed to be funny, but the impact was reduced by the passive sentence and lack of dialogue and minimal sentence. 

 ‘When he woke up, he frantically patted Shi Yu on the face, loudly asking in horror where he was.’

I helped by adding dialogue and expanding the throwing scene.

[2] I split the dialogue for emphasis.

[3] Major change to prevent OOC: The original text could be interpreted as ‘Shiyu roared, thundered, blustered, raged, etc’ whereas the original translator uses ‘screeched’ to say ‘Then if you don’t wash this old lady’s sheets today, don’t even think about going out to play!!’

Ah… this smacks of OOCness. Shiyu, aren’t you too OOC? You’ve already shouted once, and your MO has always been to borrow knives to kill, even that guy is killed by you through indirect means, ah. For you to shout once is an accident (happened already), twice is a coincidence and three times a pattern. This is the only scene where you ever shout since the beginning of the novel, and you did it twice within the same couple of inches of text. Have you turned into Mo Yin? Have you been mistaken for Mo Yin?

… let’s switch ‘raging’ to ‘quietly murderous’ instead…

I’m sure no one will notice…

[4] Added a lot of details: Yes… I expanded this line ‘As soon as she discovered what had happened overnight, she was stunned.’ 

-and dealt with some logistical questions. I.e. trimming the bits around windows and doors, and having difficulty getting out because of ivy.

 Also, going out without talking about going to the market, but suddenly putting stuff away while your guest is in the house… Author-san, you should not miss out on details like this, ah.

[5] Structural change: Too many details stuck in too short a sentence. I’ve spread it out and italicize Shiyu’s incredulity to increase emphasis

[6] Dubious fact alert!: Actually, very thinly sliced meat makes it more carpaccio than sashimi, but hey, creative licence. Also, sashimi is not generally sliced so thinly, unless it’s blowfish. The reason is that fugu meat is awfully fibrous, elastic and difficult to bite off, hence the thin slices.

Normal fish are easily bitten off when raw, is a little buttery and has a melty texture and does not smell fishy. Luxurious sashimi is thick-cut sashimi! Shops with thinly sliced sashimi are being stingy!

The reason being that if you slice a fish too thinly, you can’t enjoy its buttery, melty texture. The keyword here is TEXTURE. So, unless the end result is to enjoy the Sauce on very thinly sliced fish, by all means, slice it very thinly to show off your knife skills and let your customer enjoy the porcini mushroom sauce garnished with grated white truffle and foie gras.

However, most fresh raw fish has no real taste, seriously. It depends on the fish of course, but since Shiyu got the fish out of a pond and this being pseudo-China, I’m going to assume carp and not some mystical being fish. White fish are usually enjoyed for their texture. Here’s a video on carp sashimi. Apparently, it smells like dirt water. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz0QvRD82tA

Fat Cat, please stop teaching Shiyu wrong things.

And no, Gumihou is not afraid of you! Gumihou will continue to defend facts and truth!

[7] OOC related detail change: The original sentence repeated variations of ‘inexplicable’ 3 times in two sentences. Original translator assumes it’s: ‘She got a vague sense that its appearance meant that she had officially embarked upon a certain path (tl note: a Path of Cultivation)’. We don’t know if it’s really for ‘Path of Cultivation’

I decided to go on the ‘not gonna think about it’ path.

[8] Find out more about Onigiri Meatroll at Chapter 187 of Tondemo Skill~

[9] Replaced ‘!’ with ‘,’ 

This author seems to like ‘!’, but not to the point of that author for Kitchen Xiuzhen… I’ve deleted over 20 ‘!’ per chapter on average for KX =.=