Strange World Little Cooking Saint

 Chapter 48 Sashimi (m)

Translated by Ultra

Edited by Gumihou

That evening, students who routinely ordered from the Soup Shop noticed the glaring absence of the very conspicuous large pot of soup.

“Apologies, from today onwards, we will not be selling soup anymore. We are trying out a new dish called Sashimi.” explained the cute Soup Shop girl with a smile. “Please try our Sashimi.”

She softly stepped aside and revealed the identity of this strange dish. The presentation of the dish was certainly elegant. The slices were thin as paper, each piece was like a short bamboo leaf, and arranged like a blooming flower on a jet black plate. The pale translucent flesh alternate between white and yellow, heightening the impression that they were looking at a piece of art instead of food.

Within the centre of the flower was a little saucer filled with some kind of sauce [1].

“Sashimi? Isn’t it just raw fish?” someone asked suspiciously. “Is it even edible?”

Even if it’s edible, is it even good?

“Anything produced by the Soup Shop is bound to be good. If it’s bad, I shall refund you ten times the price,” said Shiyu confidently.

“Oh, such confidence. Well? How much is it?” someone was immediately intrigued.

“We don’t charge money for it. Contribution Points only, 1 Contribution Point per dish.” This was her big plan. After considering the matter for a long time, she settled at 1 CP per dish. If it’s too expensive, only the crazy or too rich would come and try her dish. This way, even the poorest student would be able to afford to visit her shop a few times. Of course, the dish was correspondingly smaller than what she would normally serve in a restaurant.

There’s no need to utilize complicated marketing schemes like Hunger Marketing or selling the dish as a luxury good. Both methods required a lot of time, effort and connections that she really did not have. Moreover, Shiyu has faith in her craft and believed that people will pay for it because it was worth it.

When the students heard that they would have to pay in Contribution Points, quite a few of them gave up the idea. It was just food after all. Moreover, they could exchange 10 CP for a Low-Grade Elixir. Spending Contribution Points on mere food was just too lavish.

Shiyu smiled at them, aware of what they were thinking. “If it doesn’t taste good, I am willing to pay 10 times the compensation. Is there anyone who would like to try?”

The offer to pay compensation was very tempting. If the food was good, they suffer no loss, if it tasted bad, they would be compensated. They would suffer no loss either way. Finally, after a few minutes of waiting and nudging, someone stepped forward and said, “I will try one plate first.”

The smile on Shiyu’s face relaxed, “Of course, please pay before you eat.”

Excellent, she directed the young man to San Pang, who had been promoted from a dishwashing auntie to counter-girl. Fortunately, there were plenty of people at the College with all kinds of weird pets, enough that having a little person the size of a man’s palm like San Pang didn’t attract much interest.

San Pang has Shiyu’s CP card in his arms. The transaction was done through a wave of their cards. Apparently, all one has to do to transfer points was to decide on a number privately in your mind and then wave your card. It was all very social distancing [2].

After the payment was done, all eyes fixed on the brave volunteer who sacrificed his Contribution Point and stomach for the amusement of the masses.

“Please eat it with a little dab of the sauce,” Shiyu reminded.

The person did as instructed.

All eyes followed his movements as he picked up a thin slice of fish with his chopsticks. The slice of fish shimmered in the air like thin silk made of cobwebs. He lowered a corner of the fish slice into the sauce, like a brush tip touching ink, the sauce ran upwards and stopped one-quarter of the way. The sauce dipped fish slice rose from the saucer, droplets falling back into the tiny plate in seemingly slow motion. The chopstick rose again and everyone held their breath as he slid the fish slice into his mouth. [3] 

There was a tensed silence as everyone waited for his reaction.

Suddenly, his face scrunched up and tears fell like rivers from his squinted eyes.

Wait, just how dreadful is the food to get this kind of reaction!?

The next thing they knew, the person cried out, “Delicious! Is this really fish!? How is it so delicious?” he picked up another piece, dipped it carefully into the sauce and stuffed into his mouth. More tears flowed down his cheeks.

Is this guy a plant?

The guy continued to eat, cry, eat more raw fish, and cried some more. 

Are those really tears of joy? Is that guy for real?

“10 more, give me 10 more of these! One is not enough for me [4]!”

Luckily, someone recognised the guy before accusations of being a plant was thrown at him. “Hey, Zhang Yue, is that Sashimi thing really good?”

“I’m too busy now. If you want to know go try it yourself.” said Zhang Yue, who couldn’t wave away his 10 CP fast enough in exchange for more Sashimi.

“Boss, I’ll have one too. If it’s not good, I shall beat you up.”

“Hahah, I guarantee you’ll end up thanking me instead.”

The Sashimi were all prepared on the spot. Sliced, arranged on the plate and sent out of the kitchen with a little saucer of the sauce. One fish was quickly whittled down and another fish was grabbed. Shiyu efficiently took off the scale along with the skin in a few swift strokes. Then she flipped her knife and sank the blade just below the head into the flesh. Without taking the knife out, she rotated her wrist and cleanly fillet the meat off the bone. The fish fillet looked smooth, uniformed and very attractive with its white and yellow-banded flesh. Shiyu flipped the fish over and took off the other side of the fillet as well.

Now that she has two fillets, her knife hand moved so quickly that the fish fillet looked like it was feathering out into shiny pieces of silk and landing on the plate right before their very eyes.

Because the fish slices were very thin, a single 2 catty (1kg) fish yielded about 10 plates, with each plate holding exactly 20 pieces of fish slices.

When the second sceptical customer also ordered 10 more plates of Sashimi after his first tasting, curiosity among the masses were piqued and they all rushed over to buy a plate for themselves too.

In that instant, the Soup Shop suddenly became the most popular vendor of the day.

Shiyu was so busy that she could not even find time to wipe the sweat off her forehead. Seeing her so busy, Gan Ping also came out to help. His knife skill was more proficient than hers, and immediately the pressure on Shiyu was halved.

As time went on, Shiyu’s wrists began to feel sore. No wonder since, she had been doing the same movement over and over again repeatedly for a long time. 

When Gan Ping noticed Shiyu rubbing her wrist, he said, “Don’t tell me you’ve been using your physical strength alone without backing it up with Spiritual Power?”

Shiyu blinked stupidly at Gan Ping before enlightenment dawned on her. Shiyu closed her eyes and began to circulate the Spiritual Power within her body. The ache in her wrist diminished, so did the tension from between her shoulder blades and lower spine from being hunched over all evening. Her speed increased and even the grain on the fish slices appeared more distinct.

With her Spiritual Power being used, the Spiritual Energy along her Meridians was also activated, creating a vacuum that drew in a faint breeze around the Soup Shop. Fortunately, the surroundings were chaotic enough that no one seemed to notice this errant breeze ruffling their hair and sleeves.

The commotion at the Soup Shop soon drew attention from the people around them. Onlookers with nothing better to do came over to see what was going on. The busybodies were soon hooked into buying a plate of Sashimi too. Finally, considering the number of fish she has and the line before them, Shiyu had to limit sales to three orders per person.

When night fell, the line of people did not diminish by much. By now, most other vendors were done for the evening and came over to try out this new dish. It was about this time that Shiyu spotted Feng Luo, who came over with Liu Yi. Shiyu quickly served him a portion first, allowing him to cut the line through friend privileges. However, it was too hectic for a proper conversation and they quickly parted after a short greeting.

The Soup Shop only stopped their business when the last of the fish was gone. Since the cafeteria operated on a 24-hour basis with different vendors operating at certain hours of the day to cater to every student’s needs. After saying their goodbyes to the late-night vendors, Gan Ping and Shiyu closed up their shop and left.

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Shiyu returned to her villa and made herself a quick dinner before settling down to check the number of Contribution Points she had made that day. However, when she saw the number, she was taken aback. Wait, really? Nearly 4,000 CP?

“Just how-?” she calculated again. She had prepared about a hundred fish, with each fish providing 20 plates. That should only net her about 2,000 CP only, ah. Where did that extra 2,000 CP came from?

San Pang piped up, “That Feng Luo and his buddy paid 1,000 CP each.”

Feng Luo and… Liu Yi?

Well, Feng Luo still owed her so him giving her 1,000 CP was still within the realm of possibility, but Liu Yi? What was his true purpose? To help her? Hah!

Shiyu ruminate over the issue for a while. After some thought, she decided that though she was not comfortable about taking Liu Yi’s dirty CP, she still deserve a reward for rescuing his worthless hide and nursing him back to health through good food and care on the road to the Imperial City. Yes, this is actual payment for the work she had done. Is his dog life not worth a measly 1,000 CP? She was never compensated for the food she provided anyway. [5]

Humph!

Now that she had reconciled herself with Liu Yi’s 1,000 CP, Shiyu put away the card and settled down to meditate.

On the second and third day, news of a popular cuisine called Sashimi had spread through the entire College. Though Shiyu and Gan Ping worked very swiftly, the dragon that wound from their Soup Shop remained very long. They had even recruited Wen Xian over to do random work for them since 

It was at this time that students of Yellow Grade, 10th Class were very glad to call themselves Shiyu’s classmates. A special, classmate only line, snaked out from the Soup Shop, putting students from other classes in the odd situation of envying the dead last class.

Because of this, Shiyu and Wen Xian’s popularity level shot up as well.

This happy and busy situation went on until the end of the month, with Shiyu finding herself breaking through two levels in 10 days, leaping up to the 9th Level of the Condensation Stage in one bound.

When Shiyu expressed her surprise on this unexpected improvement, San Pang said, “After having been suppressed by the Cinnabar Fruit for a long time, your Meridians have widened a lot. It’s perfectly natural for you to skip two levels.”

Well, if it’s perfectly natural then there’s nothing for her to worry about, right?

The next day, she entered her class with her upgraded status. Wen Xian stared at her, his face green with envy. He had just managed to escape the dead last position, but is quickly kicked back down.

How heartbreaking, ah!

[Gumihou: This one is fairly straightforward, I really don’t mind straightforward chapters]

[1] Adjust some information: The information from the original text was ‘a bit of green’ and I have serious trouble imagining that. What? It has a green stamen? How big is your flower anyway? Two layers? Three? Also, where did you get the black plates? Never mind, she’s actually rich enough to buy mundane things like plates.

Whatever, suspension of disbelief. Suspension. Don’t think about it.

[2] Added Some Details for Comedic Effect: Okay, okay, the social distancing bit is from me. Could you blame me? Also, gave more details on how the transaction works.

[3] Added Some Details for Dramatic Purpose: I slowed down the fish eating action by adding another 79 words to the original 13.

[4] Caution: Please don’t eat Sashimi more than 5 times a month. You risk getting parasites, bacterial infections and ingest pollutants via fish. Do not eat 10 portions at once.

[5] Added Some Details: Increase the thought process on Shiyu’s side.