The harsh jeers from the audience and Colson's resolute denial were like someone grabbing Yoshino Takashi by the collar and slapping him again and again until his face was crooked and his mouth askew.
Yoshino Takashi's vision went dark. Just as Colson had said, each of the three judges on the panel held the power to affect a restaurant's fate.
Years of painstaking management and carefully crafted schemes would all turn to dust after today.
The catastrophic blow to his reputation was now irreversible.
"Damn it! Why did it turn out like this!?" Yoshino Takashi's face alternated between pale and ashen. "This wasn't my plan at all!"
"Harano Katsuya, it's all his fault!" Haranoya and Yoshinoya had been competitors for so long, they knew each other inside and out. But where on earth did Harano Katsuya get the recipe for the dish he just made? Yoshino Takashi couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he thought.
"Hmph! What are you still standing here for? Do I need to invite you to step down?" Colson said, his tone irritated.
Yoshino Takashi snapped back to his senses, hearing the denunciations echoing throughout the venue. His face burning with shame, he fled back towards the employee corridor.
As soon as he entered the corridor and let out a long sigh of relief, a voice he absolutely did not want to hear sounded in his ear.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Ha—ra—no—Kat—su—ya!" His voice strained, Yoshino Takashi raised his head, his eyes bloodshot and glaring fiercely.
Behind Harano Katsuya stood three men built like iron towers, striking bodybuilding poses, flexing their solid muscles, and baring their teeth in menacing grins.
The shortest one even had gauze wrapped around his head.
One look was all it took to confirm that these were not people his small frame could ever hope to fight.
Without the protection of a financial report, Yoshino Takashi backed away, his expression panicked. "What do you want!?"
"I don't want anything. It's just that you haven't forgotten the words you used to provoke Mo Bai-kun before the competition, have you?" Harano Katsuya adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses. Birds of a feather flock together; hanging out with Mo Bai had made even an honest man less so. "Why be in such a hurry to leave?"
"Please come back on stage with us. Otherwise, I can't guarantee whose mouth those words of yours might spread from."
"Provoking an injured Mo Bai-kun was already a dishonorable thing to do, and Mo Bai-kun is a contestant highly regarded by Mr. Colson…"
"Food critics may not have the authority to revoke a chef's star rating, but that doesn't mean they don't know inspectors who do have that authority."
"You wouldn't be unaware of that, would you, Yoshino-kun?"
"Harano Katsuya, you!" Yoshino Takashi was seething. He was about to make a move when he saw the three brothers—Daji, Zhongji, and Xiaoji—take a neat step forward in unison.
"After you," Harano Katsuya said, indicating that with his three brawny bodyguards, he wasn't the least bit worried.
When the audience saw Harano Katsuya and his three companions half-forcibly escorting Yoshino Takashi back onto the stage, the Takagaki fans, who had just calmed down, erupted in another wave of angry curses.
This wasn't just rubbing salt in the wound; it was practically digging up his grave to whip the corpse!
Amidst the sky full of curses, Yoshino Takashi's expression was dazed, as if his body had lost its soul. Every second back on that stage was torture.
"Damn it! What now!?" The angry shouts started up again. Kasuga Yanagi cursed under her breath. This was a live television broadcast!
Kasuga Yanagi could already picture her bald boss going ballistic.
Huh? Why do I suddenly feel a little thrill?
Haha! Serves you right, you baldy, for giving me such a torturous hosting gig!
Kasuga 'Feeling Great, Absolutely Great Right Now' Yanagi walked towards Harano Katsuya with a brilliant smile she could hardly suppress. She smelled a big story.
"Contestant Harano, is there something else?"
"Yoshino-kun and Mo Bai-kun have an unfinished bet, so he has returned to the stage. The spirit of honoring a bet even after receiving a low score is something every one of us chefs should learn from," Harano Katsuya said with a serious expression.
Yoshino Takashi looked constipated as he entered a state of complete withdrawal.
"You, with your thick eyebrows and big eyes, are a truly wicked one. Do you really think the audience can't see? He was obviously dragged up here by you guys." Kasuga Yanagi's alluring, captivating eyes darted back and forth between Harano Katsuya and Yoshino Takashi, trying to catch any clue.
But in the next moment, a rich, savory aroma washed over them again. While Kasuga Yanagi's mind was focused on the intrigue between the two Akihabara kingpins, her body honestly pivoted ninety degrees to face the source of the fragrance.
The veteran cameraman was instantly in position.
The large screen showed a scene of Mo Bai filtering four pots of rich broth.
Filtering broth wasn't a particularly dazzling technique, but the ingredients in the pots and the savory aroma rushing towards them made it impossible to look away.
"The ingredients in contestant Mo Bai's four pots of broth are truly a magnificent sight to behold."
"Dried sardines, dried horse mackerel, dried anchovies, dried mackerel…"
"Huh? What are those dried fish with the long fins and the small ones?"
"Those are dried flying fish and dried halfbeak," Colson said, somewhat stirred. Mo Bai's recipe seemed to have changed slightly from what he'd tasted yesterday. "Neither is commonly used for dashi, but the broth they produce has a savory deliciousness distinct from that of common dried fish."
"It's unbelievable that a single pot of dried fish broth contains so many ingredients."
Smelling the rich aroma, Kasuga Yanagi could feel her mouth watering uncontrollably.
"Contestant Mo Bai has finished filtering the first broth. Next up is the shellfish dashi…"
The savory aroma in the air changed, and the two combined into an intoxicating blend.
"Clams, fresh scallops, dried scallops, mussels…"
"Are those red-tipped ones Arctic surf clams? Add to that the earlier geoduck—that's six types of shellfish ingredients in one pot of broth?!"
"I'm starting to understand what Mr. Colson meant by 'even a failure would be worth tasting'."
"With such a vast array of ingredients, if the dish is successful, the explosion of umami would be simply unimaginable!" Kasuga Yanagi panted lightly, her cheeks flushed crimson.
This tantalizing aroma that tickled one's senses was simply unbearable!
Kasuga Yanagi's eyes were silky with desire, and she unconsciously squeezed her legs together.
"Next is the fresh fish dashi. Red sea bream, blue mackerel, Spanish mackerel, Pacific saury, Far Eastern sea bass, and Far Eastern scaled sardine. Six types of fresh fish as well!" Kasuga Yanagi had obtained Mo Bai's ingredient list.
"And finally, the shrimp dashi. Antarctic krill, Arctic sweet shrimp, sakura shrimp, and dried prawns… Considering the krill and sweet shrimp meat were cooked separately from their shells, you could say this also has six types of ingredients."
After being filtered, the dashi were mixed into a small pot one by one according to a specific ratio. The minced krill and sweet shrimp meat were added to the pot, and the slightly cloudy broth, with shrimp oil floating on top, gradually transformed into a clear and translucent milky soup.
The savory aroma erupted like a bomb, at least ten times more intense than the first time the four broths released their fragrance together!
The voices denouncing Yoshino Takashi began to fade, and soon, the entire venue fell silent.
Every member of the audience flared their nostrils and began a contest of lung capacity, faces full of bliss as they tried their best to inhale the rich fragrance in the air.
Wang Yao might have been the only one in the crowd who didn't fit in. He stared in utter astonishment at the faint glow emanating from Mo Bai's station.
"In less than twenty-four hours, he not only managed to change the recipe, but he also reached the stage of glowing cuisine?"
"Is he using cheats?!" This was the first time in Wang Yao's culinary career that he felt someone else was using cheats.
Under normal circumstances, he was usually the one people accused of using cheats.
"This light is…!?" Within the dream-like rosy glow above the pot, Chiba Eda strangled the Nekomata in her arms into the shape of a '7'.
Unlike last time, the roar of the ocean could be heard clearly throughout the venue from within the myriad rays of rosy light.
All the chefs felt a bone-chilling sense of pressure.
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