Chương 160: England Runs the Numbers

Rewind to the night before the final. The lights were all on in England's training kitchen, but the quiet in it was uncanny. Arthur Campbell and his two teammates sat around a table. On it was a printed document stamped MOST CONFIDENTIAL. The title on it read: Global Culinary Champion League · Final · The Three-Day War · Rules in Detail.

"Exactly as our teacher predicted." Arthur's second, a burly cook named Thomas, was smiling easily.

"Round one, Homage to the Classics. That's the trophy handed to us in a box." The third member, a pastry chef named Imogen, agreed.

"That technical one on the American team, Ethan — he's got something, but in the field of perfect replication he isn't within sight of you, Captain. As for the other two, one of them's off in the clouds and the other one looks like a commis. Neither of them is a concern." Arthur said nothing. His fingers tapped the table lightly. His eyes were on page three — the deep-analysis report on the three American competitors. It was more detailed than anything Sarah had ever passed to Chris.

It included every internal assessment score Chris had ever received at Le Château, Ethan's technical parameters across the whole molecular field, and every published work and stated principle of Kira's.

"Don't underestimate them." Arthur finally spoke, still level.

"A lion hunting a hare still uses all of its strength." His eyes stopped on Chris White's page.

"This Chris is the American team's adhesive," he said.

"Look at all of their matches: his personal technique and his personal creativity are not at the top of the field. What he does is integrate Ethan's technique and Kira's invention — two things that flatly contradict each other. He's a translator. A process manager."

"So our tactics are simple." Arthur lifted his head to his teammates.

"Round one, we use our replication at full strength and destroy their confidence on the technical level. Ethan above all. He's their technical core; if he breaks, half of the American attack goes silent." This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Thomas and Imogen both nodded hard.

"Round two. The Future Kitchen." Arthur's finger ran along the line.

"This round is our opportunity. The Americans — Kira in particular — have a philosophy built on the natural and the traditional. Faced with unnatural, synthesized ingredients, they will not be able to breathe. We carry no such baggage."

"Our position is that cooking is science. Natural or man-made, an ingredient is a set of chemical elements. We analyze the molecular structure and identify the correct method. In that round we crush them with pure reason and pure science, and we make them understand that in the kitchen of the future their so-called emotion and their so-called story are worth nothing at all."

"By round three—" and here at last the corner of Arthur's mouth moved into something cold "—their confidence is gone and their morale is on the floor. And the Ultimate Banquet is the round that tests team collaboration and mental state most severely of all. A team on the edge of collapse cannot complete a challenge at that level."

"So our objective is not to win three rounds. It's to kill the competition inside the first two." The tactics were clear, cold, and interlocked. Every step landed precisely on an American weakness.

"Captain — what about the American one? Chris?" Imogen asked.

"You've never treated him as a real threat." Arthur leaned back and folded his arms.

"He's an excellent adhesive. But adhesive has no fighting power of its own," he said.

"His greatest value is letting his two teammates function. Once his teammates go silent, he himself is no threat whatsoever."

"He's the point guard of a basketball team. Superb passer. Our tactic is to lock down their scorers so the point guard has nowhere to pass. Then he has to shoot it himself. And his shooting percentage is pitiful." Thomas and Imogen both laughed at that. As far as Arthur could see, Chris's value was badly overrated. A cook with no top-tier individual attack could not possibly become the deciding factor on a stage at this level. He had underestimated Chris.

He had underestimated the man who was about to complete his final change out of the role of translator. And he had underestimated the bond between those three Americans — built out of real feeling and shared experience, and running far past anything ordinary teammates have.

"That's enough." Arthur stood, ending the meeting.

"Go and rest. Tomorrow we do one thing only: we perform, exactly as written."

"Let's show the Americans what the art of cooking actually is." There was absolute confidence in his eyes, and no regard at all for the other side. He believed the final had been over from the moment the rules were announced.