Chương 44: A Dish Without a Story Has No Soul

The instant the countdown bell rang, the kitchen filled with the clang of pots and pans and the symphony of knives on boards. Most contestants barely hesitated before finding their direction. Sarah moved first, a gentle smile on her face, skillfully working the chicken. She separated the legs and breast, threw the carcass into a pot with carrots and celery, and started a stock. By the look of it, she was preparing a warm chicken soup or a rustic stew, full of the warmth of home.

Owen took up potatoes and flour, seemingly planning a family gnocchi. Jack looked to be making a roast chicken, his technique very traditional, rubbing butter and herbs into the skin. Everyone was recreating the deepest flavor in their memory. Only two seemed out of place. One was Ethan. After a few hours' sleep his spirit looked much recovered, but the air he gave off was colder than before.

He didn't rush to handle his ingredients like the others; he took out pen and paper and drew something at the counter, as if designing an architectural blueprint. His eyes were focused and cool, as if "home" were, to him, only a proposition to be solved with logic and technique. The other was Chris. He stood at his station, and ten minutes passed with no movement. In Burning Kitchen, where every second counted, that was extremely unusual.

"Hey, Chris, what's wrong?" Sarah found a moment between tasks to ask, concerned.

"No ideas?" Chris shook his head, said nothing. It wasn't that he had no ideas — it was that he had too many, too tangled. He opened the system panel, hoping to find some clue. [Culinary Champion System v1. 0] [Culinary competitor: Chris White] [Culinary Rating: B (75/100)] [Arena Points: 157] [Core modules: Data Eye (daily uses: 3/3), Dish Simulation] [Skills/items held: Absolute Heat Control (Short Duration) ×1, Vane's Approval (Passive)] Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road.

Report any occurrences elsewhere. The panel was as clear and cold as ever. He tried entering the keywords "home," "mother's cooking," but the system gave no response. It could analyze dish completion, simulate heat curves, give risk warnings — but it could not read emotion. For the first time, Chris felt the system's helplessness. He closed the panel, forced himself calm, and began to deconstruct the problem with a programmer's mind. What was "home"? A place? A relationship? A feeling?

For the original owner of this body, home was a small apartment in suburban Los Angeles — a single mother's hurried, retreating figure and a fridge forever stuffed with frozen meals. That flavor was the flavor of preservatives and industrial seasoning. He couldn't carry that to the judges' table. Then what about himself — the soul from another world? What did his home taste like? He thought of the small studio he'd rented on the edge of the city right after graduating.

Overtime every night until late, dragging his exhausted body home, the only comfort being to make himself a meal. Sometimes a loaded bowl of instant noodles, sometimes frozen dumplings from the store, and occasionally, a splurge — a steak, clumsily seared for himself in a tiny pan, learning from an online video. The flavor of those foods was nothing to speak of, often outright failures. But the feeling — in loneliness and exhaustion, striving to reward and comfort himself with food — that was unbearably real.

It was a flavor… of one person, trying hard to live.

"Chris, forty-five minutes left!" Vane's voice cracked over like a whip. He'd come to Chris's station without his noticing, brow furrowed.

"Are you standing here as punishment? If you can't produce anything, take off your apron and get out now!" The cameras locked onto Chris at once; the director plainly loved this kind of lead-in-crisis drama. Every gaze gathered on him. Ethan looked up from his "blueprint" and gave Chris a glance, an imperceptible contempt in his eyes. It seemed to say: see — stripped of data and process, you're nothing. Chris drew a deep breath, raised his head, and looked straight into Vane's eyes.

"No, Chef." His voice was calm.

"I'm just thinking about what my home actually tastes like." Vane paused. He hadn't expected this answer. He'd thought Chris would make an excuse, or panic.

"And have you worked it out now?" Vane pressed.

"I have." Chris nodded.

"My home isn't as warm as other people's stories. It might taste a little lonely." With that, he ignored Vane and looked at no one else. He finally began to work. He took up the chicken, his movements clean and decisive. He didn't make stock like Sarah, didn't prep a whole roast like Jack. With a sharp boning knife, with surgical precision, he began to break the bird down. He carefully peeled off the skin in one whole piece and laid it flat on a parchment-lined tray.

Then he took the prime parts of the legs and breast, and threw the remaining bones and scraps into a pressure cooker. His movements no longer held the slightest hesitation; every step was full of clear purpose. Sarah couldn't read it, and neither could Jack. Even Vane, watching from the side, had eyes full of confusion. What exactly was Chris trying to make? And what would his "taste of loneliness" be like? No one knew that Chris had decided to make a dish that belonged to him alone.

A dish fusing two worlds, two lives. A dish that used an IT programmer's logic to interpret the emotional theme of home.