Enforcer Manual
Chapter 654: The Secret to Becoming a Chef_1

Chapter 654: Chapter 654: The Secret to Becoming a Chef_1

It seems that acting on a whim is a common affliction among aristocrats.

According to the regular procedures of the consortium, the food for the banquet had to be audited at multiple levels and ultimately approved by the Head Maid. However, due to an order from Miss Isabella, this process was directly skipped, leaving the servants of the Gilvez family scurrying about like ants on a hot pan.

Because it was a last-minute instruction, the kitchen hadn’t prepared the ingredients in advance, so Song Lan had to make full use of the leftovers from yesterday, and he also needed to meet the young miss’s request for "desserts" or "sweet treats."

He felt that the pressure of a cooking competition show couldn’t compare to this.

After all, if you messed up in a cooking show, you would only face a fierce glare from the judges, but if these bungled dishes were eaten by members of the consortium’s family, your entire career as a chef, and possibly your whole life, could come to an end.

This indirectly indicated that being a chef for the consortium was a rather important position.

They could directly harm those lofty family members at any time. Inspectors were only responsible for checking if poison had been added to the dishes, but for experienced chefs, they could completely destroy the diner’s soul with the dishes themselves without using any poison.

"Mr. Lucky, this means that the young miss trusts your abilities very much,"

the older servant, with time to spare amid the busyness, approached Song Lan and said.

His status in the Gilvez family was roughly that of a handyman supervisor, and the young servants who had just watched the martial arts demonstration were essentially under his direction.

Reading the room was a basic skill in this line of work, and he knew that getting close to Song Lan was the right move. As long as he had a good relationship with Song Lan, perhaps Song Lan would be happy to teach him a thing or two about cooking.

Miss had given Song Lan a tough challenge, preparing desserts for the core family members’ banquet with the remaining ingredients in the kitchen in an extremely short time. Even in such a situation, he was still able to design over a dozen distinct desserts using these scraps in an orderly fashion.

"Mr. Lucky, this is a personal question, but could you tell me the secret to becoming an excellent chef?"

the older servant asked again.

Prior to this, the Gilvez family’s personal chefs came and went, and he had seen those top chefs from the highest-grade restaurants, but none of them could come close to Song Lan.

They always stuck to their set dishes, never daring to step into uncharted territories. Thus, once the novelty wore off, they could no longer please the miss and the lady.

Yet Song Lan’s mind seemed to possess an endless supply of knowledge. In the single day since he had arrived at the consortium, he had already presented more than ten entirely different dishes.

"Observe, learn, practice more... But that’s probably not the answer you’re looking for, right?"

"Yes,"

the older servant nodded seriously.

"There was once a mysterious chef who said that the secret to becoming the best chef is finding a woman you can wholeheartedly devote all your cooking to."

When Song Lan first heard this theory, he was a single guy, clutching a bucket of instant noodles and salivating over the delicacies on the screen.

It was only after meeting Lu Xiang that he gained a deeper appreciation of this theory.

Over the past few months, his culinary skills had improved leaps and bounds, and he occasionally even recorded the inspirations or recipes that came to mind—in his studies, he had never worked this hard.

"Are you referring to the young miss?"

the older servant was taken aback.

"No,"

Song Lan shook his head, "The young miss is not my type."

"Could it be... Ms. Kalida?"

The servant’s eyes widened in shock; after all, he had heard that Mr. Rob Lucci was personally invited to the consortium by Ms. Kalida, and considering the chaotic private lives of the aristocrats...

"Food can be eaten indiscriminately, but words must not be spoken carelessly,"

Song Lan hastily clarified, acutely aware of the dangers of gossip, especially since Director Lu was also in the castle—God only knew what would happen if these rumors reached her ears, "She’s not from the Seventh District. I came here for one reason only, and once I’ve earned enough money, I want to return home to marry."

"Those words can’t be carelessly spoken!"

Now it was the older servant’s turn to be anxious, his years of experience telling him that people who uttered such words seldom had a good ending.

However, Song Lan’s answer did provide him with some reference.

While Song Lan and the others were busy in the kitchen, the atmosphere in the banquet hall was grave. They had perfected the art of feigning pleasantries to the extreme, holding their wine glasses, wearing fake masks, and using insincere speech to confound each other.

The mishap during the martial demonstration made the power struggle within the consortium once again complex and unpredictable.

This was the chain reaction resulting from Cain’s failure.

They had all seen the ominous Spiritual Energy surging from his body and his appearance as if corrodед by unclean forces. Cain, who had passed out, was rushed to the hospital immediately, and the majority of them anxiously awaited the latest news from the medical facility.

If Cain was confirmed to have used some kind of evil force, or if the finger of blame pointed toward Colin Capello, they would have to reconsider whom they supported.

Jasmine was out of place in the banquet’s atmosphere.

She was the only one sitting in the corner, indulging herself in the continuous flow of desserts brought to her.

The chef named Rob Lucci was the only person who had pleasantly surprised her, and she secretly considered hiring him as her private chef one day if the consortium ever let him go.

With her Six Stars rescuer salary, hiring a personal chef should be well within her means.

"Eat, eat, eat! All you ever think about is eating!"

An unhappy voice entered Jasmine’s ears, and as its owner appeared, the atmosphere in the banquet hall fell into a brief silence, with most people’s gaze focusing on the woman dressed in a light knight’s attire.

Rose glared at Jasmine, who was treating the banquet like a buffet, and couldn’t hide her irritation.

"You were right there at the scene, yet you let the knighting ceremony turn into such a commotion!"

"Hold it, hold it."

Jasmine gestured for a pause, "I’m not with the consortium, what does your knighting ceremony have to do with me? Instead of lashing out at me, why not sit down and try this? This thing called fruit jelly is quite interesting."

Rose rolled her eyes but still sat down opposite Jasmine, absentmindedly stirring the fruit in the bowl with her spoon.

"What about you, where were you on such an important day?"

"Inside meeting of the consortium, I had to be there."

"Did Richard summon you away again? Is he that afraid someone might assassinate him?"

Jasmine asked in a hushed tone.

Richard Gervis was Isabella’s father and the current head of the Iris Consortium, but Jasmine had never had any fondness for the old fox.

Recently, being frequently suppressed by the Ragus Foundation at the Review Meeting had evidently thrown Richard into some sort of midlife crisis, making him moody and unpredictable.

"Let’s not talk about that for now."

Rose shook her head, "The hospital released the results regarding Cain."

"What about him?"

"His case is strange, the external exoskeleton armor seems to have grown into his body, permanently fixed, unable to be removed. The doctors tried many methods and ultimately believe the Knight armor has become a part of his body."

"How is he supposed to use the bathroom then?"

Jasmine blurted out, plunging the conversation into a frigid silence.

Rose gave her sister a stern look. How had Jasmine changed like this after not seeing her for a while?

Jasmine covered her mouth with her left hand and guiltily stuck out her tongue, realizing such questions might not be appropriate given her status, but this was a side effect of spending too much time around δ. When someone is constantly giving you their opinion right next to your ear, it’s hard not to be influenced by it.

She cleared her throat and put on a serious demeanor, the kind she had when working, "What you describe sounds like a mutation. The external department mentioned encountering similar mutated constructs near the Third Neutral Country, but I need to check it out myself."

"But that doesn’t explain the Psychic Energy he released just before he passed out. I checked his information, and there’s no sign that he’s a Psychic Ability User. Weren’t you right there and detected nothing unusual?"

"I am a Six Stars rescuer, after all."

Jasmine said, "Such intensity of Spiritual Energy must have been caused by those prisoners who escaped from the Seventh District."

"That’s exactly what I’m worried about."

Rose furrowed her brow, "One of them might have infiltrated the castle."

Maybe not just one...

After much hesitation, Jasmine decided to keep δ’s existence a secret.

On her way to the banquet hall, δ explicitly indicated that the changes Cain underwent were caused by its own kind.

"You’ve never been good at fighting since childhood, be sure to keep yourself safe."

Rose let out a long exhale, finally taking a sip of the fruit jelly Jasmine offered. Their jobs gave them scarce occasions to meet, and even when they did, it was usually for official matters.

"You too, I will check on the hospital. And about that Lord who got his hand bitten off by his own pet, what do you plan to do with him? Just seeing him swing around in front of me is annoying."

Jasmine was referring to the Scarlet Lord.

This Lord, much like the Capello Family, even dared to treat her as a flirtation target, "If you don’t get rid of him soon, I’m afraid I’ll accidentally twist his neck off."

For a Lord, losing a hand or a foot isn’t considered a serious injury.

Despite looking close to death when carried into the hospital, a simple surgery to equip him with a new cybernetic prosthetic meant that the Scarlet Lord could be discharged before dawn.

The reason he was still in the hospital was because of enforced isolation.

Through this, Rose temporarily prevented him from returning to his own Knight Group.

"You wouldn’t do that."

Rose chuckled helplessly, "You only save lives... but I’ll take care of it."

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