The Max-Level Chef’s Magical Town Game

Ye Mu grinned and her pupils trembled.

Because she could cook spicy dishes, she had never actually drunk a cold-resistant potion. When she heard Colin say he was burned by it, she hadn’t realized what that meant.

Now, all she wanted to say was: your magical world has such strong flavors!

She was sweating all over, the spicy, pickled pepper flavor lingering in her mouth for several minutes without fading.

Tears streamed down her face, and the stall owner, clearly used to this, kindly handed her a cup of water.

Wiping her tears while drinking, Ye Mu thought, no wonder this stuff is called a cold-resistant potion, this is definitely physical resistance to the cold…

Her blood vessels felt like they were about to burst, how could it not resist the cold?!

It would be better to just shake!

After downing a large cup of warm water, Ye Mu finally felt a bit better in her mouth. When she looked at the [Intermediate Cold-Resistant Potion] and [Advanced Cold-Resistant Potion], she learned her lesson—she opened the lid first to smell it, found it was also spicy, and didn’t dare to be so bold again. She just paid for a few bottles and returned to the restaurant.

Once in the kitchen, she took a small spoon and carefully poured a bit of the [Intermediate Cold-Resistant Potion].

In a daze, she recalled how she had once seen Isaac eating carefully. At that time, he was very cautious, and she had laughed internally at him for treating a new dish like a precision experiment.

Now it was her turn, what was this called?

This was called a boomerang, this was “¹the past bullet hitting the bullseye”!

But Ye Mu was actually even more careful than Isaac. After Isaac cautiously mixed his meal, he at least began to eat heartily. Ye Mu, after pouring out a few drops of potion, stared at the liquid in the spoon for a long time, mentally preparing herself before tremblingly bringing the spoon to her mouth.

The next second—

“!!!”

Ye Mu’s facial features twisted as tears welled up again while pounding the countertop.

It was chili juice! And a highly concentrated one at that! Just plain juice couldn’t achieve this level, it must have been refined!

In the real world, this would probably be called “chili essence.” Cheap restaurants and pre-made dishes use it to create sufficient spiciness with just a tiny bit, saving on both cost and indirect labor.

But for her, it was unnecessary. Although the game world likely didn’t have any design suggesting “additives are harmful to health,” she preferred the taste of natural chili peppers, always feeling that the flavor of real stir-fried peppers was more aromatic!

So, the [Intermediate Cold-Resistant Potion] was immediately kicked out of her seasoning list.

Next was the [Advanced Cold-Resistant Potion].

Advanced potions sounded even more powerful, and facing it, Ye Mu felt an imminent threat, imagining it might be intensely spicy.

But when she poured a bit from the bottle, she was somewhat surprised.

The pouring process was still smooth, but what came out wasn’t just simple juice, it was a dark orange-red oil. Ye Mu leaned in to smell it, detecting a faint roasted aroma.

Chili oil?

She cautiously tasted a little, and indeed, it was chili oil!

It had that pure, rustic chili oil flavor found in countless small eateries across ²Chengdu cuisine or Shaxian snacks. In the real world, its preparation is very straightforward: chopped dried chilies are placed in a clean bowl, then a metal spoon is used to heat a spoonful of oil until it’s just about to boil, after which it is quickly removed from the heat and poured over the chopped chilies in the bowl.

With a sizzle sound, the hot steam releases the fragrance of the dried chilies. In an old, run-down apartment buildings, if someone made this, the aroma could be smelled several floors up and down.

In small restaurants, some add salt and sesame to it, while others do not.

In this dark cuisine world, the chili oil naturally lacked salt and sesame, but even so, the flavor was already sufficiently aromatic.

Another characteristic of this chili oil was that, while it was spicy, the heat level was much lower than its aroma. So, as an [Advanced Cold-Resistant Potion], it not only had better cold-resistant effects than the primary and intermediate versions but was also more palatable!

Recalling the terrifying experience of drinking pickled pepper juice and chili essence earlier, Ye Mu felt that chili oil was truly high-grade.

Amidst the lingering fragrance, she suddenly craved something.

She craves steamed buns, dumplings, and wontons—she craves wonton soup with vinegar and chili oil.

On a winter morning, having a bowl like that would be simply delightful.

Unfortunately, she had neither vinegar nor any buns, dumplings, or wontons.

In this world, she hadn’t even seen flour.

However, she firmly believed that even without the noodles commonly paired with chili oil in small eateries, chili oil was still a great ingredient! She was sure she could come up with a dish using it, she just hadn’t thought of one yet.

Half an hour later, Ivy and the others prepared the dishes for the day, and Ye Mu started getting ready for the evening’s menu, just like usual.

Tonight, she offered spicy dishes like [Mapo Tofu] and [Spicy Duck Blood], while the non-spicy option was [Shredded Pork with Carrots]. These dishes had received great reviews recently, and by the opening time, the restaurant was bustling as usual, unaffected by the landlord’s failed attempt to raise the rent.

At nine o’clock in the evening, it was time for Ye Mu’s restaurant to close.

In the game world, there was no need to wash dishes, utensils appeared automatically when the system deemed necessary and vanished once the food was finished. So, the closing tasks mainly involved rearranging the tables and chairs and tidying up the kitchen ingredients.

Ivy usually led the cleaning with Della, while Jeff handled matters at the self-service window and would help them finish the rest afterward.

But today, Jeff didn’t show up until Ivy and Della had finished cleaning everything. Ivy didn’t think much of it, checked around to confirm everything was in order, and prepared to get off work.

As she walked to the door, she noticed Jeff still standing at the window, frowning and scratching his head.

“Jeff, what’s wrong?” Ivy walked over to him and asked.

Seeing her approach, Jeff didn’t hide anything and pointed at the copper coins in the drawer, saying, “I think today’s money is wrong.”

Ivy asked, “How is it off?”

Jeff replied, “Since we started selling cold-resistant dishes in winter, the daily earnings at the window have been between 20,000 and 25,000 copper coins, but today we only have 18,200.”

Ivy thought for a moment and asked, “What about the sales record?”

“It’s here.” Jeff opened the panel, which was integrated with the ordering system provided by Isaac, showing the details of today’s sales.

At the window, [Mapo Tofu] sold 30 portions at 200 copper coins each, totaling 6,000 copper coins, [Spicy Duck Blood] had 20 portions at 240 copper coins each, totaling 4,800 copper coins, and [Shredded Pork with Carrots] had 25 portions at 220 copper coins each.

That added up to a total of 16,300 copper coins.

The rest was the staple food. Today, Ye Mu didn’t prepare a hard-to-find dish like meat fried rice, it was just regular white rice. The rice at the restaurant was slightly more expensive than outside, so many people chose to buy their own and bring it in to eat with the side dishes. This portion only sold for 1,900 copper coins.

Adding it all up indeed came to 18,200, no problem there.

18,200 and 20,000 were just 1,800 apart—not much.

Ivy said, “Maybe Miss Ye prepared fewer dishes today? Our dishes are relatively expensive, so selling seven or eight fewer portions could easily account for that 1,800 difference, it’s not strange.”

“That’s not wrong,” Jeff scratched his head, “But I still feel something isn’t quite right. How should I put it… Even though Miss Ye is quite casual and often doesn’t bother counting the portions, I felt there were enough when I was helping her divide the dishes in the kitchen today, it seemed like there were even a few more portions than yesterday.”

Ivy replied, “Maybe the unit prices were higher yesterday?”

Jeff shook his head. “That wasn’t the case either.” He then doubted himself, “But maybe I remembered it wrong… After all, I didn’t count them carefully, so it’s hard to tell.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ivy patted his shoulder. “I think it’s probably just about that much. If you’re really concerned, you can just mention it to Miss Ye.”

“Okay.” Jeff felt that was all he could do, so he let Ivy and Della go off work first, and went upstairs to find Ye Mu.

—

At the same time, in a dim alley two streets away, Billy skillfully slipped through the back door of a shop and headed straight for the kitchen.

The owner of the store was already waiting there, and upon seeing Billy, he smiled and eagerly asked, “How did it go?”

“Today we have 9 portions!” Billy put down his backpack and pulled out the contents: 5 plates of [Spicy Duck Blood] and 4 plates of [Mapo Tofu].

Originally, there were 10 portions, 5 of each, but he had sold one portion of [Mapo Tofu] at a high price to another shop owner next door, so he didn’t see the need to mention it to this owner.

The shop owner rubbed his hands together, took a bite of both the [Mapo Tofu] and [Spicy Duck Blood], and intended to criticize it, but the delicious and spicy flavors exploded in his mouth, making him regret not having prepared a bowl of rice in advance!

So, after rehearsing his words, he ended up mumbling, “Not bad… but it’s just okay.”

“Not that it’s really delicious, no, no.”

After saying that, he turned to the stove and began to “process” the dishes.

Each portion of [Mapo Tofu] was divided into four small portions and mixed with three times the amount of rice, turning it into [Spicy Tofu Rice].

Each portion of [Spicy Duck Blood] was divided into five small portions, combined with the commonly eaten boiled meat slices and stir-fried mixed vegetables, and water was added until the broth covered the ingredients, naming it [Spicy Braised Meat].

Once he was done, the shop owner took one serving of each dish and confidently carried them to the dining area in front.

There were three tables of customers in the restaurant, and he walked toward the most familiar one, raising his voice intentionally: “Come, come, come! We’ve made new dishes today, they’re for warming up. You all help me taste them as a complimentary treat!”

All the customers perked up at this: Warming dishes?!

What was going on? Has a culinary genius arrived and improved everyone’s cooking skills? Were other restaurants starting to offer aristocratic dishes?

¹”The past bullet hitting the bullseye” is a metaphor suggesting that actions or words from the past have come back to affect the person directly and with great precision, often in an ironic or unexpected way. It’s similar to the idea of “what goes around, comes around,” where something you did or said in the past ends up having a direct impact on you later, sometimes humorously or as a lesson learned.

²”Chengdu cuisine” is a type of Sichuan food known for its bold, spicy flavors using chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns. “Shaxian snacks” are simple, affordable street foods from Fujian, offering dumplings, wonton soup, and noodles.