Side Story 42. Preliminary Round Of The Competition (2)

There is no such profession in the world as a cooking competition judge.
Because no one could make a living from judging alone.
Even for the Yellow Dragon Merchant Guild, the greatest merchant guild under heaven, that was still true.
Considering that the people evaluating others’ competitions and deciding their rank were expected to have expertise, it was a truly contradictory thing.

Then who were the judges of the Number One Cooking Competition Under Heaven?
Were they judging experts secretly trained by the Yellow Dragon Merchant Guild at enormous expense?
They were not.
There were cooks hired specifically for judging, and there were also servants who worked for the guild.
They had received some training, but only about that much.

But Judge Wang Ho-cheol was different.
He was the overall person in charge of today’s first main round.
You could tell just from the fact that, unlike the other judges, he wore red robes.

He was an expert in cooking.
And he was also a trusted retainer of Seok Sung, master of the Yellow Dragon Merchant Guild.
In other words, he was the man who personally brought Seok Sung late-night snacks whenever he got hungry.

Seok Sung had entrusted the running of this cooking competition to Wang Ho-cheol.
To the retainer who had devoted twenty years of loyalty to him.

“Deokbokgi.”

Wang Ho-cheol murmured the name of the dish Cheongho had given.

“…I have never even heard of such a thing. Did you just make that name up on the spot?”
“No.”

Cheongho said it boldly.
Of course, he was a little uncertain whether the name had really been Deokbokgi, but it was definitely a dish Yi-gang had taught him.

“And it’s a shape I’ve never seen before. Though the smell seems plausible enough.”
“Yes.”

Wang Ho-cheol looked closely at the dish called Deokbokgi.
Deokbok. What did that even mean?

“Can this really be called a noodle dish?”

There was simply no way not to point that out.

“It can. Because it’s noodles made by drawing out wheat dough.”
“Thin? It’s nothing of the sort.”
“There are noodles much thicker than this.”

Wang Ho-cheol gave a hm and considered it.
Finger-shaped noodles. Not even flat, but plump and round. He simply didn’t feel inclined to call them noodles.

“That’s true. The noodles used for oil-splashed noodles in Xi’an may be thin, but they’re as wide as two fingers, and even those knife-cut noodles over there are similarly thick.”

There were so many kinds of noodle dishes in the Central Plains that quite a few had unusual shapes.

“But why did you cut them into these little chunks?”
“Because they’re easier to eat that way.”

Wang Ho-cheol was a mercilessly cold judge.
And with a fearsome face that looked like Judge Bao from the old tales, all the contestants feared him.

“A perfectly reasonable point.”

Just when it seemed he was speaking unexpectedly mildly.

“No matter how creative it is, if it tastes bad, it’s not a dish but mere garbage.”

He picked up one of the rice-cake-like pieces with his chopsticks and firmly put it into his mouth.

Chewy—

Wang Ho-cheol’s eyes widened.

“……”

He maintained absolute silence and only kept chewing for quite some time.

Chewy, chewy—

As if to make sure, this time he put one piece together with some meat into his mouth.

Chewy, chewy, chewy—

No, this was not a noodle dish.
He had never heard of noodles like this.
They did not snap with a firm bite, nor did they stretch in a tough, elastic way.
This chewy thing was clearly rice cake.

Gulp.

…No, that was right, this was a noodle dish.
That smooth sensation sliding down the throat was definitely the sensation of eating noodles.
And this broth.
Broth? Its viscosity was so high that he had not thought of it as broth at first.
But it was certainly broth.
To wrap itself fully around those smooth, thick rice-cake-like noodles, it could not help but have this sort of thickness.

Gulp—

Umami hidden behind that vivid red color.
The life-filled taste drawn from anchovies and kelp.
A destructive richness released from beef fat.
Those were what completed this dish.

“Deokbok.”

Deok (Virtue) and bok (fortune).
Were their other names spiciness and sweetness?
The sauce was spicy and sweet.
There were surely noodle dishes spicier than this, and sweeter than this.
But this sort of spicy sweetness was the first sinful taste Wang Ho-cheol had ever known in his life.

“So that’s why it was Deokbok!”
“This too.”

Cheongho handed him something.

“This is…”
“They had chili oil sauce, so I brought some. I added Sichuan peppercorn and green Sichuan peppercorn.”

Chili oil sauce was, simply put, chili oil.
And on top of that, ground Sichuan pepper and hemp pepper had been added.
In other words, it carried the full fragrance of Sichuan.

“I thought you might like it…”
“How did you know?”

Wang Ho-cheol suddenly asked with a serious face.

“I’m asking how you knew I was from Sichuan!”

Had Cheongho investigated Wang Ho-cheol, a judge, in advance?
Wang Ho-cheol was definitely from Sichuan.
And of course he liked the sort of spiciness heavy with Sichuan pepper and hemp pepper.
Faced with Wang Ho-cheol’s sharp stare, Cheongho pointed at his own nose instead of answering.

“Smell.”
“Smell…?”
“You smelled like someone from Sichuan.”
“What the… hahaha!”

In the end, Wang Ho-cheol burst out laughing.
Cheongho had not been lying. He really had smelled Wang Ho-cheol.
When passing through Sichuan, people who loved spicy food always carried a similar scent.

Muttering that it was absurd, Wang Ho-cheol tried eating the Deokbokgi with the chili oil paste.
The result was exactly as expected.

“It’s incredible.”

It had already been a taste that snapped the eyes open, but with the added spicy taste of the Sichuan he missed, it became perfect.
Wang Ho-cheol declared it.

“Paaass!”

Applause burst out around them.

“Waa…”
“That’s the first time I’ve seen a dish like that. Does it take something on that level to count as creative?”

Even if he was a rival, a young man had just earned the first pass from that terrifying judge.
Cheongho received the necklace marking a successful entrant and left the judging ground.

“It’s been a while since I tasted something decent.”

Wang Ho-cheol rinsed out his mouth with water, then muttered that.
Next was Yang Gyeong.
It was Yang Gyeong’s turn.

Yang Gyeong’s face was twisted with tension and jealousy.
When Cheongho passed, he had not been able to bring himself to clap.
To think that brat he had inwardly dismissed would pass while receiving praise like that.

‘No, it’s fine. Mine is much better.’

What kind of Deokbokgi, and what kind of noodle dish, was that supposed to be?
His knife-shaved noodles were better in both technical completion and creativity.

‘And he’s only evaluated three dishes so far.’

In cooking competitions like this, it was advantageous to be judged early.
Because the fuller the judge’s stomach became, the harsher the evaluations tended to get.
Yang Gyeong, who had already experienced dozens of cooking competitions, was certain that this situation was highly favorable.

“This is Ten Essence Herbal Knife-Shaved Noodles!”

The moment Wang Ho-cheol stood before him, Yang Gyeong shouted that out.
Wang Ho-cheol’s thick brows twitched.

“Inspired by the Ten Essence Herbal Tonic, recorded in the Song-era medical text Prescriptions from the Great Peace Imperial Grace Pharmacy, I made these knife-shaved noodles using ten rare ingredients that nourish the body.”
“……”

Yang Gyeong spoke with such fervor his lips nearly split, but Wang Ho-cheol barely listened and simply scooped up some broth with his spoon.
Then he gave it a quick sniff and put the spoon right back down.

“Just stuffing in expensive ingredients makes it creative cuisine?”
“Wh… what?”
“It’s not even worth tasting. Failed.”

Wang Ho-cheol set down the spoon and moved on.
Yang Gyeong froze in place with his mouth hanging open.

And a moment later.

“Huheuk, heuk.”

Thud, he dropped to his knees and began crying.

Yang Gyeong raised his head.
His face was a mess of tears and snot.
For a grown man to bawl like that was shameful, but his wounded pride hurt even more than the shame.

“Not even worth tasting…?”

Even Yang Gyeong, who had entered many cooking competitions, had never experienced something like this before.
This was absurd.
He tasted his Ten Essence Herbal Knife-Shaved Noodles himself.
Making the knife-shaved noodles thick had been a strategic choice. The noodles had not gone soggy at all and had a nice chew.
And there was concentrated umami, along with the invigorating effect of something that warmed the stomach.

“Bastard!”

He violently flung down his knife-shaved noodles.
As the contents spilled across the floor, the other eliminated contestants turned to look.
Ignoring them completely, Yang Gyeong strode over to Cheongho’s dish this time.

“Deokbok, my ass.”

He tasted the remaining Deokbokgi Cheongho had made.
It was spicy and sweet.
It had umami, but only that much.

“And this counts as a noodle dish!”

His Ten Essence Herbal Knife-Shaved Noodles were far superior.
After tasting it himself, he became even more convinced.
Jealousy surged up in Yang Gyeong’s gut, and his head throbbed with anger.

He could not tolerate such biased judging.
Wang Ho-cheol or Judge Bao or whoever, he would definitely demand an explanation.
With his eyes wild, Yang Gyeong strode over to Wang Ho-cheol, who was still judging.
The eliminated contestants looked on at Yang Gyeong with support in their eyes.

Wang Ho-cheol was already evaluating the twelfth contestant’s dish.
Naturally, Yang Gyeong assumed he would reject this one too.

“Ohh…! Huh!”

He was exclaiming in admiration.
Yang Gyeong, who had been about to confront him at once, stopped short.
Because he suddenly wanted to know what kind of dish could be earning such high praise from Wang Ho-cheol.

“To serve noodles with duck meat. And not just duck, but chicken-foot stock too!”

He talked as though it were something extraordinary, but in truth it was just a fairly ordinary bowl of noodles.
What was so impressive about noodles with duck in them?
Cheongho’s dish at least had creativity, but that one looked utterly ordinary no matter how he looked at it.

“Pass!”
“Kukuk, thank you.”

At that moment, Yang Gyeong became certain.
That bastard Wang Ho-cheol was definitely taking bribes and making biased judgments.

“Hey, you shameless bastards!”

Yang Gyeong shouted that.
He was someone who knew how to fight. In a place like this, you had to gather people’s attention and make them take your side.

“Everyone, look at this, that judge is obviously taking money and—”

But Yang Gyeong couldn’t finish his sentence.
In an instant, his jaw jolted with a thud, and stars burst before his eyes.
Only the people watching the commotion noticed that Wang Ho-cheol had kicked Yang Gyeong in the jaw with a lightning-fast leg technique.
It was plainly not an ordinary kick, but the leg technique of someone trained in martial arts.

“What a crazy bastard. Hey, toss this piece of shit into a ditch or something.”

With his jaw broken, Yang Gyeong writhed and crawled on the ground.
Fragments of shattered molars rolled around inside his mouth.
Wang Ho-cheol was definitely a man of the Murim.
Someone passed in front of the writhing Yang Gyeong.
It was the owner of the duck noodle dish from just before.
A long sword scar ran across his face.
His body was sturdy, and he too looked like a martial artist.
Why were Murim people becoming the ones passing a ‘cooking’ competition?

“Kukuk, idiot.”

The martial artist’s mocking voice drove into Yang Gyeong’s ears.
That was the last thing Yang Gyeong heard before he lost consciousness.
Servants of the Yellow Dragon Merchant Guild dragged Yang Gyeong’s unconscious body away.

“Congratulations.”

Baek Sang-ye said that to Cheongho as he returned wearing the necklace of a successful entrant.
Cheongho raised his index and middle finger in a little gesture.
It was a victory gesture he had learned from Yi-gang.

“We were watching the whole time. And we found out something interesting.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you notice anything yourself, Senior Brother?”

Cheongho gave no clear answer.
Baek Sang-ye smiled and said it anyway.
Together with Tsering and Jin Li-yeon, she had been carefully watching the contestants.
And they had learned something.

“About half of the ones who passed are martial artists.”

That was right.
Including Cheongho, of the sixteen who passed out of the five hundred contestants in this preliminary, around eight looked like martial artists.
If one counted those who might be hiding their martial arts, the number could be even higher.

“It looks like the Yellow Dragon Merchant Guild is orchestrating this.”

It was hard to believe those martial artists had advanced purely on cooking skill.
If so, then the Yellow Dragon Merchant Guild was deliberately passing martial artists.

“That’s suspici—”

Baek Sang-ye stopped mid-sentence.
Someone was approaching.
And that person said with a faint smile,

“Well then, go on. Do continue. Haha.”