The atmosphere of the Grand Chef competition had become more sensitive recently. Actually, it was about the time the participants got extremely nervous. Six participants had survived until now. One of them would win pretty soon. And the probability of them being eliminated from the finals was incomparably higher than before.

  One of the six survivors, Gwen, had no choice but to bite her nails more than usual. As a chef, she didn’t have to keep long nails anyway, but given that she kept biting them, she was pretty nervous now. “Stop biting your nails!” Peter said in a low voice.

  Gwen glanced at Peter. She then looked down at her hand and lowered her head. She sat crumpled in her chair, clenching her fists and putting them between her armpits.

  Peter sighed and said, “You don’t get a better score because you are anxious. I’m telling you this as an experienced person. You have to fight and win.”


  “Sometimes I respect you. You know that, Peter?”


  “Man, that’s the best bullshit I’ve ever heard.”


  “I would have committed suicide if I had been you,” Gwen muttered.

  At that moment, she saw his face hardening, then let out a sigh.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blame you. I just feel horrible when I hear my voice blaming myself, so I thought how terrible you might have felt when all the people around you pointed their fingers at you.:

  “Yeah, I just feel so crappy when they do that. I can’t blow off steam even if I swear at them!”


  Then Peter gently showed his wrist. Watching that, she opened her eyes wide. The scars left on his wrist like scratches apparently had nothing to do with his tripping.

  “Oh my……”


  “Well, I was foolish, and I didn’t win. And I couldn’t even commit suicide. That’s why I’m still here.”


  “Sorry.”


  “You don’t have to be sorry,” Peter answered in a cold voice.

  Ironically, the combination of the two was the worst that could be found in the Grand Chef House. Peter was depressed while Gwen lost hope for the world. The mix of the two was the most tragic, shabby, and pitiful. But they were so beautiful because of that.

  Suddenly, Peter remembered that as a writer, he would feel his current situation was rather pretty, for their lives, pushed by the world and standing on the edge of a cliff, were kind of good material for literature. But this was just terrible for the two.

  Peter gently sat down next to Gwen. He suddenly thought she was beautiful. But it was impossible to think she was. She was different from Kaya. Although Kaya was also from a slum and was fully determined to succeed, she still had her girlish traits.

  That was why Kaya was different from Gwen. If Kaya was a blooming flower, Gwen was a withered flower, who was already a honeycomb that had lost all the neatness and youthfulness she could have.

  That was why Peter felt sympathetic to her.

  Gwen glanced at him. His artificial self-confidence was already shattered, working no longer for him. He noticed her pitiful eyes and realized something. His heart was pounding.

  He couldn’t understand why his heart was pounding.

  He thought his heart was beating because he found a congenial soul at last. After all, they were the same humans who were not broken or sane, who were like patients standing clumsily between the two boundaries. If their lives were like a coin, it was now spinning on the desk after being snapped off their fingers. What did they see before their eyes? Was it heads or tails? Was it up or down or side?

  “How do I look?” Kaya asked, putting her earrings on her ears.

  Min-joon repeated the same answer, “Perfect. Very pretty.”


  “But I don’t like the color.”


  “Do you know how many times you said that?”


  “I don’t know. And I said I didn’t like the color.”


  “What color do you want?”


  “It shouldn’t be noticeable. A chef who goes out to cook can’t be dressed up like a party goer, right? But I don’t want to give them the impression that I haven’t put on make-up at all. They are going to look down on me.”


  “Who do you think looks down on you because you haven’t put on makeup?”


  “Women,” she said, putting her new earrings on the box again.

  She didn’t even look at him, and said, “A woman always cares about another woman who might look better than her. It doesn’t matter when she cooks or not. That’s why I want to put on make-up properly, but I don’t want them to think I’ve paid a lot of attention to makeup. Got it?”


  “Well, the earrings you put on a moment ago were really great.”


  “Good. Thank you. Then how about this one?”


  Great. Cool. Perfect.

  He repeated those words. Before they did the live broadcast on the internet, Kaya and Min-joon had to go through this kind of process all the time. Then she stood in front of the viewers with her hair done up hastily on purpose as if she just woke up and washed her face.

  “Good morning! I turned on today’s broadcast to show you how to make breakfast, but there’s also something I want to advertise. No, it’s not an advertisement. Just think of it as an announcement. Our announcement.”


  Someone posted a comment, [It’s nice for you to try to look natural, but you need to do up your hair. You haven’t combed your hair! It looks like you just rubbed it on the pillow.]

  Actually, she rubbed her hair on the pillow to pretend she didn’t pay attention to her hairdo.

  “Let’s have breakfast first. What do you want to eat? Don’t say something grand! Hey, no grand breakfast!”


  Another view comments, [Why do I want something simple, not grand, from a chef?]

  [Why don’t you make fried eggs?]

  As always, netizens did not follow Kaya’s intentions meekly. Hugging her shoulders, which were starting to tremble gradually, Min-joon poked his face out.

  “Since all of you have your own opinion, let me just make what I want. I’m going to make a dish with salmon on the scallops, seasoned with a bit of white wine sauce. Does anyone have any objections?”


  [Man, he asks us a question, then he answers it!]

  Lots of viewers complained in the chat window, but Min-joon knew he would have to reply endlessly if he started to respond to them.

  So Min-joon and Kaya started cooking. While he was making cuts in the scallops, she stir-fried some vegetables, removed the ingredients, then started to roast the scallops in the oil.

  The two didn’t just cook. While they were cooking, they sometimes explained to the viewers about their cooking, and sometimes they chatted about some other topic than cooking.

  “Scallops are very difficult to cook well because you have to know how to control the heat perfectly. If you heat it too much, only the outer part of the scallops will burn, but if the heat is too weak, the scallops become tough while they are cooked for too long.”


  It was Min-joon who mainly explained about cooking. Kaya didn’t like the way he kindly explained to them one by one. Basically, she was not good as a teacher when it came to cooking.

  She opened her mouth.

  “By the way, we’re going to interview new hires. So if you are interested, send us your applications. But we’re accepting only experienced candidates. Of course, chef apprentices can apply, too. So keep that in mind.”


  That was their first announcement to the viewers of their internet TV. Of course, it’s not a big deal in terms of news.

  But what about the next announcement? Min-joon was afraid it would bring about lots of objections from the viewers. Shortly afterward, she made a bombshell announcement.

  “And we’re going to invite you to submit your recipes.”


  [Does she want our recipes?]

  [Recipes are usually offered by a chef, right?]

  [When people visit your restaurant, they expect to see the recipe that you guys have developed. I think you’re demanding too much.]

  “Oh, hear me out! When you submit recipes, we are going to review them and send good ones to Irregular Lab. Then they will sell the dish based on your recipe, and you get the credit for that. Of course, you will get a commission that is proportional to the sales. Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”


  [Wow, this is how they do their business!]

  [Isn’t it too unrealistic?]

  [Hey, there is no idea that’s so realistic from the beginning. When you put unrealistic ideas into translation, your ideas become reality. Got it?]

  [Well, regardless of success or not, I think her idea is very interesting. Even if you are not interested in cooking, you can be called a cuisine researcher if you manage to submit a good recipe, right? What’s more, you can receive the commission.]

  The viewers started discussing with each other about the feasibility of Kaya’s new idea. It was a pretty interesting topic. Regardless of whether she could make her idea come true, this was a perfect candidate for their gossip.