Chapter 176: Exquisite Skills
There is not only sand and stones in the pot, but also charcoal.

Because the thermal conductivity of sand is not as good as that of iron sand, it is difficult to heat it to boiling point with the heat of flame alone, so Xu Qing added burning charcoal to the pot.

The flames in the stove and the charcoal in the iron pot, together, roasted the sand and stones until they were red hot, and even some tiny grains of sand were roasted red.

At this moment, the sand and stones in the pot were burning hot, constantly emitting hot air, and the rising hot air almost formed a white column of air.

When he saw the hot sand and stones, Lai He immediately understood what Xu Qing was going to do.

The stovetop wasn’t hot enough, so it needed to make up for it in other ways.

Use heated sand and stones as a medium to conduct heat so that the ingredients can absorb heat evenly and reach the temperature required for stir-frying.

At the same time, the salt and minerals contained in sand and stone can add deliciousness and nutrition to food, which is a very smart approach.

However, there is a fatal flaw.

Lai He said sarcastically, "Boy, sand and stones can indeed raise the temperature in the pot to the temperature required for cooking. However, you seem to have forgotten one thing. The sand and stones usually used are large pebbles, which are easy to pick out from the food. Some of the sand and stones in your pot are as fine as salt grains. Once mixed with the food, it will take a lot of time to pick them out one by one."

As he said this, he looked at the burning incense sticks. Now two-thirds of the incense sticks had burned down and there was not much time left.

"You only have enough time left to finish cooking this dish. If you try to take the time to pick out the sand and stones mixed with the food, you will run out of time and lose. And if you directly present this dish mixed with sand and stones to the judging table, you will definitely lose."

Listening to Lai He's cold words, Xu Qing nodded and said, "Of course I know. I chose sand and stone as auxiliary materials, so there are naturally ways to solve the problems it caused."

"There is a way?"

Lai He sneered, "I'd like to see what you can do."

Lai He knew a lot about the classics in the dark cuisine world, especially those about stir-frying, which he had read almost all of.

As far as he could tell, none of them dealt with the problem at hand.

Even the dark culinary world that has collected countless secret manuals can't do anything about it, so what can this twelve-year-old boy in front of him do?
It's just bragging.

Xu Qing said no more and carefully observed the temperature of the sand in the pot.

The temperature is enough.

Xu Qing quickly threw the three pots into the air. The rice grains, fine seafood and small particles of sand in the pots jumped out instantly, entangled together in the air, indistinguishable from each other, as if forming a huge sphere.

Lai He sneered and was about to laugh at him when his eyes suddenly fixed.

He could clearly perceive that although the three seemed to be integrated into one, there was a subtle gap between them.

Just like several things with different trajectories of movement, they occasionally intersect with each other, exchanging the heat and deliciousness of the food in an instant, and then separate under the action of force and continue to move along different trajectories.

It is the different forces and angles that Xu Qing applied to the three pots that made these ingredients flying in the air show such amazing states.

It seems that Xu Qing throws the pots with great force, but there are slight differences in the angle and force of each pot, so that the food can blend with each other while being distinct from each other.

This control over muscles and strength is truly amazing.

It took Xu Qing a lot of effort to get to this point.

The collisions caused by these different forces allow the heat contained in the sand and stones to be continuously transferred into the rice grains and seafood. Countless tiny stones are like burning flames, hitting the rice grains and seafood, transferring the heat from the outside to the inside of the food, making the food's surface quickly cook and harden from the outside, and sealing all the deliciousness of the food inside.

At the same time, the force of the striking transfers the heat to the inner layer of the food, causing the inner layer of the food to overheat quickly.

All this seems complicated, but it only takes a few minutes. The food flying in the air gradually loses its power and falls back into the pot, absorbing heat again in the hot iron pot.

Xu Qing then threw the ingredients in the pot into the air again.

In just this short pause, Lai He clearly saw that the ingredients in the three pots were not mixed at all, and each was distinct.
The sand, rice grains and seafood are all as pure as ever, as if they had never been mixed with each other.

It was as if the chaos and interweaving of countless ingredients in the air just now was just an illusion.

The thin old man standing next to Lai He couldn't help rubbing his eyes. He couldn't believe what he saw.

Is this really something that can be achieved by human power?
It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is a magical technique from the gods.

Lai He's face suddenly turned gloomy at this moment.

He really underestimated this young man.

Such an exquisite skill was used by him skillfully, as if it were his own arm. This was definitely not an ability that a twelve-year-old boy could possess.

Lai He himself is a top chef who is good at stir-frying. He knows very well that in order to master such exquisite skills, it takes at least a dozen years of hard study and practice, spending all his energy and time on it, and adding extraordinary talent, only then can it be said that he has mastered it.

Even if a person starts learning this skill at the age of five or six, and goes through the cruel and efficient training methods unique to the dark culinary world, and learns it by the time he is in his twenties, this is already an amazing genius, rarely seen in the world!

And the boy in front of him is only twelve years old!

Even if you start learning from the womb, you can't learn so fast!

unless……

Unless his talent is incredibly strong.

Lai He suddenly shuddered. He thought of the legendary figure in the dark culinary world, the one who was like a god and dominated all chefs.

It is said that the man has extraordinary talent. No, it should be said that his talent has surpassed the scope of human beings and reached an inhuman level.

Could it be that the young man in front of me also possesses such a talent?

impossible!
Absolutely impossible!
It's a miracle if there is only one person like him in the world, how could there be a second one!
He must be overthinking it!

There must be some training trick or other shortcut to this stunt, or the boy must have overdrawn his future potential and achieved quick success at the cost of serious physical damage.

Yes, that makes sense!
At least it is much more reasonable than possessing that inhuman talent.

When Lai He thought about it this way, his depressed heart felt much more relaxed.

However, seeing that this kid has such exquisite skills, he is definitely not inferior to him in terms of skills. And the temperature difference reflected by the eight brass stoves was also compensated by this kid with sand and stones.

In terms of these two items, they can be said to be evenly matched.

The rest is the quality of the ingredients and the final taste.

Lai He is absolutely confident about the quality of the ingredients.

How could the treasures of the sea that he carefully prepared - the Eight Delicacies of the Sea - lose to those rubbish seafood that people wouldn't even want if they were given away for free!

　Update.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)