Chapter 9 Basic Exercises
Shaoan silently put down the plate in his hand and looked at Xu Qing.

“I lost this time.”

"But remember this, next time I will trample you under my feet completely! I will return the humiliation you brought upon me tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold!"

After saying these harsh words, Shaoan turned around and left without even looking back.

"Shaoan..."

Master Abe chased after him worriedly.

Xu Qing looked at Shaoan's disappearing back.

Next time?

Next time I will only become stronger, strong enough to make you despair.

Even Xu Qing himself could not imagine how far he could eventually grow with such a powerful talent.

"Master Abei, where is Shaoan?"

Seeing Master Abe coming back, everyone asked.

"he's gone."

Master Abei said that when she chased to the door, Shaoan had disappeared.

"Master Abei, don't worry, Shaoan is not a child anymore, he can take care of himself."

Others consoled him.

Master Abe just sighed and said nothing.

Compared to this, she was more worried that Shaoan would go astray because of this.

Beneath the peaceful surface, there is a deeper darkness hidden.

Shaoan has an extreme personality, is competitive, and is most easily tempted by darkness.

No matter what thoughts people harbor when they come into contact with darkness, they will eventually sink deeper and deeper and will never be able to escape it for the rest of their lives.

After the show, Chef Abei took Xu Qing back to the kitchen.

Now that Shaoan had disappeared without a trace, Master Abei had to put aside his worries for the time being and shift his attention to Xu Qing.

"Ah Qing, your sense of taste is very sensitive, and you have your own unique understanding of taste. In this regard, I can't teach you more. However, compared to your talent, your foundation is really..."

Master Abe considered his words.

Xu Qing simply said: "Master, just tell me straight. I'm not that fragile."

He was mentally prepared.

Master Abei smiled. It had been a long time since she started teaching Shaoan that she hadn't spoken directly. "Well, your basics are too poor. Your knife skills are about the same as my son A'mao's when he was six years old."

One hit kill!

Even though Xu Qing was mentally prepared, his defense was still broken.

Not so much...

He is not even as good as a six-year-old?

"Now, your foundation is seriously hindering your talent. Take today's garlic pork dish for example, you actually have a better way to make it, right?"

Xu Qing nodded helplessly.

In his imagination, there are at least ten better ways to cook this dish of garlic pork, which can elevate the taste to a new level. But he couldn't make it.

He even sharpened his knife skills before the actual battle, spending an entire night painstakingly honing them before he could barely pass the test.

"So you need to focus all your energy on basic training and polish your foundation. Otherwise, no matter how talented you are, you won't be able to bring out even a little bit of your strength."

"Yes, master."

"Let's practice knife skills today. Ah Qing, what do you think is the most important thing about knife skills?"

Xu Qing thought about it carefully and said, "Posture, and continuous practice."

He had observed Shaoan's posture during the cooking duel. Shaoan's hand holding the knife was very steady. When he was cutting vegetables, his wrist was in a straight line perpendicular to the chopping board. The knife handle seemed to be stuck in the palm of his hand, becoming an extension of his wrist, and he could operate it as easily as with his arm.

Master Abei nodded, then shook his head and said, "Yes, and no. Posture and practice are indeed important, but the most important thing is to learn how to protect yourself."

Chef Abei picked up a kitchen knife and placed a big potato on the chopping board. With a flash of the knife, the potato was instantly divided into eight pieces, like blooming petals.

"A sharp knife is a chef's best friend. But it can cut off vegetables or your fingers."

"As chefs, we live with knives and fire. Knives are weapons, fire is a disaster. We tame these two beasts and cook exquisite dishes under their claws. In the long-term companionship and mutual understanding, knives and fire have become the best partners of chefs, the left and right arms of chefs. Without them, the chefs will lose the meaning of existence. However, once you are careless, they will unceremoniously leave you with incurable pain."

"The first lesson for all chefs is to learn how to protect themselves from them. Only by protecting yourself well can they become your loyal partners instead of turning into beasts that prey on humans."

Chef Abei demonstrated with potatoes and said, "First, hold the food with your fingers tucked inwards to prevent the blade from cutting your fingers. Second, keep the blade at a certain distance from your hand. Next is the knife-holding posture. Hold the back of the knife with your thumb and index finger, and hold the handle with the rest of your fingers. Ah Qing, you try it."

Xu Qing tried it, and found it felt awkward when his left hand fingers were curled inwards. The cut vegetables were also crooked and not even at all.

Master Abei smiled and said, "Let's practice this today, and then move on to the next step after you get used to it."

While Xu Qing was practicing, Master Abei corrected his posture and technique.

What's needed after that is a lot of practice.

Basic training is always boring and tedious, involving a lot of repetitive work, but the improvement is extremely small and difficult to detect. Unless the moment comes when quantitative change leads to qualitative change, the previous accumulation will basically not feel the positive feedback.

During the training process, I didn’t know whether my efforts were useful or not, and I even felt like I was just wasting time.

And there doesn’t seem to be much difference between practicing more and practicing less, so no one will notice if you’re a little lazy.

But this is for ordinary people.

Xu Qing has a very sensitive sense of touch. He can clearly feel the temperature of the fire and the strength of the wind.

This is especially true after concentrating.

At this moment, every time he swung the knife, the shaking of his wrist, the relaxation and tension of his muscles became so clear. He could even feel how many times he had to swing the knife before his muscles would form a conditioned reflex and firmly engrave this action in his body.

It was as if there was a clear progress bar in front of him. He could see the numbers on it accumulating continuously until they formed a qualitative change. Every time he swung the knife, he felt a great sense of accomplishment.

It's almost unstoppable.

Master Abei had the experience of teaching Shaoan and knew how impatient children were.

Shaoan would start to lose his temper every half hour of practice and would not be willing to practice again until he calmed down.

With Shaoan's previous experience as a lesson, Master Abei made some delicious desserts while Xu Qing was practicing on his own. When Xu Qing lost his patience, he used the delicious desserts as bait to rekindle his interest.

When Master Abei came back with the dessert, he was surprised to find Xu Qing was still practicing and had entered a state of ecstasy that he didn't even notice her return.

The shredded potatoes had already filled up a basket, but Xu Qing was still wielding the kitchen knife tirelessly, with an inexplicable excitement on his face.

This amount of potatoes is just the beginning!
Potatoes are coming!

(End of this chapter)