Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 1021

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 1021
And in Group 2, another absolute master was preparing a dish.
It was none other than Cheol-san, the Golden Seal Blood Eyebrow!
He was retrieving ice from the refrigerator and crushing it!
“That… he’s not using ice techniques, is he?”
Sama Hyeon answered to that remark.
“Even if he were, it wouldn’t violate the rules, would it? Creating ice with ice techniques, storing it in the refrigerator, replenishing the cold air. Perfectly fine~?”
I brushed my chin thoughtfully.
“Hmm… I’ll need to strengthen the rules for the next competition.”
Or so it seemed.
I rubbed my chin and murmured softly to myself, lost in thought.
My eyes, gleaming with a blue light, sank inward in contemplation.
Hyeong didn’t realize it, but in moments like these, I became quite defenseless.
Perhaps it was because I was pouring all my energy into the thought itself.
Meanwhile, Sama Hyeon naturally expanded his perception, checking if there were any pursuers nearby.
‘I don’t sense anything suspicious, but should I investigate further?’
Invisible to ordinary people, this realm was filled with Sama Hyeon’s golden radiance. He heard the voices and breathing of everyone present.
Even the sound of coins clinking together.
If even a single pursuer entered this domain, they could not escape Sama Hyeon’s perception.
How much time had passed?
Then, with a great shout, Myeon Geom Sik Do Duwak lifted his dish.
“완성이오—-!!”
At the shout infused with inner energy, I snapped back to attention from my thoughts.
And so the dish emerged.
Steamed eggs made with sheep’s brain!
And it was cold!?
Following Duwak, the other housekeepers set down their dishes one by one.
“Finished!”
“This one is complete as well!”
“Oh, just a moment more, please!”
Some were running short on time, but the staff pulled them from the kitchen the moment time was up.
“Do you think it’s easy to make as many dishes as there are judges within the time limit!?”
That was right. The dishes had to match the number of judges.
Not a single perfect bowl.
They had to create ten perfect bowls!
Some had failed in portion control and made only six or five bowls.
There was even one who had made nine bowls, then hastily took portions from different dishes to create a tenth.
The bowls were distributed to each judge in turn.
They would taste the dishes in the order they were completed.
“I’m hungry, so this works out well.”
The further back they went, the fuller the judges’ bellies would become.
Those who presented first received additional points accordingly.
And the moment all the judges finished eating!
“This flavor!”
“Ooooh! The lamb is dancing on my tongue!”
“Bow to the lamb! Bow! Cattle, chicken, pork—mere insects before the divine lamb!”
Myeon Geom Sik Do Duwak won the preliminary round unanimously!
Uwaaaaaaah!!
The crowd erupted in cheers.
Though they hadn’t tasted it themselves, those selected by lottery were ordinary commoners like themselves.
Their genuine words touched the hearts of all who heard them.
And the dish made from the brain of a man-eating demon beast—the crimson lamb—was nothing short of shocking.
Thus the other teams’ preliminary rounds continued and concluded one after another.
End of preliminaries.
Four masters emerged on the first day.
Two from the Great Cooking Master of the Yellow Dragon, and two more renowned Great Cooking Masters from elsewhere.
They glared at one another, then turned their gazes toward the spectator stands.
At the disguised Jin Cheon-hee—though they couldn’t possibly recognize him—so they fixed their stares on Sama Hyeon sitting beside me.
Sama Hyeon spoke.
“Hmm, was the prize too generous, hyeong?”
At those burning gazes directed at the prize sponsor, I couldn’t help but grin wickedly.
“Hehehehe, this tournament is going to be entertaining. Kahahaha!”
“Hyeong… why do you seem even more fired up than when you worked at the Medical Guild?”
I was genuinely passionate about my hobbies.
* * *
Time passed, and it was the final day of preliminaries.
“Where exactly is Soggakju?”
“Strange. He said he would definitely participate.”
In fact, I had been assigned to the fourth and final preliminary round.
I had altered my appearance and dressed in clothes different from my usual attire.
Since I enjoyed absolute support from the commoners, there was a risk of suspicion regarding the fairness of the judging.
‘Unlike someone like the Gaebal Taesang Bangju from last time, who had no such issues…’
That person had such deep influence in Gangho and had judged countless cooking competitions.
With such extensive connections in Gangho, he knew everyone within a few degrees of separation anyway.
And he even had a track record of rolling his own disciples off cliffs without mercy if their cooking wasn’t good.
But commoners were different.
Few in Baek Rin were those who hadn’t received my kindness.
‘Well, what’s good is good.’
With that thought, I began retrieving ingredients from Yoo Ho’s ice storage—no, Yoo Ho’s refrigerator—and started cooking.
“Hmm, is this the final preliminary?”
Since the preliminaries had reached their final stage, both the audience and judges were exhausted.
Moreover, this round featured neither anyone who had ascended to the ranks of the greatest housekeepers in all the land, nor experienced veterans who had once served in the imperial kitchens.
“And we haven’t even seen any dishes utilizing spiritual creatures like last time.”
Having witnessed so many extraordinary performances, everyone’s standards had grown impossibly high.
Under such an atmosphere, the expressions of the cooking housekeepers grew increasingly grim.
‘Tch, these fools! Once they taste my cooking, their tune will change!’
‘Damn it… with everyone so apathetic like this!’
‘I’m already nervous enough, and this atmosphere is making my hands tremble.’
With judges openly yawning as if bored, the participants had no choice but to grow even more tense.
Among them, an elderly man in his twilight years raised his cooking knife.
Tang!
It was peculiar.
Merely the sound of a wooden cutting board and cooking knife meeting.
Yet that sound was so remarkably crystalline that it awakened the audience from their drowsiness.
It was Jin Cheon-hee in disguise.
‘Good, good… shall I start lightly with liangzhang pi?’
Though the preliminaries featured lavish ingredients, Jin Cheon-hee remained completely undaunted.
After all, the dumplings that Gae Pa Josa had made didn’t contain particularly extraordinary ingredients either. In the end, weren’t they made from materials we could gather from the fields?
‘With ordinary ingredients, I can still create something exquisite.’
Especially liangzhang pi.
Even in the past without refrigeration technology, cold dishes existed, and liangzhang pi was one of them.
The meaning of the dish called liangzhang pi was originally this.
Two sheets of skin layered together to form one.
Thus, liangzhang pi.
In other words, the skin appears as one sheet, but two are actually layered.
And this liangzhang pi is eaten together with cold, fresh vegetables and seafood or boiled meat, all tossed with a special sauce.
‘In modern terms, it’s like japchae? Pasta salad?’
These days, young people put noodles in salad and drizzle sauce over it before tossing, and liangzhang pi has somewhat that same feeling.
However, it requires far more labor than salad, and the sauce preparation is also different.
‘What I’m making now is the Korean style, but this region uses jellyfish.’
The liangzhang pi we’ve eaten is, strictly speaking, originally from the Republic of Korea.
It has a similar feel to jjajangmyeon, tteokbokki, and kalguksu.
As a result, like those dishes, its origins can be traced to other lands, and the Hwa Empire also has dishes that belong to that lineage.
Interestingly, the fact that it’s still naturally called ‘liangzhang pi’ shows that Jicheon Cheonma is indeed K-style martial arts fiction.
The sauce varies in flavor depending on the region and the housekeeper, and naturally, it could be called the housekeeper’s secret recipe.
Jin Cheon-hee was now making such a liangzhang pi.
And using ice retrieved from a refrigerator at that!
Thunk!
Remarkably, Jin Cheon-hee began deftly mixing starch powder and wheat flour with the cooking knife, kneading it into dough.
“Why would you deliberately knead it with a cooking knife when you could simply mix it by hand?”
“That elderly man with graying hair appears to be a Kang Ho-in who has mastered martial arts.”
“Hmm?”
“He’s kneading the meat by channeling heat and cold through his blade. And the reason he uses the knife instead of his hands is…”
The moment Jin Cheon-hee sliced and tossed a piece of meat with his knife.
Tang!
With a clear sound, blood spread out like tissue paper.
“It seems… he simply finds using his hands troublesome…”
“…That can’t be right?”
Strangely enough, the duck blood he sliced and tossed was thin as tissue paper, and he immediately began cooking seafood and meat.
This time he washed the kitchen knife thoroughly before slicing the meat and seafood.
Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tang!
Merely the fundamentals.
Cutting quickly and well was considered the most basic of basics in cooking across any civilization.
However, once it reaches the realm of divine technique, something changes.
Whenever Jin Cheon-hee’s kitchen knife passed through, the meat and vegetables didn’t turn to mush—the cut surfaces remained alive.
With those living cut surfaces, he grilled the meat and boiled the seafood.
Whoooosh!
Elder Tae-sang, watching from afar, spoke.
“…Could it be Divine Blade Unity?”
“What? Seriously? Did that housekeeper just achieve Divine Blade Unity with a kitchen knife?!”
“My eyes don’t deceive me. That cook is one who has achieved Divine Blade Unity!”
At those words, the other Gaebang’s Bangdo also felt their eyes twitch.
‘What madman is cooking with Divine Blade Unity?!’
It didn’t end there.
He placed the duck blood he had just finished kneading into boiling water and fished it all out at the precise moment.
Whoooosh!
With the kitchen knife.
“…He doesn’t know how to use his hands?”
“I told you. He’s reached the realm of Divine Blade Unity.”
“But why would he use that in a cooking preliminary…”
“…”
Tae-sang Bangju closed his mouth.
A realm far beyond Hwagyeong.
As far as he knew, there was only one person who could achieve such an extreme Divine Blade Unity and still use it to slice duck blood.
“I really want to taste it. What a shame.”
Ilgwang.
The duck blood Jin Cheon-hee had boiled was transparent like glass. People gasped, their gazes captivated.
What comes next is simple.
He arranged the dishes beautifully on a plate and decorated the edges with ice shards.
Pour on the sauce and it’s complete.
‘This is my way of preparing yangjanppi.’
Some people set aside sauce separately for dipping, but when it comes to yangjanppi, I decidedly prefer to pour it over and eat it that way.
‘Especially since we’re eating it fresh, not having it delivered.’
The seasoning soaks in perfectly.
Suddenly, Tae-sang Bangju spoke.
“Did that bastard carve the ice into a phoenix in between?”
“…Yes.”
“One can tell he has reached the realm of the heart-sword.”
“…The realm of the heart-sword, for yangjanppi?”
“Indeed.”
Ten plates were delivered to each of the judges.
I was not the first to present my dish. Precisely middle timing.
Neither rushing nor taking excessive leisure in preparation.
I finished it entirely at my own pace.
“Please enjoy!”
I said so while wiping my cooking knife with a swish-swish motion.
Gaebang’s Bangdo, who witnessed this, spoke.
“A cooking knife wielded by such a warrior must surely be a masterwork blade forged by a master craftsman.”
“At minimum, it would be Northern Cold Steel.”
And Tae-sang Bangju, who examined the blade closely, said:
“…It’s an issued knife.”
“Pardon?”
“Look at the handle. It’s just a knife pulled from some neighborhood blacksmith. Of course, since it was made in Baek Rin’s territory, the quality would be decent, but how could one achieve divine sword unity and reach the realm of the heart-sword with such a blade?”
“…But you just said he did.”
At those words, Tae-sang Bangju’s neck veins bulged.
“That’s what’s strange about it! That’s not how it should work! You fools!!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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