Chapter 37.5 Matsutake Meat Roll (e)
Translated by Ultra
Edited by Gumihou
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Cheer up! Shiyu thought firmly to herself and looked up at the ridiculous amount of steps with renewed vigour. Everyone must be working hard back at home, so I must work hard too!
To a Cultivator, 999 steps were nothing, they could clear the steps in a few bounds and arrive at the peak in a flash. However, most of the people took their time walking up, now and then taking in the beautiful scenery of the night city ablaze with lights. It was like looking down into a dark universe filled with stars. The sight was quite spectacular.
With her thoughts to accompany her, Shiyu eventually made it to the top. The sprawling palace edifice seemed to spread out before her. White stone railing rose on both sides of the path, the tops of the stone fencing inlaid with large night pearls at every three steps. As for the building itself, the word richly ornamented barely did it justice. A layer of light seemed to burst forth from the building to shine all around them. Even the flooring was amazing. Instead of the standard white brick path, the blocks here seemed to be made of gold, but it must be something even more amazing than gold as it shone with light every time someone stepped upon them.
Shiyu entered the palace hall with the crowd, her figure was so perfectly ordinary that no one paid attention to her. Which was fine since she preferred to be a low-key spectator for now. The main attraction within the gorgeous building was a long table carved from white jade and laden with all kinds of fine and exquisite looking dishes. It looked just like a modern-day buffet table, but much fancier.
Since Shiyu’s main intention was for good food, she became quite excited at the sight of the table. Ignoring the people who had arrived in hopes of rubbing shoulders with important people, she aimed straight for the buffet table and found that most of the chefs here really had arranged the food in the buffet style. Food was arranged artfully on the plates to please the eye, of course, but there was no denying that it was meant to be eaten by many people. Each morsel was a small mouthful, and had a bit of everything on it, just like a small tasting sample.
Everything on the table seemed to call out to her to try them first, but her gaze fell upon the dish right in front of her, the sign read: Matsutake Meat Rolls. Thinking of the grilled matsutake she had last time, her eyes brightened.
The matsutake mushroom had been thinly sliced and rolled up with a thin slice of meat. Making a neat little mouthful. The little roll appeared very delicate and exquisite.
Shiyu picked up a piece with her chopsticks and placed it into her mouth. When her teeth bit down the middle of the roll, broth which had been soaked into the matsutake burst forth, flooding her mouth with a gentle fragrance.
She could tell that there were only thinly sliced matsutake and meat in this dish. To achieve this level of flavour, the meat must have been cured through some sort of complex, air-drying method before it was sliced and rolled together with the matsutake and then slowly grilled to coax the liquid out from the matsutake to absorb savoriness of the meat. The roll was perfectly well balanced and appeared to have achieved its peak in terms of flavour and texture. There was really nothing that could be improved on.
Very good.
She resisted the urge to pick up a second roll and stretched her chopstick out towards a dish next to the Matsutake Meat Roll.
The label on the next plate helpfully declared that it was called Vermillion Meat. As its name suggested, the meat was a brilliant red. Unlike most of the dishes served here, this one was presented as a whole block of meat on a bed of deep green leaves to visually enhance its deep red colour. It seemed to shiver even as Shiyu looked at it, which drew her curiosity.
There was a serving knife next to the plate, so Shiyu used it to cut a small slice off the block, and saw that the inside was actually a brilliant golden colour. When she picked up the piece of meat to look at against the light. She felt as though she was looking at a limpid crystal. A trembling limpid crystal just begging to be eaten. Unable to resist it anymore, she popped the morsel into her mouth and it melted against the heat of her tongue. There was no need for her to chew the meat at all.
Just what kind of meat is this?
Shiyu was not quite sure. After noting down the name, she went on to try other dishes.
There were a total of 101 dishes. Even by trying out one small bite per dish, she could barely manage to taste them all. In the end, she had to acknowledge that all these dishes were very well done, their standards extraordinarily high and that the quality and flavours of each ingredient were pushed to the fullest limits. Even when she was too full, her taste buds still cheered whenever she tasted a new dish.
She sat by herself in a corner, breathing in and out, trying to speed up her digestion system to try even more food. Just then, she spotted the figure of a familiar person. It was Feng Luo. That’s right, he did say he was coming to the Palace Banquet, but she had changed inns a couple of times since their last meeting, which was probably why he was not able to track her down.
[In fact, the person she caught sight of in the original deleted version was Male Character. However, since that chapter has been deleted, and since Feng Luo was a recurring figure in the future, I put him here.]
She thought of calling out to him, but then someone else got his attention first and Shiyu not to interrupt them. She tapped a finger on her knee and considered her options. She had already achieved the main purpose of this trip, so there was no reason to stay any longer. At first, she had thought about meeting the people from the Cooking God Society and promoting herself to them. However, after tasting the outstanding dishes today, she acknowledged that she might have been too naïve when it came to her own skills.
Nevertheless, she did not intend to waste this trip. After this, she planned to go check out the Celestial Fragrance Dwelling and study exactly how the Vermillion Meat was made…
[Gumihou: Guys and gals, it’s a total roller coaster ride let me tell you… we had to have at least 20 chapters translated to ascertain how to fix these chapters. But, I think we did a fairly good job, lol. But, I’ll have to make sure to stay 10-20 chapters ahead T_T…]
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