The Onion-Cutting Ninja's Secret Crush

147 No Better Husband

"Shit!" Qian Huang jumped to his feet and rushed over to the table, scrambling to turn on the notebook and carry it back to the dinner table. "How could I forget about this?!" He drummed on the table with his fingers, feeling that this thing was taking much too long.

Xiao Ming just chuckled. "Hey, it's not that big of a deal. The episode will be online anyway. We could just watch it later."

Qian Huang turned to look at him, his eyes widened, and his brows raised in doubt. "How could it not be a big deal? It's your first time being on TV! I'm pretty sure everyone is watching right now."

Li Shui pulled his chair around to them and picked up his bowl and chopsticks again. "You know, it's not actually the first time. Wasn't he already on TV when they had that press conference?"

Qian Huang gave him an annoyed look. "How could that even be compared?" He shook his head but didn't argue any further.

The notebook had finally turned on so he rushed to type in the password and then hurriedly went to find the episode. Thankfully, he didn't need long. Since Li Shui had warned them early enough, they had only missed the first couple of minutes. Right now, E Cheng Jun was up on the stage, announcing the rules for the casting. She seemed to have only gone up so it really was still early.

Neither of them said anything, just quietly watching what was happening. This episode was actually an odd one because it wasn't like the following ones would be. From the looks of it, the first few minutes should have been some introduction of the venue and the contestants.

E Cheng Jun finished her speech and the camera immediately cut to several shots of the contestants cooking.

Seeing this, Xiao Ming couldn't help but give a faint huff while smiling. "They seem to have cut quite a bit. If you look closely, the contestants have all gathered their ingredients already and also processed some already."

Qian Huang nodded. "True. Well, I guess you can't expect them to show too much. The casting was really long and they need to show the atmosphere, how the casting was done, introduce some of the contestants if they can, as well as you and Mister Yu. Can't have been easy to fit everything in there. It's no wonder they'd cut out a lot of the more boring details. We'll probably get to see a lot more food when it's getting to the later stages."

Li Shui nodded vigorously. "Yeah, I'm sure it'll be a lot. I saw them do a lot of close-ups of the food and also the cooking. Not much of that in the early stages but later on ... yeah, there'll be a lot."

As it turned out, Li Shui was right on the mark. In the first half of the episode, the content focused on introductions: there were many shots of the venue, usually tied to the people participating. They had interviewed people at their cooking stations but also in the areas where they were supposed to get ingredients. Toward the middle, they snuck in more and more shots of people bringing their dishes to be judged.

They started with them going up to the chefs helping out that day, making sure to include both people who were given feedback but turned away and those who were finally let on stage to present their dishes to Xiao Ming and Mister Yu.

At that point, the three men from Bright Yellow Water all tensed up. This was the moment of truth.

The person that was currently shown was actually somebody they knew pretty well: Si Qi of the Si clan or, as they knew him, the best-selling novelist Shi Ru Qiu.

He had been shown several times already. The first part was a candid shot from the side as he had been taking the necessary ingredients in a calm manner. The lighting in the venue was bright to make sure everyone saw well while cooking but it wasn't necessarily flattering on people. Si Qi had managed to look decent though and with the way he carried himself, there was even something soft about him despite the harsh lighting.