There’s No Drug in My Cooking!

The white-haired, red-eyed chef was flustered. She felt that the man opposite her, her future brother-in-law, was looking at her with increasingly strange eyes!

This shouldn't be happening!

She had only come to inspect Erina's prospective husband to see what he was really like. Why had the situation become so strange?

And this atmosphere!

Her heart raced as if she were doing something forbidden that was on the border of taboo!

Ichiyo's hand was a little shaky, but his face became even cooler. He nodded firmly. "Yes, there was a girl who looks similar to you, around the same age and height, with blond hair and violet eyes, and a slightly more developed chest came by yesterday. She said her name was Alice Nakiri and that she was there to assist her sister in evaluating the suitability of her prospective husband."

Ichiyo watched the silver-haired girl across from him intently. At this point, he felt like he was in a soap opera. If this situation didn't have a good explanation, it probably wouldn't go well today.

Alice Nakiri was silent for a while, her lips quivering slightly as she struggled to contain her emotions. She couldn't tell if she was happy or sad. She looked up at the boy.

"That's right, I am Nakiri Erina. I was wondering why Alice was acting so strange when she returned, and I thought you had bullied her. That's why I came to ask today, but I didn't expect to fall asleep and discovered by you."

She admitted that she felt like crying a little.

Why did that proud and arrogant Erina have to use her name to disguise herself!

Why was she unable to resist the curiosity to try to deceive her way in?

This was a disaster!

And on top of that, Erina's prospective husband was indeed an annoying guy. He said Erina was slightly bigger than her, but they were actually the same size!

"Yesterday, Alice came to assess you in terms of cooking, right?"

Upon hearing the girl across from him confess, Ichiyo silently let out a sigh of relief. He was relieved that he had not given into the temptation to go home. He nodded in agreement, not denying it.

Alice's expression was complex as she asked, "How did my little sister, Alice, judge your cooking?"

Since this woman was indeed his fiancée, and yesterday's haughty woman was just his sister-in-law, Ichiyo had nothing to argue about. He calmly spread out his hands and said, "She said that my cooking was too sweet, and that in terms of pastry making skills, I might as well switch to making handicrafts. That's about the gist of her evaluation."

Alice looked at Ichiyo with a sympathetic expression, "Then you must have gotten scolded quite badly. My not-so-likeable little sister has been arrogant since she was young, and she won't allow even a single flaw in her food. She speaks rudely and doesn't understand people's feelings at all!"

Ichiyo nodded in agreement, adding, "And she's also petty and unreasonable. She says my cooking is too sweet and then eats a big mouthful of it, and then says I have to learn cooking, I'm not allowed to do music, and I'm not allowed to become an idol. If I don't listen, she goes and tells my grandfather, what kind of skill is that? Don't you think that's childish?"

"Right! When I was five, I made her a cake and she said it was inedible, it's just hateful!" Alice nodded excitedly, her face looking lively. She took back her previous evaluation; this guy was not annoying at all, he had excellent taste!

No matter who it is, as long as they speak ill of Erina, then they are a member of Alice's fan club!

However, as she spoke, she realized something was off and wrinkled her little nose, "You said that my little sister ate all the pastries you made?"

How is that possible?

Erina has the God's Tongue, and any small flaw in a dish will be magnified by her sense of taste, and her personality won't tolerate such flaws! In that case, if Erina didn't throw the pastries at this guy's head, she would have been quite polite. How could she have eaten them all!

Being looked at with suspicion by his own fiancée, Ichiyo unconsciously straightened his back and said, "It's true! She ate them all, not leaving a single crumb behind!"

After all, his sister-in-law had almost choked to death because she was too eager!

As an honest person, Ichiyo doesn't usually lie because a lie often requires countless more lies to cover it up, it's too much trouble. However, this world is very strange! When you speak the truth, others often don't believe it. For example, his fiancée.

Alice decisively shook her head, "This is impossible. If your cooking isn't good and doesn't meet her standards, she won't eat it!"

Although the two sisters seemed somewhat estranged, that was just a dispute between young girls. The emotional bond between sisters is truly present, and their relationship is not too bad.

Erina is too unsympathetic and haughty for Alice's taste, readily rejecting others' feelings. The most important thing is that living with Erina, Alice has always heard voices praising how great Erina is. Growing up in Erina's shadow, Alice chose to escape and then worked hard to study molecular cuisine to prove that she was not inferior to Erina.

Erina knows some of Alice's thoughts, but because she was excessively developed and indoctrinated with the concept of high-class cuisine by her father when she was young, she initially had no time or opportunity to reconcile with Alice. Later, when she broke free from the darkness, she was too proud to speak many of the words that remained in her heart.

As a result, the two sisters ended up in their current situation. It can only be said that fate is cruel and haughtiness leads to a lifetime of regret.

Ichiyo looks at the girl and points to the small bowl of chrysanthemum snake soup he specially left for her. "Do you think this dish is delicious?"

Alice looks down and tastes the soup and white, tender snake meat with a small spoon, closing her eyes to savor the flavor.

Ichiyo waits quietly for her answer. After a while, Alice opens her eyes and says, "Putting aside the top-quality ingredients that I can't identify, this dish can only score a maximum of five points out of ten. It falls short in terms of completion, knife skills, heat control, and innovation..."

A stream of negative feedback comes from the girl's delicate mouth, but Ichiyo's expression remains calm. "But you've already unknowingly eaten half of it. If I let you have another bite now, would you refuse?"

Alice is startled by his words and realizes that she has already eaten half of it!

If she continues to eat, she definitely wouldn't refuse, even though his cooking skills are poor. However, there is an inexplicably warm feeling in the dish that gives her the feeling of being with family.

"Ah, my family..." Alice thought of her father, mother, grandfather, and finally, Erina. She shook her head firmly. No, not Erina, she won't be able to enjoy the taste of victory before beating her!

As he looked at his cute, future wife struggling to find words, Ichiyo chuckled, "I may not be as skilled a chef as the professional chefs trained at Totsuki Academy like you, but my cooking isn't just about the food. It also has heart."

"In that case, Miss Erina, please guide me in the future."

According to Ichiyo's current experience with using his ability to randomly add emotional buffs to his dishes, there are actually two cases.

In the first case, if he can raise the completion rate of the dish to 100%, the random emotional buff is almost certain to be added. Even if it doesn't succeed the first time, it will definitely succeed after two more tries.

In the second case, even though the completion rate of the dish is not too high, as long as Ichiyo's will is strong enough, he can incorporate his own emotions and imagined scenes into the dish, allowing the diners to taste a dish with a certain culinary illusion.

Compared to the wide range of random emotional buffs in the first case, the second case is obviously much more specific. For example, if his current emotion is optimistic, the emotional buff added will not be anger or sadness.

As for the culinary illusion, Ichiyo is still reserving his opinion on this. After all, he has never eaten a culinary illusion from his own cooking, at most just various emotional buff on the mind. The hypothesis of culinary illusions came from the reaction of that unlucky food journalist this morning. Under normal circumstances, even if she tasted the emotional buff in the dish and had her mind colored by it, she had no reason to know about the two post-apocalyptic girls struggling to survive in the wasteland.

However, it is also very likely that it was just a lucky coincidence, due to her own strong ability to imagine things. After all, Ichiyo had never met a woman who was so good at acting!

As Alice watched Ichiyo, whose voice was soft as he said "please guide me," she nodded subconsciously and obediently agreed.

Ichiyo's lips curled up slightly. "Miss Erina, can you pay the bill now?"

"Would you like to pay 5,000 yen in cash or you can pay it with your body?" Ichiyo eagerly waited. Maybe he had a chance now to delegate one of the tasks in the kitchen that he disliked the most - washing dishes!

Alice paused in the act of scooping up some snake soup with a small spoon and stared incredulously at Ichiyo. Pay with her body? Her heart was pounding faster and faster, and a hint of pink was tinged on the tips of her ears as a sense of guilty pleasure lingered. Erina's figure appeared in Alice's mind and she felt a sudden sense of guilt.

It was as if she had inadvertently seduced her husband?

She hadn't intended for this outcome at all!

Ichiyo looked at his future wife, who was cowering like a scared bunny and shrugged his shoulders before accepting the bill.

"Alright, I have some change. I'll go get it for you. Remember to finish your food, don't waste it."

"No, no, no. I'm already full, and if I don't go home at this time, my grandfather will scold me!" Alice frantically waved her hands in refusal and came up with an excuse at random. Her 'husband' was too enthusiastic, and she couldn't handle it. Miss Alice was no longer daring to stay.

Ichiyo's footsteps slowed as he walked towards the counter, turning back to look at the girl with a calm expression. His voice was even, "There's not much left, finish it and I'll offer to take you home."

"There's no need!"

Alice forced a hollow smile and abandoned her spoon, picking up the ceramic bowl filled with snake meat stew and chugging it down heroically. A stream of pale soup dribbled down her chin, which she wiped away with the back of her hand before putting away her utensils and fleeing, hiding her face as she went."

Running away, Alice felt her legs go weak and her stride becomes unsteady. Sorry, Erina, it's all your fault for not informing me and taking my name first. I didn't know it would turn out like this...

Ichiyo watched the retreating figure and smiled a little. As expected of his future wife, she was truly adorable!

In fact, Totsuki's Gourmet Street and Totsuki Academy were not very far from each other. The street and the main gate of the academy were only a few hundred meters apart, but the campus of Totsuki Academy was vast, with a range wider than a small mountain. This was due to the academy's wealth, which allowed them to add various breeding grounds and even some cooking research clubs within the campus.

On the way back to Totsuki Academy, Alice saw a black luxury car pass by her. Inside the car, Erina looked at the familiar figure on the side of the road and frowned subconsciously without saying anything.

It's so late, why is Alice the only one coming back from outside the academy?

Suppressing her doubts, Erina Nakiri brought the basic teaching materials and notes from Hisako to Ichiyo's pastry shop with a sense of determination. Before even stepping inside the shop, Erina saw Ichiyo, who was focused on carefully mixing various ingredients and dough in the kitchen. His movements were clearly smoother than they had been the previous night, and there was a certain beauty to them.

Erina's eyes filled with the joy of seeing a child mature, he finally realized that cooking could be just as rewarding as singing. She had always said that singing was a dead-end career, and now Ichiyo had finally understood the happiness that came with cooking!

Erina's sense of accomplishment was off the charts!

Thinking that as a teacher who was not really a teacher, Erina Nakiri offered her guidance, "Actually, aside from the shaping ability of the red bean paste and sugar in yesterday's sweets, you can consider making improvements in terms of the ingredients. You could choose other ingredients that are easy to shape to create the appearance of the sweets, or you could change the type of tea served to go with the sweets and choose a variety of teas that perfectly complement the flavor of the sweets, such as seasonal teas and fruit teas.”

Her voice sounded pleasant as it rang out, and Ichiyo looked up at the pretty young woman standing behind the counter and smiled.

"What do you want to eat this time?"

"Seven-Flavors Fruit Daifuku!" Erina unhesitatingly proposed a new task. She wanted to see where Ichiyo's limits were, and how far he could go. His talent was like a pearl, buried for a long time but making people more interested in polishing it!

She, Nakiri Erina, was such a good teacher!

Ichiyo nodded and said, "Then you can go back. I can't make this."

He knew how to make daifuku, and even though he hadn't studied it carefully before, he had learned a lot just by being in a household where cooking was so important. Plus, his grandfather's notes on his culinary experiences over the years were still with him!

However, the Seven-Flavors Fruit Daifuku was no small feat, and it was one of his grandfather's signature dishes in his prime.

Simply wrapping fruit with glutinous rice dough is not too difficult, but choosing which fruits to use, which ones need special treatment, and how to make the distinct flavors of each fruit blend together seamlessly while still being distinct, like capturing the changing flavors in daifuku, is a whole other matter. It requires a lot of knowledge.

As a pastry chef student, Ichiyo had learned a lot about the basics of making sweets and shaping them, thanks to the recipes he had absorbed from the system. However, in other areas, he was still at the level of an amateur who was a little better than the average person but not up to professional standards. This was evident in the terrible result of his attempt to make chrysanthemum snake soup dumplings.

Cooking without cheating assistance from the system requires a lot of practice. Erina's request for this particular dish was a true challenge!

She wasn't his future wife, so he didn't have to be gentle with her like he was with his future wife, the elegant white-haired Erina. He could be rough with this stubborn, golden-haired young woman!