The matter with Si Er had been cleared up and even though Si Yi wasn’t happy with Si Shi Er’s boyfriend suddenly moving in and some of the other ninjas were quite confused about the matter, things went back to normal. The ninjas of the Si clan went out the next day as well, mingling with other people to keep up the pretense that they weren’t a secret ninja clan.

On the other hand, the three men from Bright Yellow Water focused on their work: Today was the day when ‘Golden Spoon’ would publish the first video from the casting, this one being the one that detailed how Tao Jin had done.

While she had cooked a dish that she knew and practiced several times, meaning that she was actually quite good at it, she still couldn’t compare to some people that had been cooking a variety of things for several years or to the members of the Si clan that had had special training. As such, to save face for the national goddess while still being able to gain some publicity thanks to her, the show had decided to not treat her like a normal contestant but instead like somebody that had been invited as a special guest to give more insight into the show.

As such, Tao Jin wouldn’t appear in the actual first episode but the material about her would be posted as a special ahead of time on the halfway mark between the actual date of the casting and the time that the episode around it would be broadcasted online and on TV. The special was online-only so it was especially the younger viewers that were targeted this way.

Right at the time when the episodes would usually start and the other small snippets that the crew had prepared were uploaded, the special went up as well.

The person to first appear wasn’t Tao Jin but E Cheng Jun instead. She smiled into the camera, waving at the audience. “Hello everybody! Welcome to a special mini-episode of ‘Golden Spoon’.

“After the announcement this past weekend, you’re hopefully looking forward to the first episode proper that will show you everything you need to know about the casting. Until it’s time, we are going to tide you over with a special episode that you definitely wouldn’t want to miss!

“If there’s one person the whole nation would agree to be the most gorgeous woman that has ever walked the earth, then that would be our national goddess, Tao Jin. Now, have you ever seen your goddess cook?” She winked at the camera when she said so, clearly daring the people to do just that.

“Some of you might have as she’s taken part in several TV shows over the course of her career one of which asked her to prepare a special dish. Today, for the second time in her life, goddess Tao Jin will be cooking in front of the camera!”

The camera cut to a room that was currently still empty but people were walking in and out, changing that fast. While the message just now had been recorded after the casting when everything had been hashed out, this was actual footage of the day of the casting. E Cheng Jun had been over in the hall at that time so she hadn’t been able to be there to introduce anything. Instead, the producer had just used other members of the crew to take care of the matter.

Right now, a few of them could be seen setting up the room. After finishing her task, one of the women turned around with a smile. “Goddess Tao Jin is supposed to arrive at the venue in just five minutes. Right now, we’re preparing a special room so she can have a go at the casting without distracting the contestants over in the hall. I’m really curious to see just how she will fare.”

Next, there was a short clip of how Tao Jin arrived and shook hands with the producer before she was led into the building. The camera was following her closely and she turned around after entering, giving the audience a smile. “I’m looking forward to the casting. My husband told me about the show and originally, we wanted to take part together. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as planned but the producer was so nice to invite me as a special guest instead after he saw that I expressed interest. I am looking forward to being able to try my hand at the task.”

Since this was only supposed to be a mini-episode, Tao Jin already entered the room after saying this, finding it completely prepared.

She turned back to the camera, smiling even more brightly and motioning at the things inside. “Oh, it looks like this is going to be fun! I wonder how they’re going to tell me the task though? After all, I’m not in the hall with everyone else so I’m not going to hear the announcement, am I?”

Contrary to the normal episodes of ‘Golden Spoon’ that followed the format of a regular cooking show, this mini-episode was more styled after a TV show that invited celebrities to do tasks. Even though it wasn’t quite in line with what ‘Golden Spoon’ was supposed to be, the producer felt that the marketing effect this kind of episode would have would be much higher than if they went with their regular episode style.

Anyway, if it turned out that this was really successful, then he might also change things up for the rest of ‘Golden Spoon’ or at least do so for the seasons going forward. He was pretty flexible in that as long as it would be able to make them money.

Back in the room, one of the crew members came over and handed Tao Jin a small tablet.

The actress raised her brows but thanked the man and then turned to take a closer look at the tablet. “Oh, look at this! There are two buttons here. One looks like a TV and the other one looks like a clock. I’m afraid the second one might be some kind of countdown so I’d better not press it before I’m sure what the first one is about.”

Saying so, she pressed the button on the left and the opposing wall opened up, revealing a screen.

Tao Jin raised her brows and looked back at the camera with wide eyes as if she was really surprised. “Looks like I was right! It’s indeed a TV. I guess this is where I will find my announcement.” She looked back at the tablet where the button with the TV had turned into one with a play sign. She clicked on it and the TV turned on, broadcasting what was currently going on over in the hall.

At the very least, it looked like that. Actually, Tao Jin had started later than everyone else, so this was a cleaned-up recording of the actual casting and not actually live. The audience wouldn’t know though.

Tao Jin watched as E Cheng Jun explained the rules and then, the TV screen turned black. Tao Jin raised her brow and looked at the tablet in her hands, where the second button was flashing.

“I guess I’ve gotten a bit of a privilege since I’m in another room and I can start the countdown on my own. There might only be limited time for me though or maybe something will happen if I don’t press it. I’d say let’s not risk it and better start!” She pressed the second button and the screen of the tablet turned into a countdown just as expected.

Tao Jin put it down at the side where the camera could catch it easily while she went to survey what she had in the room.

While she did, she continued to talk, explaining what she was doing. There was nobody else around other than her, the cameraman, and a few crew members behind the scenes that could come and rush over if something happened. But otherwise, she was all alone.

“I was allowed to choose the dish myself like everyone else, so I figured I might do something that I have a bit of experience with. Some of you might remember how, two years ago, I took part in the TV show ‘A Field Trip in the Summer’. For those that don’t know, it’s a game show where the participants are divided into teams and then sent onto a field trip where they will have to solve tasks.

“Back then, I and my teammates were sent on a field trip to a foreign country. Out there, we met a professional chef. He was supposed to tell us how to make a dish but since he didn’t speak our language, we had to guess what he was trying to say to follow his instructions.

“I didn’t do too well in that task. I had no idea what he was saying and the dish that came out tasted awful. I still feel sorry for my teammates when I think back. Anyway, since then, I’ve figured out how the dish is actually made and today, I want to show you!”

She went to the side of the room first where the crew members had put a shelf with ingredients. “I’m afraid I don’t have as much here as the contestants out in the whole. But there should be everything that I need because the team of ‘Golden Spoon’ asked me before I arrived what kind of dish I would make. I guess they might have added some ingredients I won’t need though to test whether I actually know what is supposed to be in there.”

She looked through the shelf for a moment, taking out one thing after the other. “The beautiful thing about this dish is that actually, you don’t need much. And most of the things that you do need aren’t uncommon either. So even though it’s a foreign dish, you can easily make it at home.

“I’ve done so very often myself. My husband doesn’t even want to hear the word ‘quenelles’ anymore. I’m still going to make it again in the future.” She laughed and then carried the things she had chosen back to her workstation.

“I think I should have everything I need. Next, I’m going to weigh all the ingredients to make sure that there is enough of each. What I don’t need can be brought back again. I find it distracting when there are too many things standing around. It just makes you second guess whether you really have everything you need.”

Back in the apartment that the guys from Bright Yellow Water were currently renting, Qian Huang leaned over to Xiao Ming. “Goddess Tao Jin really knows how to do this. She could probably do a cooking stream all on her own.”

Xiao Ming smiled. “That’s true. I knew she was a great actress and I’ve also seen her in a few TV shows so I’m not that surprised but she’s doing a lot of talking there. She doesn’t seem nervous at all.”

Qian Huang and Li Shui both looked at him at the same time, feeling that he was probably embarrassed that he as somebody who was regularly streaming was still getting jittery every time while she didn’t seem bothered at all.

Qian Huang reached over and put his arm around his shoulder, shaking his head at him. “She’s a nationally-acclaimed actress, maybe even known internationally. I think that even after ten or twenty years of streaming, you couldn’t compare to that. I’m not trying to throw shade but she’s just of a whole other caliber. That is as if you were trying to compare what Li Shui does to the kind of cameraman that’s hired for the big-budget movies or me to the assistant of the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. That’s just not us. We’re … normal guys.”

“I mean we do streaming for a living. That doesn’t seem that normal.”

Qian Huang tilted his head and had to admit that this was true. “Well, not that normal but still more normal than somebody like goddess Tao Jin. She’s definitely so far out of the realm of normal, you wouldn’t even be able to see her if you stood at the edge of it.”

“Not even with a binocular,” Li Shui piped up.

Qian Huang glanced over his shoulder and nodded. “Yes, not even with the strongest binocular you can get on the market. You’d need a telescope for that.”

Xiao Ming chuckled and shook his head at the two of them. They really were too silly! But then, that was also what he liked about them. “Alright, I get it. I’m normal so it’s normal to be nervous. She isn’t normal so it’s normal that she can keep calm. Let’s continue watching.”

The other two nodded and turned back to the screen.

As for Tao Jin, the crew had cut out the part where she weighed the ingredients to keep the time of the mini-episode down. After showing the beginning, they snapped back to the time when — just as she had said before — she had put everything in the order that she would need it in while the rest had been put away.

After the finishing touches, Tao Jin looked back at the camera. “The ingredients are weighed. From experience, I think this dish should work out. There is still one more thing I need to do first though and that is getting all the utensils that I will need. You see, ingredients are one thing, but I also have to process them, don’t I?

With that, she went off to the shelf again and looked into the bottom row. “I was thinking that the team might have put everything here and I was right. So, let’s see what we need. It seems that they have quite a few things here.”

She rummaged around for a bit and soon got a blender, bringing it to the workstation before she went back for a pan that she had seen, as well as a tray with small molds. After that, she returned to the workstation and started on the first step.

“Alright, first things first, I’m going to heat up the first ingredients and combine them into some kind of mush. The first time I did this, it looked a little strange but it can make a really tasty dish. Just like how you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, you shouldn’t judge a dish by how the ingredients look when you start out.”

Tao Jin fell silent for a while, just quietly going through the steps of making the quenelles. After the so-called ‘mush’ was done, she turned to the fish and put it in the blender. “Maybe I should’ve done this before. But I guess it won’t take too long.” Saying so, she tightly screwed on the lid and then blended the fish.

Back at home, Qian Huang leaned back and put his feet up on the chair opposite them, giving a hum. “I wonder if she’s terrified of the lid coming undone and her being sprayed with fish on camera. If that kind of thing happened, do you think they would’ve shown it?”

Xiao Ming and Li Shui turned to look at him, doubtful about how he could come up with something like this.

“I don’t think so. I mean, that is goddess Tao Jin after all. Her fans would probably be up in arms about if something like that happened and threaten the team for giving her something that wasn’t safe to work with.”

Li Shui nodded, also feeling that this might be the case. Although … “Maybe that’s my paranoia from the last hours speaking but what if somebody leaked that kind of video? I’m pretty sure the press would pay some good money for that.”

Qian Huang frowned, looking at Li Shui as if he couldn’t understand him at all. “You know, I was just making a joke. Can you not make this awkward? Now I’ll have to think about somebody trying to blackmail her. But then again, I guess we would’ve known if there was that kind of accident behind the scenes. People would’ve talked about it for sure. And I didn’t hear a thing.”

Xiao Ming nodded, also not having heard anything. “The two of you really have to make sure that you don’t say anything like that when we talk about the episode tomorrow.”

Qian Huang turned to face him and grinned. “Isn’t that why we are watching it for the first time today and not waiting to do so live tomorrow? This kind of thing, we naturally can’t say it on camera.”

Li Shui also nodded and then raised his hands to wave in a defensive motion. “I’ll be behind the camera anyway so I’ll keep quiet the whole time. Just make me some food first so I have something to munch on. I bet going through this whole episode will take some time. How long do you think they’ll make this one?”

Xiao Ming gave a hum, not too sure. “Well, they called it a mini-episode so I don’t think it should be that long. I’m not sure about the regular episodes but I don’t think they would go longer than an hour, would they? Or maybe two hours? But that might already be pushing it. It’s a cooking show after all, not some kind of entertainment program.”

Qian Huang nodded. “Honestly, I hate that we’re not being given more information. Usually, if we’re supposed to stream it, we should know those details beforehand. That would allow us to prepare much better. Now, we’re stuck here the same way as regular viewers are. It’s clear that that producer doesn’t actually put you in his eye.”

Xiao Ming sighed. “I know, I’m just there to draw in the online audience. But, well, there are worse things that could happen. As long as we can benefit from it in the long run, it shouldn’t be a problem.

“I wonder what we should do about tomorrow’s stream though. Is it really alright to just watch a video and comment on it? I mean we’re not a commentary channel. We’re clearly about cooking. To not cook for all these weeks … I’m worried about what that will cause.

“At the end of the day, maybe there will not be any viewers left. Then, we would have made things even worse for us instead of helping the channel grow. That’s what I’m afraid of. And we can’t rely on me being invited to another show to get some income from that. So really, I hope that this whole plan doesn’t backfire.”