Chapter 986: Chapter 411: Men’s Fuel Station? Men’s Soccer: Don’t Believe or Spread Rumors, Eating It Is Still Useless!

After closing tips in the stream yesterday, Dundun’s stream ended up blasting its way up to second place. If the number-one streamer hadn’t urgently tipped himself a few hundred thousand, he wouldn’t have been able to hold that top spot.

He might have kept first place, but snatching the spotlight from a little kitten like that made a lot of people criticize him, saying he was too petty and had no sense of scale.

If tips had been turned on in Dundun’s stream, you think he’d still be jumping around like that?

So after Dundun ended his stream last night, that streamer’s room had a huge wave of unfollows—at least a hundred thousand fans announced they were done.

Yue Liyue, who was gaming on stream at the time, heard about it and sneakily swapped his stream cover to a picture of him and Dundun, instantly pulling in tens of thousands of fans.

He demonstrated the streaming rule "one streamer falls, the rest get full" with real actions.

As the video call was about to end, Lin Xu said:

"You two don’t eat too many snacks this afternoon. I’ve got a great collagen-boosting dish at the restaurant tonight. Don’t stuff yourselves so full that you can’t eat dinner, and just end up watching other people eat."

"Okay, okay, we’ll come back early this afternoon."

After finishing the noodles in his bowl with a few cloves of garlic, Lin Xu still didn’t feel satisfied, so he got himself another bowl, then followed it up with a bowl of Egg soup—comfortable and satisfying.

After lunch, the restaurant迎来了 another lunch rush.

Lin Xu stayed busy in the restaurant the whole noon, cooked quite a few dishes, and once again found that sense of fulfillment he’d had when he first opened the place.

A little after two in the afternoon, he soaked some Potato Flour noodles in warm water.

They’re an essential ingredient for Pork and Pickled Cabbage Stew with Noodles.

The reason he uses Potato Flour noodles is because compared to sweet potato noodles, mung bean noodles and the like, this type holds up to cooking much better—doesn’t fall apart no matter how long you boil it—making it the ideal choice for Northeast-style stews.

Once they were soaking, he washed some pickled cabbage.

Right now the restaurant is using ready-made pickled cabbage. Lin Xu had thought about pickling it himself, but that requires too much space, and the only spare room in the shop is currently occupied by Fish, so he could only settle for second best. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

He was in the middle of busying around when Old Huang came in carrying a bag of meat and Blood sausage:

"Bro, I heard you’re doing Pork and Pickled Cabbage Stew with Noodles this afternoon, right? I specially swung by the slaughterhouse and snagged a few links of freshly stuffed Blood sausage, plus some freshly cut pork and big leg bones. I’ve got nothing going on this afternoon, so let’s do a full Kill-the-Pig Feast."

Looking at all these ingredients, Lin Xu couldn’t help grinning. This big bro really doesn’t skimp when it comes to food. Could your kidney deficiency be because you eat too much of this greasy stuff?

He laughed and said:

"Boss Huang, have you done a physical this year? My senior had the exact same symptoms as you. He went for a checkup and they found stones. Now he works out every day and you can literally see his health improving. Why don’t you go get checked too?"

Old Huang waved his hand with a smile:

"Where do I have the time? Besides, I’m perfectly healthy. No need for any physical."

That’s some serious macho-denial right there.

If you were really "perfectly healthy," would you need to keep finding ways to piss off your wife and sleep on the couch?

Getting banished to the living room might have its thrills, but it’s nothing compared to lying dead center on a spring mattress, full of energy.

Just as he was about to keep persuading him, Old Huang lowered his voice and asked:

"Bro, have you gone to get checked yourself? What do they test for? Is it embarrassing? Is it better to go to a specialized men’s clinic, or a proper top-tier public hospital... I don’t mean anything else, just asking for a friend."

We’re this familiar and you’re still pulling the "asking for a friend" routine?

Lin Xu said:

"Seriously, don’t go to those men’s clinics; they’re all scams. Just go straight to a proper top-tier public hospital, register for urology. If there’s an expert, book the expert; if there’s a professor, book the professor. Once you tell them your symptoms, the doctor will line everything up for you."

Hearing this, Old Huang’s expression showed a flicker of interest.

He gave a couple of dry coughs:

"I’ll pass that on to my friend and let him think about it."

Seeing how stubborn he was, Lin Xu didn’t push it. Instead, he took out all the pork, Blood sausage, and big leg bones from the bag and started prepping the meat to stew in advance.

The Blood sausage can’t be stewed too long, but the longer pork is stewed with pickled cabbage, the better it tastes.

He cut the meat into big chunks, soaked it together with the leg bones for a bit, then put everything into the big iron pot to start stewing. Once the water came to a boil, he skimmed off the scum, then added in the cleaned, shredded pickled cabbage, followed by some lard, a few pieces of Star Anise, a few bay leaves, plus Scallion and Ginger and a bit of dried chili.

He brought it to a boil on high, then covered it and turned it down to a medium-low simmer.

This kind of dish doesn’t need much seasoning—the flavor all comes from the pickled cabbage.

With that going, Lin Xu blanched the Blood sausage to get rid of the offal smell from the intestines themselves, so the finished Blood sausage would taste better.

While he was busy, he saw Wei Qian idle off to the side and said with a grin:

"If I’d known, I’d have let you do this Kill-the-Pig Feast."

Wei Qian said:

"The Kill-the-Pig Feast in Shandong isn’t the same as the Northeast one. Over there we basically stew the meat and drink the broth, toss all the trimmed bones and odds and ends into the pot, boil them down, then stew another pot of meat. That’s it."

Anywhere they slaughter a New Year’s pig, they have a Kill-the-Pig Feast, but even though they’re all called the same thing, the actual cooking methods are completely different.

Some are stewed, some boiled, some stir-fried, some braised—every place does it differently.

Lin Xu was planning to go back to Yinzhou for Spring Festival this year, buy a few pigs and have them slaughtered in the scenic area to scratch his Kill-the-Pig Feast itch, and at the same time give the scenic area staff a nice bonus.

Since he has the Skill, he can’t just let it go to waste.

Close to four in the afternoon, he took the sea cucumber that had been soaking out of the pot. After soaking in the stock, the sea cucumber hadn’t gotten any bigger, but it was slightly heavier.

Chances are the flesh of the sea cucumber was now saturated with stock.

He drained off the excess stock from the sea cucumber, then set a wok on the stove, poured in a few bowls of abalone sauce, added sugar and oyster sauce, and put the sea cucumber in to braise over low heat.

By braising it like this, the fragrance of the abalone sauce and the sea cucumber fully meld together, and at the same time the gelatin in the sea cucumber is cooked out, making the sauce even thicker.

While he was still busy, Shen Guofu, who’d been looking forward to the stewed meat, got off work early.

As soon as he reached the second floor, he smelled the aroma wafting out from the kitchen.

He turned to Old Huang and asked curiously:

"What are they making in there? Smells so strong."

Old Huang chuckled and said:

"Braised Abalone with Sea Cucumber. This is a man’s gas station—just wait to eat. Even the national soccer team says it’s good after eating it."

Shen Guofu sat down with a laugh and said:

"I think that whole ’sea cucumber works’ thing is a myth. If it really did anything, I... ahem, the national team wouldn’t be playing like such trash. And I’m even a die-hard fan. The more I hope, the more I get disappointed... Oh right, Boss Huang, I’ve got a friend who wants to ask your advice on something."

Old Huang immediately straightened up:

"What does Boss Shen... what does Boss Shen’s friend need, just say the word. Old Huang loves helping friends the most!"

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Hit a bit of writer’s block today so the update is late. My bad, brothers. This Chapter is 5200 words, begging for a Monthly Ticket!