IUILBRC Chapter 29: Pork Belly

Chapter 29: Pork Belly

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Sulo will go crazy for the Dongpo pork belly

 

He clicked the hot search title. The large picture at the top was the same one he had seen outside the Star River building. The little boy ‘Danny’ looked nine-years-old, and his race…

Panda!

In addition to the poster photo, there was also a picture of Ershisi Guo in his animal form. He looked like a panda about two-years-old, with soft claws and a round and simple appearance, holding a bamboo, and looking into the camera at a loss. It seemed that he had been secretly photographed by fans at lunch.

“… It’s lovely.” Although he had been a zoo-keeper for a long time already, Gu YuMian still had no resistance to these soft black and white balls. Ershisi Guo’s loveliness was almost the same as his family’s Xue Tuan and Tangyuan. The pandas of this era, compared with the chubby ones from Earth who were loved unconditionally, were not outdone. ¹

In addition to Tangyuan, ErShisi Guo was the second panda he saw in this world. They were probably relatives.

“In this way, it makes sense that they have similar eyebrows and eyes.” Gu YuMian said to himself.

Gu YuMian, after all, was a normal person from Earth. Even after looking for a while, he couldn’t seem to find a high-definition picture of Ershisi Guo. Moreover, the change in the appearance of the panda from its cub state to its two or three-year-old form was quite large. So at this time, he didn’t consider the fact that Ershisi Guo had returned to his cub state.

He looked up ‘Ershisi Guo’ in the search engine and microblog again. Unexpectedly, he was blocked due to lack of permission, but it was enough to give him some information. At least, there was now a way to help little Tangyuan find his home. He just needed to find a way to contact the big star.

Besides…

This ‘Danny’ was a panda named Ershisi Guo. While such an idea was absurd, and also frightened him, he couldn’t help the inexplicable feeling that grew within him. His heart began to beat wildly.

“Wok? Why Wok?” Gu YuMian thought, “Is there some relation to Big Wok?”

He searched the term ‘Big Wok,’ ‘Second Wok,’ and ‘Third Wok,’ but nothing special seemed to pop up. The search engine showed him several new saucepans. He didn’t know if it was because Big Wok was not famous, or because the information was invisible to him.

Gu YuMian browsed for a while in the entry’ Ershisi Guo seriously ill.’ It appeared that the microblog and search engine had blocked his search permission. And only when there was such a hot search like this, he could browse through it.

At the top was a video released by Ershisi Guo’s studio. It was a little boy with the appearance of a nine-year-old, wearing a hospital gown, clasping his hands to the camera, and sounding distressed. “I’m sorry I need to stop performing for a while due to my recent poor health. I’ll see you in three months.”

It was released more than a month ago, and now it was still on the hot search of the Capital Star traffic — Gu YuMian couldn’t help but wonder, this kid was trendy.

[Danny star backup: Good morning, the best Danny baby in the world needs to take good care of his illness. This shovel will always wait for you to love you [love] [picture]]

Ershisi Guo’s fan name was little shovel. This was a fan station.

[My family’s Wok: [crying] Although he apologized, I still want to say that agent really stinks. Two or three years ago, he didn’t know Danny well, but now he’s using his baby as a tool to make money… It must be related to the baby’s illness now, Tsk.]

[Danny’s numbness: Angry platoon, Danny’s agent is living in the Upper Urban District. He is now stretching his hand farther and farther, and sooner or later, he will be punished.]

Agent? Gu YuMian thought of the serious middle-aged man he saw in the elevator of Star River Tower last time. That was close. He just thought about contacting the agent… But now, if what the microblog fans were saying was true, this would take a while.

Despite being a big star, Ershisi Guo’s privacy was well protected. Gu YuMian only knew about the history and representative works of Ershisi Guo since his debut through the hot search and the homepage for fans. He knew nothing about his family.

Only some old fans vaguely revealed that other relatives of Ershisi Guo’s family were ‘living in the Upper City area, and coming out only occasionally,’ ‘many other relatives were celebrities,’ and “the family was very rich.

It was said that Ershisi Guo was soft in appearance but independent at heart. He didn’t want to use the support of his family when he first started his career. He entered the Capital Film University and hid his race and identity. He began to fight from the dragon suit… At that time, the agent had a good understanding of him.

Even though people could see that the agent had become excessive recently, Ershisi Guo still didn’t fire the other party.

He didn’t know whether to say the panda was stupid or that he knew how to repay favors.

“…”

There was not much personal privacy information on the Internet, which showed that the ability of Ershisi Guo’s team was actually good, but the personality of the agent needed to be discussed. It took Gu YuMian an hour to collect and sort out all the information he could get. At least now he knew where he was going. He was full of energy for a while.

 

The start of the Rookie match was today.

Today was a Friday, and from this day till the next Friday, the first round of the rookie competition would be held. Because of the large number of participants in this round, selection would only be conducted based on the total popularity, and there were no additional items. Additional items would be added in the future.

The officials were willing to throw money, and coupled with its attraction, Starry Sky’s Rookie Competition had a high degree of attention and topics. In addition to Capital Star, the best newcomers from every other planet would participate in the competition. This meant that the anchors of each affiliated planet and the Capital Star would be fighting against each other

Gu YuMian thought about it and said, “Oh, so I’m the only hope in the whole star.”

… He really was.

Last night, Keri from Takk’s Starry Sky platform sent a small video to wish him all the best. Some fans in Takk pulled banners to wish him well. Gu YuMian was a little embarrassed and moved.

There were a total of one thousand new anchors in the rookie competition, and as many as five hundred would be screened out in the first round. Then five hundred would be narrowed down to two hundred in the second round, and similarly, two hundred to one hundred in the third round. Then, those who were in the top one hundred would go through the primary selection — Takk’s biggest expectation for him was to pass the primary selection.

[Sugar Sugar: There will be a break after the primary selection. In this period, we may organize the one hundred anchors to carry out offline publicity and friendship. This has not been determined yet. You must do well.]

Gu YuMian: “Mn.”

Gu YuMian didn’t know what his advantages were, let alone where Sugar Sugar’s confidence in him came from. Although it was only the first round, Gu YuMian had also made preparations conscientiously — not just for the live broadcast, of course, but also for a very special day.

… According to the calendar of Ancient Earth, today was Children’s Day, the 1st of June. ²

The seasons of Capital Star were not the same as that of Ancient Earth. May was midsummer, and August was Autumn, but the calendar was the same. Although there was no Children’s Day in the interstellar era, Gu YuMian, according to his own habit, would take his children to have a happy time.

When Gu YuMian was ready for everything by noon, little Tangyuan had just woken up.

The baby panda nestled in Gu YuMian’s arms and rubbed his eyes, while the little snow leopard just came home from school, and immediately stared at the baby panda with a displeased expression. He pressed his two claws against the baby panda’s round head, trying to push him out.

Of course, the baby panda had been fed a lot of delicious food recently, but his body length was not very long. Gu YuMian planned to wean him later and let him start eating just bamboo.

“Chi?” Little Tangyuan held his bottle and looked at the little snow leopard and Gu YuMian in a daze. After thinking about it and putting down the bottle, he slowly moved to hold Gu YuMian’s hand in his arms.

“…” Gu YuMian sighed and felt his head in his heart. Because he had just learned about Ershisi Guo this morning and thought that little Tangyuan might probably be the offspring of Big Wok, he was in a complicated mood.

——Gu YuMian’s complex and focused expression as he looked at little Tangyuan, was interpreted in the eyes of the little snow leopard as emotional.

… Click.

The little snow leopard was silent for a moment. He arched his little head into Gu YuMian’s arms and flashed his sharp claws to threaten the baby panda away. He couldn’t help but occupy his human’s arms. He looked down at the baby panda sitting on the ground with a mocking gaze, and the words in his gray-blue eyes were clear and white: This is mine.

——Not for you.

He was very aggressive and unreasonable.

Gu YuMian, “…”

It was six o’clock in the evening. The rookie competition area opened on time, and the first round of popularity calculation officially started.

Like most new anchors, Gu YuMian turned on his live broadcast as soon as he arrived at six. As usual, he chose the baby panda’s perspective and opened the privacy protection settings for the baby panda, and then greeted the audience, “Hello, my name is Gu YuMian. Today, we will have Dongpo pork belly for dinner. The dessert is yogurt ice-cream. After that, I’ll help Xue Tuan and Tangyuan comb their hair, and we will celebrate children’s day together.”

In more than half a month since he came to Capital Star, Gu YuMian had already accumulated a batch of regular fans. Coupled with yesterday’s publicity and the popularity of continuous fermentation after the use of kitchen system advertising, the number of fans soon broke 30,000 within two minutes after the launch of his live broadcast.

Gu YuMian couldn’t help bending his eyes as he looked at the growing number of viewers and many of the familiar IDs.

[South China Tiger Will Never Blind Date: Here it is!! Throwing two fireworks at Mian Mian and wishing for a smooth journey through the rookie race!]

[There’s a family in the mine: What else are we going to eat and play today? Super, super excited, fly rubbing hands.]

[I’m Yangou. I’m proud: Little brother, what is Dongpo pork and children’s day? No matter, I’ll wait first!! Because the advertisement made by the anchor has made me order the kitchen system. Although it couldn’t make such delicious food, it’s also very easy to use. It’s worth more than what it’s worth. If you haven’t bought it, go and buy it.]

[Moose: Does anchor live in District D? I heard today that there is a project going on. When you go out, you should pay attention to safety.]

“Thank you, I’ll pay attention,” Gu YuMian nodded and continued to explain. “Dongpo pork is a dish I like very much. It’s half fat and half thin meat. It’s said that it was invented by a man named Su Dongpo, so it’s called Dongpo pork.”

Gu YuMian grew up in Jiangnan. ³ He had only been to Sichuan ⁴ when he was a junior high school student. Dongpo pork had a kind of special feeling for him. When he was a child, he lived in Jiangnan with his grandparents. At the time of the Chinese New Year’s festival, he did not want to eat cakes, so a bowl of delicious Dongpo pork was served. It was a very happy day.

Last time, he found that the little snow leopard liked this sweet dish, so he thought about making more for him.

“I have chosen to make pork belly,” Gu YuMian said. “The cut is half fat and half thin meat, so to avoid the extra oil, we need to boil it in water first.”

Gu YuMian put the pork belly into the boiling water five minutes ago, then pulled them out to cool, and cut them into two-inch square pieces. The pan had already been prepared for a long time with a lotus leaf at the very bottom. Gu YuMian put green onions and thickly sliced ginger that had been washed, peeled, and cut on top. The cut pork belly was neatly stacked on it.

“My grandma taught me to put the lotus leaf on the bottom,” Gu YuMian said. “When steamed, it will have a little fragrance of lotus leaf. And it will also help trap oil… YuanYuan.”

The big lotus leaf aroused the baby panda’s interest. He blinked his round eyes, and his soft claws held a lotus leaf on top of his head, just like a green round hat on his head. It was funny and lovely. Gu YuMian couldn’t help laughing for a moment.

The audience could only watch from the perspective of the baby panda, and couldn’t see the appearance of little Tangyuan, but they could see the smile on Gu YuMian’s face clearly. The bullet screen immediately brought out a large area of ‘awsl’ and ‘brother.’

[Throwing cosmetics: There’s too much sugar in the small dimples of MianMian. Wuwuwuwu. I’m going to faint because of the sweetness.]

The little snow leopard was not happy for a second.

He hesitated for a moment, then lowered his head and touched the remaining lotus leaf with his claws. Then very slowly, and a little resentfully… he also moved the lotus leaf to his head. After that, the little snow leopard pretended to look at Gu YuMian casually, and showed a lazy expression that didn’t want praise, but was just playing around.

Gu YuMian, “Oh, does TuanTuan like green hats, too?” ⁵

Little snow leopard, “???”

Bullet screen, “Hahahaahaha!!!”

Gu YuMian’s eyes were bent up, he took the little snow leopard, who had a wooden face, into his arms and kissed his ears. “Okay, I’ll play with you. We’ll continue to make Dongpo pork.”

Snow Leopard, “…”

The tip of his ears began to burn slowly, and he put his paw out on Gu YuMian’s nape. For a second, he forgot what he was angry about.

[Hahahaha, the green Hatter, although he’s an old man, he’s funny.]

[You’re a bad old man, you’re so mean to the baby. Lol.]

[Xue Tuan looks like he is shocked! 2333]

Gu YuMian now had reasonable control over the rhythm of the live broadcast. He had a fair degree of relaxation. He interspersed some casual jokes and interactions during the dull preparation of food materials. The atmosphere in the live broadcast room immediately became relaxed and warm, and it was much better than doing things in silence at the beginning.

The number of spectators rose steadily and soon approached 100,000.

The rookie competition was divided into four small areas of ABCD. Gu YuMian was divided into area D. Now, he had firmly occupied first place, and the popularity data had more than doubled when compared to the person who held second place. Even if it was all four areas, Gu YuMian was the first anchor to reach 90,000 and 100,000 in just half an hour.

The old audience members could see Gu YuMian’s progress in detail, and his performance was getting better and better. They were all feeling gratified.

At this time, the pork belly was piled neatly on the lotus leaf at the bottom of the dish. Gu YuMian added a proper amount of rock sugar, dark soy sauce, and low sodium soy sauce to it, before finally pouring in a cooking wine which could replace the originally needed Shaoxing wine. ⁶

“The height of the wine should be no higher than that of the meat,” said Gu YuMian. “Here, wine is used instead of water to remove the smell of the meat. Finally, the meat that is cooked will be more soft and delicious.”

He put on his gloves and put the pot on the stove. He turned the pot to a high temperature until it began to boil then turned it down to a low temperature. Before, he had to wait for two or three hours on Ancient Earth. Now, this technology only required a few minutes.

Looking at the smothered meat over the gentle fire, Gu YuMian observed the color and shape of pork belly under the transparent lid. When it was about time, he uncovered the pork and gently poked them with chopsticks. They could be directly pierced, indicating that the meat quality was enough to crumble.

At this stage, the surface of the pork belly had absorbed the sugar color of the rock sugar, which was bright. When the lid of the pot was opened, the sharp fragrance wafted out!

The baby panda was also curiously pulling at the edge of the pot. Gu YuMian was afraid that he would burn himself, and he held him in his arms. After little Tangyuan was picked up, he immediately forgot about the Dongpo meat and rubbed his head happily in Gu YuMian’s arms.

[Annana: It’s nice to see it!! Is it ready to eat now? When you started cooking, my colleagues heard my stomach rumbling, orz]

“Not yet,” Gu YuMian shook his head. “It’s better to steam it a little longer.”

The critical point of Dongpo pork was the taste. Gu YuMian took the stuffy meat out of the pot one by one, but the meat skin face up into a heat-resistant glass box, covered it and put it into the steamer, and then steamed it for a particular time with high fire.

“Mn,” After a few minutes, Gu YuMian carefully observed for a while, and then opened the steamer when all the color and state indicators were up to standard and took out the Dongpo pork belly. “Now it’s okay. Be careful.”

At the moment of opening the glass lid, an intense salty, sweet and mellow fragrance escaped.

The agate color made from the rock sugar had completely penetrated into the surface of the pork belly. The surface had a layer of thick sauce made from the mixture of sugar, onion, ginger, and cooking wine. The pieces of pork belly looked bright, crystal clear, and extremely attractive!

After several processes, the skin of the pork belly was thin and tender. One could imagine the taste of the sweet, glutinous, crispy, and not greasy pork. Since the meat was really glutinous, fragrant, soft, and tender, Gu YuMian almost couldn’t hold it when he picked it up with chopsticks. Before he could switch the perspective and feed it to the little snow leopard, the bullet curtain had already erupted faster than ever before!

[Liyuan Spring and Autumn Festival: Hurry up and hurry up!!!!]

[Pudding Cat: It looks so delicious, is it??! My saliva flowed all over the place I want to eat!!! I really want to eat!!! Besides, how much is this man? I’ll buy him then become broke!]

[Junior B: It’s super delicious. Why do I want to eat it so much? I might have been a piece of pork in my last life!]

[There’s a Cloud: Ten fireworks for the anchor. The progress of the anchor is really great. I wish the rookie competition a smooth and successful success in all aspects of cooking and control.]

At the same time, the number of spectators exceeded 100,000.

——The traffic of the entire D-area was being sucked away by him alone. The highest audience, except Gu YuMian, was only 40,000. This was equivalent to having no competition.

 

Meanwhile.

Capital Star Upper Urban City, Academy of Sciences.

The expressionless teenager sat on the swivel chair and stared at the light screen with a gaze that was more serious than when he was doing thorough research. Holding a bowl of white rice in his hand, he took a look at the live broadcast and had a bite of rice.

Other researchers: “…” It’s over. It seems that the task was too tight recently. The boss was finally driven mad by the pressure.

 

On another world, Takk.

Keri was eating bread while watching the live broadcast. At this time, the bread in her hand fell down. She thought she was dreaming, “Wait, what’s the matter, it’s a hundred thousand!?”

For the first time, Starry Sky’s staff at Takk looked at each other.

At this moment, everyone was feeling, in the old Earthen words, like a college student was supporting the whole village. They thought it would be better to have a normal school, but didn’t expect the other party to be accepted to Harvard.