Showcasing Culinary Skills

Lily Evans smiled and said, "Mr. Baker, may I take a look at your kitchen?"

Mr. Baker hesitated for a moment. The kitchen was the heart of the restaurant, and many signature dishes were closely guarded secrets. Letting an outsider in was probably not appropriate.

But seeing Lily Evans’s confident demeanor, Mr. Baker thought, 'If you’re too timid, you’ll never get rich.' So, he decided to let her have a look.

Lily Evans told Lucky to wait in the room, then followed Mr. Baker to the kitchen of Savory House.

Savory House truly deserved its reputation as the grandest restaurant in town—the kitchen was spacious and luxurious, bustling with chefs and assistants working in perfect order.

With so many customers, Savory House bought large quantities of ingredients every day—chicken, duck, fish, rabbit, you name it.

All the scraps from these ingredients were collected in several wooden barrels and later sold cheaply to farmers to feed their pigs.

Lily Evans looked at the big barrels full of rabbit heads, chicken and duck innards, fish scales, and said to Mr. Baker, "So many things—what a waste to just throw them away."

Mr. Baker sighed, "What else can we do? Who would eat this stuff? A whole barrel only sells for ten copper coins to the villagers for pig feed."

Lily Evans said, "Mr. Baker, what if I could turn these scraps into something valuable—make them into dishes and sell them?"

Mr. Baker’s eyes lit up as soon as he heard that. He felt bad about throwing away so much every day. If these scraps could be turned into dishes, even sold at a low price, it would bring huge profits to the restaurant!

But then he thought, she’s just a young girl—could she really pull it off?

Lily Evans knew Mr. Baker didn’t believe her, but she wasn’t offended. Rabbit heads, chicken gizzards, duck tongues, fish scales—if you gave these to someone who didn’t know how to cook, they’d be nothing but useless scraps.

But in Lily Evans’s hands, they could become famous delicacies: spicy rabbit heads, crispy chicken gizzards, braised duck tongues, fish scale jelly—an entire lineup of renowned dishes!

"If you don’t believe me, Mr. Baker, just lend me a stove," Lily Evans said.

Mr. Baker readily agreed. After all, these were just scraps and not worth much. If Lily Evans wanted to try, he’d let her. Since she insisted her recipe was secret, Mr. Baker lent her a small private kitchen in the backyard.

Lily Evans took ten rabbit heads and various ingredients and went straight into the small kitchen without another word.

Mr. Baker, knowing the rules, didn’t go in to watch. From a distance, he saw Lily Evans wielding her kitchen knife with such skill that it left afterimages—she was clearly no ordinary girl.

And when Lily Evans grabbed the wok, she seemed to transform—her confident, practiced manner outshone even the oldest chef at Savory House.

Mr. Baker sat in the courtyard, wondering how anyone could turn those inedible rabbit heads into a tasty dish.

Mr. Baker waited for Lily Evans to finish cooking when suddenly, the waiter rushed over in a panic. "Manager, bad news! Young Master Li is here again! We already had our best chef make his favorite dishes, but he’s still scowling, as if we’re serving him pig slop instead of food! Honestly, his standards are so high—he complains our food isn’t tasty or original enough. Why doesn’t he just go eat the Queen Mother’s Peach Banquet in heaven?"

Manager Zhang’s head throbbed at the mention of Young Master Li. Rumor had it he was a rich noble from the capital—maybe a marquis or a lord’s heir. He’d tasted every delicacy under the sun, and now he’d come to Qingmiao City just to make trouble for Xiangmanlou. What rotten luck!

The waiter frowned anxiously, "Manager, Young Master Li is mocking our menu for being outdated. He says if we don’t come up with something new, he’ll tell everyone that Xiangmanlou is all name and no substance. Isn’t that ruining our reputation? What should we do?"