A hundred flavors of life

Chapter 1286, "Legendary," is now available in October! (Please subscribe!)
Hearing Chef Xie call Hua Twelve a pretty boy, the Su family of three were shocked. Liu Jialing, who had come over to greet them, quickly stepped forward to try and smooth things over.

"Brother Qiang, that's not what Xiao Xie meant."

Hua Shier waved his hand: "No, that's exactly what he meant!"

When Liu Jialing saw Hua Shier's attitude, she immediately felt that things were going to get bad. Not only did she think so, but everyone else did too. Chef Xie was already prepared to provoke him and then fight. He wanted to show everyone who was a real man!

But the next moment, Hua Twelve's actions were completely unexpected. He suddenly grabbed Chef Xie's hand and said enthusiastically:

"You're really handsome, have a nice voice, and are so observant. As for my looks, they're the least significant of all my good qualities, yet you noticed them all. Wow, really!"

The same sentence can have different meanings when spoken by different people.

It's like someone traveling to the world of The Legend of the Condor Heroes, mastering the Nine Yin Manual to its maximum level, only to encounter a Song soldier who comments, "You're only slightly stronger than me!" That's an insult, and you have to beat him up to make him face reality.

But if the speaker were Huang Yaoshi, it would be interpreted as agreement and praise.

The same applies to the current situation. If a thug called Hua Twelve a pretty boy, it would be an absolute insult. But if someone of the caliber of Daniel Wu, Nicholas Tse, or Edison Chen in their youth said that, it would be a different story.

Well, Hua Shier admits they were absolutely telling the truth.

Since Xiao Xie held his wedding with Dong Lianhua on the Spring Festival Gala stage this year, he has been described by his later online name, Lin Gou, as "the dream of 900 million girls." What's wrong with such a person telling the truth?
Xiao Xie looked completely bewildered and quickly shook off Hua Shier's hand:
"Don't think that's all. Let me tell you, even though you're a little better looking than me, I heard you already have a child."

The rest of the sentence was automatically filtered out by Hua Shier, so that the meaning of the sentence would just stay at "You are a little better looking than me".

He smiled and said:
"I've heard you're a good cook. Let's chat sometime. What cuisine are you good at? I know a little about all eight major Chinese cuisines!"

Chef Xie instinctively said, "I'm more interested in Western food, Cantonese food, and Hunan food. Oh, that's not what we're talking about!"

Hua Shier, as if they were old friends, put his arm around his shoulder:

"Have you ever considered cooking Chinese food in a Western style? Promoting our Chinese cuisine and selling it for a higher price abroad!"

Xiao Xie's eyes lit up when he heard that Chinese food was prepared in a Western style:
"That's a great idea! Let's discuss it sometime!"

Hua Shier patted him on the shoulder: "Then it's a deal. I'm going to put my luggage away!"

After he finished speaking, he called Su Mingyu and Su Mingcheng to leave.

After the father and three left, Xiao Xie stood in the corridor, looking at the other onlookers, and suddenly realized:
"Oh no, he tricked me!"

Liu Jialing laughed from the side, "Brother Qiang's cooking is really delicious. I think it's even better than Chef Dai's!"

The Master Dai she mentioned is the real-life inspiration for the movie "The God of Cookery," and also the one who made a cameo appearance in the film making golden fried rice.

It is said that Chef Dai is known as the God of Food in Hong Kong and is one of the four famous chefs in Hong Kong. The gambling king once spent HK$5,000 to taste Chef Dai's fried rice and recognized its value. Li Ka-shing is also a guest of Chef Dai.

Among Xiao Xie's hobbies, cooking ranks even higher than singing. When he heard Liu Jialing say that Hua Shier's cooking skills were even better than Chef Dai's, he was immediately incredulous and forgot his original purpose of coming to cause trouble. His eyes lit up.
"Really? I'd love to have a good spar with him!"

Miss Wang was well-off and arranged three rooms for the three members of the Su family. Su Mingcheng helped Hua Shier and Su Mingyu carry their luggage to the room, then smiled at Su Mingyu:

"Was that your idol just now? I think he might have some mental issues. He actually called our dad a pretty boy. Isn't that ridiculous? With our dad's old face..."

Su Mingyu sighed. She had watched this year's Spring Festival Gala and become a fan of Xiao Xie. She had originally wanted to get an autograph, but she didn't expect her idol to seem a little dim-witted, so she immediately lost interest.

Of course, this can't be blamed on the brother and sister. After all, in their eyes, although Su Daqiang's image is much more handsome than before, he still doesn't reach the level of a "pretty boy".

Hua Shier kicked Su Mingcheng in the butt:
"You brat, don't think I can't hear you just because you're speaking softly. Even Xiao Xie says your dad is handsome, but you think he's no good. You're really filial, aren't you? From now on, your allowance will be cut in half!"

Su Mingcheng immediately grinned and made a bitter face.

In the evening, Ms. Wang, who had been rehearsing all day, came to the hotel to thank her friends for their support, and then booked a restaurant to treat everyone to dinner.

During the meal, Xiao Xie showed no hostility towards Hua Shier, but instead humbly asked for advice on food. The latter casually pointed out a few things, which made Xiao Xie suddenly realize the truth and understand.

Ms. Wang was puzzled. At the beginning of the year, Xiao Xie had gone crazy and insisted on pursuing her, an aunt who was ten years older than her. She had someone else in her heart, so she naturally declined. She didn't invite him to this concert either, but he insisted on coming.

At first, Ms. Wang was worried that Xiao Xie and Hua Shier would have a conflict. During rehearsals, she asked her best friend to keep an eye on them. Unexpectedly, when the two men met, there was no conflict as expected. Instead, they seemed to get along very well.

She secretly asked Liu Jialing, "What's going on between them?"

Liu Jialing couldn't stop laughing when she heard about it, and she whispered the story to herself.

Miss Wang found it amusing after hearing this. She glanced at Hua Shier and Xiao Xie, thinking to herself that young men are playful and unreliable. It's much better to have our Lao Su, who is mature, steady, and handsome. Well, being handsome is the key point!

Hua Shier: Explain yourself clearly. I admit I'm handsome, but I'm completely innocent!
Xiao Xie was completely convinced by Hua Shier's culinary theory and insisted on taking him to the kitchen for a hands-on demonstration.

Hua Shier had no choice but to show off her cooking skills. She personally cooked a few dishes and served them up. Every celebrity present praised them. Miss Wang was especially proud, beaming with joy, as if her friend was praising her, not Hua Shier.

Xiao Xie was completely convinced. Nothing could stop his yearning for delicious food, and he insisted on becoming an apprentice to learn cooking skills.

After drinking too much, he even pulled Hua Shier aside and said some nonsense about how most people who can cook are good family men, and wished Hua Shier and his wife a long and happy marriage.

Just as Hua Shier was about to explain, Miss Wang complained, "Oh dear, why is this child speaking such blunt truths!"

As she said this, the girl could barely suppress a smile!
On the evening of June 24th, Miss Wang's Millennium Ten-City Tour Concert officially kicked off in Nanjing.

Hua Shier once watched the live broadcast of Ms. Wang's concert more than ten years later. At that time, Ms. Wang's breath was insufficient and her pitch was off. The concert was jokingly referred to by the media as a "car crash".

In this world, however, Miss Wang is in her prime, and she sang three songs in a row before greeting the audience, without even breaking a sweat.

In Hua Shier's opinion, Ms. Wang's singing level and performance throughout the concert were top-notch.

Towards the end of the concert, Ms. Wang looked towards the guest seats and said with a smile:

"The next song is a song written for 'Nezha' by a very good male friend of mine!"

When she said "a very good male friend," there was a collective gasp from the audience, but when she finished the sentence, they burst into laughter because they all knew which song Ms. Wang was going to sing.

"When I miss you, you are making a ruckus in the sea." The concert ended successfully, and Hua Shier was going to Beijing to attend Su Mingzhe's graduation ceremony. However, Su Mingyu was kidnapped by her godmother halfway there, who said she wanted to go on tour with her.

Hua Shier had no choice but to leave Jinling with Su Mingcheng.

Before leaving, Xiao Xie said goodbye to his friends and said that he would go to Hua Shier's place when he had time and ask the latter to teach him a couple of cooking skills.

On June 29th, Su Mingzhe graduated from Tsinghua University. Wearing his graduation gown, he took a group photo with his father, Hua Shier, and his younger brother, Su Mingcheng, on the Tsinghua campus.

After leaving the school, Hua Shier took his two sons to a courtyard house to settle down.

Su Mingzhe and Su Mingcheng were curious and asked whose courtyard house it was. Hua Shier coughed twice and said, "It's your Aunt Wang's house. She's away having a concert, and I usually keep an eye on it for her!"

The two sons exchanged a glance and simultaneously realized, "Old Wang next door, it seems there's no hope for our parents to remarry."
Hua Twelve: You two unfilial brats, you've blinded your minds!

During dinner that evening, Hua Shier asked Su Mingzhe about his plans after graduation, to which the latter replied very formally:
"Dad, I plan to study at home for two months, and then apply to Stanford's graduate program to study computer science!"

For Huashier, which owns two intelligent robots and an artificial intelligence brain, this kind of pursuit is hard to understand.

However, since the child has a dream, Hua Twelve chose to support him.

"Okay, I remember we discussed this topic before. My requirements remain the same: I can support your studies abroad, but you must return to China to work after you graduate. If you agree to that, I have no objections!"

At this moment, Su Mingzhe didn't have many thoughts about the future; he just wanted to get out first and then figure things out, so he immediately nodded in agreement.

On July 1st, the Legend officially launched. Hua Shier flew back to Suzhou with his two sons to return to Tengfei Company and witness this moment with Xiao Ma and the others.

Thanks to effective pre-launch promotion, the Legend of Mir was promoted much better in this world than in the real world. It is said that tens of thousands of people registered on the day of the Legend of Mir's public beta launch in the real world.

In this world, Hua12's strategy of linking Legend with QQ had a remarkable effect. On the day the server opened, the number of registered users reached 300,000, and the peak number of online users was over 100,000.

The number of QQ accounts registered because of 'Legend' exceeded 100,000 on the same day, which can be said to be quite a success.

When the data came out, everyone at Tengfei Company cheered.

Hua Shier waved his hand and said, "Dinner tonight is on me!"

While everyone else was cheering and celebrating, Xu Zhengtai and Liu Yi were sighing and lamenting. Their pager hoarding business was becoming increasingly bleak. In less than a year, they had already lost half of their money. Moreover, the more successful Tengfei Company was, the more successful Niu Aihua, or rather, Zhang Suzhen, was, which only highlighted their failures.

The others couldn't help but find the two of them amusing, and Xu Tailang kindly advised:

"If it doesn't work out, just cut your losses and sell. More and more people are using mobile phones these days, and the longer you drag this out, the more you'll lose!"

Xu Zhengtai shook his head vigorously:
"What do you know? Do you know what market rules are, or what a bottoming-out rebound is? I've studied it all. The price of anything fluctuates. I'll sell when it reaches the peak, otherwise I'd be losing a fortune by now!"

Xu Tailang wanted to persuade him further, telling him that this was the crest of the wave, but Hua Shier laughed and said:
"Forget it, at least Ahua made money. Zhengtai's loss is nothing!"

Ah Hua, who had changed her name to Zhang Suzhen, smiled slightly; she thought so too.

The following day, major media outlets across the country reported on the grand launch of "Legend of Mir," along with numerous articles commenting on it by experts.

Some experts say the internet age has arrived, while others disagree, saying it's just good publicity from Tengfei Company in the early stages, and once the tide goes out, we'll see who's been caught without underwear.

The result was astonishing: as more and more students returned home for summer vacation, the legend's popularity soared day by day.

On its second day of operation, the number of registered users reached 600,000, with a peak of 200,000 concurrent users.

A week later, the number of registered users reached three million, and the number of users online at the same time reached half a million.

Internet cafes across the country are experiencing a severe shortage of computers, with everyone waiting in line to play Legend of Mir.

Because Legend of Mir was linked to QQ, it brought nearly three million new users to QQ. These players chatted on QQ, played Legend of Mir, and could even receive and send QQ messages within Legend of Mir.

QQ made QQ users accept Legend, and Legend made Legend players fall in love with QQ.

The synergy between Legend and QQ achieved a result greater than the sum of its parts, realizing a true win-win situation and even being hailed by a business magazine as the most successful win-win case of the millennium.

With the surge in QQ's user traffic, advertising revenue skyrocketed.

Of course, advertising is one thing, but Hua12 and Xiaoma discussed that they must focus on user experience.

By August, the Legendary open beta had ended, and Q Coins and point cards were launched. The revenue exceeded 100 million RMB in the first ten days, once again causing a sensation and shaking the internet industry like an earthquake.

In this internet environment where monetization is a challenge, it's unimaginable that someone could combine games and the internet to generate hundreds of millions in revenue.

The success of Tengfei has also pointed the way for other Internet companies.

Baidu, Sohu, and NetEase are all starting to develop game businesses.

Hua Shier just smiled and remained silent, because he knew that no one in this era could stop Legend. By the time their game was launched, Legend would have already taken over the market.

At the end of August, filming for "Final Destination" in Hollywood officially wrapped up, and the film entered the post-production stage.

When Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung returned to Hong Kong Island from Hollywood, they both called to say they needed to rest for a while before coming to visit.

Jiang Wen, a workaholic, called Hua Shier and asked him to find a way to get involved in the post-production process, as he wanted to learn something.

Hua Shier said no problem and called Lao De directly to make Jiang Wen's wish come true.

Post-production was completed quickly, and Final Destination was scheduled for release in October, simultaneously on two thousand screens in the United States.

On September 20th, director Feng Xiaogang's "A Sigh" was released in China, and its box office performance in the first week was strong, reaching 18 million yuan.

Director Feng, in high spirits, addressed Hua Twelve in the newspaper, saying, "Young man, where is your arrogance?!"

Thanks to 08a and Little Tiger of the Demon Realm for their donations, and thanks to the brothers who voted with monthly tickets and recommendation tickets. Thank you very much.