The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 798 Professor, are you trying to stuff me to death?!

Shen Le stared silently at the bowl of noodles, feeling that this challenge was even greater than weaving the primordial magnetic energy and the radiant clouds of heaven and earth in the Dragon Palace, or repairing the barrier between heaven and earth overseas.

At the very least, whether it's primordial magnetic energy or the radiant glow of heaven and earth, if you touch it, it will run away or explode, but it won't dissipate!

However, the atmosphere has been built up to this point, the teachers have been invited here, and the materials have all been prepared.

Shen Le could only hold his breath and dip the specially made "plate-lifting tongs" given to him by Professor Hu into the pot, trying to lift a noodle:
Ah, it's broken!

"Don't rush, move gently, slowly," Professor Hu instructed from the side.
"Don't treat the tool in your hand as just a tool; treat it like water, slowly flowing towards the target, letting it gradually push aside the bamboo slips. Again!"

Let's try again. The second time, the noodles were successfully lifted, but before they even reached the surface, they were already flowing downstream...

"Hold the handle level, not a bit crooked! Not wobbly!"

The third time, the noodles successfully came out of the water, but then a strand stuck to the back, breaking off the half of the noodle that had been lifted from the front...

Shen Le took a deep breath in and out, calming his somewhat agitated mood. Steam rose upwards, obscuring half his vision even though he wasn't wearing glasses and the steam didn't completely fog up the lenses.

Shen Le subconsciously extended his mental energy to sense the bubbling broth below and the noodles scattered haphazardly within it. Only after "stroking" a single noodle with his mental energy did he remember:
Yup!

I can use my mental powers to help me locate myself!
First, use your mental energy to draw two lines. Then, make sure your lifting clamp, or lifter, or whatever you like, completely aligns with these two lines. Then lift it straight up, and there won't be any problems!
Once he mastered this trick, his success rate began to rise rapidly. He would stir the noodles with chopsticks, flatten them, and then smoothly pick them up with the plate tongs, dropping, positioning, gathering, and lifting them.

One after another, they picked up half a bowl of noodles and saw Professor Hu nodding to them.
"Not bad, not bad—but you're still not skilled enough. When you lower the clamp, you need to pause and think for a moment before closing it. Sometimes things go wrong because of that pause. Practice, keep practicing!"

Shen Le watched as he brought over another pot. Great, this time it wasn't noodles, it was rice noodles, even smoother and thinner than regular noodles.

Professor Hu was still laying out the practice tools he had brought, bag by bag:

Longkou mung bean vermicelli, thin noodles, dragon beard noodles, crossing-the-bridge rice noodles, vermicelli, poria cocos, barley and yam vermicelli...

"Come on, let's work harder and practice each one according to the instructions and times I posted above. When you get to the yam noodles, put a handful of starch in the pot, bring it to a boil, cook for another two minutes, let it cool a little, and then start scooping them out."

Scoop them all out, each one intact and undamaged, from the bowl to the shallow box beside it. Your skill in retrieving bamboo slips is now about 70% there. Keep it up!

Professor Hu nodded to Shen Le, put his hands behind his back, and staggered out. Reaching the door, he suddenly turned back to Shen Le:

"By the way, to prevent you from being distracted and practicing ineffective movements, you'd better eat all the rice noodles and noodles that are cooked that day. Hmm, that's how all my students practice."

Shen Le: "..."

He watched the professor's retreating figure, tears welling up in his eyes but unable to cry.

Is this work even humanly possible?

Ah, is this work even humanly possible?!
Professor, do you really know how soft this Fujian specialty, the thinnest and finest Poria cocos, Job's tears, and yam noodles, is after it's boiled? You're going to boil it for another two minutes!
The packaging says to boil this for half a minute! And you have to use a slotted spoon to scoop it out after boiling!

Cook it a little longer, no, even just let it soak a little longer, and you'll eat more and more of it. After eating half a bowl, there's another bowl left; after eating another half bowl, there's another bowl left...

They're all soaked to the point of being completely expanded. Soaked to this extent, it's no longer called noodles; it's called noodle paste! Don't you know how soft, mushy, and delicate this stuff is?

You want me to use tongs to scoop it up? Aren't you afraid that if I touch it even slightly, it will shatter right before my eyes?!

You're going to add another handful of cornstarch to thicken it, making it all sticky and gooey, making it even more difficult for me! And you want me to eat it too? If I make one batch today, do I have to eat one batch? If I make two batches, do I have to eat two batches?

Professor, are you trying to stuff me to death?!
There was no other way. For the sake of the bamboo slips, for the sake of protecting the national treasure to the greatest extent, and for the sake of repairing the Dragon King's Dharma Boat, Shen Le gritted his teeth and went for it!
It's just practice, it's not like we haven't practiced before!
He calmed down and, just like when he first entered the lab and started doing odd jobs for his seniors, he picked up the carrying clips and began to struggle with the rice flour and batter.

At first, the rice noodles would fall apart as soon as he picked them up, and the noodles would break as soon as he tried to lift them. He managed to pick up one, then another, but by the third, fifth, and tenth noodles, they would still break in his hands on the spot.

Shen Le kept adjusting her breathing, clearing her mind, and allowing herself to reflect in a state of clarity, undisturbed by external things.

Gradually, the clip in his hand seemed to become an extension of his fingers, an extension of his mental power, with the force passing through the tip of the clip in an incredibly gentle and stable manner.

After he had scooped the overcooked, soaked noodles one by one from the soup pot and arranged them flat in a row on a shallow glass plate beside him, Professor Hu finally nodded:
"That's about right. Go retrieve the bamboo slips; you're about 70% sure you've got it. Now, let's get to the real deal—use those waterlogged bamboos you brought back, and cut them into thin strips—you can cut those, right?"

"What if there's still a 30% chance?" Shen Le looked directly at him, her face full of anticipation.

"I still have a 30% chance of success, how do I train to achieve that?"

"Rely on experience, patience, and extremely careful operation every time," Professor Hu said solemnly. After thinking for a moment, racking his brains, he came up with another method:
"Back when my teacher was teaching me... he asked a master chef specializing in Huaiyang cuisine to help me cut Wensi tofu and had me pick out each strand one by one. It took me two months to become a master chef—unfortunately, I didn't have the connections to find such a master chef..."

"Anything's a good idea!" Shen Le's eyes lit up. Wensi tofu is actually a bit thicker than rice noodle soup, but of course, thinner than soaked rice noodle soup—

But it's so soft!

It's scattering!
This thing is perfect for practicing martial arts!

Besides, isn't it just Wensi Tofu? Isn't it just a Huaiyang cuisine master chef?
You can't find it, but I can!

"Hello? Boss lady?" Without hesitation, he directly called the boss lady of Tianxiang Restaurant:

"Is such that……"

The proprietress herself wasn't really good at making Wensi Tofu—she wasn't a Huaiyang cuisine chef. However, upon hearing Shen Le's request, she decisively took on the task:
"Simple! It's just a matter of finding a master chef to chop vegetables, right? Leave it to me! Even if it weren't for the Dragon Palace, I would still do my best to fulfill your request, no matter what!"

The proprietress kept her word. The next day, a broad-shouldered man with square features came over and introduced himself:
"I was asked to come by the proprietress of Tianxiang Restaurant..."

Shen Le respectfully presented a cutting board, a basin of water, three different types of tofu, and five cleavers of varying sizes for the man to choose from. The man waved his hands, indicating he didn't need them, but instead furtively glanced around to make sure no one was nearby before quickly closing and locking the door.
"Please excuse my poor performance..."

Please forgive my rudeness.
"Could it be that your cooking skills aren't reliable?" Shen Le muttered to himself. Before he could finish his thought, a flash of silver light appeared before him. The man had vanished from his spot, leaving only a gleaming silver cleaver, flashing rapidly up and down on the cutting board, leaving a trail of white light in its wake.
Looting...

Wait, what's this?!
Shen Le slowly opened his mouth, opening it as wide as possible, then reached out and lifted his chin back down. Fine, a weapon spirit born from a kitchen knife, specializing in knife skills, adept at slicing Wensi tofu—that makes perfect sense, not at all out of place…

After the initial surprise, the cleaver had already cut to the bottom, and with a gentle push, a row of tofu slices lay flat, and then the process of slicing tofu into strips began again.

After slicing and pushing, all the tofu strips landed on the knife. Then, it was moved over the basin and shaken down, revealing a basin of tofu strips so thin they could pass through the eye of a needle, blooming like a flower!

"Done!" With a flash of light, the blade fell back to the ground and transformed back into the square-faced man—this time, no matter how Shen Le looked at his face, it seemed to resemble the blade of a kitchen knife.

He shook his body, as if trying to shake off non-existent tofu crumbs, and said with a grin:
"Come on, get started! Call me anytime if you need more help, I'll be there in a minute! One month, two months, a year or two, I'm always here!"

Shen Le clasped his hands in thanks. At this point, the red envelope he had prepared was no longer of any use, so he quickly pulled out a piece of spirit jade and a bottle of sword oil that he had given Li Xingtang for maintenance, and gave them to him as a thank-you gift.

After escorting the chef to the side to rest, he finally calmed down and began to work with the tofu strips:
"Hey, wait a minute! Let me thicken it first!!!"

Thickening with cornstarch is essential. Waterlogged bamboo slips are highly likely to be corroded by bacteria, forming a paste-like layer on the surface, which severely affects the feel when handling them.

Shen Le waited for the chef to finish cooking, boiling water, thickening the sauce, and adding tofu. Only after a pot of tofu soup was placed in front of him did Shen Le begin to work.
"Ah, it's broken."

"Ah, it broke again."

"Oh no, it slipped..."

Brother Dao cut the tofu soup again and again, while Shen Le failed pot after pot. Luckily, the tofu soup was cooked in plain water, not chicken broth, otherwise Shen Le would have been heartbroken to the point of stomach cramps.
This is too wasteful!

Fortunately, Shen Le's hand-eye coordination and mental acuity are better than Professor Hu's back then. Professor Hu took two months to complete his apprenticeship, while Shen Le was able to pick up each piece of Wensi Tofu steadily in less than half a month.

After finishing everything, he switched to a new practice method:
Replace the tangible lifting plates in your hands with intangible spiritual power to retrieve these things!
No matter what, a plate clamp is still a physical object; it will still get covered in something and cause irreversible physical damage.

Shen Le was confident that if he used his mental energy instead, he could minimize the damage to the bamboo slips!
This attempt wasn't easy at first. While mental energy could wrap around the tofu strips, they always ended up crooked and uneven, unable to be stretched into a straight line like tongs.

Forcing it would only result in breakage or tearing. He had to start from scratch, beginning by straightening his mental energy into a straight line, a flat surface.

After completing this, he restrained all the sharpness of his spiritual power, making it as gentle as the softest flowing water, slowly seeping through and gently wrapping the tofu strip.

Then, the spiritual energy transformed into a water cushion, supporting the fragile tofu strips, lifting them smoothly and straight out of the water, without even wiping away the thickening sauce on the outside.

"very good!"

As a demonstration to test his skills, he finally won Professor Hu's approval. The middle-aged professor smiled with satisfaction and pointed to the bamboo strips used for practice:

"Come on, let's get the real deal!"

The real thing isn't much harder to make than rice noodle soup or Wensi tofu.

Shen Le stood in front of the storage box, his eyes lowered and focused. The waterlogged bamboo strips, their surfaces covered in slippery mucus and seemingly fragile, were smoothly and steadily removed from the water, one by one.

Not only the bamboo strips, but even their edges, with their slippery, sticky layer, were completely protected and undamaged.

Professor Hu opened his eyes wide, inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again, exhaled again, and finally accepted this scene of superpowers, focusing all his attention on the bamboo strip itself.

Once all the bamboo strips used for practice—which Shen Le had even split into individual strips less than a centimeter wide using his mental power—were neatly arranged in a row on the flat surface, their directions perfectly parallel, he finally nodded in approval:

"Come on, let's try some more difficult operations. This is mainly to let you feel the strength of these water-saturated bamboo slips and let you know how much force you need to manipulate them."

He pointed to the safe deposit box next to him:

Come on, let's...

"See these bamboo furniture pieces? Pick one and take it apart—if you can take it apart intact, you won't break it when you're shaping the bamboo slips!"

This...this is indeed difficult. Shen Le frowned, searching back and forth in the safe for a long time, and then using his mental power to touch it for a long time, finally choosing a bamboo chair:
Seven bamboo chairs were salvaged in the same batch, and this one is the most broken. I don't mind breaking it!
He focused his mind and calmed his spirit, which surged forth like a tide, enveloping the entire waterlogged bamboo chair.

Then, his spiritual energy transformed into strands, penetrating into every mortise and tenon structure of the bamboo chair, and into the gaps between every bamboo strip.

By using the thin to penetrate the space between things, completely separating them, and then transforming them into the most precise instruments, they travel along the natural grain and structural nodes of the bamboo, one by one...

"Oh no! This is bad!"

"It's broken again!"

"It broke again..."

"It's okay, I have plenty of practice stuff, I don't care about the waste..."

Each time a component is damaged, Shen Le can sense its strength, its tensile and bending strength, through the feedback from his mental energy.

Finally, a new bamboo chair, as if manipulated by an invisible and skillful hand, smoothly and steadily separated its backrest, seat, legs, and other components.

There was no breakage, only the faint sound of water being stirred, and one by one the components rose to the surface.

Professor Hu stared in disbelief, and after a long while, he finally let out a long sigh:
"Alright... Now you can go retrieve those bamboo slips..."

(End of this chapter)