Food: Randomly set up stalls, even the little guy is drooling.

Dream Study Room.

Time loses its meaning here.

Lu Feng walked to the chopping board, his heart as still as water.

Considering that some pastries require a long initial fermentation, with the permission of the organizing committee, contestants may conduct the initial fermentation of the dough in advance.

After announcing the rules, Lu Feng used high-gluten flour to make dough and carried out the first proofing.

He had calculated precisely that the dough would need about 20 minutes to reach its optimal fermentation state.

This 20-minute gap, under the dream's time flow slowed down a thousandfold (the ratio of time flow in the dream to that in reality is 1000:1), is equivalent to more than 15 full days and nights of practice time.

This was the chance he gave himself to turn the tide.

He recalled a day when he was learning his craft from Master Jie Badan. To hone his control over the elasticity of dough, his master demonstrated a traditional pastry, a thousand-layer steamed bun.

The thousand-layer steamed bun looks no different from an ordinary steamed bun, round and simple. Inside are countless fine, thin layers, clearly defined. When you break it apart with your hands, it unfolds like the pages of a book.

The difficulty in making this steamed bun lies in the repeated kneading, folding, and rolling processes. Master Jie Badan demonstrated it many times, explaining it in great detail, but he just couldn't learn it.

Jie Badan was also quite helpless at the time. How could someone have such a high talent for making steamed buns but not be able to make regular steamed bread?

Lu Feng knew that this was because he didn't have a systematic recipe system to support him.

Without the system's automatic correction, relying solely on his Lv.2 bun-making skills, it would be an impossible task to completely replicate Master Jie Badan's miraculous thousand-layer effect. The steamed buns in his hands simply couldn't maintain the consistent thickness of each layer after repeated folding.

"Does this mean I really can't learn it if the system doesn't provide the recipe and there's no data-driven support?"

Following the prompts on the panel, Lu Feng conjured up a dough ball out of thin air.

Other people who become summoners summon dragons and mythical beasts, but all I can summon is a dough ball.

"Go for it, dough!" A surge of indomitable spirit welled up in Lu Feng's heart.

Lu Feng simultaneously activated the dream replay function, and the scenes demonstrated by Master Jiebadan were played in slow motion, frozen, and looped before his eyes.

The varying pressure applied by his master with the rolling pin, the subtle force of his fingertips when folding, the timing and amount of dry flour to sprinkle... countless details that he had previously overlooked were now clearly visible to Lu Feng, who began to carefully feel, memorize, and imitate them.

Without systematic correction, he could only rely on his experience from spending a month with his master to learn and improve.

On the first day of his dream, he successfully made steamed buns. The reason they weren't called "thousand-layer steamed buns" was because they didn't actually have a thousand layers.

On the second day of the dream, he successfully made steamed buns again, but this time he didn't call them layered buns because the layers were not distinct.

On the third day of the dream, he was barely able to make three layers upon three layers, which should be called nine-layer steamed buns. However, there were many problems, such as uneven thickness and poor taste.

On the fifth day of the dream, the steamed bun broke through nine layers of heaven and successfully made a steamed bun with eighty-one layers.

On the tenth day of the dream, his understanding of folding and rolling became more profound. He mastered the Threefold Ninefold Divine Skill and the steamed bun broke through the Heavenly Realm again, with the layers exceeding two hundred.

This number of layers is more than enough; if you continue to stack them, the finished product will lose the essence of a layered steamed bun.

After twelve days in the dream world, his movements had become exceptionally skilled, and his basic pastry skills had broken through to Lv.3 (2/10000). But Lu Feng's challenge had only just begun; he was to make a small batch of layered steamed buns.

……

Day 15 of the dream, the dream ends.

Lu Feng took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was back at the competition venue.

He then heard a strange noise, and the door he had locked from the inside opened.

At first, the host thought he was doing performance art, but when they asked someone to knock on the door and call his name loudly, he remained motionless against the pillar.

This startled the organizing committee. The host had to find a locksmith in the restroom and call the one closest to the venue to pry open the door.

The moment the screen opened, the host and Lu Feng stared at each other in bewilderment.

The atmosphere was slightly awkward. The host, as expected of someone who had seen a lot in life, breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Lu Feng was alright. "You can continue."

After saying that, he closed the door and left.

Lu Feng glanced at the time and quickly walked back to the workbench. He seemed oblivious to the sounds around him, focusing all his attention on the dough in his hands.

He placed the fermented dough on a cutting board, dissolved the edible alkali in a very small amount of water, and kneaded it evenly into the dough. While kneading, he added dry flour in several batches, all to make the dough more elastic.

Once the dough surface was smooth again, Lu Feng took a deep breath and began the part that would test his skills the most.

Three times and nine times.

The move sounds mysterious, but it's actually not that complicated. It's simply rolling out the dough into a thin rectangular sheet, then folding both sides towards the center like folding a piece of paper, forming three neat layers.

Like a certain brand's triple-fold phone. This panel is also triple-folded; no matter how you fold it, there's always a panel!

This is folding three layers at once. Then rotate the folded dough ninety degrees, roll it out and fold it again.

After each fold, the dough must be given sufficient resting time. Repeat this process five times.

The most difficult part is twofold: first, relaxation. After each rolling and pressing, the dough must be fully relaxed, otherwise the gluten will become twisted; second, the force. When rolling and pressing, the force must be even to achieve paper-thin layers, preventing the flour from being uneven in thickness and sticking together.

But this is no longer a problem for Lu Feng.

The dough was repeatedly rolled, folded, sprinkled with flour, and rolled again in his hands... His movements were fluid and graceful, the force applied evenly and steadily when rolling, and as light and delicate as folding paper when folding. Under the monitor's watchful eye, his movements were so smooth that it seemed as if he had rehearsed it a thousand times, leaving the host watching on screen completely stunned.

This technique of repeated stacking and layering is extremely time-consuming. Even with Lu Feng's highly skilled hand speed, it still took a full hour.

"Last half hour!" the host announced.

Lu Feng's forehead was already beaded with sweat; he couldn't afford to waste a moment, so he quickly began the second fermentation of the dough. But this couldn't be rushed; the fermentation time was different from the method, and it couldn't be sped up.

"Ten minutes left!"

The air was filled with the aroma of pastries, and most of the contestants had entered the final stage.

"The first contestant has finished!"

"The second contestant has finished!"

The host's announcements continued, his voice echoing throughout the entire venue.

Lu Feng, covered in sweat, placed the cut portions into a steamer.

"Five minutes left!"

The other contestants finished one after another, and the staff were arranging the pastries on plates in an orderly manner. The first contestant's pastry had already been placed on the judges' table.

Lu Feng stared intently at the steamer, mentally calculating the time.

"One minute countdown!"

"Fifty seconds!"

"Thirty seconds!"

Only the host could sense his nervousness.

Lu Feng was completely focused, his eyes seemingly able to see through the steamer as the layered steamed buns reached their perfect state.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven..."

Turn off the heat and remove from the pot.

"Time's up! All players, stop what you're doing!"

Almost as soon as the host finished speaking, Lu Feng's operation came to a complete stop.

"Alright, alright, he's up to his extreme again." The host was now completely used to Lu Feng's performance art.

Lu Feng looked at the steamer, wondering if the operation he had practiced countless times in his dreams would work.