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

[New Weekly Tasks Released]

[Next week's task: Sell 'Fiery Beef' in front of Kaiyuan Temple every morning from 7-10 AM. The task is to sell 1000 skewers on Tuesday (priced at 5 yuan per skewer), and then increase by 200 skewers each day thereafter.]

[Task Reward: 4 RMB in cash, 1 Mystery Recipe Gift Box.]

"Wait! Something's not right!"

It was late at night, and Lu Feng was on a plane returning to Xingcheng. The clock hadn't struck midnight yet, and it wasn't even the next week.

At the national pastry competition, everyone was so enthusiastic. After returning to the hotel, Wang Sheng and others dragged him along to celebrate, and he didn't have time to look at the photos closely before boarding the plane.

After completing the weekly task of selling buns, the system rewarded him with cash and a mystery recipe gift box. The cash was credited directly to his account, but he needed to open the gift box. However, because he was participating in the National Pastry Competition, he didn't have time to think about opening the box.

"But I haven't even drawn the recipe yet, and you've already slapped a new weekly task in my face?" Lu Feng muttered to himself, looking at the screen in front of him.

The time, location, products, sales volume, and pricing were all arranged clearly.

If you're selling Fiery Beef, what treasures are inside this unopened gift box?

"Wow, this is really hard to guess." Lu Feng muttered to himself without any emotion. "System, you're not even pretending anymore, it's all pre-planned, isn't it?"

The initial surprise of unboxing was gone; I felt like I was opening a pre-made gift box. "Open it, open it," a flash of light appeared before my eyes.

[Gift Box Lucky Draw: 1 S-grade Fiery Beef Recipe, Multi-functional Food Cart BBQ Modification Kit, High-Tech All-Purpose Street Vendor Permit.]

Lu Feng, "..."

What else can we do but remain silent? We can't just explode in silence, can we?

He began to carefully read the two short lines of the mission description, and the more he read, the more silent he became.

"Selling kebabs in front of monks at a temple, won't you get beaten to death?" This location choice is absolutely blatant.

And Kaiyuan Temple, where is that?

He knew about Qingzhu Mountain; it was a relatively unknown A-level scenic spot in Xingcheng. He had climbed Qingzhu Mountain once, but he had never noticed whether there was such a temple on the mountain.

He quickly opened his phone's map app, and the navigation showed that Kaiyuan Temple was located halfway up Qingzhu Mountain.

"From 7 a.m. to 10 a.m."

It's early morning again! Lu Feng's heart skipped a beat. This is the time when office workers commute to work and students go to school. Who would be running up the mountain at this hour?

He patted his dazed mind, trying to clear it up and try to recall something.

He had never even heard of the temple's name before. Just using common sense, aside from worshippers and elderly people doing morning exercises, who the hell would climb up the mountain to the temple gate so early in the morning?

Who among these people would go up the mountain early in the morning to buy beef skewers?

The system is really like Kennedy riding in a convertible; it's incredibly imaginative.

However, beef skewers are usually sold by the handful, with a handful containing a dozen or twenty skewers. 1000 skewers may sound like a lot, but actually... it's not a small amount at all.

"Fiery Beef..." Lu Feng muttered the name, a lingering sense of foreboding creeping into his heart.

He quickly used his phone to search for information about Fiery Beef.

Sure enough! Fiery Beef is a street food, with only a tiny bit of beef on each skewer, even less than the toothpick beef I used to eat as a child!

They are usually priced at "15 yuan for 20 skewers" or "20 yuan for 30 skewers" in the market. That works out to less than one yuan per skewer on average.

Lu Feng clung to his last hope that the beef skewers from the system would be more generous in portion than those from a regular barbecue restaurant.

But after looking at the recipe, he was devastated; it was just the kind of tiny, street-side food.

He finally realized that the system was starting to sell at ridiculously high prices again.

"Who are you trying to fool by writing '5 yuan a bunch'?" Lu Feng almost laughed in anger. "That's 100 yuan a bunch!"

He gritted his teeth and said, "I can understand eating steamed buns when you're hungry after clubbing late at night. But what kind of crazy person would go up the mountain to eat barbecue skewers first thing in the morning?!"

He could almost picture the scene.

The morning mist was thick, and occasionally an old man carrying a water bottle would pass by, staring at him as if he were a fool as he grilled skewers.

"I'd like to see how you explain this time."

Unconvinced, Lu Feng clicked on the system comments and fell silent once again.

"Previously, we had free-range pigs raised in the mountain streams for a year, and now we have even more expensive, free-range Wuling Yellow Cattle? What do you mean by eating better than cattle and horses? What did cattle and horses do to offend you? We only use the tenderest tenderloin from the yellow cattle. Fine, fine, the price is quite reasonable."

"What? These bamboo skewers for skewering meat are made of premium Moso bamboo, sourced from deep in the mountains? Like organic vegetables, they're irrigated with Class I mineral water? And they have a natural fragrance? Do I really need to use such expensive bamboo skewers?"

"What?! There's a hierarchy about charcoal? Spirit wood charcoal, even better than Binchotan charcoal, the Rolls Royce of charcoal?! I've heard of everything Binchotan charcoal, okay?!"

The cost is outrageously high, yet the finished product contains only a tiny bit of meat. It's no different in size from the skewers that cost a few cents a skewer in the market.

He no longer wanted to talk about the hellish start.

Sleepiness was completely gone. Lu Feng leaned back in his chair, looking at the dark night sky outside the porthole. This time, the system didn't give him any dream cultivation fragments, but thankfully, he had saved up 15 days' worth of dream self-study room time.

This is the last weekly promotion of the month, wasn't it all prepared for this moment? Might as well use it. Who cares how it sells afterward, the craftsmanship is still top-notch.

[Dream Study Room Opens]

Lu Feng steeled his heart, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he found himself in that quiet, familiar space.

This time, however, the layout of the room had changed. His signature little food cart was now in the center, with a worktable on one side, upon which sat a large piece of fresh beef tenderloin.

The beef tenderloin has pinkish muscle texture, and the fascia has been carefully sliced ​​off, leaving only the tenderest core part.

Lu Feng was dumbfounded. Wait a minute, shouldn't you have given me a bunch of beef skewers? I could have just grilled them with my hands, right?

"Goodness, goodness, this is making me learn from scratch, starting with cutting meat."

Lu Feng picked up the cleaver, but for a moment he didn't know where to start. The recipe seemed to say that the beef tenderloin should be cut into strips slightly thinner than his little finger.

This is just the first step. Next, you'll need to learn how to skewer the meat, control the heat, brush on oil, flip the grill, prepare the sauce, and sprinkle seasonings…

"15 days doesn't seem like enough," he murmured.

……

On the plane, Lu Feng quickly opened his eyes and glanced at the time on his phone; only three minutes had passed.

His face showed obvious frustration, and he left the Dream Study Room after only two days.

This was the first time since he acquired the system that his cultivation had made absolutely no progress; his proficiency in S-grade Fiery Beef had not improved at all.

He had previously said he had passed the beginner stage, but he hadn't really felt it yet. Now, compared to fried chicken cutlet, the progress in his proficiency with S-level Fiery Beef was like taking a second skill from Wang Zhaojun with Ice Staff Sky.

Every so often, a system notification would sound. Knife skills experience points +1.

If you hone your skills over time, with the added benefit of proficiency, you can eventually reach a high level of mastery.

But what he lacks most is time?

"What should I do?" Lu Feng tapped his fingers on the armrest of his seat and suddenly saw Wang Sheng sitting diagonally in front of him.

He suddenly had an idea.