I've been possessed by a culinary genius, and I've turned Shaxian snacks into a rip-off!

As soon as the food was served, the group immediately began a frenzied eating spree.

Perhaps they reached some kind of agreement in the group last night, saying that if they're going to cheat, they should cheat openly and honestly, and anyone who tries to cheat by proxy is a dog. So today's match is a real battle to see who wins.

But their stomachs were no match for Pang Yi's. Seeing that things were going wrong, Cha Xiaochai's eyes darted around, and she said to Pang Yi:

"Fatty, those steamed dumplings in your bowl look pretty good, can I have one?"

"No, if you want some, order it yourself!" Pang Yi immediately reached out to protect the steamed dumplings.

"You stingy guy!" Cha Xiaocha pouted and, taking advantage of Pang Yi's inattention, secretly transferred most of the noodles from her bowl into his bowl.

When Pang Yi finally realized what was happening, the bowl of noodles he had almost finished was suddenly full again, and he was stunned.

"Old Cha, what are you doing? Why did you put noodles in my bowl? Are you trying to stuff me to death?!"

"Oh dear, I just felt sorry for you because you're so thin, and I wanted you to eat more to help you get some nutrition," Cha Xiaocha said with a smile.

"I don't believe you! You just want me to eat it for you so you can steal my ranking."

"Oh dear, you found out."

"..."

At another table, Wang Yun and Yao Qianqian, this perfect couple, were also encouraging each other.

"Honey, do you want more? You've already eaten quite a bit, can you still eat?"

"Add more! We absolutely have to add more! Yesterday, the person I hired to eat for me only managed to finish five bowls; today, I have to personally eat them all to make up for it."

"Honey, you're amazing! I'll add some too, so I can help you eat more."

"Come on, open your mouth, I'll feed you some fried rice with egg to replenish your carbs so you can keep fighting."

"..."

Yu Shen sat diagonally opposite them and heard their conversation, which gave him goosebumps.

This dog couple has now teamed up, which is a bit tricky!

"No, I must win first place today."

Yesterday he spent 73,000. Pang Yi said 60,000, but based on his understanding of Fatty, that guy probably wasn't telling the truth. The real amount was at least 70,000. Cha Xiaochai said she spent 60,000, which is more credible. As for Wang Yun and Yao Qianqian, those conjoined twins, the two of them together spent at least 80,000. Moreover, they were working together today. If one of them got first place, the other would win.

As Yu Shen was calculating, he suddenly felt as if he had fallen into a huge pit.

How much money did these guys actually spend?!

Where does my ranking lie after spending 73,000?

If we can't even make it into the top three, then all that money will have been wasted.

No, I need to find out more from Li Heizi.

When no one was looking, he secretly sent Li Zhibai a WeChat message.

[Boss, how's the ranking going? What's my number? Give me a heads-up, so I know what's going on.]

Also, don't trick me anymore. You can only tell me this.

Li Zhibai replied shortly after the message was sent.

Brother Yu, to be honest, your ranking is a bit precarious.

Yu Shen's heart skipped a beat.

What does that mean? Has he fallen out of the top three?

Boss, give me a straight answer! What number is it?

As it stands... you're currently ranked second.

second?

Yu Shen breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, there was hope.

Who came in first?

Well... you know, I can't say too much. I can only tell you that the gap between you and the top player is small, but also significant.

Yu Shen: "..."

That's like saying nothing at all.

[Boss, just tell me straight, how much more do I need to spend today to guarantee first place!]

Since you've asked, I think you should aim for at least another 80,000 today to be on the safe side. After all, today is the last day, and everyone wants to make one last push. If you stop now, all the money you've spent before will be wasted.

By the way, if you really can't finish it, you can order more, and I can find someone to eat it for you for free. After all, we can't waste food.

Anyway, the Northeastern ladies are all on this street, so we can just call them over for a late-night snack.

He was definitely going to let Yu Shen get the spot first this time, since that guy had the most fragments and the highest probability of success.

You said if you dare to lie to my feelings again, I'll fight you to the death!

I never lie about people's feelings.

After seeing the message he sent, Yu Shen retorted, "Password? You're just trying to scam money, aren't you!"

He looked again at the two biggest threats: Pang Yi and the dog couple who loved to show off their affection. These two were the biggest threats.

The most crucial point is that so much sunk cost has already been invested; he can't possibly give up.

Eighty thousand it is, I'll go all in today!

Yu Shen gritted his teeth and shouted:

"Boss, another pot of 'Plain Red Dust'!"

"Alright!" Li Zhibai's voice came from the kitchen.

As soon as he finished speaking, the others, not to be outdone, raised their hands to place additional orders.

"I'll add one too!"

"Me too!"

"And me!"

"Give me one too!"

"..."

In an instant, the entire restaurant entered another frenzy of ordering.

Food blogger Zhao Yunlong was stunned by the crazy scene.

No way, this is the boss's tasting event? This is insane!

In his mind, a tasting event should be a group of people sitting there elegantly, slowly savoring the food, and then making a pretentious critique.

But judging from the scene before me, it's like everyone's fighting over food.

"As expected, only Boss Li's Shaxian County has this kind of appeal," Zhao Yunlong remarked.

Only one company in the entire Jiangcheng could get such a group of seemingly wealthy and influential people to engage in such a frenzied competition, disregarding their image. And only Li Zhibai was the boss.

But he soon joined in, only to record videos.

……

Eating in this atmosphere really does improve your appetite.

While Zhao Yunlong was recording with great enthusiasm, Pang Yi and his buddies secretly started a small meeting.

"Hey, do you guys think it's really okay to let Brother Long film like this here? His previous video made the old store super popular. If the new store gets exposed this time, we might really have to rely on being the top spender every day just to get a meal."

"Yeah! Last time, although the buzz was dampened by the change of boss, quite a few new faces did come in. This time, we won't be so lucky. If we can get this hot again, we'll be really hot."

Although the new Shaxian restaurant has a lot of customers every day, and is even full, it is far from the point where you need to queue up and grab a number. As long as you arrive early, you can usually get a table right away.

But if another viral video comes along, things will be different. At that point, forget about ranking; you might not even be able to get in.

Moreover, they were utterly humiliated by Li Zhibai's divisive tactics yesterday. Although they were lenient because they knew he was doing charity work, it didn't mean they didn't want to retaliate.

"Old Lu, Brother Long is signed by your company. You have to think of a way to prevent this kid from cutting off our escape route."

"And last time you told us to make him stand with us, why don't you do something about that?"

Lu Qianshan replied casually, "I've taken care of it. I'm the one who asked him to film it."

"What?!" Everyone was stunned.

"Old Lu, are you crazy? You're aiding the enemy!"

"Exactly, we're trying to keep our distance from him, and you actually let him come and film? Did Li Heizi bribe you?"

"Brother Lu, tell me honestly, are you angry because we didn't tell you about the meal we arranged to eat with someone else yesterday?"

Lu Qianshan: "What are you thinking? Do you think I'm that petty?"

"Actually, I realized from the beginning that suppressing Brother Long is useless. Last time we reported him so hard, what happened? Brother Long's video still went viral."

"Simply blocking things will only provoke a bigger backlash, which is counterproductive."

"But you can't let a wolf into the house!"

"that is!"

"What's the rush? I haven't finished speaking yet." Lu Qianshan continued, "He's now a host signed by my media company. His content is now overseen by our team. He can't just post whatever he wants."

"We know that, you said it last time, but you still didn't say why he filmed here."

As of now, Zhao Yunlong is unaware that the mysterious older brother who tipped him, encouraged him not to give up, and helped him sign a contract is eating at the same Shaxian restaurant as him.

Lu Qianshan smiled slightly and held up three fingers: "I had the company set three rules for him."

"First, in his Shaxian series of videos, he was only allowed to film the food, not the restaurant name, and not other people's faces. If he did film them, they had to be blurred out, and he was not allowed to disclose the address information."

"Doing this is also good for him. Last time, his restaurant review turned into a disaster because some people followed his lead, found the food was off, and then complained to him. If the address is kept secret, there won't be that risk, and the show's entertainment value will still be there."

"Secondly, I will have the operations team adjust the location of the videos he posts, so that the account location will not be set to Jiangcheng."

"Where should we set it?" Pang Yi asked curiously.

Lu Qianshan: "It's set in Shaxian County."

Everyone: 666!

The real Shaxian is alright.

"Finally, if our operations team discovers that someone has revealed the real address in the comments section, we will immediately use a large number of irrelevant comments and online trolls to push down this real information, or report it to confuse the public, so that netizens will naturally not be able to distinguish between what is real and what is fake."

"In this way, Brother Long can continue to create program effects, attract more fans, and create value for the company, while Shaxian won't really be exposed on a large scale, causing us old customers to compete fiercely for a meal, or even have no food to eat..."

After hearing Lu Qianshan's detailed arrangements, everyone gave him a thumbs up.

"It's gloomy!"

"That's fucking insidious!"

"Old Lu, your move to cut off the supply line from under the pot was brilliant. Li Heizi probably never dreamed that his shop would actually be located in Shaxian."

"Li Heizi wants us to queue for food and wants us to be number one in daily spending? Dream on."

"Hahaha......"

"..."

Just as everyone was thinking that they wouldn't have to compete in the short term and were about to celebrate, Yu Shen suddenly thought of something.

"Wait a minute, something's not right!"

"Li Heizi participated in the Jiangcheng Famous Chefs Invitational Tournament. The video of that competition will be released during the National Day holiday if nothing unexpected happens. Jiangcheng is a popular tourist city, and the number of visitors will increase several times during the National Day holiday. If it's broadcast, with his shameless way of beating up GG, a lot of people will definitely come to see him. Although we've blocked one outlet, what about the other one?"

His reminder made the group, who had just been happy to have successfully stopped Li Heizi, go crazy again.

"yes!"

"Li Heizi's shameless way of beating GG is really eye-catching, I feel it will be very popular."

"Damn it, why is Li Heizi so hard to kill?! Can't he just stay relatively low-profile? At least not be too popular!"

"....."

Just as everyone was looking on with disappointment, Lu Qianshan continued to exert his strength steadily.

"Sigh, with you bunch of incompetent teammates, we're doomed."

"I contacted the show's producers a long time ago and got confirmation that they will specifically deal with his scenes of losing in the post-production editing. They will most likely blur or cut them out, only keeping the cooking parts of the competition. After all, he is too eye-catching, and the sponsors would not be happy about that."

"real?"

"real."

Now everyone was completely convinced.

The Anti-Black Alliance felt incredibly reassured to have such a cunning and treacherous teammate as Lu Qianshan.

"Old Lu, you're the only one I can rely on! With you here, I feel like our anti-gang alliance can fight for another five hundred years!"

"Come on, let's celebrate our successful thwarting of Li Heizi's sudden rise to fame! Cheers... no, let's drink a bowl of soup!"

"Dry!"

"Respect, Brother Lu!"

"A salute to Li Heizi's face, that will never become famous!"