Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Meng Chang was the one who arranged for the ratings of the cold noodles to be placed in the second last segment with a selfish intent.

The only reason Meng Chang organized this Street Food Contest was to market Cold-Faced Lady.

Putting the ratings of the cold noodles at the back would leave a deeper impression on the audience. However, it would not be appropriate to place it at the end. That would be too obvious.

Putting it in the second-to-last order with the last to appear as rare local snacks. That would ensure that the audience would not be too disgusted and would have a deep impression of the cold-faced lady. At the same time, the judges would brag about the cold-faced lady's roasted noodles. Compared to other cold noodles, it would strengthen the impression that the cold-faced lady's roasted cold noodles had the best taste.

That was all tricks.

However, Boss Pei had already seen through Meng Chang's trick. The ratings for the cold noodles would definitely not develop like the script he had written.

Soon, the stall owners of the Cold-Faced Noodles were ready, what was different this time was that the chef of the Cold-Faced Lady was also cooking on the spot and competing with the other stall owners.

The camera panned to the Cold-Faced Lady's chef. The audience in the live-stream instantly rebelled.

"Holy sh*t! I was caught off guard!"

"This is an advertisement for Cold-Faced Lady! I've been f*cking watching it for hours!"

"So you were waiting here. I was wondering why the Cold-Faced Lady had nothing better to do than organize this competition. It was to advertise for herself…"

Many viewers realized what was going on the moment they saw the Cold-Faced Lady participating in the competition.

It turned out that there were so many food stalls set up just to serve as a contrast for the cold-faced lady!

Many viewers felt disappointed and left the live-stream.

The key to this competition was fairness and justice.

It would be too disgusting if they squeezed out the most outstanding competitors in the end.

Many viewers had already foreseen the upcoming script. They felt that it would be meaningless to continue watching, so they all left.

In fact, according to Meng Chang's original plan, as long as the program was recorded and edited, the audience would not be so disgusted.

However, the situation was completely different now that it was live-streamed.

The number of people in the room dropped by thousands in an instant when Pei Qian saw the Cold-Faced Lady appear. What's more, it continued to drop. He could not help but be overjoyed.

Great!

At first, he had been worried because the room was too popular. Now, everyone has left!

The competition continued.

The cold noodles were cooked very quickly. The staff also delivered special trays to the judges and audience.

The judges looked at each other and started tasting.

The bullet screen comments in the live-stream could no longer be seen.

"Black screen! Strong protest!"

"Heh, there's no need to look. Cold-Faced Lady is definitely the first. Anything else is fine."

"From the looks of it, the judging panel will greatly appreciate the cold-faced lady's taste. The chef will speak with emotion, and the host will advertise the cold-faced lady…"

"Sigh, it was a good competition. Everything was going well in the beginning, but it ended up like this."

"Alright, alright. Stop advertising. Hurry up and skip to the next segment. I want to know which snacks are there in the rare local snacks."

The viewers in the live-stream already thought that the judges were going to brag.

However, they had all guessed wrong, and it was a huge mistake!

The first judge took the microphone and began to evaluate the roasted cold noodles in front of him.

"All in all, I think booth number six's cold noodles tasted the best."

"Booth number six's roasted cold noodles have traditional sweet and sour taste. Compared to other cold noodles with sour and sweet taste, its greatest characteristic is that the amount of seasoning used is very precise. It can be said to be just right."

"Sweet and sour roasted cold noodles should have more vinegar instead of sugar. That's because the high temperature of the iron plate would cause the vinegar to dissipate. At the same time, it would make the cold noodles taste even more flavorful. If you put too little, there would be no sour taste, only sweetness. The taste would completely change."

"The amount of seasoning added must be matched with the timing on the ironing board. Otherwise, the texture and taste of the cold noodles would be different. Therefore, to me, the taste of the roasted cold noodles from booth number six is the best."

"As for booth number one's cold noodles, which is Cold-Faced Lady's cold noodles, I think there is a problem with the amount of seasoning used: there is too little vinegar. I guess that they did not take into account the high temperature of the iron plate and affected the taste of cold noodles."

Immediately after, the second judge started speaking.

"I agree with the first judge. The cold noodles served by booth number six is indeed very good, but I think booth number three's cold noodles taste better."

"I specially observed the cooking process of all the vendors. Everyone was spraying water on the surface of the noodles while roasting the cold noodles. That's right. That's because the right amount of water can make the skin soft and tough. The texture would be better. The timing and volume of the water being sprayed on by booth number three's vendor is just right. Therefore, booth number three's roasted cold noodles is the best in terms of texture."

"As for the Cold-Faced Lady's roasted cold noodles, I don't think it's very bad in terms of texture, but it's not outstanding either. It gives people the feeling that it's just average and doesn't have any obvious memorable characteristics."

The judges commented one by one.

What surprised the audience in the live-stream was that the "awkward bragging" that everyone had expected did not happen.

These judges' comments highlighted one point. They were nitpicking and did not show any mercy!

Many viewers only realized that there were so many tricks behind the simple roasted cold noodles after hearing the judges' comments.

The temperature, heat, the amount of water sprayed during the process, the amount of condiments… Any slight deviation would affect the final product's taste.

According to the judges, the Cold-Faced Lady's roasted cold noodles was obviously not done to the extreme. Compared to these experts who roasted the cold noodles, it immediately paled in comparison.

This undoubtedly answered the question that had been debated online: Was the roasted cold noodles served by the cold-faced lady actually delicious?

The answer was that it was not awful, if it was compared to the roasted cold noodles at roadside stalls which had a huge change in taste, it might indeed be more delicious. However, it was not as delicious as Meng Chang made it out to be. It was still worlds apart from the realm of the so-called God of Roasted Cold Noodles.

In the end, Cold-Faced Lady's roasted cold noodles did not perform well in the selection. Her overall score was almost at the bottom.

Objectively speaking, this result was rather bad. Cold-Faced Lady's roasted cold noodles did not taste that bad. The main reason was that everyone of the judges singled out the Cold-Faced Lady to criticize. This had a certain impact on the audience and caused Cold-Faced Lady's rating to be very low.

The host felt a little awkward and looked at Qi Yan.

According to the original process, there would be an interview with the Cold-Faced Lady Chef after the results were out. They would briefly praise the Cold-Faced Lady's unique cooking method and publicize it.

In the end, the script had completely changed. The Cold-Faced Lady's rating was at the bottom. How could they interview her?

Wouldn't it become public flogging if they were to interview them now?

Qi Yan quickly waved her hand, gesturing for the host to skip this segment and continue walking.

The host was quick-witted. He immediately understood and entered the next stage of the rare local snacks.

Compared to the previous teams, the unpopular snack teams looked rather strange. They were all very rare street snacks.

Take the Whirlwind Potato for example. Its raw material was an entire potato. It was cut into a spiral-shaped thin slice with special knife skills. After being strung together with bamboo skewers, it could be lengthened to 30 centimeters without snapping. It could be eaten after being fried in the oil pan and sprinkled with sauce. It looked very good.

Another example would be fried bananas. They would be wrapped with flour or bread dough outside the bananas. They would be golden in color, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. It was very delicious.

Apart from that, there was also fried yogurt, rice wrapped in chicken wings, and seaweed rice cake. All of them were unique.

There were naturally no unified rules since they were rating different types of food. The scoring depended on the taste of the judges and audiences.

…

The live-stream had already entered the next stage, but the bullet screen comments were still discussing the roasted cold noodles.

"Huh? I guessed it wrong?"

"Isn't this an advertisement for the Cold-Faced Lady? In the end, not only did they not advertise, they were actually criticized?"

"Am I seeing things? This is a competition organized by Cold-Faced Lady, right!"

"They spent money to organize a competition to scold themselves? That's too awesome!"

"What the hell is going on? I'm going crazy…"

The viewers were all dumbfounded. They did not understand what kind of script this was.

Why did Cold-Faced Lady organize this food competition?

It would have been acceptable if they had wanted to advertise their roasted cold noodles. However, not only did they not do any advertisement, they even criticized their own store!

It did not conform to common sense or logic because Cold-Faced Lady needed not have done something like that.

There was a huge difference between good food and bad food, but most of the audience were in front of the screen and could not eat or taste it. Delicious or not actually depended on the judges' tastes, right?

They could have made it not so obvious and gave the Cold-Faced Lady a second or third place and pick a few inconsequential problems to ensure the fairness of the competition.

Was there a need to be so strict?

Some people who had eaten Cold-Faced Lady before even felt that the rating was too low. Cold-Faced Lady might not be as delicious as Meng Chang bragged, but it was better than a roadside stall!

All of a sudden, the viewers in the live-stream room fell into a daze. They were all discussing the reason behind the Cold-Faced Lady's actions. No one was paying attention to the competition of the rare local snacks.

…

The food competition finally came to an end at 7PM.

After the selection of the rare local snacks, it was time for the final round of reviews.

The officials ranked all participating vendors according to their ratings and awarded prizes and bonuses to the winners.

Cold-Faced Lady's Roasted Cold-Faced Noodles was not selected without a doubt. It was at the bottom in the Roasted Cold-Faced Team. There was no chance at all in the overall review.

The winners were elated. They took the trophies and prizes from the staff and proudly waved at the camera.

The other vendors who did not win the prize were also applauding and giving their blessings. The entire Street Food Contest ended after an afternoon of intense competition.

Qi Yan heaved a long sigh. The event was finally done no matter what!

As long as nothing went wrong.

She still had to organize these videos and get someone to edit them and upload them to Aili Island and other video websites to achieve a secondary effect.

However, Qi Yan was as confused as the audience.

Why was Boss Pei doing this?

Wouldn't it make things worse for Cold-Faced Lady if the judges criticized it for tasting bad?