Chapter 116: This Surname Is a Little Familiar

Chapter 116: Chapter 116: This Surname Is a Little Familiar

After a two-week business trip abroad, the plane landed. Stepping onto the soil of Hua Country...

Zhu Jin felt as if he’d come back to life!

"I knew it, my stomach is pure Hua Country. I can’t wait to go have a proper feast!"

"That’s not something a great gourmand should say."

A slightly hoarse voice, tinged with a light chuckle, spoke up.

A woman in her sixties, wearing a sharp trench coat and sunglasses, emerged from behind the chubby Zhu Jin, her posture still striking and stylish.

She was Zhong Yu, Hua Country’s top documentary director. Her show, *Taste of China*, had once taken the world by storm, making her a hot commodity in both the culinary and documentary worlds.

Zhong Yu and Zhu Jin were old friends. Back when she was preparing *Taste of China*, many were skeptical of the project. It was Zhu Jin who personally invested and served as the program’s general consultant, saving the documentary from being scrapped.

So, when Zhong Yu began preparing for a new documentary, she didn’t hesitate to pull Zhu Jin in again.

Zhu Jin handed his coffee to the assistant beside him and couldn’t help but complain:

"I never should have fallen for your smooth talk and boarded this pirate ship of yours! Now I can’t escape, and you’ve dragged me off to Lu’an again! The day you called, I was planning to go eat some egg fried rice. It was supposed to be divine-grade, the stuff of legends..."

"You seemed to be enjoying yourself in Lu’an just fine."

Zhong Yu shot him a cool glance.

Zhu Jin paused, only able to reply:

"It was Bresse chicken, after all."

Lu’an is a small town in the Bresse Region of eastern Country F. Situated on the banks of the Saiye River, it’s an ancient country town with only 6,000 residents.

What makes it world-famous is the Bresse chicken, known as the national chicken of Country F. It’s the most premium poultry ingredient, with an annual production of only 1.5 million. Compared to the most mass-produced feed-raised chickens in the world, it’s a mere drop in the ocean.

Given Zhu Jin’s wealth and status, even the most exquisite and rare ingredients were within his reach.

If he mentioned wanting to eat something today, someone would have it flown in from abroad and delivered to him by tomorrow.

But eating it that way versus eating it locally were two entirely different experiences.

Cuisine isn’t rootless; the very soil it springs from is the best seasoning.

For example, on this trip, Zhong Yu had gone to Lu’an to film material on Bresse chicken. The locals had warmly welcomed them and roasted a Bresse chicken for them in their own kiln.

Unlike those high-end French restaurants that cook Bresse chicken with all sorts of expensive seasonings, the locals simply added some hay, a little salt, and constantly basted the chicken with its own dripping juices and fat.

The Bresse chicken roasted this way was utterly delicious, full of rustic flavor.

The breast meat was so tender you could scoop it out with a spoon!

Even now, Zhu Jin couldn’t forget it.

Zhong Yu glanced at him sideways.

"I thought you had a ’pure Hua Country stomach’?"

"That’s different," Zhu Jin argued softly.

A moment later, he thought of the Golden Egg Fried Rice again.

"Oh, right. I’m going to eat that egg fried rice I missed out on tonight. Are you coming?"

This finally piqued her curiosity.

"The same egg fried rice you’ve mentioned so many times? Just how good can it be for you to be hung up on it for this long?"

"Didn’t I tell you? It’s divine! A divine-grade egg fried rice!"

Zhu Jin lifted his chin and finally told Zhong Yu the whole convoluted story.

After he finished, Zhong Yu remarked:

"Oh, so you basically stole your niece’s food."

"Nonsense!" Zhu Jin fumed, practically hopping mad.

By now, they had walked out of the airport and were standing by a car parked at the curb.

Zhong Yu raised her hand to look at her watch and smiled faintly.

"Unfortunately, I can’t. I have a meeting this afternoon, so there’s no way I’d make it in time afterward. You go scout it out first. If you think it’s good, we can add it to our filming list later."

"Great idea!"

Zhu Jin felt another pang of annoyance. ’How could I not have thought of that myself!’

He waved goodbye to Zhong Yu, got into his car, and instead of heading home, he first went to a familiar old shop for an authentic bowl of Yanjing zhajiangmian.

As the saying goes, "dumplings for departure, noodles for return." This was his way of welcoming himself back to the country.

After that, he met up with an old friend, had some tea, and ate freshly baked chestnut cakes...

After dawdling all afternoon, evening finally arrived. Zhu Jin rushed to the night market without stopping.

"Huh? Where’s the egg fried rice? Where’s my Golden Egg Fried Rice?"

He searched the entire night market but couldn’t find the Golden Egg Fried Rice stall Feifei had described. Zhu Jin was deeply disappointed.

But he was a top-tier epicure. For a single bite of fresh fish, he would endure dozens of hours in a car and cross mountains to reach a remote village.

Therefore, a small setback like this wasn’t enough to defeat him.

Zhu Jin decisively called his old friend to ask about it.

His friend was quite surprised.

"...Oh, so you weren’t swayed by the online gossip? My Feifei was pretty disappointed before. She kept asking me why Uncle Zhu never went to try the egg fried rice."

Zhu Jin was even more bewildered.

"What gossip?"

His friend briefly explained the situation.

Zhu Jin could hardly believe his ears.

"A variety show? Are you kidding me?"

No matter how much he disbelieved it, Zhu Jin got the new shop’s address from his friend and decided to go see for himself!

Meanwhile, Zhong Yu arrived at the TV station and, without a moment’s rest, called all her team members in for a meeting.

This was the topic selection meeting that was originally scheduled for two weeks ago but had been delayed due to the sudden business trip.

Zhong Yu frowned slightly as she looked through the proposals in front of her.

"I gave you an extra two weeks, and this is what you turn in?"

Her tone wasn’t overly harsh.

But it made everyone in the room so nervous they didn’t dare to speak.

Sitting in a junior position, Zhou Ling broke the silence.

"Director Zhong, I have a topic proposal. It’s something we’ve already filmed..."

Zhong Yu seized on the key phrase.

"Already filmed? It’s finished?"

Zhou Ling hummed in affirmation and then explained the whole story.

After she finished, Zhong Yu’s expression was a bit strange.

’Egg fried rice again?’

’First Zhu Jin, now Zhou Ling.’

’Am I just fated to deal with egg fried rice today?’

Zhong Yu said, "Let me see it."

Just as Zhou Ling had hoped, Zhong Yu didn’t scold her for breaking the rules, instead deciding to see the footage first.

Since it came down to the content, Zhou Ling felt even more confident.

She quickly instructed a subordinate to play the video.

Zhong Yu watched intently the entire time.

Even her colleagues on the team who usually didn’t get along with Zhou Ling didn’t dare say a word at this critical juncture.

The original footage was a bit long. After Zhou Ling’s rough cut, only a short twenty minutes remained.

Twenty minutes of pure gold.

The video ended, and the lights in the conference room came up.

Zhong Yu mulled it over for a moment, then asked a somewhat unexpected question:

"The chef in this video, her surname is Nan?"

"Yes! Her name is Nan Zhi!"

"Nan Zhi..."

’That surname sounds a bit familiar,’ Zhong Yu thought.