Thanks to Xu Yanxia's official announcement on TikTok a few days ago, the excited shipping fans had pushed her and Lu Jingming's hashtag onto the trending list for a while. Now, quite a few people out there knew about her relationship with Lu Jingming.
Hearing the other party say this right now, Xu Yanxia smiled and nodded, and also shook hands with that Mr. Zhuang.
Then she saw Mr. Zhuang ask her again, "President Lu didn't come today?"
Xu Yanxia smiled politely and said, "He went on a business trip."
The other party said, "That's a pity. I was hoping to have another chat with President Lu this time."
Xu Yanxia smiled and didn't say anything more.
The couple then went to talk to the director again.
Instead, Ye Shu whispered to Xu Yanxia, "This couple really is quite loving. Such a big boss accompanying his wife to record a show, not even needing to go to work."
Xiaozhen also leaned over and said, "Maybe they achieved financial freedom a long time ago! The couple has a good relationship, so they are inseparable."
Ye Shu was still skeptical. "President Lu still goes on business trips everywhere all day, and the chairman also comes to the company for meetings from time to time. To be honest, I think this couple is a bit fake."
Just as she finished speaking, another man in his forties, wearing a modified neo-Chinese style suit, entered the studio. The director and producer immediately went up to greet him, calling him Master Jin.
Xu Yanxia understood then. So this was the descendant of the imperial chef.
It could be seen that the other party had a lot of experience dealing with people. After chatting with the director and producer for a while, he came over to shake hands with her and Mrs. Zhuang and her husband.
But before the few of them could chat much, a sudden burst of screams echoed from outside the studio, drawing everyone's attention.
They saw a muscular man, over 1.8 meters tall, enter the studio.
Outside the studio, people were still excitedly shouting his name: "Brother Song, you are so handsome!!!"
"Songsong, I love you!!!"
They sounded like they were shouting themselves hoarse.
Xu Yanxia, Xiaozhen, and Ye Shu looked at each other and understood. This must be the fitness and food blogger with a lot of fans.
Ye Shu muttered softly, "I wasn't wrong, right? He has a lot of fans. Look, there are even people coming to support him."
Xu Yanxia and Xiaozhen both nodded in admiration. It was the truth; after all, apart from this Brother Song, no one else had fans coming to support them.
And his entourage was even bigger than Lu Jingxi's when Xu Yanxia was recording the show in Hainan last time.
They also heard the show's staff outside using a megaphone to maintain order: "Please don't get excited, everyone. Our space is limited, so we can't invite you inside the studio. You can follow our official Weibo and TikTok accounts; we will update the live recording situation in real-time..."
Seeing this scene, Ye Shu also remembered the main business and hurriedly said to Xu Yanxia, "Director Xu, let me take a few pictures of you and post them on your TikTok. The fans are also waiting to see."
"Okay."
Xu Yanxia nodded, cooperated by striking a few poses, let Ye Shu take the pictures, and then handed her phone to Ye Shu, asking her to help post them on her TikTok account.
...
Brother Song was the last guest to arrive.
According to the schedule, today only the four guests would compete among themselves; the amateur competition wouldn't take place until tomorrow.
Therefore, after he also briefly greeted everyone, the director stepped forward to go over the schedule with them.
Then, the first official recording began.
It was already near noon. For the sake of the ingredients' freshness, they had to film the cooking, tasting, and scoring segments first, before shooting other related content.
Unlike the Mid-Autumn Festival food special last time, since everyone was a professional in making food, to increase the viewing appeal, today's event had the show's crew prepare the ingredients, and then let the guests choose them to complete two of their signature dishes.
And one of the highlights of the city competition was to highlight local characteristics.
Therefore, today's ingredients were mainly specialities of Rong City, such as abalone, sea urchin, oysters, grouper, Sanhuang chicken, and so on.
Once the guests had selected their ingredients, they entered the formal cooking stage.
As a rhythmic symphony of chopping vegetables and mincing meat echoed through the venue, the host also began interviewing them one by one.
The first was the jewel-bedecked Mrs. Zhuang, wearing a large diamond ring on her hand.
The host asked, "May I ask what Mrs. Zhuang is going to make today?"
Mrs. Zhuang smiled at the camera and said, "Today I plan to use my exclusive secret recipe steamed fish soy sauce and braised sauce to bring everyone steamed grouper and braised chicken claypot."
As she spoke, she raised her knife and cleanly chopped a Sanhuang chicken into pieces, then gutted the grouper, removed its organs, and scored it.
Surprisingly, the large diamond ring on her hand didn't affect her at all; her technique was very neat.
The host praised her in admiration for a few words, then went over to interview the fitness blogger Brother Song.
"I wonder what delicacies Brother Song is bringing us today?"
"Today I'm going to show everyone how to make sea urchin fried rice and charcoal-grilled oysters."
Brother Song spoke in a deep, rich baritone, then casually took off his outer shirt, revealing the thick arm muscles underneath.
Particularly worth mentioning was that he was wearing a tight T-shirt, and the two pectoral muscles on his chest were very prominently squeezed, even showing his nipples.
Pfft...
Off-camera, Ye Shu and Xiaozhen looked at each other, almost unable to hold back their laughter.
Fortunately, Xu Yanxia didn't have time to notice, because she was busy preparing her ingredients.
The two dishes she was going to make today were deep-fried oysters and scallion braised abalone.
Just like last time, it was also to advertise her own brand.
Scallion braised abalone was currently one of Jiushan's signature dishes.
And deep-fried oysters were her brother Xu Zhanpeng's signature dish, which was currently also listed on the teppanyaki store's menu.
The broadcast time of this episode happened to be during the teppanyaki store's opening period. If the broadcast effect was good, it would definitely bring a large flow of customers, just like Jiushan.
But it should be noted that for the scallion braised abalone, the abalone in the store was dried abalone, but the ingredients provided on-site were fresh abalone. To make fresh abalone achieve the dense, gelatinous texture of dried abalone, the preparatory work had to be done properly.
Simmering chicken broth in advance was the key to stewing the abalone later;
Scoring the abalone, blanching it, and then quickly chilling it in ice water would make its texture more chewy and springy.
Xu Yanxia did it meticulously.
Off-camera, Ye Shu and Xiaozhen also instantly became her fangirls, not only taking several pictures in a row but also promptly helping her post them on the relevant TikTok accounts.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Shencheng, Lu Jingming, who was on a break between meetings, was also intently scrolling through the photos on his phone and liking Xu Yanxia's posts one by one.
He didn't even try to hide the smile on his face.
Beside him, the utterly bored Wen Jiajun glanced over and couldn't help but tsk at him with a look of disgust, "Now, besides your girlfriend, there's no other joy in the world, right?"
"A few months ago, who would have thought you were such a hopeless romantic?"
President Lu wasn't angry at all; he just said lightly, "It really is very happy. You can try it too."
Wen Jiajun almost coughed up blood. "Do you think I don't want to???"
Aren't all the good girls taken by show-offs like you!!!
However, the words had barely left his mouth when Lu Jingming, who had just been grinning like a fool, suddenly furrowed his brows again.
Taken aback, Wen Jiajun quickly leaned over out of curiosity to take a look. "What's wrong?" he asked.
He watched as Lu Jingming zoomed in on one of the photos of Xu Yanxia cooking. Pointing at a man wearing a tight T-shirt standing off to the side, Lu Jingming demanded, "Who is this guy?"
"Dressing like that, what's the difference between that and walking around naked?"
