[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-intelligence-king-of-chinese-entertainment":3,"chapter-the-intelligence-king-of-chinese-entertainment-the-intelligence-king-of-chinese-entertainment-chapter-25":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Intelligence King of Chinese Entertainment",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2260328,4411,"Chapter 25: The System","the-intelligence-king-of-chinese-entertainment-chapter-25",25,"\u003Cp>【Daily Info 1: Dong Xuan has learned that her ex-boyfriend Yan Li has returned to Beijing, and believes her overtures will be seen by Yan Li; if Yan Li merely takes the easy path and shows a little goodwill, they can reconcile.】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Daily Info 2: On the first day Yan Li left Hengdian, Qin Lan missed him deeply.】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Daily Info 3: Lin Jiachuan is dreaming that Dong Xuan and Yan Li reconcile, then pair him up with one of his friends, making Yan Li both his brother-in-arms and his brother-in-law.】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【...】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Yan Li woke up and saw the system’s info, he silently added another mark against Lin Jiachuan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He put on his clothes, washed up in the bathroom, then wandered through the entire apartment, waking up Zhou Yiwei.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Good thing you have a car—come with me to buy some stuff.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What stuff?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Refrigerator, TV, solar water heater, cabinets, pots, bowls, chopsticks, spoons...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li didn’t have high living standards—he grew up in the village, where the family had little money, yet he was perfectly happy in their old tiled house.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Later, when his parents opened their shop, they usually had someone stay overnight to guard against thieves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Two tables pushed together became a bed; when Yan Li got older, every school holiday, that was his “treasured bed.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He slept in dorms during school, cheap guesthouses during filming, and if he had no money, he could just as easily rent a basement apartment like those Beijing drifters.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Still, if conditions allowed, Yan Li naturally preferred to live more comfortably.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That’s why he arranged for several roommates to share rent, and now that he had some spare cash, he planned to buy household appliances to make daily life easier.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li called the landlord for permission, then Zhou Yiwei drove him first to the secondhand market and wholesale district, then to the appliance store.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A used TV was fine, but the refrigerator needed to store food—no one knew what the previous owner had kept in it, so Yan Li personally felt buying new was safer; same for pots, bowls, and utensils.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The solar water heater and cabinets could be new or used, as long as they worked well.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since they found nothing satisfactory at the secondhand market, Yan Li ended up buying everything new.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Along the way, he spotted other useful items and added a bunch of miscellaneous things—by the end of the trip, his already thin wallet was even thinner.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After hauling all the items home and scheduling the installer to come the next day for the water heater, it was already afternoon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li and Zhou Yiwei hadn’t eaten lunch; though they’d bought a pile of kitchenware, there was no food at home, so they went downstairs to a noodle shop.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Two large bowls of fried sauce noodles, one cold platter, and they devoured it all with pickled garlic, slurping loudly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Both were barely twenty, with big appetites—they still felt a bit unsatisfied after finishing the noodles and platter. Zhou Yiwei wanted another small bowl, but Yan Li stopped him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Save some room—I’ll cook something good tonight.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After telling Zhou Yiwei to clean up at home, Yan Li walked to the vegetable market to buy groceries.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He knew how to drive—his family’s restaurant had a used minivan for buying ingredients and delivering meals, and Yan Li had practiced driving it often at home.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But since he had no car, he’d never bothered to get a license.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Rules were lax in his hometown, but Beijing was different—if traffic police stopped Zhou Yiwei’s father’s Passat on the road, he’d be putting his brother in a bind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Luckily, the market wasn’t far; though afternoon produce and meat were slightly worse than morning’s, since it was just for themselves, he didn’t care much.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He bought fresh pork, beef, pig’s trotters, offal, chicken legs, then went to the spice shop and picked out a large bag of seasonings, and finally bought a few vegetables before returning to the compound.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Back home, Yan Li rolled up his sleeves and began preparing the ingredients.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The braised meat recipe he’d received from the monthly info had been described as miraculous, leaving him itching to try it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He hadn’t had the chance in Hengdian, but now that he had a kitchen back in Beijing, he was eager to test the recipe’s quality.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhou Yiwei came to help, his face full of anticipation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He’d eaten Yan Li’s cooking before—about two or three months ago, Yan Li bribed the cafeteria chef at North Film to borrow the stove and cooked several dishes for them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The taste wasn’t quite heavenly, but it was undeniably delicious.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Better than most restaurants, and leagues ahead of their cafeteria’s big-pot dishes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unfortunately, though Yan Li was skilled, he didn’t seem to enjoy cooking.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Aside from that one spontaneous cooking spree that fed them for days, no matter how much his brothers begged, he ignored them—until Zhang Songwen’s birthday in May, when he finally broke his rule under pressure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now, right after returning to Beijing, Yan Li was organizing a cooking session and buying so much meat—it clearly meant a big meal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhou Yiwei figured Yan Li had suffered through Hengdian’s boxed meals and was now treating himself to some rich, fatty food.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li was carefully cleaning the freshly scalded pig’s trotters, completely unaware of Zhou Yiwei’s fantasies—if he’d known, he’d have defended Hengdian’s boxed meals.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yes, Hengdian’s boxed meals were terrible!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whether it was the catering contractor’s fault or not, the taste didn’t even match North Film’s cafeteria, and sometimes the system even gave him diarrhea warnings for spoiled ingredients.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li’s frequent outings in Hengdian—to socialize, scout system-recommended food, or take Qin Lan out to eat—hadn’t been just for fun; he’d wanted better meals.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for Zhou Yiwei thinking Yan Li disliked cooking, that was somewhat one-sided.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li grew up in a restaurant and had spent plenty of time helping in the kitchen, so he’d developed solid cooking skills—he wasn’t enthusiastic about it, but he didn’t resist it either.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He refused his brothers mainly because borrowing the cafeteria kitchen was too troublesome; if not for testing the recipe he got from the info, he wouldn’t have bothered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Also, Yan Li had learned a trick from his father—rarity increases value.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No matter how good your cooking is, if you cook every day, others just see you as an ordinary cook—it’s your job, you get no praise, and if you mess up once, you get blamed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But if you cook only occasionally, keeping others hungry for it, you become the revered “Cooking God,” held in high esteem, and sometimes even gain favors.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li applied this lesson well—and it worked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He enjoyed being admired, and others, having begged for so long to taste his food, cherished it more, ate with greater joy, and even perceived the dishes as tasting better due to emotional enhancement.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For example, now, Zhou Yiwei was helping while constantly praising him, making Yan Li’s cooking feel anything but tedious.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Braised meat wasn’t unfamiliar to Yan Li.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His family’s restaurant had a signature cold dish: cold-sliced pig’s head meat, which they braised themselves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Other items like pig’s trotters, beef, intestines, and tripe were all pre-braised before being further prepared—he’d helped braise dishes at home many times.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To braise meat well, there were three essentials: ingredients, heat control, and seasonings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The ingredients Yan Li bought today weren’t the freshest from morning, but they were still fresh that day—quality was fine. As for heat control and seasoning ratios, he followed the system’s braised meat recipe exactly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At first, the pot of braised meat seemed ordinary, nothing special.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But as time passed, the power of the system’s certified 【Century-Old Secret Recipe】 gradually revealed itself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhou Yiwei, watching TV in the living room, smelled the rich aroma drifting from the kitchen and grew restless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Brother, is it ready yet?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li himself was slightly surprised by how overpowering the aroma was—it stormed into his nose, making his mouth water uncontrollably, his stomach growling with hunger.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But as a cook, he kept his composure, calmly checking the time.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Wait another 45 minutes.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Ah.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhou Yiwei groaned in agony—smelling such an irresistible scent but being unable to eat it was torture.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As time passed, the aroma grew stronger; Zhou Yiwei eagerly set out bowls and chopsticks, constantly glancing toward the kitchen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li was also getting impatient—he pretended to check the braising progress and stepped into the kitchen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The moment he lifted the lid, the rich, thick aroma burst free, spreading wildly; Yan Li himself was nearly knocked back by the wave of scent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was too fragrant!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The smell reached the living room; Zhou Yiwei dashed over like a dog scenting a bone, staring longingly at the meat in the pot.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Brother, is it ready?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Wait another 15 minutes.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With great self-control, Yan Li replaced the lid and dragged Zhou Yiwei back to the living room to wait.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Finally, after 15 minutes, before Zhou Yiwei could speak, Yan Li hurried into the kitchen, pulled out two pieces of braised meat and a trotter, and carried them to the living room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhou Yiwei was already waiting, drooling at the glossy, ruby-red braised meat on the plate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Neither spoke—they silently picked up their chopsticks and began eating.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The moment the braised meat touched his tongue, Yan Li’s eyes widened—he’d known from the aroma it would be delicious, but not this delicious.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The meat, infused with numerous spices and slow-cooked for hours, was tender yet resilient, rich and savory yet fresh, the fat melting instantly, the lean meat growing more fragrant with every chew.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He tried the trotter too—though from the same pot, its flavor was subtly different: more springy, the skin glutinous, the meat fragrant, leaving a lingering aftertaste.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li and Zhou Yiwei ate in silence, quietly finishing nearly half the pot of braised meat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhou Yiwei loosened his slightly tight belt, still wiping oil from his lips, and sincerely remarked:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Brother, becoming an actor is a huge loss to the culinary world.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li had some self-awareness—the braised meat was delicious mostly because of the secret recipe; his own cooking was merely decent, nowhere near “culinary world loss” level.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if it were a loss, Yan Li wouldn’t choose to be a chef.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Money aside, being a chef means serving others—nothing compared to the ease, dignity, and popularity of being an actor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Savoring the braised meat’s flavor, Yan Li felt there was still room for improvement.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, it was his first time—he wasn’t fully practiced yet, and the recipe mentioned using old broth; he hadn’t had time today, but if he braised more often later, cultivating the broth, the taste could improve further.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He also noticed one flaw in this braised meat recipe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was delicious, but it was meat—no matter how well prepared, eating it constantly would get Ni . He’d need to pair it with some braised vegetables, pickles, or condiments to cut the richness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Li mulled over various ideas and pulled out a notebook to take careful notes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He’d originally just been curious about the recipe’s taste, but now that he’d experienced its overwhelming deliciousness, he wondered if he could profit from it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For example, open a restaurant specializing in braised meat, or at least set up a cooked meat stall—something to earn extra income in his spare time, better than just sitting idle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As he was lost in thought, someone knocked on the door. Yan Li glanced at Zhou Yiwei, sprawled and full, then got up to open it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Outside stood a woman in her thirties, beside her a little boy with red eyes and nose.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I’m so sorry.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The woman looked embarrassed: “I’m your neighbor across the hall. Your braised meat smells so good, my child is crying and begging for some—could you spare a little? I’ll pay for it.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yu Yanli: \"...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This braised meat business is profitable—even before opening, it’s already making money...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",1999,"2026-06-19T16:16:52.605Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","94ed39d5c01c6a65ffdacb9412942402100aa28a9d9524ffa67f02dea69f8d39","the-intelligence-king-of-chinese-entertainment-chapter-26","the-intelligence-king-of-chinese-entertainment-chapter-24",405,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-intelligence-king-of-chinese-entertainment-cover.jpg"]