2.

The reporters recorded it all, exactly as it happened, and streamed it out live.

"The once-great heir to the Imperial Feast legacy, and now she can't even train a single apprentice properly. Has she finally run dry?"

"Down a sous-chef, can the head chef still finish inside the time limit?"

Where the hot oil had scalded my skin, it felt like ten thousand needles driving through, over and over.

My hand shook as I picked up the knife and sliced a little green onion, only to find the strands came out uneven.

I hesitated, unsure how to go on, and then a voice came from below the stage.

"Head Chef, let me be your sous-chef."

Ryan had come out of nowhere. He'd already thrown on a chef's coat, and he crossed to my side.

He took over the knife work from me.

The comments started scrolling again.

【Are you stupid, girl? The male lead is watching this stream right now. He held off coming precisely because he wanted to see you show weakness.】

【Oh no, now the male lead's even angrier, he almost smashed his phone. Is one lousy contest really that important? He came to look after you and you brushed him off.】

【I can't do this, this heroine's brainlessness is going to make me lose my mind.】

I no longer had the strength to care what the comments said.

With Ryan working beside me, every dish finally reached the judges' table before time ran out.

The judges were all seasoned gourmets, palates far sharper than any ordinary tongue.

Three men, seven women.

I watched their faces, nerves tight.

I saw them go from flat to satisfied, then glance at one another and lift their pens to mark the scores. And from below the stage came Owen's voice.

"This isn't fair. The Imperial Feast head chef is cheating."

"How can she swap someone in on the spot? The person registered for this contest was Lauren Vance, not this man standing here."

I was almost too angry to speak.

"Owen, are you sick in the head?"

"Wasn't it you who dragged Lauren away? I had no one to help me. Swapping in a substitute is perfectly normal, isn't it?"

He wouldn't look at me. He just kept digging in.

"If you have no one, then you do it alone. You swapped someone in, so it's cheating, it's unfair."

"This is a contest that decides ratings. If you can't manage even this much fairness, what credibility does the whole thing have going forward?"

The reporter's lens never left me.

The murmuring from below rolled in like a tide about to drown me.

【See, see? I knew the male lead would snap. Watching his rival stand there next to the woman he likes, he's practically losing his mind.】

【Sweet girl, the male lead's just clumsy with words. He isn't trying to stir up trouble on purpose or box you into a corner.】

【The male lead really does love you. Just coax him a little and he'd give you his life.】

My heart hung high in my chest, dreading the words that would void my score.

The host raised a hand and made a mild motion to quiet the others.

"This gentleman is quite right. We can't just bring in an outside helper to cook. If everyone did that, our contest would lose all its credibility."

Owen wore the look of a man who'd known it all along.

My heart went to ash.

But the next second, the host added one more line.

"However, this replacement chef is not an outside helper. He is a substitute."

"That doesn't violate the contest rules. We thank this gentleman for upholding them. Judges, please go ahead and give your scores."

The smile on Owen's face went from stiff to shattered in a single instant.

The stone in my chest dropped. Whether it was the pain or something else, my eyes blurred for just a moment.

The contest ended. The Imperial Feast Grand Restaurant's rating went up.

The Imperial Feast Grand Restaurant rose from four diamonds to five.

Everything else held steady. I finally let myself release the breath I'd been holding. Ryan stepped up to support me and got ready to drive me to the hospital.

Before I could even get into the car, Owen slammed the door shut on me.

"Judith Sanchez, a score you got by cheating—doesn't it prick at you to hold it?"

"Come back with me and have your restaurant's rating canceled. You need to be an honest person. You can't take what isn't yours to take."

3.

He reached out and grabbed my hand.

Of course it was the one the oil had burned, and the pins-and-needles sting only got worse.

I pushed him off with my head and pressed back against the car door, half hysterical.:

“Our restaurant earned that rating. Why should I void it?”

“The judges said there was no problem. The host said there was no problem. The rules are right there.”

“Ryan Chandler was a legitimate substitute. The score we cooked together is deserved, and you keep circling back to say it doesn't count.”

I stared straight at him, cold all the way through.:

“Is it really that it doesn't count? Or is it that the one who got the score wasn't Lauren Vance, so it doesn't count?”

Owen looked at me the way you'd look at a difficult child.:

“The Imperial Feast needs someone graceful, poised, clean, good to look at, to run it. Only then can it go far.”

“Don't you know how much a face matters these days? How long can some cook who only knows recipes carry a restaurant?”

So in the end, what mattered was a face.

I gave a bitter little laugh, the way I had so many times before.

“But Owen, back when your face was ruined, I never held it against you.”

“I worked so hard to build the restaurant up, to let more people know its name. Have you forgotten why I ever did it?”

Owen had been disfigured by his father's mistress.

After that he was cast aside, no money to treat his face, the wound forever inflamed and oozing.

I was still a student then, no money of my own, so I secretly took the family's heirloom Imperial Feast recipes to sell.

My stepfather caught me in the act.

“You want to save that little childhood sweetheart of yours?”

“Then swear it. Swear you'll stay with the restaurant your whole life.”

I dropped out early and started learning to cook. I gave the first half of my life to that restaurant.

The one good thing was that he let me open a branch in the city I loved.

My stepfather paid for Owen's treatment. When the money ran short he sold two of the recipes, found him the best doctor, got his face healed……

Owen's eyes flickered, plainly unwilling to remember any of it.

“People like beautiful things. Stop holding me to your standards all the time.”

“Back then, treating my face was your choice. I didn't force you. And afterward, didn't I make up for it by being with you?”

“You're the one who came out ahead.”

Came out ahead?

I touched my face with my one good hand, and suddenly I found myself almost funny.

“So all those years I worked, in your eyes, that was just me laying the groundwork to come out ahead?”

“Owen, do you have a heart at all?”

“Is your heart made of stone?”

He saw my tears and turned away in disgust, as if afraid one might land on him and dirty him.

Lauren Vance came running over and planted herself between us, all frantic concern.

“Master, Master, please don't be angry.”

“It's all my fault. I'm apologizing to you. I'm sorry.”

She fumbled the pearl necklace off her own neck and tried to press it into my hand.

“I don't want this necklace anymore. Master, please don't be angry with Master Owen……”

She moved too hard and pressed it right onto my wound, the fabric grinding against the burn, and the pain made me reach out to push her away.

But before my hand could touch her, Owen slapped me across the face.

“Are you done making a scene?”

“I bought Lauren a gift to make up for the fright, and you want to snatch that too. You're disgusting.”

“Lauren, let's go……”

Ryan helped me up gently. I could see he wanted to step in and have it out with them, but he swallowed it.

"Master, next time, I'll hit back."

【The male lead's going a bit far this time, isn't he? The female lead looks like she's in so much pain, my heart aches for her.】

【Good things come after hardship. These are just little trials. Once they're actually together, all this will just be seasoning in their life.】

【Second male lead, take my advice and don't stick your nose in. The female lead belongs to our male lead.】

I nodded.

"There won't be a next time."

At the hospital they cleaned the wound. Yellow fluid oozed out, and whole patches of skin were peeling away. The doctor looked genuinely alarmed.

"How did your wound get this bad? You should have come in much sooner."

The cleaning and dressing took over three hours.

That night when I got home, Lauren called me, all tearful.

"Master, you're hurt, so I found a few people to help with the cooking."

"You and Ryan both worked so hard yesterday."

I refused outright. But when I hurried in the next day, the restaurant was full of several people I didn't recognize.

Dish after dish came out, all far off in color, aroma, and taste. A reporter doing a post-competition interview shoved the camera right in my face.

"Head Chef Sanchez, is it true you've been slacking off now that you've got your rating?"

"The guests who came to eat today all say the standard dropped a lot. Is this how you honor the name of the Imperial Feast?"

I stepped back and looked at Lauren, who was trembling.

"Who gave you permission to swap out the cooks?"

"Have you learned nothing about the rules of the head kitchen?"

Lauren's face crumpled, and the tears started dripping down again.

"Master, I called you yesterday. Didn't you already agree?"

"You even said, since the rating's already in, we could just throw something together to get the diners by, that the diners are pigs and can't tell good from bad anyway."

A diner who heard that flung his chopsticks down.

"What a garbage restaurant, treating customers like this. You'll be crying over it later."

"What garbage food. I'm not eating this. I'm never coming back."

"Post it, expose them. I'm an idiot if I ever come here again."

"Lauren, when did I ever say any of that?"

Owen had come in at some point. He stepped straight in front of her.

"If you hadn't said it, why would Lauren have swapped anyone out?"

"And you call yourself a master? You mess up your own work, then turn around and pin it on someone else. I think you're just holding a grudge over yesterday and trying to frame Lauren on purpose."

With someone backing her, Lauren cried harder.

She covered her mouth, her wide eyes fixed on me. "Master, even if I made you angry, you can't treat me like this."

"You've hurt me so much."

Owen pulled Lauren into his arms, soothing her, and the look he gave me carried something close to murder.

"Lauren isn't your apprentice anymore. You'd better watch yourself."

"This restaurant is truly cursed, having a head chef like you."

"I'll see this through to the end."

The business licensing bureau and every other department came knocking, inspection after inspection.

They found nothing wrong, but they still ordered the place shut down for rectification.

I looked at the restaurant, gone from busy to deserted overnight, and slowly pulled the front doors shut.

The diners from the day before piled on bad reviews, and the reputation the Imperial Feast had built over decades was dumped straight into the gutter in a single night.

Plenty of people spoke up online too.

【I ate here once, and not long after I got food poisoning and ended up in the hospital. I suspect it was something in their food.】

【I think it was the food too. I won't eat here again. The place across the street without a rating is cheaper and tastes just as good.】

【I'll just go there from now on.】

The apprentice and Ryan watched me, worry all over their faces.

"Master, what do we do? Should I go home and find someone to help?"

I shook my head. "It's fine. If the restaurant's gone, it's gone. We'll find another place."

"As long as the skill is there, everything's still there. I'll head back to my hometown tomorrow."

My phone rang.

It was Owen calling.

"Come apologize to Lauren, and I'll find a way to help you cool down the heat."

"You're her cooking master. You should have the grace to forgive."

Apologizing when I'd done nothing wrong, that was grace?

"And if I don't?"

"I won't apologize to her. I did nothing wrong. The only one who did was her."

Owen gave a cold laugh. "You won't apologize? Then I'll just have to wait you out."

"Lauren wants to take a trip abroad. So wait until we're back, and we'll have a proper talk then."

The comments moved again.

【The female lead built that restaurant up through so much hard work. Now the male lead's really in for the whole grovel-to-win-her-back arc.】

【If it were me, I might never forgive the male lead in my life.】

【The female lead's kind of pitiful. The male lead's willing to destroy her career just to make her say something soft. So gross. If it were me, there's no way I'd ever forgive him.】

I hung up.

Then I called my stepfather. "Dad, I've decided to come back and take over the restaurant."

"And that arranged match you mentioned, let me meet him too."

My world didn't revolve around him.