CHAPTER 169: CHAPTER 164: THE FEMALE SUPPORTING CHARACTER OF THE SPIRITUAL SPRING SPACE

"Ye Zi, be careful!" Liu Qingqing exclaimed loudly upon seeing Lian Lan not far away.

This was the library, and Lian Lan had clearly come prepared, a bottle of unknown liquid in her hand as she hurled it directly towards Ye Qiu’s face.

But Ye Qiu had long been aware of Lian Lan’s current mental instability and had taken precautions, deliberately choosing to stand in a deserted corner with turns. When Lian Lan’s liquid was thrown, Ye Qiu had already sensed it, swiftly stepping aside to take cover behind a bookshelf and using a book to shield her face.

"Hiss!" Although the bookshelf and book provided some cover, a drop or two of the liquid still splashed onto Ye Qiu’s hand, bringing a searing pain.

"Ye Zi, are you alright?" Liu Qingqing rushed over quickly.

"Your hand?" Cao Lu gasped in horror, "It’s sulfuric acid."

People in the reading room had already had their attention captured by the scene, and upon hearing the words "sulfuric acid" from Cao Lu, someone had already quickly notified the librarian and security.

"Ah! How can you be unharmed!" Upon seeing that Ye Qiu’s face wasn’t injured, Lian Lan screamed frantically.

The onlookers, witnessing her deranged behavior, tacitly kept their distance from her.

"She really is a madman!"

"Who is this?"

"Lian Lan, the one who’s been reprimanded before."

"Ye Qiu really is unlucky, huh? How terrifying jealousy can be."

"Luckily, her face is fine."

"Make way, students." The librarians and security, arriving quickly, promptly took control of Lian Lan.

"Let me go, all of you let go of me." Lian Lan struggled fiercely, yelling incoherently, "I’m the protagonist, I’ve been reborn, I know the future, you can’t do this, let me go, let go, Lin Jiayan, save me, I love you!"

"She’s gone mad, hasn’t she?"

"Still the protagonist, still reborn, has she read too many novels!"

"Dreaming of Senior Lin, with that look of hers!"

"Tsk, luckily I’m not good-looking, otherwise, I’d have to be constantly on guard against such lunatics."

"Let’s get to the infirmary quickly, no telling if it’ll leave a scar." Liu Qingqing said with a pained expression, such beautiful hands, they couldn’t possibly be ruined by that madwoman Lian Lan.

"The finals are the day after tomorrow, Ye Zi, can you still cook with your hand?" Cao Lu asked with concern.

"It’s okay." Ye Qiu reassured them with a smile. She had secretly applied some Spiritual Spring Water on it without anyone noticing, and now it wasn’t hurting that much anymore.

"This time, we can’t let her off easily."

"The school will not tolerate such a person to remain."

Publicly throwing sulfuric acid is a criminal act. The school security reported it to the police, and when Director Zhang found out that the victim was the beloved person of his friend, he immediately gathered evidence and took Lian Lan to court.

Two months later, Lian Lan was convicted of intentional assault and was sentenced. The school also expelled her.

Lian Lan’s mental collapse wasn’t accidental—she was reborn, and her Divine Soul was inherently unstable. If she had rested peacefully, perhaps her soul could have slowly stabilized, but she was obsessed with scheming after her rebirth and encountered constant frustrations. After numerous setbacks, her Divine Soul naturally became even more unstable.

The conflation of her past and current life’s events made it hard for her to distinguish between dreams and reality. Moreover, she had been tormented to death by Li Ziye before her rebirth, which left her with some psychological issues. Lacking the nourishment of Spiritual Spring Water in this life, her downfall was inevitable.

After Lian Lan was taken away by the security and the police, Ye Qiu completed a statement and then put the matter aside. The final of the International Culinary Competition was the day after tomorrow. She could not let this incident affect her performance, and fortunately, her hand had already recovered as good as new thanks to the nourishment of the Spiritual Spring Water.

Up until now, Ye Qiu had been leading the competition by a large margin. Coupled with her beauty, which surpassed that of celebrities, she had amassed a large number of online fans. A substantial portion of the audience tuned in to the show just for her.

The background of He Qingfeng’s family was unknown, but he and Cao Lu were still sitting among the general public judges, cheering for Ye Qiu.

Tonight is the final showdown, and now only three contestants remain, including Ye Qiu and two others from France and Japan.

The judging panel consisted of people from all over the world, striving to be fair and just to every contestant. The competition format had also changed, from the original three dishes to five dishes. Among these five dishes, there must be one dessert and one soup, as well as one foreign dish. The other two dishes were unrestricted, and contestants could bring their own ingredients.

The change in the competition format also made the atmosphere in the arena even tenser. It was only one hour before the competition that Ye Qiu and Ye Fu decided on the dishes.

Even though she knew that using ingredients from the Spiritual Spring Space would make winning easier, Ye Qiu did not do so. She was a person with the Level 2 Chef God’s Light and intended to compete fairly even when everyone else was using ordinary ingredients.

Ye Qiu had Madam Shen airlift wild mushrooms and free-range chicken from Southern Province on the same day. She planned to use these two ingredients to make soup. She also selected the eel prepared by the show’s organizers to make Japanese grilled eel. For dessert, Ye Qiu decided to make almond tofu, one of the oldest desserts in Hua Country—sweet but not cloying, tender and refreshing. That decided the three required dishes.

For the other two dishes, Ye Qiu planned to make crispy duck and fried rice with mixed ingredients. Choosing the most ordinary dishes for the two free-style dishes was a risky move, especially when one of them was a main course. The audience held their breath, but Ye Qiu was confident.

The French chef next door was preparing a traditional cream of mushroom soup, while the Japanese chef did not go for the native miso soup but made a sweet and sour Tom Yum soup instead.

For dessert, the French chef made his best vanilla ice cream, while the Japanese chef opted for a fruit salad. When the French chef brought out foie gras and black truffles, and the Japanese chef presented Australian lobster and tuna, the audience all cheered for Ye Qiu. Because just based on the ingredients, the selections of duck and ham by their Hua Country chef were significantly less prestigious than those from the other two countries.

The first dish served was soup. Mushroom chicken soup tasted fresh and delicious, Tom Yum soup was sweet and sour, and creamy mushroom soup was smooth and savory. All three chefs demonstrated exceptional skills, and the judges were faced with a tough call, but ultimately Ye Qiu took the lead with a slim margin of one or two votes, followed closely by the French chef.

The second dish served was foreign cuisine. Ye Qiu made grilled eel, but to her surprise, the other two chefs both chose to make Hua Country dishes—one made fish-fragrant shredded pork and the other made braised large shrimp. However, these two chefs clearly misunderstood Hua Country cuisine and added a bit of their own creativity, which seemed somewhat superfluous. Ye Qiu once again took the lead by a narrow margin.

After two rounds of scoring, the other two chefs were not under pressure. One reason was that the gap was not significant, and the other was that they were confident in their remaining dishes.