"Earlier, I explained the first two methods—look and smell. Next come ask, touch, and weigh..."
"What 'ask' means is asking seniors, asking vendors, asking anyone who knows. Ask them what kind of produce it is, what its quality is like, and what kinds of dishes it suits."
A surprisingly plain method—but for complete beginners, it was also the most practical. As long as one was willing to open one's mouth, many problems could be solved with ease.
"As for 'touch,' that means judging through contact—feeling the texture of the fruit or vegetable. Apples and potatoes are relatively firm on the surface, while tomatoes and peaches are softer and springier. Every fruit and vegetable has its own feel, and if you pay close attention, you can tell the difference."
"And finally, 'weigh' means estimating the weight. The heavier one usually contains more moisture, with flesh that is fuller and firmer.
"Of course, that requires a fair amount of experience. As long as you master the first three methods, you'll already be able to deal with the vast majority of produce on the market."
Pointing to the fruits and vegetables spread throughout the garden, Liu Anqing patiently taught the three children how to choose ingredients.
Because this was the Nakiri family's private plot, meant mostly for self-sufficiency, it contained a wide variety of crops—there was a bit of everything.
The tomatoes were plump and full. The pumpkins were broad and solid. Cucumbers hung from their trellises, green from top to bottom. Sweet peppers dangled from the branches like colorful lanterns.
On the outermost edge stood rows of corn as upright as guards, their ears wrapped in layers of husk. The kernels inside were neatly arranged, golden and full, looking as though they would burst with juice.
It was autumn.
The very season when fruits and vegetables reached full ripeness.
One adult and three little children moved through the garden, their gazes drifting from one plant to another, eyes full of curiosity.
Liu Anqing stopped in front of an eggplant plant and gently pressed a finger into one of the eggplants, feeling that perfect bit of spring in its flesh. Then he said to the three children, "The skill of 'touch' lies in the fingertips. Too hard means it's under-ripe. Too soft means it's past its best. The judgment depends entirely on the picker's experience."
He casually plucked the eggplant and placed it into the basket he carried, then walked over to the cucumber trellis beside it.
The green cucumber was covered in fine little prickles. He picked one up, weighed it in his palm, and handed it to Alice, who stood closest to him.
"Here, feel it. This one's full of water—definitely crisp."
Alice took it curiously, obediently weighing it a few times in her hand. Then she compared it with a slightly smaller cucumber she was already holding, lifting her brows before speaking hesitantly.
"Mm... this one really does feel more solid. But fresh cucumbers have so many little prickles on them—they kind of poke your hand..."
"It's perfectly normal for cucumbers to have little prickles. Just wash them before eating. That right there is what we call 'weighing.' An experienced picker can tell the quality as soon as they lift it."
Liu Anqing laughed as he spoke, his gaze sweeping over to Fang Ye, who was also comparing the weights of two cucumbers of nearly identical size, his brows knit tightly together.
"But like I said earlier, master look and smell first. The rest can come gradually. Even experienced chefs often struggle to gain much advantage with the 'weigh' method—something as subtle as feel is just too elusive."
The reason weigh was placed last in the Five Methods was precisely because of its difficulty. For a human being, truly grasping the slightest change in weight was incredibly, incredibly hard.
Using an electronic scale would admittedly be much easier.
Of course, there was another way—
to possess the talent known as Super Touch.
The light-as-a-feather precision of Super Touch was like a highly accurate electronic scale. Simply by picking something up, one could determine its exact weight.
For a chef, that was an outrageous talent. If Super Taste was powerful because it excelled at post-meal analysis, then the strength of Super Touch lay in real-time performance.
"Pick out the fruits and vegetables you think are the best and put them in the basket over here. Ten kinds each, maximum. If you're unsure about anything, come ask me."
Seeing how lively the three children were, Liu Anqing decided to let them practice. After a few simple instructions, he strolled to the edge of the garden, found a shady spot beneath a tree, and sat down there, fanning himself lazily with his straw hat, looking thoroughly content.
"Then let's compete! The vegetables I pick are definitely going to be the best!"
Watching Liu Anqing leave, and thinking of the task he had assigned them, Alice Nakiri's fighting spirit was instantly ignited. Her face lit up with fiery determination.
"Fine by me. I'm definitely going to be first!"
There was no way Erina Nakiri could accept a challenge like that quietly. Hands on her hips, she declared her confidence without hesitation.
Having grown used to being praised by everyone around her, she possessed absolute confidence in herself. Even though this was her first time learning the Five Methods, she still felt certain she could master them quickly.
"The God Tongue doesn't give any bonus when it comes to picking ingredients. What really matters is how seriously you learn."
"And what makes you think I'm not serious?"
"When Grandpa Qing was picking produce just now, you weren't even paying attention to him."
"Oh? And what about you? If you were busy watching me the whole time, doesn't that mean you weren't paying attention either?"
"Whatever. I'm going to win!"
"People who talk big wet the bed at night."
"Fang Ye, what do you think? Which of us is better?"
"Exactly. Who are you supporting?"
Seeing that neither could win the argument for the moment, Alice and Erina both turned their attention to Fang Ye, flanking him from the left and right.
"I support myself."
Fang Ye gently set down the tomato he had been holding, letting it hang naturally from the vine again. He looked at the two girls calmly, though a trace of helplessness showed in his expression.
These two really were something else.
The moment they had any disagreement, they always dragged him in as the mediator.
They were only three years old, yet more energetic and argumentative than seven- or eight-year-olds.
Come to think of it, with how quickly they developed, three-year-olds who looked like four- or five-year-olds—was that a bloodline thing? The Nakiri family really was mysterious.
Since Fang Ye had grown up in an orphanage in his previous life, once he got older he had helped take care of younger children too. Many three-year-olds barely had coherent language skills; even their arguments were adorably nonsensical.
Erina Nakiri and Alice Nakiri, however, were different. In Fang Ye's eyes they were still childish, of course, but they already had basic logical ability—closer to five- or six-year-olds.
And even among children of that level, they were on the smarter side.
"So there's another competitor now, huh."
Alice did not seem at all surprised by Fang Ye's answer.
"What shameless confidence. Just wait—I'll make the two of you feel utterly inferior with the facts! I'm going over there, so don't follow me."
Erina huffed with a bit of tsundere pride, then headed off toward the left side of the garden.
"Then I'll go to the right."
Alice went off toward the right, her steps light and springy, excitement glittering on her face. Clearly, she was looking forward to this competition immensely.
"But in the end, they're still just kids."
Watching the two sisters all fired up, Fang Ye shook his head and muttered to himself, then continued wandering through the patch where the tomatoes were growing.
Compared to the other fruits and vegetables, he understood tomatoes much better. So he decided to use them as his breakthrough point and try to unlock the skill Liu Anqing had been teaching.
After a huge amount of practice, Fang Ye had discovered that unlocking a skill was not actually that hard. For example, when he unlocked the Cutting skill, all he had done was cut ingredients down to a size suitable for cooking.
What became hard was raising the proficiency afterward.
The Beginner stage was easy.
Initial Insight was not that difficult either. Using potatoes as an example, it only required slicing them.
To reach Proficient, slicing had to advance into julienning.
Then at Minor Mastery, the difficulty rose again. It was no longer enough just to cut potatoes into strips—every strip needed uniform thickness, and even the speed of cutting mattered.
That was the stage he was currently stuck at.
Still, after an enormous amount of practice, he could clearly feel his knife skills improving.
This proficiency system was not like certain cheat abilities that directly stuffed experience into one's brain. It truly required him to train bit by bit.
The difference was that the quantified data made it much easier to stay motivated.
That said, in the moment a skill leveled up, there really was a feeling like the Ren and Du meridians had suddenly been opened—like instant enlightenment after understanding a martial art manual.
Of course, the accumulation had to come first.
Time passed continuously as he searched through the tomatoes.
After all that hands-on practice, Fang Ye had gradually begun to grasp the method, but he still had not picked a single tomato.
He walked steadily through the patch, memorizing where the good tomatoes were growing, comparing them in his mind, and finally selecting the three he believed were best.
Among those three, he already felt he knew which one was the best choice—
but before settling on it, he still needed Liu Anqing's confirmation.
"Grandpa Qing, I picked out three tomatoes. Which one do you think is the best quality?"
"These three are all excellent tomatoes. But if I absolutely had to choose, then the one on the left is a bit better. It's a very standard tomato."
Holding the three freshly picked tomatoes, Fang Ye went over to Liu Anqing and asked him for his judgment. The moment Liu Anqing saw the tomatoes Fang Ye had selected, surprise showed on his face. He clearly had not expected the boy to learn so well, so quickly.
Even though Fang Ye was asking which one was best, every single tomato he had chosen was already top quality.
"That's what I thought too. The color, aroma, skin firmness, even the weight ratio of the three are all about the same. The only real difference is their size.
"The middle one is slightly too large, the one on the right is a bit too small, and only the one on the left is just right—exactly like the perfect tomato shown in textbook photos!"
Hearing Liu Anqing confirm his judgment, Fang Ye's lips curved upward.
That had been his answer all along.
At the same moment, the system notification sounded in his mind.
[Detected that under Liu Anqing's guidance, the Host has studied the subtleties of the Five Methods. Skill unlocked: Five Methods of Produce Evaluation (Blue).]
[Five Methods of Produce Evaluation (Blue)]: By using the five methods—look, smell, ask, touch, and weigh—the quality of fruit and vegetable ingredients can be determined.
[Proficiency]: Beginner (1/100)
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