Episode 3 recap: Zhao Jing Jing wants to team up with Li Nai to deal with Jiang Jie.
After catching Li Nai, Jiang Jie quickly let her go. To ease his own embarrassment, he intentionally blamed her for being careless. Li Nai muttered in her mouth that she was not scared by him. But when she heard Jiang Jie say that all employees at Chuncheng could take turns preparing the staff meals, including her as the warehouse administrator, she couldn't help but jump with joy.
The rotation of staff meals was a recent rule set by Jiang Jie as the head chef. Originally, the employee who was supposed to prepare the first staff meal was Chen Duo, who started working at the same time as Li Nai. However, Chen Duo wanted Li Nai to take the lead because the ingredients were not ready. Li Nai naturally welcomed the opportunity. She made wonton as the staff meal. After making the wontons, she served a bowl to each person. Some colleagues couldn't help but praise her after tasting it. However, when Jiang Jie picked up the bowl and smelled it, he put it back far away and then turned and went into the kitchen.
Seeing Jiang Jie's reaction, Li Nai angrily chased after him and explained the process of making the wontons. Because she couldn't delay the head chef's cooking, she could only use the stove during breaks and use the leftover ingredients from the chef. She worked hard to make the wontons, and even though she didn't expect credit, Jiang Jie didn't even want to taste them, which she found very difficult to understand.
After hearing Li Nai's explanation, Jiang Jie suddenly asked her if she had added conch to the wontons. When Li Nai shook her head, he pointed out without hesitation that since there was a fishy smell of conch in the wontons without adding it, it meant that she didn't clean the cutting board that had been used to cut the conch when making the filling. Then he pointed out several other flaws in Li Nai's work.
Li Nai was convinced by Jiang Jie's criticisms. However, because Jiang Jie criticized Xue Congming while pointing out the flaws, she stubbornly claimed that Jiang Jie was intentionally nitpicking. Jiang Jie, seeing that she refused to admit her mistake, sternly said that if she wanted to stay at Chuncheng, she had to accept his rules, otherwise, she could leave.
In a fit of anger, Li Nai decided to resign. She told Jiang Jie explicitly that she had another purpose in applying to Chuncheng, and that he had no good intentions in keeping her. Seeing that Li Nai was really about to leave, Jiang Jie deliberately reminded her that she still owed him a meal. This reminded Li Nai of the scene where she was chased by the law enforcement officers that day.
Jiang Jie also told Li Nai that he appointed her as the warehouse administrator not to humiliate her, but because he valued her keen sense of smell. On the day of the interview, she was able to quickly pick out the box of fennel seeds that contained a few grains of Sichuan pepper.
The two of them arrived at Zhao Yeqing Restaurant, and Jiang Jie had already ordered the Chef's Tasting Menu. Jiang Jie asked Li Nai to remember the taste of each dish. After Jiang Jie left, Li Nai was taking selfies when Zhao Jing Jing, the head chef of Zhao Yeqing Restaurant, suddenly approached her and proposed teaming up to defeat Jiang Jie. Jiang Jie had already anticipated that Zhao Jing Jing would approach Li Nai, so he had instructed her to inform him immediately if Zhao Jing Jing did so.
Li Nai hesitated about whether to tell Jiang Jie about the proposal while she was heading home in the pouring rain. Just as she was contemplating, Jiang Jie appeared carrying a thermos. After Jiang Jie left, Li Nai discovered that it contained ginger syrup. The next day, Li Nai was taking her father to a welfare home. As she walked out the door holding her father's hand, Jiang Jie happened to see them from upstairs, involuntarily recalling the scene of Li Nai as a child, holding her father's hand and laughing.
When Li Nai returned, Jiang Jie granted her a day off and took advantage of her keen sense of smell to accompany him to buy dried tangerine peel. In Baichuan, the most famous type of dried tangerine peel was the Xinhui Ten-Year Dried Tangerine Peel. The two of them found Mr. Qiao, who sold the dried tangerine peel, and coincidentally encountered Mr. Zhong, who had come to buy it as well. Jiang Jie wanted to buy the Xinhui Ten-Year Dried Tangerine Peel, and he made a bet with Mr. Zhong, asking Li Nai to identify the authentic ten-year Xinhui dried tangerine peel among Mr. Qiao's selection. If Mr. Zhong lost, he would treat them to a meal.
In the end, Li Nai successfully identified the authentic ten-year Xinhui dried tangerine peel. To make sure Mr. Zhong accepted the defeat gracefully, Li Nai explicitly stated that the other type of dried tangerine peel was a five-year-old one bought in Xinhui and then aged for an additional five years in Baichuan. When Mr. Zhong went to cook, Jiang Jie finally told Li Nai that Mr. Zhong was the former head chef of Zhao Yeqing Restaurant, known for his signature dish of braised pork with abalone.
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