Culinary God in Wilderness

The production team’s trio had just left the camp when Hei’s shout echoed from the clifftop.

"Lin! I’m throwing it!"

Without waiting for a reaction from below, he casually tossed a black dot over the edge.

’Throwing... throwing what??’

’The pot??’

Lin Chen jumped, startled, and instinctively took a few steps back. Only then did he notice a familiar miniature parachute unfurl above the black dot—or rather, it was more accurate to call it a handkerchief bundle, the kind you often see in cartoons like Tom and Jerry.

’The surrounding area is covered in thick snow. As long as it doesn’t smash into a building, it probably would have been fine even without a parachute.’

When the soup pot drifted down into the yard, Lin Chen walked over to pick it up. Suddenly, he felt that something was off.

"Huh?"

The sparkling clean bottom of the pot showed no signs of being used over a fire. It was a brand new pot!

’That Hei is a stand-up guy!’

"Lin, have you decided who you’re going to partner with today?"

The two large men, Connor and Andre, stood in the snow staring at him expectantly, a trace of anxiety clear on their faces.

Connor hadn’t really had any idea of Lin Chen’s skills before. His own farm was large and located in the remote outskirts, far from the city. He lived a self-sufficient life and didn’t often go into town.

Even when it came to business, suppliers would send people in vans and trucks to his farm to pick up goods. At the very least, his employees would handle it, so he didn’t have to go running around himself.

But just now, he had smelled that alluring aroma from a long way off, even before he entered the camp, stirring the glutton in him that had long lain dormant.

Combined with the information the production team had revealed during his last physical, there had to be something special about this young chef from Great Xia for him to top this season’s popularity charts in such a short time.

’Without a doubt, it has to be his cooking skills!’

Plus, having seen the production team members eat with such utter abandon, it would be a lie to say he wasn’t tempted.

’I came all this way; I want to taste some delicious food, too!’

Facing their two eager gazes, Lin Chen felt the situation was a bit tricky.

"Since there’s no better way to decide right now, how about this: we’ll let your skills decide."

He suddenly had a great idea.

"Last time, Andre hunted a Dorper Sheep of about fifty kilograms and left it with me. That will be his main food for today. In exchange, I’ll cook it for him using my own collected ingredients and the rare seasonings I just traded for. The price is that all the leftover meat belongs to me."

The implication was that Andre was footing the bill for the processing, seasonings, and side ingredients himself.

Andre had no objections to this. He wasn’t short on food; he was mainly here to improve his meals.

God only knew how hard the past ten days had been for him since he’d gone back.

He had originally thought the hardest parts of survival would be getting food and enduring the severe cold. But ever since tasting Lin Chen’s cooking, he’d discovered the hardest part was tolerating his own god-awful culinary skills!

After eating a feast, having to go back to eating slop was enough to make anyone break down.

"Connor, if you can bring back a catch of similar weight, or heavier, or rarer, within one hour, I’ll prioritize serving you. Andre, any objections?"

"That’s a good method," Andre said, nodding in agreement.

’There’s no more convincing outcome than one decided by a contest of personal hunting ability. That guy isn’t a professional outdoorsman, but with a wolf cub to help him, finding prey shouldn’t be too hard.’

The question was whether the pair could find and successfully bring back a catch weighing over fifty kilograms in such a short time.

"This is the only way."

Connor didn’t hesitate and agreed on the spot. "But there’s one problem. How do we define one hour?"

"That’s simple."

Lin Chen looked up at the sky and pointed at the sun, which was still in the east, peeking out from behind the clouds.

"We’ll use that to tell time."

"What do you mean? You can tell what time it is just by looking at the sun’s position?"

"No," Lin Chen said, shaking his head. He raised his hand with a mysterious smile. "But I can roughly estimate the passage of one hour."

As Connor watched in confusion, Lin Chen gestured for him to follow him into the shelter and up to the second floor.

Andre followed behind. Being more experienced, he seemed to have guessed what was coming but didn’t say anything, wanting to see if the kid could surprise him any further.

Leaning against the second-floor railing, Lin Chen extended his arm straight out, held four fingers together with his palm facing him, aligned his pinky with the horizon, and then stacked his other hand on top.

"There will be some margin of error depending on factors like height and arm length, but it allows for a rough estimate. Each finger’s width represents about 15 minutes of the sun’s travel."

"So, four fingers represent one hour. In early November, sunrise in Alaska is around 5:45 a.m., which means the current time is about... 9:30 a.m."

The number surprised even him as he said it.

He used to go through his days in a daze, with no real concept of time. He never expected that when he actually took it seriously and calculated, it was much earlier than he had guessed.

Alaska is right next to the Arctic Circle. The closer it gets to winter, the earlier the sun rises, which is the opposite of how it is in Great Xia.

Likewise, the sunset would also be earlier.

’So that’s why sunset has been around 5 p.m. lately. No wonder I haven’t felt sleepy at all when I go to bed. It was probably only nine or ten o’clock, right?’

"So, you’re saying that once the sun has moved four finger-widths up from its current position, that’s one hour, and I have to be back by then, right?"

"That’s right."

Connor measured with his own hand, then returned to the yard and pondered for a moment, likely considering what prey he could hunt at this time to have a chance of winning.

Andre stood beside Lin Chen and said in a low voice, "Not bad, Lin. You even know this method. Where’d you learn it?"

"Bear Grylls taught it on his show."

Lin Chen looked at him with a grin. "So? Feeling the pressure? Do you think he can beat you?"

"Pressure? What pressure? There aren’t many animals active during the day. Plus, with the snow, visibility and movement are hindered, making hunting even harder. That wolf cub of his is useless for anything besides tracking scents."

"The large game active during the day are mainly Dorper Sheep, Musk Ox, North American Bison, Black Bears, brown bears, white-tailed deer, red deer, and moose."

"He can’t handle prey that’s too big by himself, and he can’t haul it back either. His target range should be around sixty kilograms. That weight eliminates a lot of targets, so he’s most likely limited to white-tailed deer and Dorper Sheep... unless he wants to risk his life to bring back a wolf."

Andre looked very relaxed as he pointed ahead.

"Look, he’s about to set off. Let’s wait and see."