Chapter Text
Haaaa… Amber’s face had a blank expression. I’m screwed, why did I agree to this?!
Xiangling, Kazuha and Keqing sat at the judging table. Both Kazuha and Keqing were notorious for disliking poorly made food. Kazuha so much so that when Yoimiya left his lunch in the microwave for too long, decided to go hungry instead of eating his slightly burnt food.
What was Xiangling thinking bringing both of them at once?!
Amber looked at Yoimiya who didn’t seem to be nervous that Kazuha might still have a grudge against her for ruining his food. The other contestants were Fischl— who looked overly confident but clueless and Chongyun who also looked as nervous as Amber was feeling.
“So today you’ll be making a warm dish with fowl as the main ingredient. Other ingredients are allowed. Your sous chef, who is picked randomly and may do anything they want to your dish, must be the one to prepare every other additional ingredient. The only equipment you’re permitted to use are the ones you can find in the studio so get creative! Remember, only one contestant and their sous chef if they have one at the current time may be in a room at once. Alright, decide your dish and get cooking!” Xiangling said cheerfully.
Amber felt her soul drain from her body. Uh, a sweet madame should be a safe option right? I- I’ll just make that. Amber ran to grab a whole chicken.
“Looks like Amber already decided on something!” Venti announced.
Fischl collapsed on the floor. I’m done for, I can’t cook Oz’s friends!
“Oh, it seems like Fischl died.” Zhongli, who is also an announcer, commented.
“Get it together Fischl! You’re making yourself look bad!” Venti called.
I’ll make chicken tofu pudding, let’s avoid the chilies, Chongyun decided.
Yoimiya spaced out. Konda cuisine sounds good right now, I should make it.
Kazuha felt a shiver through his spine.
“What’s wrong?” Xiangling asked.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Kazuha mumbled.
“Oh come on, just spit it out if you can’t swallow it!” Xiangling encouraged.
Amber looked around for anything that can be used to butcher the chicken. She found a knife in the break room which was good enough. Once she had broken down the chicken, she went to get a lemon.
“Looks like Amber is back and is already moving on to her second ingredient,” Venti pointed to Amber. “Meanwhile, Fischl is still dead.”
Xiangling spun a wheel. “Amber’s sous chef will be Rosaria!”
Amber waved nervously. Rosaria wasn’t known for being friendly. “Let’s cook the chicken,” Amber said.
Rosaria grabbed the lemon and a fist full of herbs and shoved it in the bird carcass. She then grabbed a nearby rose bush and tied the chicken with the thorny branches. “I’m out of here. I’ve got better things to do.” Rosaria walked away.
“Th-thanks!” Amber called after her, intimidated.
Chongyun collected his vegetables and chicken.
“Let’s roll the wheel! Hu Tao, give Chongyun a hand!”
Hu Tao looked at the chicken. “I have a wire cutter in my pocket right now. That would work right?”
Chongyun swiftly shook his head. “Um, we should go to the break room and get a knife.”
The two made their way to the break room and Hu Tao started breaking the chicken down. Chongyun backed away from her seemingly random knife waving.
“All done!” Hu Tao waved, “see ya later.”
“Thank you,” Chongyun said. Hu Tao had done a good job of taking the bones out. Despite this, Chongyun still doubted her cooking abilities.
Onto the soup stock next.
Amber saw Chongyun already in the break room. Darn, I can’t enter that room. She had to find another way to cook her chicken.
“Amber,” Bennett ran up to her. “I heard what you were doing. Are you going to be ok?” Bennett was concerned for Amber. Too many times has he seen her burn her meal. He considered her a comrade when it came to misfortune but that wasn’t good.
“I think so? I need to find some way to cook this though. The break room is off limits.”
“Should we check the other break room? It’s on the other end of this building.”
“Good idea. Worst case scenario we could try to sneak into the main studio.”
“Wouldn’t you be disqualified for breaking the rules?”
Bennett and Amber passed by the rehearsal rooms. They saw Yoimiya in the other break room with Ei, who were screaming about potatoes.
“This one is full too.” Amber said with dismay.
Bennett looked at Amber, “how about we try using those super strong overhead lights to warm the meat?”
“We would have to enter a rehearsal room to get one. We might disturb some people.”
“They’re already getting disturbed anyways,” Bennett said. “You guys are kind of distracting so I came out to try and help.”
“Oh! Can we just go to your room and steal a light from there?”
“Razor is still in there right now but sure.”
Razor looked at the chicken in Amber’s arms. “Why bring chicken here?”
“Razor, could you help us get a overhead light?”
Razor stared at Bennett, “what?”
“You know, I’ll attach myself to a harness and then you lift me up.” Razor slowly nodded.
Bennett was lifted up, “huh, how should I get this thing down?”
Yoimiya held the completed bowls in her hands. Ayaka helped her carry the third bowl. They slowly walked back to the judges, trying not to spill anything along the way. They heard a loud crash in one of the rooms. Yoimiya and Ayaka were startled.
“Did you drop anything?” Ayaka asked.
“No, but that really scared me! What happened there?”
Eula burst out of the opposite room. “What is with all of that noise?! Vengeance will be mine.”
Eula walked into the room and found Bennett crushed by an overhead light, Razor looking guilty and Amber who was trying to put out a fire on a sweet madame. All of them were covered in smoke.
“What happened here?” Eula demanded.
“We tried to cook the chicken with the light for the Xiangling’s cooking show. Sorry if we disturbed your dance practice.”
Eula shook her head exasperated, “do you need help? I’ll carry that back for you.”
Amber handed her the burnt sweet madame. “I still need to put honey on it since I didn’t cook it normally.”
They returned to see Xiao and Keqing arguing with each other while Ganyu was trying to calm them down.
“Chongyun, Yoimiya, why are they arguing?”
Yoimiya shrugged, “I just got here too.”
Chongyun sighed, “Xiao got picked to be my sous chef for an ingredient. Keqing made a comment about how he couldn’t cook well and now they’re having a debate.”
“Why is Ganyu here?”
“She was called in to be a witness I guess.”
Amber ignored the two and went to grab her honey and peas.
Xiangling spun the wheel again. “Albedo, you’ll help with the peas and Lisa can handle the honey.”
Amber gave them her ingredients.
Albedo looked at the chicken, “a sweet madame I presume?”
“Yes.”
“Alright, I’ll sauté the peas for you.” Amber thanked him.
Lisa dumped half of the honey jar onto the sweet madame, “if your dish is that burnt then you should put a lot of honey to override the flavor.”
The chicken is drowning! Amber internally cried. “Thank you Lisa…”
Chongyun, Amber and Yoimiya presented their dish to the judges.
“Only three of us? What happened to Fischl?” Amber asked.
“Fischl has been disqualified because she refused to cook,” Venti explained.
Kazuha looked at the dishes with disgust on his face— an emotion that he failed to hide.
“Keqing, Kazuha, let’s begin the taste testing.” Xiangling pasted out portions of each dish.
“Let’s try Amber’s first.”
Keqing bit into the piece of charcoal, the ashy meat crumbling into soot and mixing with the the thick honey on her tongue leaving the taste of burnt rubber in her mouth. Keqing slammed down her fork and started violently choking. Ganyu gave Keqing a cup of water. Keqing snatched the liquid and gulped it down. The water mixed with the burnt chicken and honey which created a plaster like texture in her throat.
Xiao picked up Keqing who was halfway to death. “We’ll be back after CPR.” Xiao and Ganyu left with Keqing— who at the current time, had none of the grace she would normally have as an actress and a runway model.
Kazuha gulped, he did not want to touch that chicken. Especially after he saw what happened to Keqing.
Xiangling spit out the piece that was in her mouth. She felt like her tongue was shriveling. “This was certainly something… Hehe,” she nervously laughed.
Kazuha nibbled his piece, the unpleasantness spread across his tongue. He grabbed his bucket and projectile vomited.
Amber could fear the dread creep up her spine. I’ll be arrested for murder! End up in prison! Executed for my organs!
She hugged Eula, “goodbye Eula. It’s been nice knowing you and searching for my grandfather.”
Eula patted Amber on the shoulder reassuringly, “you’re going to be fine.”
Keqing walked back to her seat.
“You ok?” Kazuha asked. Keqing nodded.
Xiangling tried to restore order after Keqing returned. “So the next dish is Yoimiya’s.”
Kazuha immediately sighed, “this isn’t good.”
“Hey!” Yoimiya yelled accusingly.
“My pallet is confused. Is this dish supposed to be sweet, salty, savory, sour, bitter, minty or spicy? Why do all the ingredients taste so different? Did you not let their flavors harmonize?”
“Yes, I agree with Kazuha.” Keqing gestured towards the bowl, “this dish has an identity crisis.”
“It pretty interesting,” Xiangling said. She thoughtfully chewed on the morsel in her mouth, “an adventurous dish indeed!”
Ei poked her head out from around a corner. “So I didn’t completely mess up?”
Kazuha glared at her, “in your dreams.”
“Next up, Chongyun’s.”
The three were greeted with a lump of cold chicken on a bed of soup stock shaved ice.
“M.” Keqing and Kazuha hummed in unison.
“Xiao. You should’ve left this dish alone.”
“Don’t blame just me. Both Chongyun and I had the urge to eat popsicles and we had nothing but soup stock available.”
Ganyu jabbed Xiao in the side. “I’ll buy a pack of popsicles after work.”
Xiangling made a thumbs up. “Not bad! Definitely different!”
Kazuha pushed the bowl away, “I’ve made my decision.”
“Same here,” Keqing nodded.
The judges talked amongst themselves. Xiangling seemed to be arguing with the two other judges.
Kazuha gave Venti a piece of paper with the winner’s name on it.
Venti looked at the angry scribbles on the paper and giggled.
“The winner is Fischl! The majority of the judges believe that her dish of air that she served them was the perfect fowl dish. 10/10 absolutely can’t live without it.”
Zhongli held up the golden battle frying pan. “Fischl has earned herself the Gouba Battle Pan award.” He handed it to a stunned Fischl who was dragged back into the room by Ei.
“Congratulations!” Were yelled out over the applause.