Your stream has been approved. Please give your channel a name.
A channel's name is its face. She was streaming for her life, and for the sake of her life, she couldn't be careless with the name!
Jiang Qiuqiu took a deep breath and slowly typed the phrase in her head onto the screen.
...
That day, Terry was browsing the food section for new streamers, just as he always did.
Terry was one of the Mixed Species from the Federation's New Star. Due to incomplete evolution, he carried the genes of the Wolf Clan. These genes granted him superior strength and exceptional spiritual power, but they also gave him an incredibly sensitive tongue.
From a young age, drinking Nutrient Liquid felt, to him, infinitely more like eating crap than it did to anyone else. (No, seriously!)
He figured his people were probably the one group in the entire Federation that most desperately hoped the culinary traditions of the great Blue Star would never be lost.
Lost in his thoughts, Terry noticed an odd one out among the new streamers for the day.
Amid a sea of titles like #Recreating Ancient Earth Scrambled Eggs#, #Exploring Ways to Eat Ga-Ga Duck#, and #Classic Ancient Earth Cuisine#, a long, rambling title instantly caught Terry's eye: #SHOCKING! Why are men, women, old, and young all crying? It's because they ate—#
'What did they eat? Was it so bad it made them cry?'
With that thought, he clicked into the stream. His first impression was disappointment. 'Oh, another poor soul from the slums hoping to change their fate with a food stream. Look at this cheap kitchen, this cheap virtual chef avatar, and this streaming sensor that's been obsolete for eight hundred years... If you're going to stream, at least get some decent gear.'
But very quickly, he found himself drawn in.
Jiang Qiuqiu couldn't help it. She knew the channel name was a bit shameless, but at this point, her pride didn't matter anymore!
'And what do you know, the stream had been live for less than a minute, and someone was already here!'
She had chosen a partial view that didn't show her face. Only her hands were visible—delicate, smooth, and slightly chubby. The little dimples on her knuckles looked especially cute on camera.
#Terry is a wolf: Your hands are so small, streamer. Are you secretly using your parents' account to stream?#
"Welcome, Terry is a wolf, to my food stream. I'm your host, Jiang Juju."
The arrival of her first viewer made her pause, a flicker of joy running through her. His question, however, was a bit unexpected. "Nope," she said, "I am already an adult."
'Still, getting a viewer is a good start.'
She quickly composed herself and picked up a prepared cutlet. "Today on the menu, we have Fried Gugu Cutlets. For this, we're using the loin from a Gugu Beast that's about a year old."
"Once you have your meat, the first step is to cut it into thick slices, about a finger's width—"
#Just start frying it like that?#
At some point, a second viewer had joined the stream.
Jiang Qiuqiu answered while she continued to slice the meat. "Nope. After you've sliced the meat, you take your knife and use the back of the blade to tenderize the Gugu cutlet by breaking up the sinews."
#Whoa, the streamer's voice is so sweet! Why not show your face to get more viewers?#
As she spoke, a few more viewers trickled in.
Jiang Qiuqiu chuckled. "Thank you, but I'd rather not show my face for now."
Fried cutlets were a very common snack, so for Jiang Qiuqiu, this dish presented no challenge at all.
She had used the back of a knife to score a crosshatch pattern into meat countless times!
Jiang Qiuqiu's eyes were completely focused, and her hands moved with incredible speed. The bright silver knife rose and fell, tenderizing the Gugu meat.
The handful of viewers in the stream were stunned by this technique.
#Terry is a wolf: Is she drawing on it??#
Just then, a few more people joined the stream, all wondering the same thing as Terry. 'Can you even eat meat after it's been mangled like that?'
"Of course," she explained. "Tenderizing the meat breaks down the sinews in the Gugu Beast, which makes it much more delicious."
Soon, the cutlets on the board were thinner and larger. Jiang Qiuqiu pressed one with her finger, feeling that the texture was just right.
She lifted a finished cutlet, holding it up to show them.
"Just like this. You'll want to tenderize it until it's about this consistency."
Next, she began preparing the crust. She cracked an egg from some unknown bird and pulled out a bowl of breadcrumbs she'd prepared earlier.
Jiang Qiuqiu dipped a cutlet into the beaten egg, coating it completely.
Comments quickly flooded the chat:
Terry is a wolf: My god, what is the streamer doing? Gugu meat already has a strong taste, and the egg wash smells even stronger. Are you mixing them to make some kind of cursed dish?
AlwaysEating: Is that even edible...?
"It's edible," she assured them. "Coating it with the egg and breadcrumbs before frying gives it a much richer texture and makes it extra crispy."
As she spoke, Jiang Qiuqiu uncovered a pot of preheated oil and held her hand over it to test the temperature.
A few viewers left, unable to stomach Jiang Qiuqiu's seemingly bizarre cooking methods.
But others, drawn in by the clickbait title, found the scene novel and decided to keep watching. Terry was one of them. 'Meat...' After all, people with Wolf Clan Genes loved nothing more than meat.
If it wasn't so difficult to prepare properly, he'd happily eat it every single day.
'Might as well stick around,' he thought. 'You never know!'