The State-Run Friendship Hotel rose above the capital's diplomatic district like a fortress of gray Soviet-style architecture. Inside, the private dining hall was a cavern of heavy mahogany paneling, thick crimson drapes, and the oppressive silence of absolute bureaucratic authority.
At the head of a long, pristine white-clothed table sat Colonel Jiang. She was a woman in her late sixties, her spine as rigid as a steel bayonet, wearing a crisp, unblemished retired military logistics uniform. Her silver hair was pinned back with severe precision, and her sharp, falcon-like eyes—the exact genetic source of Gu Shaozheng's terrifying gaze—were currently auditing the nineteen-year-old girl sitting across from her.
Gu Shaozheng sat to Lin Xi's right, his large frame projecting an unyielding, protective barrier, his gloved hands resting flat against the mahogany table.
"I have spent forty years managing the supply lines for three entire army corps, Miss Lin," Colonel Jiang stated, her voice carrying the clear, thundering resonance of a parade ground commander. She didn't touch her teacup. "I have broken corrupt grain suppliers, court-martialed black-market logistics officers, and audited the production lines of the largest state factories in the country. My son tells me you dismantled an entire southern underworld syndicate with a wooden paddle and a jar of chili paste."
"The syndicate failed because they treated their logistics like a street hustle, Colonel," Lin Xi replied smoothly, her voice dropping into an icy, razor-sharp clip that matched the old officer's cadence beat for beat. "I treat my kitchen like a military deployment. When the chemistry is exact, the market has no choice but to surrender."
Colonel Jiang's lips thinned into a dangerous line. "Arrogance is a cheap currency, little sister. Director Tang of the Maxim Group has already filed a formal complaint with the Ministry of Light Industry, claiming your new Western Gate factory lot is an irregular hazard to state commerce. He is introducing high-efficiency German manufacturing. You are introducing a rustic village recipe."
She gestured to the empty porcelain bowls before them with an absolute, unyielding hand.
"The State-Run Friendship Hotel has granted us the use of their private hearth for exactly forty-five minutes. My administrative staff has already prepared a standard military audit ledger. If your work cannot prove its industrial velocity right now... I will personally execute the executive order to freeze your machinery before the Maxim Group can file their lawsuits. Step behind the stove, Lin Xi. Let us see if your blade matches your mouth."
------------------------------
The private kitchen of the Friendship Hotel was an immaculate, cold expanse of state-tier stainless steel, glowing coal ranges, and a wall of polished copper woks. The hotel's executive chefs stood lined against the tile wall, their arms crossed in silent hostility as the teenage village girl invaded their line.
Lin Xi didn't waste a single second reviewing their premium pantry. Her 21st-century master-chef mindset instantly identified the perfect culinary weapon to completely shatter the old Colonel's traditional military palate: The Emperor's Iron-Plated Beef.
This wasn't a standard, slow-braised northern stew. It was a high-concept execution of flash-searing, extreme moisture retention, and deep chemical fermentation designed to trigger an immediate, primitive craving for flavor.
Moving with explosive, mechanical speed, Lin Xi seized a prime, fibrous cut of tough local flank steak. To a traditional 80s cook, this meat required hours of boiling to become chewable.
Lin Xi's silver blade blurred into a flashing sheet of light. Swish. Swish. Swish. She executed a series of microscopic, diamond-pattern scores across the grain, completely severing the tough connective tissues without puncturing the core of the muscle.
Next came the structural alchemy. She slammed the scored beef into a ceramic bowl, burying it beneath a thick, glistening marinade of her newly stabilized Sulfuric Gold sauce—the rich black-bean paste infused with volcanic stone-salt, wild chilies, and the potent, active Fermented Gold yeast culture.
The biological reaction was instantaneous. The high alkalinity of the volcanic salt and the ravenous living yeast cells aggressively attacked the dense proteins, tenderizing the tough flank steak at ten times the speed of any chemical additive.
"Bring me the heavy cast-iron platter!" Lin Xi barked at the head hotel cook, her voice cracking through the kitchen like a whip. "Fire the main coal range to maximum atmospheric heat! Now!"
She heated the massive iron plate until the metal turned a dangerous, shimmering ash-gray, radiating a blistering wall of raw heat. Dropping a precise dollop of seasoned aromatic lard onto the iron, she instantly followed it with the marinated beef.
CRAAAACKLE!
A thunderous, deafening roar of sizzling smoke and vaporized chili oil exploded from the iron plate, filling the kitchen with an intensely rich, smoky aroma of charred garlic, caramelized black beans, and the primal scent of seared meat. The active yeast cells flash-caramelized against the blistering iron, creating a deep, mirror-like crimson lacquer that locked every molecule of rich juice inside the scored beef.
Within exactly twelve minutes of entering the kitchen, Lin Xi used a thick leather cloth to lift the violently sizzling, white-hot iron platter, marching straight back into the private dining hall.
------------------------------
The iron platter hit the center of the mahogany table with a loud CLANG, the deep crimson glaze still bubbling like molten volcanic rock, spitting tiny droplets of aromatic lard into the air.
Colonel Jiang's nostrils involuntarily flared. Her stoic, military countenance cracked by a micro-millimeter as the hyper-pure umami fragrance hit her senses, causing her salivary glands to aggressively activate. For a woman who had spent forty years consuming bland, over-boiled military rations on the frozen borders, this smell was an absolute assault.
Without a single word, the retired Colonel lifted her bamboo chopsticks, seized a thick, glistening slice of the lacquered beef, and shoved it into her mouth.
The silence inside the mahogany room turned suffocatingly thick. Gu Shaozheng's hawk-like eyes remained locked on his mother's face, his jaw tight.
The Fermented Gold yeast didn't merely season the meat; it exploded against her palate. The tough, cheap flank steak didn't require chewing; the diamond-pattern scoring and the live culture had transformed the fiber into a silky, melting texture that dissolved effortlessly against her tongue. The volcanic black stone-salt provided a deep, smoky undercurrent that tasted of open woodfires and ancestral mountain dirt, followed by a sharp, clean chili kick that warmed her chest within seconds.
Colonel Jiang's hand froze mid-air. Her chopsticks trembled slightly. She swallowed slowly, her eyes wide as she stared down at the sizzling iron plate as if it were a high-tier piece of enemy artillery.
"The connective tissue... it is completely liquidated," the Colonel whispered, her commanding voice dropping into a raspy register of profound professional disbelief. "There is no chemical stabilizer in the state labs that can tenderize flank steak in twelve minutes without turning the meat into mush. This... this holds structural integrity. It tastes of the deep border camps, yet the engineering is completely flawless."
Lin Xi calmly wiped her hands on her clean linen cloth, leaning her palms against the table as she looked the old officer dead in the eye.
"That is not engineering, Colonel. That is the industrial velocity of The Xi Garden," Lin Xi stated, her voice projecting absolute commercial dominance. "Director Tang of the Maxim Group relies on foreign German preservatives because his luxury factories lack the brains to balance a natural culture line. My Sulfuric Gold sauce turns the cheapest, toughest cuts of state-allocated meat into an elite banquet within minutes. When the working class tastes this on the state shelves next month, your military barracks won't be able to buy enough crates to satisfy the soldiers."
Colonel Jiang stared at the nineteen-year-old girl for a long, agonizingly tense minute. Then, a short, booming bark of a laugh escaped her lips—a raw, legendary sound of pure administrative satisfaction.
She slammed her hand flat onto the mahogany table, looking up at her son with a fierce gleam in her eyes.
"You chose your target beautifully, Shaozheng," Colonel Jiang announced loudly, reaching into her uniform jacket and pulling out a heavy, red-inked administrative ledger bearing the supreme seal of the Military Logistics Command. She slapped it down into Lin Xi's hand.
"This is the official, national military procurement contract," the Colonel smirked, her face hardening into an expression of intense corporate warfare. "The Northern Command's supply division is officially locking down a mandatory advance order of five thousand crates of your Sulfuric Sauce a month, effective tomorrow morning. Let the Maxim Group file their pathetic civil lawsuits with the Industrial Bureau. If Director Tang attempts to block your factory gates now... he will be blocking a direct national defense supply line. Let us see how his German investors handle a military perimeter."
Lin Xi gripped the heavy logistics ledger, her eyes flashing with a predatory, modern fire as she looked at Gu Shaozheng. The highest glass ceiling in the capital's bureaucracy had been permanently shattered. The Xi Garden's industrial empire was now officially backed by the raw power of the state military machine—and the real war for the capital's shelves was about to begin.