It was a luxurious French meal.
At least in Gu Yebai’s eyes, tonight’s dinner deserved to be treated seriously.
He had specifically changed into a dark suit.
The tailoring was a perfect fit.
His white shirt was meticulously ironed with a neat collar, layered under a dark gray suit jacket.
He looked clean, yet he still carried a hint of youthfulness that had not yet fully faded.
This was the greatest level of respect he could think to offer this dinner.
Gao Hongyi, sitting across from him, appeared far more composed.
She wore a simple, elegantly cut red dress.
The hem fell just below her knees with clean lines and no unnecessary decorations.
The lines of her shoulders and neck were perfectly exposed, her skin appearing pale and cool under the candlelight.
She wore only a very fine necklace around her throat.
This outfit was not meant to show off.
It was simply for the sake of this damn sense of ritual.
At first, everything went smoothly.
However, halfway through the meal, Gu Yebai noticed that Gao Hongyi had already placed her knife and fork side by side back on the plate.
Her movements were gentle, making no sound at all.
Then, her body leaned back unconsciously, as if she had already reached a certain judgment and would no longer continue eating.
Gu Yebai noticed this.
He remembered clearly that Gao Hongyi had mentioned more than once that in French table etiquette, such a move was extremely rude.
This was not ‘pausing the meal.’
Instead, it was a silent announcement — this dish was not worth being taken seriously; it was exquisite garbage.
“Uncle Bai,” Gao Hongyi suddenly spoke.
“What do you think of tonight’s dinner?”
She still wore a smile.
However, that smile lingered too perfectly, making it seem deliberate.
“I think it tastes quite good,” Gu Yebai replied seriously.
“There are many dishes here that I’m eating for the first time today. For example, the foie gras and the beef bourguignon — I’ve never had them before. They’re really delicious.”
He thought for a moment and added, “And the decor of this place is impressive. It feels… like I’ve actually arrived in Paris. The wine cabinets filled with red wine and the oil paintings on the walls have a very Renaissance feel. The tablecloth is so white and refined as well.”
Gao Hongyi nodded slowly.
Even if Uncle Bai didn’t truly find it delicious, he would certainly say so because she was the one who had personally chosen the restaurant.
And precisely because of that, the displeasure in her heart became even clearer.
Today was supposed to be a perfect and important link.
Candlelight, red wine, and French cuisine.
Everything should have proceeded accurately according to her design.
Yet right here, an unignorable deviation had appeared.
A pity.
It was truly such a pity.
“Please go and call the head chef,” Gao Hongyi’s voice was very soft.
Yet it felt like that brief, oppressive silence before a storm.
“Yes.”
The waiter did not hesitate and turned to leave immediately.
He had certainly noticed this pair of guests.
Even if they didn’t look very old, one couldn’t see any obvious logos on their clothes or accessories.
This was precisely the most dangerous signal.
Truly expensive ready-to-wear clothing often came from semi-bespoke or full-bespoke systems; they didn’t need recognizable logos.
Clothes of this caliber easily cost 100,000 or even several hundred thousand…
Furthermore, they had arrived in a Maybach.
Within one year, there weren’t even a few guests willing to take a Maybach to this shop.
Asking to see the head chef meant one of two things — either the shop would receive a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity tonight, or it would suffer an incalculable loss.
Soon, a white man walked out.
His features were sharp, his expression confident, and “I am French” was practically written on his face.
He held his head high.
This was not the first time he had been called out by a guest.
Looking at the whole country, Shencheng was not among the top-tier influential cities.
He chose to rather be the head of a chicken than the tail of a phoenix.
In Shencheng, he had long been accustomed to receiving praise with a posture that was polite without appearing too arrogant.
Those words of flattery had slowly built up his confidence.
They also made him gradually believe that he had completely mastered the palates of the Chinese people and was a pioneer of Chinese-style French cuisine.
He was very proud.
Like a Gallic rooster, he puffed out his chest and smiled.
Witty, friendly, and composed — these were his basic professional qualities as a head chef.
“How is the dinner tonight?” he asked in slightly stiff Mandarin.
Gao Hongyi stood up immediately.
She spoke in French.
Her speed wasn’t fast and her pronunciation was clear, devoid of any emotional fluctuations.
“Monsieur Chef. Your dishes today are very… imaginative.”
The chef was slightly stunned.
“Thank you very much, Mademoiselle.”
“But you may not know that in our Paris, such a statement is often a negation. It means the dish has deviated from orthodox French cuisine.”
Gao Hongyi did not wait for a rebuttal.
“First, the treatment of the foie gras. The temperature was too low, and the fatty aroma was suppressed on purpose.”
The chef had originally thought he would receive praise.
He hadn’t expected the other party was there to dismantle his dishes one by one.
“The herb butter for the snails was melted in advance, just like a pre-prepared meal,” she continued.
“The garlic flavor stayed on the surface and didn’t truly penetrate the meat. While chewing, I couldn’t help but think: if I were a person surviving on a desert island who hadn’t eaten for three days, I would probably thank God upon seeing this dish.”
Sweat began to bead on the chef’s brow.
He hadn’t expected this young-looking Chinese girl to have such a practiced mastery of the sarcastic vocabulary used by old Parisian gourmets.
“I…”
“I haven’t finished, Monsieur Chef. Listening to someone finish their sentence is the most basic etiquette.”
She interrupted him.
“The sauce for the beef bourguignon had the right color. The meat was loose, but it wasn’t tender. It was made very safely, and very conservatively.”
In Paris, such a critique was almost equivalent to a death sentence.
It meant: you were afraid of making mistakes, and so you lost the flavor.
“As for the mashed potatoes…” Gao Hongyi let out a soft sneer.
“I am regretting why I didn’t choose KFC’s mashed potatoes tonight.”
“Saying that is going too far!”
The chef finally lost his composure, the veins on his neck bulging.
“The one who should be angry is me. You ruined my candlelit dinner, Monsieur Chef.”
Gao Hongyi’s voice remained calm.
“The initial taste is very flat, there is no change in the middle, and the aftertaste comes too early. This is merely food to maintain physiological functions. It is still a long way from art.”
She paused for a moment.
“I have eaten at Guy Savoy, and I have eaten at Le Meurice Alain Ducasse.”
The chef was instantly silenced.
Those were three-star Michelin restaurants in Paris.
They were exists that were nearly sacred within the French culinary system.
“I certainly wouldn’t take a restaurant in Shencheng and compare it to such places; I am not that foolish. But after arriving here, I discovered that what I ate was not French cuisine. Instead, it was a soul-less dinner meant to please Chinese palates, neither truly French nor Chinese. I originally intended to spend a wonderful evening with my love after enjoying a delicious dinner. We were going to enjoy each other after enjoying our taste buds…”
She raised her eyes.
“But you completely ruined it. There is only one point — the decor of this shop is quite good. That proves you truly do come from Paris, Monsieur Chef. As a place to take photos and check in, this place is barely considered qualified, but that is all. So, could I please ask Monsieur Chef to take a photo of me and my love?”
Gao Hongyi took out a Sony camera.
“This is not a bill to pay for the food, but a bill for your photography. Paying for such a meal does not fit my aesthetics.”