Ji Rongxia vaguely realised that he was in a space of pure white.

He could faintly see a wooden house ahead. Even though he had only lived there for seven or eight days, Ji Rongxia recognised it at a glance as the first floor of the Gu family’s home, excluding the room he and Brother Gu lived in.

To be precise, it was the location of the eatery.

He looked around in confusion. The eatery stood there all by itself, looking very strange.

He looked down and saw that he was still wearing the clothes he had worn before going to sleep.

Ji Rongxia muttered, “Am I dreaming?”

Ji Rongxia gently slapped his own face. It didn’t hurt at all. It was indeed a dream; slapping himself wouldn’t hurt.

He was puzzled as to why he was having such a strange dream.

If it were a dream, how great would it be if he could dream of his husband or dream of himself running the stove and earning a large sum of money?

And this house was so far away from him. Why would he make himself walk so much in his own dream?

As soon as he thought this, the virtual eatery in the system space suddenly swooped over and appeared right in front of him.

Ji Rongxia: “???!!!”

His eyes sparkled, as if he had discovered some new game. He thought in his mind again: Open the eatery’s main door.

Thinking this, the half-old wooden door opened by itself!

He was indeed dreaming!

If he wasn’t dreaming, how could he manipulate things in the dream?

Now he wasn’t afraid anymore.

Ji Rongxia was bold to begin with, and since he was in his own dream, it would be strange if he were still afraid!

He strode into the eatery, wanting to see what was different between the eatery in his dream and the one outside.

As soon as his feet stepped into the Gu family’s eatery, he heard an extremely strange voice: “Host, hello.”

Ji Rongxia was startled: “Who is it?!”

The voice just now didn’t sound like a human voice; it sounded like the ghosts and monsters spoken of by storytellers!

He looked carefully and found a cloud-like ball of light floating in front of him.

The voice was coming from this ball of light!

When he was little, he was most afraid of the dark, especially afraid of things like ghosts and spirits.

But his father was careless and always loved to tease him, telling him strange things he encountered when doing carpentry work for people in the countryside. Carpenters, oh, people often associated them with demons and ghosts. There was also a saying that a carpenter’s ink-marker and ink-line could ward off evil spirits. His father naturally knew a lot of ghost stories, and his older brother often joined in the fun foolishly on the side.

He was afraid yet wanted to listen. Several times at night, he was so scared that he hid under the quilt and didn’t dare come out, which made his mother angry, and she chased his father and brother to beat them.

As he slowly grew up, he somehow stopped being afraid.

He thought, if there really were such powerful ghosts, why would there still be injustice in the world? Shouldn’t grievances be repaid with grievances and hatred with hatred?

He truly did not believe in these things now!

He rolled up his sleeves and thought: No wonder I’m having a strange dream today. It turns out I’m dreaming of a ghost. But this ghost looks quite bright, not gloomy or scary at all.

“Where did you come from? Why are you in my dream?” he asked, pointing at the cloud ball.

“I am the Cooking God System, invented by the High-Dimensional Main God System, born to record and promote human culinary culture. You are my one thousand and first Host. I was accidentally damaged while traversing planes and lacked energy. After supplementary solar energy, I can barely pull the Host into the System Space at night…”

The System explained slowly. It belonged to the Main God System, and its purpose was to record the food civilisation of various small worlds and train top-tier Chef Gods.

Previously, it trained Chef Gods and recorded related food civilisations in low-level technological worlds. After completing the task in a thousand worlds, it was supposed to upgrade and go to higher-level worlds to continue training Chef Gods.

Who knew it was so unlucky? While crossing the world barrier, it was caught in a time-space turbulence that was difficult to encounter in tens of thousands of years!

In order to preserve the precious data it had collected in the previous thousand small worlds—premium ingredients, cooking tutorials, food civilisation souvenirs, and so on—it could only continuously use its own energy to resist the time-space turbulence. When its energy was almost exhausted, it finally managed to enter this ancient world with great difficulty and found a suitable Host to bind.

It went straight for the Host, forcibly bound the Host, and then entered a state of semi-hibernation, sometimes lucid and sometimes chaotic, occasionally emitting sharp error sounds.

In this world, it could currently only charge through solar energy, and the efficiency was very low. Unfortunately, Qingchi County had a lot of cloudy and rainy weather. It took a full half a year to charge enough power to open the System Space and communicate with the Host.

The most terrifying thing was that its energy was now too low, and it had lost contact with the Main God System. There were many ancient worlds similar to this small world. The Main God System would probably take a long time to discover its disappearance and locate it. The best way for it to escape its predicament was to help the Host become a Chef God. After completing the task in this world, it would activate the plane-travelling function and reserve energy in its core, and it could then seize the opportunity to escape its current predicament!

“System? You said you were created by immortals, and you want to help me?” Ji Rongxia only felt that his dream was truly strange.

But thinking about the stories told by the storytellers, where scholars encounter willing and sincere female ghosts who help them, and him dreaming of a little ghost who wants to help him learn to cook, it seemed just like the stories.

It must be that during the day, he was only thinking about running his own stove business, which led to the dream due to his daytime thoughts.

He chuckled, thinking he was really dreaming beautifully, even becoming a Cooking God. Why was he thinking so big? He must tell Tangjin when he wakes up!

The Cooking God System didn’t know why the Host was laughing. It only thought this ancient person didn’t understand its meaning, so it added another explanation: “Chef God is just a description, not literally becoming an immortal, but referring to the person with the most formidable cooking skills.”

“Oh, I see,” Ji Rongxia had just thought he was thinking too beautifully, even getting the idea of becoming a Chef God Lord of the Stove. Now that he heard this, he still knew he couldn’t become a real Chef God Lord of the Stove.

Ji Rongxia’s eyes darted around. Why did this little ghost’s voice sound so familiar?

He suddenly realised and slapped his hands together: “Oh! It’s you!”

“Was it you who smashed me?”

“And kept jabbering next to my ear?”

“Making me think I was sick.”

“Don’t even try to deny it, I recognise your voice, it was definitely you!”

Ji Rongxia knew this might be something he imagined in his dream. He clearly developed a fever, and only then did his ears become problematic. Perhaps he was annoyed in his heart, which is why he created this little ghost in his dream to vent his frustration.

Knowing in his heart that it was all fake, he naturally wasn’t too angry. Instead, he was more amused, laughing at himself for being sick and thinking in his dream that he was being haunted by a ghost.

Cooking God System: “…”

It really couldn’t refute this; it was indeed its doing.

The Cooking God System had never been to an ancient world, but it had completed one thousand world tasks and felt capable of handling the current situation. Although it was fundamentally in the wrong—it forcibly bound the Host and was constantly reporting errors, making the Host think he was sick—it was still a golden finger! The Host was still benefiting greatly!

“Host, calm down. Listen to me first.”

“Alright, go ahead,” Ji Rongxia put his hands on his hips, wanting to hear what this ghost had to say.

The Cooking God System rummaged through the system warehouse it had managed to save from the time-space turbulence and said, “System compensation: one portion of special handmade fruit candy. Please accept.”

According to the rules, generally, rewards are only issued when the Host completes a task, but this was a special circumstance.

Moreover, it currently couldn’t contact the Main God System, so task rewards could only come from its inventory, which allowed for a lot of flexibility.

People in the ancient world certainly lacked sugar and liked eating candy. This compensation should be enough.

Ji Rongxia’s hands sank. He looked down and found that a large number of multicoloured candies wrapped in strange transparent bags had suddenly appeared in his arms.

He subconsciously weighed them. It was a full ten pounds!

Ji Rongxia: “???”

Was this a gift of apology from the ghost?

He really was dreaming! He even came up with the idea of a ghost giving him a present!!!

At this point, Ji Rongxia was even more certain that he was in a dream.

“Host, the solar energy currently absorbed and converted by the System can only provide for the Host’s conscious body to enter the System Space to practice cooking for half an hour when the Host falls asleep at night. Host, time is tight. Ask whatever you need to ask quickly, so we can start the mission.” A hint of urgency was somehow added to the cloud ball’s electronic voice.

The Cooking God System knew that Ji Rongxia couldn’t accept it all at once, but time was urgent! It had to supervise this Host to start the mission quickly!

Ji Rongxia held the large bag of fruit candy and curiously asked, “Mission? What do you want me to do?”

The Cooking God System did not answer Ji Rongxia’s question: “Host, I will first pull up your personal panel. Take a look at the functions of our System Space.”

As it spoke, a light blue, semi-transparent screen suddenly appeared before Ji Rongxia’s eyes!

Ji Rongxia subconsciously backed up a step, hugging the large bag of fruit candy!

What was this? He had never seen it. It was so bright and beautiful.

System Ultimate Goal: To help the Host become the current world’s Chef God.

Host Name: Ji Rongxia 

Host Age: Bone Age 18

Physical Quality: Grade B Your body is strong, your reaction is fast, your physical strength is superior, your mind is flexible, and your limbs are coordinated, surpassing 80% of humans in this plane.

Culinary Talent: Excellent. Your sense of taste, smell, hands-on ability, seasoning instinct, and food imagination all meet the Chef God standard, surpassing 99% of humans in this plane.

Soul Qualification: Grade A Your soul strength is extremely high, meeting the binding requirements.

Culinary Skills: None

Culinary Level: Novice

Rewards Acquired: None

Culinary Practice: Four modules: Basic Skills, Cooking, Presentation Design, and Miscellaneous Tasks.

Basic Skills The Basic Skills module covers white tasks [pasta/dim sum], knife skills, fire control, seasoning, etc. Click for details.

Cooking The Cooking module covers learning classic dishes, learning cooking principles, practising new dish creation, etc. Click for details.

Presentation Design The Presentation module covers food plating, exterior design, colour matching, etc. Click for details.

Miscellaneous Tasks The Miscellaneous Tasks module covers ingredient selection, ingredient pre-processing, dining environment, cooking environment, storage techniques, etc. Click for details.

The Cooking God System knew that Ji Rongxia was literate, but didn’t recognise many characters. Therefore, it not only adjusted the text to the characters of this world but also read all the words aloud.

“Host, did you understand? If you understand, quickly start the mission!” the System anxiously urged.

Ji Rongxia didn’t speak, but his brow furrowed more and more tightly.

The panel spoken of by this System seemed to have examined him inside and out. It had not even spared his soul!!!

Although it was his dream, he felt uncomfortable in his heart.

Moreover, this little ghost, although it hadn’t harmed him, its high-and-mighty demeanour was too irritating.

It was as if, as if… as if he had no choice but to rely on it.

Seeing him frown and remain silent, the System thought he hadn’t heard clearly and read the content on the system panel again.

As soon as the Cooking God System finished reading the second time, it quickly said, “Host, let’s start quickly. You still have the time of one stick of incense. You can totally complete a Basic Skills mission!”

“I don’t need it. Dad can teach me how to cook, and I don’t want to be a Chef God.”

The electronic voice paused.

“What did you say?”

“I said I don’t need you. Dad can teach me how to cook, and Dad and Mom can teach me how to run a business. I also don’t want to be any kind of Chef God.”

Ji Rongxia didn’t want to say more. He was a grown man; how could he let something in his dream bully him?!

“You get out!” This is my dream, my own territory!

Cooking God System: “???!!!”

Its data flow was almost becoming chaotic.

The bigger problem was that its forced binding of the Host was already a violation of the rules. Now the Host was indirectly refusing to be bound to it. Almost instantly, it felt a core-tearing sensation.

This Host genuinely did not want to be bound to it; he wasn’t just saying it!

He truly wanted to drive it away!

Fortunately, the Host hadn’t directly thought about unbinding, or its core would definitely be injured.

The pathetic thing was that it didn’t have the energy to search for a new Host!

“Host! Reconsider. Look at this eatery; it’s exactly the same as the outside. You can learn outside during the day, and practice in the System Space at night. Just do the missions casually. It won’t be tiring, and you can even get rewards! I won’t hurt you!”

Ji Rongxia was unmoved and even wanted to quickly leave this strange place. Because he had the idea of escaping the strange “dream” in his heart, the System Space was on the verge of collapsing.

“Tell me what demands you have! I will do what I can!”

“The missions aren’t difficult. Host, my energy is insufficient right now. I can only open the System Space for half an hour every day. I promise that after activating the System Space, I will actively go into hibernation and definitely won’t disturb you.”

The system had to bow its head when under the eaves!

At this moment, the Cooking God System had completely lost its initial arrogance.

Ji Rongxia did not heed its pleas and had already left the System Space!