Universe Infinite Canteen-Chapter 585: Sinister

Seeing Cui Junxian standing there motionless, Ma Lu spoke again.

"What, is there something else, or do you want to learn how to make my pork cutlet rice pancake?"

"Um. I don't mind teaching you, after all, making more people enjoy better-tasting pork cutlet rice pancakes is also my vision, but with time being pressing, let's talk about it after this round is over."

Hearing this, Cui Junxian's expression turned even uglier, but Ma Lu's words indeed reminded him.

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The time for this round of the competition was very tight, and it was pointless to linger here any longer. Moreover, although Ma Lu was talking to him, his hands had never stopped.

In just a moment, he had collected a dozen more snack coupons, including the four that he had just contributed, all of which were hard-earned from selling pork cutlet rice pancakes.

Cui Junxian gave Ma Lu a deep look and dropped a harsh remark, "I hope you make it through this round, then I will personally defeat you."

After saying that, Cui Junxian left without looking back and returned to his own cooking station.

The 90 minutes went by quickly. Near the end, many people realized they had no chance of gathering 100 snack coupons, so they leveled their minds and stopped racing against time.

Some even started working on creative snacks on the spot or offered their unsold leftovers for free.

However, a few contestants fought until the very last moment.

This included Cui Junxian, who started the competition full of confidence. Now his eyes were rimmed with blood vessels, and his back was soaked with sweat, making him truly drenched.

With only 5 minutes left in the competition, he only had 91 snack coupons in his hand, still 9 short of advancing.

Yet at his cooking station, there were only four customers, and he needed to find a way to attract five more.

Cui Junxian, who owned his own restaurant at a young age and had successfully reached for the stars, had served countless dignitaries and even received personal praise from Samsung Leader Lee Jae-yong.

He had never imagined that one day he'd have to shout out like a street stall owner to attract a crowd.

But there was no choice, ever since Ma Lu replicated his pork cutlet rice pancake, his business had taken a big hit.

And the same impact was felt by Luo Junkang and Chuan Ye Zhengming, but among the three, only he had approached Ma Lu.

And he had confronted Ma Lu face-to-face, ultimately proving that the original was indeed not as delicious as the imitation.

Their clash was witnessed by many and spread among the general panel of judges.

As a result, his once bustling stand suddenly became deserted.

After all, with the banquet hall being just so big, and two places selling the same thing, if one is tastier and cheaper than the other, naturally, no one would want to go to the place that's more expensive and less delicious.

Realizing this, Cui Junxian immediately took some remedial actions, he adjusted the menu, and added stir-fried rice cakes and Korean-style fried noodles, but unfortunately, they didn't sell as well as the previous pork cutlet rice pancakes.

Moreover, selecting new ingredients and preparing the new dishes also cost him quite some time.

The result was that towards the end of the competition, Cui Junxian, the No. 1 Seed of the Chef God Competition in Asia, hadn't gathered enough snack coupons to advance.

What made him even angrier was that on the other side, Ma Lu was also frantically attracting customers just like him.

The facts proved that Ma Lu's limited-time special offer was indeed limited-time.

It was taken off the menu punctually half an hour before, and then a new limited-time offer of 4 snack portions for two coupons was introduced.

He struck directly to the bone, once again igniting excitement among the crowd.

Moreover, unlike Cui Junxian, Ma Lu had already gotten 100 tickets early on.

Just as the people behind him were worried they wouldn't be able to taste his snacks, Ma Lu took the initiative to stand out and announce that he wouldn't disappoint everyone's love and support and would keep cooking until the last moment of the competition.

As soon as he said this, it immediately drew a cheer from the foodies.

But the other chefs were stunned, they had been waiting for this rule breaker who had been upsetting the market price to leave.

Unexpectedly, Ma Lu had turned into Old Ox himself and continued on.

But what was the point of working so hard? The female host had said at the beginning, that getting 100 snack coupons would be enough to advance to the next round, and there wouldn't be any additional awards for more.

So, normally, once someone hit the 100 mark, they should stop and rest. There was no reason to push themselves or interfere with others' advancement.

Wait a second...

Some contestants finally figured it out and couldn't help but gasp.

Such malicious intent! It wasn't enough for him to advance; he actually wanted to hinder others from advancing!

They were not wrong in their guess, Ma Lu from the beginning was not considering how to simply pass the round because the theme of the second round was street food, which meant his advancement was a sure thing.

So, Ma Lu shifted his focus to how to eliminate as many competitors as possible.

Although he wasn't worried about challenges with Old Wang at his disposal, being able to take out his competition in the second round would be a timesaver.

He initially offered a limited-time meal deal—packing the four most popular snacks on the premises and selling them for three snack coupons, which was already a stealth move to put pressure on the other contestants aside from stealing their customers.

With a known jury of 500 members, each with 5 snack coupons, the total number of coupons would be 2500, and one only needed to collect 100 coupons to advance.

This math was correct, but the reality was a bit more complicated.

To save time, most chefs would make only one type of snack, and the general jurors would tend to try as many different foods as possible, not frequenting the same stall twice.

Thus, in reality, it wasn't 2500 votes these stalls were vying for, but rather a mere 500.

And any juror who had bought the time-limited special meal deal from Ma Lu had used up 3 snack coupons in one go.

Meaning they could at most visit two more stalls before completely disappearing from the pool of 500 jurors.

This permanently reduced the number of customers available to the remaining chefs, making the competition between stalls even more intense.

Ma Lu, after a while, cut prices again, with the same idea in mind.

According to his observations, the jurors did not have many coupons left at this point in the competition, most couldn't even muster three coupons, and Ma Lu then further upped the stakes.

He offered an even more attractive price to sweep up the remaining snack coupons in people's hands, further reducing the total number of customers.

This also explained why Cui Junxian, who was only 5 tickets short, couldn't gather enough, no matter how energetically he peddled his food or even advertised a buy one, get two free deal.

It wasn't that people didn't want to support him; they truly had no tickets left.

Cui Junxian gave it everything he had but only managed to snag one more customer, and by then, less than 20 seconds remained until the end of the competition.