Chapter 887: Extra 5: Marriage Proposal (Part 2) Chapter 887: Extra 5: Marriage Proposal (Part 2) “””
“Little bro, I really can’t understand what you’re cautious about. Back then, when you confessed on stage, you had so much guts, man, that was a live broadcast, and as soon as you picked up the mic, you confessed. Then, all of us bros watching from the stage were dumbfounded.” De began his role as a psychological consultant, “Believe me, proposal’s nothing fancy, just go for it, and it’ll definitely work!”

Jiang Feng: …

Would you believe me if I said that back then it was Qiqi who confessed first?

After listening to De’s words, Jiang Feng thought everything he said was nonsense. Of course, he knew he had to propose directly, he had never heard of anyone needing help for a proposal.

But the key point is, how to propose?

It’s precisely because he knew it would succeed that he hesitated over the process.

“De, how did you propose to Sister Yueru?” Jiang Feng asked.

At that, Jiang Shoucheng and Jiang Ran, likewise inexperienced in proposals, turned their eyes unanimously toward Jiang Zaidi.

Jiang Zaidi chuckled and said, “I proposed during dinner.”

“It was simple. During the meal, I just took out the ring and proposed directly.”

“Pfft.” The three brothers were dissatisfied with this abbreviated version of the story.

Jiang Feng even felt that today’s meal was a loss; De didn’t deserve the dishes he’d painstakingly prepared. He stood up and began clearing the plates.

“Alright, alright, De, stop eating. Auntie told me to make sure you eat less so you don’t get fat again before the wedding. Give me the chopsticks!” Jiang Feng heartlessly took away the dish and soup.

Jiang Zaidi, Jiang Shoucheng, and Jiang Ran, deprived of their chopsticks, looked at their empty bowls that were left with only soup and rice grains, thought for a moment, and started licking their bowls.

Jiang Shoucheng even remembered to blame Jiang Zaidi.

“De, it’s all because you told such a lousy story just now. Couldn’t you have made up a better one on the spot?”

Jiang Zaidi felt wronged: “How else can you make up a proposal story? It’s not like shooting a TV drama, aren’t they all proposed like this?”

“That ring was expensive, it cost me over a month’s salary!”

.

After the three useless cousins left, Jiang Feng sat in the living room, unusually checking the property panel to the item column, taking out the proposal ring awarded from a prior task.

Since completing the task and receiving this proposal ring, except for the day he got it when Jiang Feng took it out and looked at it carefully in his hand, this was only the second time he took out the proposal ring from the item column.

It was a very popular and attractive ring.

Very simple, quite aesthetic, and also very elegant. Even without a large diamond, with Jiang Feng’s discerning eye, it was hard to determine the specific material, but undoubtedly, it was a very pretty ring.

A very pretty ring, for women, and at first glance, it seemed tailor-made for a proposal.

Now, it was time to use it.

The buff from this ring was a hundred percent success rate for proposals. The current Jiang Feng didn’t need this buff; his relationship with Wu Minqi was extremely stable, so stable that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to describe them as an old married couple.

So stable that wherever he went, people kept hinting and asking when he was going to get married.

Thinking about this, Jiang Feng couldn’t help but heave a sigh. Is this what approaching thirty looks like? Back when he was just a young, single man in his early twenties, no one ever asked him when he planned to get married.

After all, back then he didn’t even have a girlfriend, let alone someone to marry.

Jiang Feng held the ring, filled with a myriad of thoughts.

He wanted to propose too, but…

How should he go about it?

Suddenly, Jiang Feng’s phone rang. It was a call from Wang Hao. Jiang Feng put the ring back into the item column before answering.

“Hello, Hao, what’s up?”

“Feng, I heard you’re preparing to propose! Got a plan? Prepared? Bought the ring? Need help, bro? Let me tell you, I’ve recently expanded my business scope, and I’ve taken a few jobs planning proposals, orchestrated them superbly. They moved the girls to tears, every client was incredibly satisfied!” Wang Hao rattled off a string of words at a breathtaking pace.

Jiang Feng: ?

Who’s such a bigmouth? In just a few minutes, the news reached Wang Hao.

Is it possible that if he doesn’t propose in the next few days, Qiqi will know about his plan to propose?

“Who told you I’m going to propose?” Jiang Feng asked.

Wang Hao laughed it off: “I heard it through the grapevine; who told me isn’t important. Feng, just tell me, you’re planning to propose, aren’t you!”

“That’s the idea,” Jiang Feng knew he couldn’t hide it and didn’t bother to make up any lies to fool Wang Hao. Plus, with Wang Hao’s bag of tricks, he might be more reliable for this than his three cousins.

Although, after the banner incident at the last competition, Jiang Feng had serious doubts about Wang Hao’s capabilities.

“Then why didn’t you come to me, Feng? I’m good at this stuff!” Wang Hao slapped his thigh excitedly over the phone.

“You’re not from a wedding planning company, what are you good at?”

“I anticipate the client’s urgent needs and meet their demands. Whatever the client needs, I have related services. Feng, just tell me what kind of proposal you want — fireworks, streamers, decorations, flowers, cakes, surprises, I can arrange actors for you!”

Jiang Feng: “…the bit about actors doesn’t quite rhyme.”

“Seems a bit off, let me think how to change it to…oh no, wait, Feng, we’re talking serious here, rhyming or not, listen…”

Jiang Feng hung up before Wang Hao could finish.

With Wang Hao as a comparison, Jiang Feng suddenly felt that what De said was actually quite sensible.

A proposal isn’t like a wedding; there’s no need to make a big, solemn deal about it. Although making a grand and solemn affair isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the problem is that grand and solemn proposals are often quite awkward. As long as the ring looks nice and meets the expectations of both, it’s good enough.

“””
Eating a meal and proposing during it does seem pretty reliable.

Jiang Feng now regretted ending dinner so early earlier, which resulted in De not having his meal.

But he and De were different, De being a designer focused more on the proposal when dining, not paying much attention to the meal itself.

Jiang Feng, as a chef, valued both the meal and the proposal during such times.

He had to cook the meal himself.

It not only had to taste good, but it also needed to fit the proposal’s mood, carry the right atmosphere, possess significance, be unique, astonish, and ideally, while eating, Minqi would come to realize that he was proposing.

Jiang Feng had no idea which dishes he could prepare at this stage that would meet all the above requirements.

At this moment, he inexplicably started to envy Han Guishan.

Mr. Han proposed to Wang Jing during a meal, employing the trendy trick of hiding the engagement ring in the dish, a move that predated idol dramas by over a decade, so much so that Wang Jing didn’t even understand what the ring signified.

What was clearly an awkward proposal turned into a cozy and satisfying occasion because the braised shark’s fin was so delicious.

It was truly enviable. Nowadays, Jiang Feng could easily make braised shark’s fin even tastier than what Cao Guixiang made in his memory, but Wu Minqi was not Wang Jing. Wu Minqi grew up eating dishes cooked by Sir Wu and Wu Hanxue, treating boiled cabbage like stir-fried cabbage and now regarding Jiang Feng’s dishes as everyday food. Trying to impress her with something so astonishing that it would overshadow the potentially awkward proposal was as difficult as scaling the heavens.

Unless the dish came with the special effects of “Young Master of the Kitchen,” lifting the lid to reveal a sky bathed in golden light and tasting as if one were traversing the Great Wall.

“Sigh,” Jiang Feng sat on the sofa and let out a deep sigh. As he did, Wu Minqi returned home.

“Fengfeng, what’s wrong?” Wu Minqi placed her bag on the foyer table.

“Nothing much, just thinking about what to eat tomorrow.” Jiang Feng said with a sad look on his face.

Wu Minqi: ?

Looking at his phone and noticing it was not yet ten o’clock, Taifeng Building would usually still be open: “Why are you home so early today?” he asked.

“There was a sudden power outage. Although we had backup power, Mrs. Wang thought it’d be nice to rest early for a change, so we ended up closing early,” Wu Minqi explained.

Although it sounded a bit like a curse, Jiang Feng couldn’t help but want to exclaim, “Damn.”

“By the way, I forgot to ask you yesterday, why did you suddenly say you wanted to invite De, Cheng, and Ran for dinner today?” Wu Minqi walked into the kitchen to pour a glass of water and then sat down with the glass opposite Jiang Feng in the living room.

“Isn’t De about to get married? I invited him to dinner to celebrate his upcoming wedding,” Jiang Feng could come up with a hundred such spurious reasons a minute.

“Oh.” Wu Minqi didn’t suspect anything and started drinking water.

Watching Wu Minqi drink, an intriguing question suddenly came to Jiang Feng’s mind, prompting him to ask, “Qiqi, is there any famous dish you’ve never eaten?”

Since he couldn’t think of anything, why not let the person to be proposed to choose the dish!

Jiang Feng silently gave himself a thumbs up in his mind.

“Oh yes,” Wu Minqi replied, “I’ve never tried Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall.”

“You’ve never tried Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall?!”

“Well… not that I’ve never tried it. I haven’t tried the particularly authentic kind you’re learning right now.” Seeing Jiang Feng’s reaction, Wu Minqi thought she had misspoken, “Remember when we went to FJ and I had Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall at Jubao Building? I’ve tried the very common and not very authentic kind, but never the kind that emits a fragrance that travels miles once the lid is lifted, the kind you’re capable of making as a chef.”

Once Wu Minqi explained, Jiang Feng immediately understood. It was normal that she hadn’t tried it.

The kind of legendary Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall, just like in the stories, seemingly with special golden effects, was rare to begin with and if it did exist, it was in the South, such as the former Jubao Building. Wu Minqi being from the Shu region, studied in Alan City, and now lived in Beiping, so it was normal not to have tried it due to regional reasons.

If it weren’t for the fact that Jiang Feng had to learn to make it and Sir had to demonstrate it once, Jiang Feng wouldn’t have tried an authentic version either.

Not having tried an authentic version made things easier.

Jiang Feng’s Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall was nearly perfected, and he could pull it off with some effort.

For the proposal, he had already flipped through the auspicious days and, having them memorized, Jiang Feng quickly found a suitable day in his mental calendar.

“Qiqi, will you be free the afternoon the day after tomorrow?” he asked.

“The day after tomorrow?” Wu Minqi thought for a moment, “Isn’t it a workday? I’m off tomorrow.”

“I meant in the afternoon, during the lunch break.”

“I’m free, what’s up?”

“I’ll make Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall for you.”

Wu Minqi: ?

“Fengfeng, have you perfected it?” Since Wu Minqi wasn’t very familiar with the process of making Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall, she wasn’t quite clear on Jiang Feng’s progress, only knowing that he was making rapid advances, far outpacing Sun Jikai.

“Almost there,” Jiang Feng replied.

Wu Minqi understood – a trial dish.

A trial dish is just a trial dish; why the secrecy?

“I’m free. If it’s for a trial, we should also call Ji Yue,” she suggested.

“No need, no need, you alone will do,” Jiang Feng quickly said, “There’s no need to tell Ji Gezi about this.”

Wu Minqi: ?

“Ok then,” she replied.

Wu Minqi glanced at Jiang Feng.

What’s got into her Fengfeng tonight, all secretive and mysterious.