Maverick Chef - Chapter 3：There's Treasure in the Faraway Mountain

Enduring the pain of buying the ticket, Bai Lu went to look at the area map. After looking for a long time, it was still not clear which mountain looked like an old man. He went back to the entrance and asked the security guard. The guard thought for a while and said, “Are you looking for the Great Sage Peak?”

“Great Sage Peak?”

“Look over there, behind that mountain. Yes, that’s it. Doesn’t it resemble a monkey?”

“Monkey? Old man?” Well, Bai Lu deeply relented towards both Zhang Lao San’s vision and also the creativity of the park’s management. He followed up with a question. “So that’s the most dangerous peak?”

“It’s not that bad. There’s no such thing as dangerous now. As long as you follow the road, then it’s fine. Oh yes, have you bought your insurance?”

“Are you hoping for something bad to happen to me?” Bai Lu thanked the security guard albeit with a hint of resentment and headed towards the Great Sage Peak.

The guard chased after him. “That place is pretty far away. If you go now, you might not make it back by nightfall. Take the transport instead. It’s a hundred dollars per person, and it takes you directly to the foot of the mountain…”

To save time, Bai Lu adopted his suggestion. He boarded the gondola and departed. The guard continued to chase after him. “Have you bought your insurance?”

“Doesn’t the ticket include the insurance?”

“That doesn’t cover much at all. You should buy one that has a bigger sum assured.”

Bai Lu was speechless. With the aid of the gondola, he reached the Great Sage Mountain after 20 minutes.

He was stunned again the moment he stepped out of the gondola. At the end of the tar road, the peak of the mountain looked imposing, and the forest was densely packed. There was a small path up the mountain and another down the mountain, yet there was no road that led forward. Bai Lu thought, “Such a tall and dangerous peak, how can I cross over to the back of the mountain?”

Bai Lu asked the gondola operator, and he said, “Why do you want to go to the back of the mountain? I have been working here for five years and have never once gone over. Young lad, being adventurous is a virtue, but you should cherish your own life.”

“Just let me risk my life for once.” Bai Lu started to ascend the mountain.

Putting the danger aside, after flipping and climbing he finally managed to reach the destination. When he encountered the legendary big rock, it was already 8 pm in the night. The forest was shrouded in pitch black darkness, accompanied by the occasional howl of wild beasts.

Bai Lu cursed in his heart, “Isn’t this a forest park? Why the hell is it so scary?”

He examined the surroundings. Even though it was very dark, the quietness of the night was indeed very suitable for covert operations. He took out the metal shovel and started digging.

He dug and dug, and after considerable effort, a hole of about 30cm deep was made. Suddenly, a snapping sound “Kapa” was heard, alas the shovel broke.

Bai Lu was enraged. “Must everything have a counterfeit? Judging from this kind of quality, how could we ever expect to recapture America?”

In a fit of helplessness, he continued digging with the remaining half of the shovel.

The hole was 2 meters deep. In such a situation with unmatching tools and frequent visits by small animals all the way until midnight, finally, he found something.

The shovel hit a wooden plank, and a dull sound “Dong” emanated from the impact. Bai Lu was extremely pleased. Finally, there was an end to this endeavor.

Things do not always go according to plan. There was a wooden plank, but as he followed the edges and started digging the surrounding soil, he discovered that it was an endless task.

The more he dug, the more wooden planks were discovered. It wasn’t until the next day morning that he finally cleared up the entire area. Beneath his feet were more than ten wooden planks that were lined up tightly together, just like the wooden supporting boards underneath the bed. When he turned over the wooden planks, it revealed a coffin. Bai Lu was depressed, and he thought, “Did Zhang Lao San buried his treasure inside the coffin?”

He cleaned out the soil, laid upon the coffin and gasped for air. At this moment the sun had already risen. Bai Lu raged in his heart, “Unlucky Zhang Lao San, of all the places to hide the treasure, why did he hide it inside a coffin… What if this isn’t the treasure spot. What would happen if this was a real coffin with someone else inside?”

Bai Lu climbed out of the hole and looked around for the gravestone.

“There’s no gravestone. Then again, who would bury a person so deep into the ground… No wait, two meters isn’t that deep. On the TV shows, it had always been so deep like this…”

The more he pondered, the more confused he became. He calmed his thoughts, “Why not just open the coffin to find out?”

He went back down into the hole and removed the nails from the coffin. Then, he flipped the top open and took a look inside. It was an impressive sight that would even make someone from the future generation shed tears. More than half of the coffin was filled with ancient texts and paintings, wrapped in vacuum sealed bags, and tightly stacked together. Bai Lu thought, “How do I carry all of them back?”

The other half of the coffin contained some gemstones stacked in an old fashion. Bai Lu did not recognize what they were. He merely thought that they were nothing more than pearls, agate, jade and such.

Looking at these items, Bai Lu finally realized what kind of thief Zhang Lao San was. Also, why he was sentenced to the vast desert, and with a life sentence. And Bai Lu also finally understood, why he did not entrust all these good stuff to his precious daughter, but instead, it was given to him. Firstly, it wasn’t safe. He was afraid that people would notice, bringing trouble to his daughter. Secondly, it was still not safe. What if the police discovered; she would be arrested.

This treasure was not wealth, but rather a direct express pass to prison. Entrusting it to Bai Lu would be the best decision. Firstly, it would not be a waste by letting the valuable resources fall into oblivion. Secondly, if one were to obtain such an immeasurable wealth for no good reason, he would feel embarrassingly guilty and would naturally take good care of his precious daughter.

Standing by the coffin, he picked and sorted. Just like what Zhang Lao San had described, these things were very hard to convert to cash.

Just like many others when they looked at treasures, his eyes were dazzled. There was even a possibility that the man had stolen it from some royalty or noble, and with an official report in the public security bureau. Bai Lu dared not openly challenge the federal laws of the country by revealing the dirty goods.

When he reached the bottom of the coffin, he was shocked. The entire floor was covered with a blanket of golden bricks, approximately 50 – 60 pieces. It was a mystery, how Zhang Lao San was able to transport all of them here in the past.

Gold bricks were too heavy. They were not easy to carry away. “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were two smaller gold bars here?” Bai Lu thought. In the end, with a coffin full of treasures, not a single item here was suitable to be sold to the public.

“This asshole, does he not know that it would be much easier to leave a few credit cards instead?” Looking at the thick stack of various stock and bond documents in his hands, which was also wrapped in the vacuum sealed bag, Bai Lu didn’t even want to open it and see exactly how much value they had. He just tossed it back into the coffin.

If it were easy to liquidate, Zhang Lao San would not have buried all these pieces of stuff with the ancient texts and paintings.

Believing people too easily was a bad thing, Zhang Lao San has duped Bai Lu. That guy said that most of the treasure would be hard to sell. In fact, there was utterly nothing here that could be sold. No wonder it was buried deep in the mountains.

After organizing the treasures, he contemplated for a while. Then he took out a few gold bricks and kept it in his bag. It was not that he did not want to take more, but this stuff was cumbersome, just one slab the size of a martial arts manual would weigh at least 20kg.

After throwing his bag outside the hole, he tidied up the treasure within the coffin, closed the coffin cover and nailed the top. Then he laid over the wooden planks and tested with a few steps to make sure there were no problems. After that, he climbed out of the hole and started filling it up with soil.

20 minutes later, the ground was flat again. Bai Lu wasted another hour to find some branches and leaves from other parts of the forest, to cover up the patch of soil. Then he tidied up the remaining portions of the woods, to make sure that no one would notice the fresh soil covering the treasure. Afterward, he carried the gold bricks down the mountain.

The road leading out of the mountain was equally perilous. It took more than four hours of walking to make it back to the tar road.

Thinking about it, for someone who carried more than 20kg of goods and rustled through the forests for up to four hours, to say that he was exhausted would even be an understatement. When Bai Lu saw the gondola, there was a feeling of rediscovering humanity. He rushed up to it with excitement and said, “I want to get off the mountain.”

The operator peeked at him curiously, and he thought, “This guy looks shagged.” He received the fare and descended the mountain.

When Bai Lu reached home, it was already past 4 pm. Not long after he entered, Tong An Quan arrived and asked, “Where did you go? Yesterday we came for dinner, and you were not here. And today we came for lunch, and you were also not here. Who does business like this.”

Bai Lu chuckled. “Here for a meal?”

“No kidding, did you think we came here to play chess?” Tong An Quan was only slightly older than Bai Lu, which could explain his casual tone.

Bai Lu laughed heartily. “It’s not time yet, no service.”

“You are truly unbelievable. Yesterday I brought my colleagues here. Putting aside your cold shoulder treatment, do you know how embarrassing it was. You must compensate me for an additional meal, so I have two in total, while Xiao Peng and Huang Feng together have two combined.”

“Deal.” Bai Lu responded.

“This meal today doesn’t count.” Tong An Quan gave Huang Feng a call.

“Don’t mind me asking, what do you want to eat. I need to buy the groceries.” Bai Lu interrupted.

…

Soon it was already 6 pm in the night. The restaurant begins its dinner service. Wang Xiao Peng and Huang Feng led 5 or 6 people inside, as soon as they entered they said, “Join the tables.”

“Join it then.” Customers have arrived, so Bai Lu entered the kitchen to start cooking.

“Aye, come on and take our orders.” A seemingly tall, rich and handsome guy, Mr. Perfect, shouted.

Tong An Quan said, “It’s a little bit special here, there’s no need to take orders, and there’s no alcohol for sale as well.”

“No sale of alcohol? What kind of sh*tty place is this? If there’s no alcohol with food, then what’s the point of eating? Let’s change place, don’t worry, it’s my treat.” Mr. Perfect stood up.

Tong An Quan looked a little annoyed. He turned towards one of the beautiful girls and said, “It’s delicious, try it, and you will know.”

“Just how delicious can it be? Could it be better than the State Guesthouse?” Mr. Perfect rebutted with disdain.

Seeing how annoyed Tong An Quan appeared, the beautiful girl tried to resolve the situation. “Let’s eat here. It’s hot outside, and I don’t feel like going out.”

Since the girl already said so, Mr. Perfect crooned and sat down.

Tong An Quan’s group consisted of nine people, four ladies, and five men. They knew each other well. Probably they were colleagues in the same department. While they waited for the dish to be served, some conversed with each other, and some played with their phones, but Tong An Quan wished to chat with the beautiful girl. However, they sat too far apart. Instead, it was Mr. Perfect that sat right next to her, continually whispering the whole time.

Huang Feng patted Tong An Quan’s shoulder, he shook his head and laughed. Tong An Quan sighed. “I just want to have a drink.”

Approximately 20 minutes later, Bai Lu waved and said, “Come and collect the dishes.”

There were nine people in total, with eight dishes, and a bowl of soup. After the food was placed on the table, no one moved their chopsticks. The beautiful girl frowned and said, “It’s all vegetarian?”

Tong An Quan took a look, it was either cabbage with tofu or peanuts with celery, he said to Bai Lu, “Serve us the prawns.” He liked the marinated prawns that were served last time.

Mr. Perfect slammed the table. “Are you trying to prank us? Do you still want to work here?”

Bai Lu maintained his passionate smile, and he said, “Yes I do.”

“If so, then start over, beef, prawns and also a fish soup…”

Bai Lu still kept his smile. “Try it first. If it’s inedible, then we can reconsider.”

There was a Chinese saying: One should not get mad at a person who is smiling at you. Since Bai Lu already declared such words, Mr. Perfect could not lose his temper. However, Tong An Quan already jumped the gun, with one hand holding the bowl and chopsticks in the other, he ate heartily.

Regardless of the dish, whatever Bai Lu made, it must be delicious.

Witnessing Tong An Quan’s action, Wang Xiao Peng and Huang Feng did not want to lose out, so they also followed closely behind.

Seeing them eating like barbarians, one of the ladies tried to eat the food as well. She swallowed it in one bite, and suddenly became radiant and filled with delight. She didn’t even eat the rice but just kept delivering the food into her mouth non-stop.

The rest of them realized something was unusual, so they started moving their chopsticks. In a sudden, only Mr. Perfect wasn’t eating.

Witnessing all the pretty ladies eating lively, Mr. Perfect finally couldn’t resist trying and tasted one of the vegetables, and then he also let loose as well.

In five minutes, they devoured all the eight dishes and the soup. Each one of them exclaimed about its deliciousness. One of the girls said, “Boss, one more serving of the same dishes.”

“That’s all”—Bai Lu walked over—”it’s $110 in total.”

“Hundred and ten? For eight dishes?” That same girl mumbled. “That cheap?”

“That’s not cheap,” Bai Lu responded seriously, “that’s all for today. Please come early tomorrow if you want to eat.”