Initially, there was no rush to upgrade equipment, simply because there was enough manpower, and business wasn’t particularly good.

Now things are different, with most of the future challenge tasks likely requiring his own efforts, leaving only the various equipment in the food truck to rely on.

"Let me see, the unlocked challenge tasks now include the breakfast series, snack series, national banquet series, return series, and round slip series."

"Putting aside the national banquet and return series, the remaining three seem to be mainly quantity-based tasks, so the direction for improvement should be either efficiency or space?"

Due to the internal space expansion of the food truck, there’s currently about two meters of width left empty without any equipment.

Within this space, any equipment that can fit can be added.

But the problem is, suddenly adding a piece of equipment would be treating others like fools, wouldn’t it?

"Perhaps I should find an opportunity to add equipment next time, but for now... huh?"

When his gaze swept past the stove, the previously gray upgrade text unexpectedly lit up.

The stove can be upgraded??

[Do you want to spend an Upgrade Card to shorten cooking time by 20%?]

"Yes!!"

Being able to shorten cooking time by upgrading the stove was something he never expected.

Without much hesitation, he immediately chose ’yes’.

A flash of transparent golden light flickered across the stove’s surface, though its original appearance didn’t change, but two clock-like [0000] frames appeared above the two pots out of thin air.

With a thought, he clicked on it and was able to set the time himself.

[Usage Tip: After setting the required cooking time, the time flow will automatically be corrected]

As it was the first time using it, the food truck thoughtfully popped up a friendly reminder.

"Does this mean I don’t need to worry about these time flow buffs, and just set it for as long as it originally should be?"

With this thought, he immediately set the timer for the pot stewing fish head to 19 minutes.

As the numbers on the timer began to move, a wondrous thing happened.

"59... 58... 56... 54... 53... 51..."

The countdown looked quite normal, skipping a digit every couple of seconds.

He counted thirty seconds in his head at a normal speed, yet the timer had already surpassed forty seconds.

Being within the time flow space himself, he naturally couldn’t feel the time being accelerated.

But the facts were clear, the time had indeed been accelerated twice over.

The current issue was not knowing if the food truck’s time buff and the stove’s acceleration buff operated additively or multiplicatively.

However, he didn’t bother to figure it out, he just quietly waited for the countdown to reach zero.

If he needed to perform any operations midway, he could judge by the numbers on the timer, which was far more accurate than mental arithmetic.

Standing up, he glanced out the window where Boss Magna’s phone screen had long been switched to a beautiful woman, this time with an even more stunning figure than before, a typical Western bombshell.

Seeing him silly-grinning at the screen, Lin Chen rolled his eyes speechlessly and sat back down on the stool.

The person who was just complaining about hunger, are they full now?

Time flew by.

"Beep Beep Beep"

The adjusted timer rang beside his ear, Lin Chen immediately stood up and lifted the pot lid.

After fiddling around for a while, he discovered the alarm clock function and multi-point timer of the timer.

Simply put, it allows setting a total time and then setting alarms at each separate point.

For example, now, only nine minutes of the total duration have passed, and there are still ten minutes left on the timer countdown.

A thick steam coupled with a fresh, aromatic, spicy scent rose and continuously wafted into his nostrils.

Boss Magna, deeply immersed in the world of beauties, had just swiped to the next woman when a familiar spicy aroma floated to his nose. Instinctively taking a few deep breaths, he pressed the pause button and his attention instantly shifted over to the food truck’s window.

Even though he felt it had only been one or two minutes, why was the lid already lifted?

Standing up, he tiptoed to peer into the pot.

The iron pot was filled with bright red chili and deep red chili oil, the central bubbling surface presented a brown hue completely unrelated to the nearby pot of milky white fish soup.

The previously somewhat ghastly-looking fish head had dramatically transformed, looking much like just-finished Marseille Fish Soup that hadn’t yet been filtered.

As a seafood wholesale boss and a coastal resident, unlike ordinary people, he didn’t fear the terrifying appearance of fish heads.

In his eyes, the bubbling fish head that now soaked in the red oily soup was instead full of rich temptation.

From past experience, anything that could make Lin Chen pull out this color of soup base wouldn’t fall below three bowls of rice. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Reflecting on this, he began to swallow saliva once more, curious about the taste of fish roe, fish bubbles, and fish head.

Ten minutes of boiling over high heat, the spicy fish soup had been reduced to half, the beer had vaporized, leaving mainly red oil, with only a portion of the remaining broth still boiling below.

Taking a fine mesh metal strainer, he placed it above the iron pot and spooned in the fish bone and fish tail soup, completely boiled into a mix of milky white and light yellow, from the side, letting the fish soup drip directly into the pot through the strainer.

As the fish soup was added, the whole pot of red oil gradually shifted towards golden yellow.

Three minutes later, all the fish soup had been completely filtered, and the fish heads in the pot were almost separated from their bones and meat.

Lin Chen quickly picked out some obvious large fish bones and threw them into another pot, leaving only the mostly de-boned fish head meat to continue stewing.

After picking out the big bones, he poured fish roe and fish bladders into the pot, along with the previously cut green chili segments and perilla leaves, then added some chicken essence, sea salt, sugar, and pepper for seasoning.

Originally, he should have added some pickled peppers or chopped chili, but he worried Magna couldn’t handle that level of spiciness, so he simply didn’t add it and instead dripped a few drops of white vinegar to enhance the flavor.

"How much longer?"

Seeing Lin Chen put the lid back on again, Magna felt the sky was falling, the hunger in his stomach almost twisting his intestines.

"Five minutes!"

"Phew..."

Magna breathed a sigh of relief, finally within his tolerable range this time.

Just sat down, picked up his phone, and stared at the scantily dressed, sexy women on the screen, suddenly realizing something.

Wait!

Just watching a few videos, fifteen minutes had passed???

He felt something was off but couldn’t put his finger on it.

He looked at the time on his phone but had no recollection of the time before watching the videos, completely unsure of how much time had passed.

After hesitating for a long time, he still couldn’t figure it out.

He was quite open-minded, thinking if he couldn’t figure it out, he wouldn’t think about it. Maybe Lin Chen shortened the cooking time realizing he was very hungry?

After all, it’s up to the head chef to decide cooking times with just a word.

"Whatever, five more minutes of watching women dance, then it’ll be time to eat!"

"I didn’t expect there to be so many beautiful women on this app, and each are so generous, the best part is it’s free!"

"Isn’t this more interesting than a strip club?"

"No wonder Lin recommended this to me, what a good guy!"

Four minutes later.

When Lin Chen lifted the pot lid again, the entire pot of fish soup had simmered into a golden yellow, the broth full of a rich gelatinous texture, even though no starch water was used to thicken it, it was as smooth as wine.

In the bubbling broth, many small yellow particles were visibly floating, all broken-up fish roe, looking deliciously fresh.

Not all of the fish heads Magna brought were used, about half were put in, but all the fish bones and tails were used for the soup, and all the fish roe and bladders were in the pot.

The pot was packed full of ingredients, it was so lavish that even the cook, Lin Chen, was a bit stunned.

"Such a big pot of fish head, fish roe, and fish bladder, if it were served in a restaurant back home, it wouldn’t cost less than a few hundred yuan, right?"

He glanced at the rice cooker; it had eight minutes to go.

Should we try a bit first?

Forget about Magna, even he himself felt an irresistible urge to taste it.

Smelling the aroma, Magna instinctively leaned in at the window, staring straight at the pot full of fish offal, swallowing hard.

"Can we eat now?"

"Soon!"

Lin Chen picked up chopsticks, selected a piece of golden fish roe to soak in the broth, and blew on it twice.

"Let me taste it first, and then you can eat."

Then, not minding the heat, he directly put it into his mouth.

The fresh, savory, spicy flavor hit him, wrapped in the steaming temperature, perfectly highlighting the fresh taste of the seafood.

The condensed fish soup, just as it appeared, was full of a gelatinous texture, forming a thin film on the surface of the fish roe, and filling every gap between the fish roe with broth.

As his teeth bit down, the plump and firm fish roe burst in his mouth, the hidden juices spraying out.

Fresh, savory, numbing, spicy, the four characters flashed before him one by one.

He swore he’d never tasted soup with such intense flavor, to the point it felt a bit unreal.

"Is this what the rich live like?"

Thinking back to his days of working hard across the country in domestic jobs, only daring to eat instant noodles to save money, and then seeing the pot full of fish roe and fish bladder hotpot in front of him, he couldn’t tell whether it was saliva or tears that flowed out first in the moment.

Such a lavish pot of fish offal, although available back home, would definitely not come cheap, unlike here where they are unwanted scraps, virtually costless.

Every time he thought of these countless great ingredients being wasted, he felt a deep sense of pain.

No, I must make this money for myself!

Turning around, he picked up two plastic lunch boxes and disposable chopsticks and handed them to Magna, whose eyes lit up as he joyfully turned with the utensils and ran off.

When Lin Chen walked down from the trolley with a full pot of spicy fish offal, he immediately attracted the attention of many diners by the windows in the restaurant, and even those queuing at the entrance noticed the scene.

"What’s that, is it the lunch the chef made for himself?"

"He even brought the whole pot down, it surely isn’t for sale."

"We’ve been smelling that delicious scent from the front, I really want to see what the chef usually has for lunch."