Chapter 7
“What’s with this ‘gasp’ again? Do I have to do another Talulal?”
-You haven’t even done it yourself, so what are you talking about? lol
-Hmm, does he not know?
-I sent you an email~
What is this…. Judging by their reactions, there seems to be something going on. As expected, they aren’t telling me.
This is bothering me. There has to be some reason these idiots are acting like this.
Even after waiting, all they could say was crap like, “You don’t know?”
I’m the idiot for expecting anything. Forget it. Some teacher who can’t keep their mouth shut will tell me later.
[ㅇㅇ donated 1,000 won!]
Teacher, teacher, isn’t bread that crispy better than plain bread?
What kind of infuriating nonsense is this now?
My head is getting hot. Crispy? Does that look crispy to you? If it burns like that, it isn’t crispy—it’s crackly. You little punk. Did a ghost who died without ever getting to eat something crispy possess you?
“That’s about bread that’s been properly toasted. This is burnt. It’s burnt, not well-toasted.”
I gave them a roughly 5,700-character explanation of why and checked the chat.
They understand now, right?
-Looooooooool, this is fucking hilarious
-Saved.
-You can eat it a little dark.
-Exactly, exactly.
-You’re so picky. You’re off my list of wife candidates.
They clearly hadn’t understood a thing.
These bastards were obviously doing this on purpose just to rile me up.
“No, it’s not about being picky. Think about it, guys. You go to a restaurant and order toast. This is what they bring you. Would you really say, ‘Wow, it’s nicely browned,’ and eat it?”
-Yep.
-Yep.
-But that’s actually a fact.
-A real man just eats it.
-Crispy as hell, fucking delicious.
A real man? Oh, screw you. Go eat that pineapple kimchi stew from earlier.
“If it were mine, I’d either say, ‘It’s a little burnt,’ and eat it, or scrape off the burnt parts and eat it. Fine. But if you serve that to a customer? You’ll get a complaint immediately.”
The viewers kept shouting the opposite the more I tried to persuade them.
I shouldn’t have said anything to these damn idiots.
The guy who donated was probably just trying to rile me up, too. You win, asshole.
Bickering with those mindless giants who only shouted opposition for opposition’s sake was actually fun, and I felt my anger subsiding.
Let’s look at the next post.
They’d complained that it was a hassle and whatnot, but ten posts had already gone up. I continued the backseat-cooking stream, looking through them one by one.
“Teacher. At this point, I think this might still be saved if you take it to a veterinary hospital.”
“This is pretty convincing. Jeyuk? Wait, this looks awfully familiar…. This is the first thing I made. I told you to bring in whatever food you’re eating.”
“It’s pizza. But why is there pineapple on it? Hey, you’re the kimchi-stew guy from earlier. You made that too, not your mother. Is this an alt account? Get out again, you punk.”
-T_T What’s wrong with Hawaiian?
You think salty pizza topped with lukewarm, sweet-and-sour, mushy pineapple tastes good?
Ugh. You savage mongrels.
-It’s good. You only say that because you haven’t tried it.
-Exactly, exactly. Hawaiian is delicious.
-The mod is right. It’s even written in the Goguryeo Subakdo.
-Please respect our tastes T_T
“Respect tastes? More like taste-disrespect. There are three things I truly can’t understand: cooked carrots, Hawaiian pizza, and Mrs. Jo’s cooking.”
-Looooooooool, that damn Mrs. Jo’s cooking again.
-Mom’s sobbing T_T
-Unfilial daughter (literally uses fire).
Thus ended the World’s Greatest Jian-Riling Competition, disguised as backseat cooking.
“All right, that’s all for today’s stream. It was more fun than I expected. Shall we do something like this again next time?”
-Good, good.
-Are you coming tomorrow too?
Probably, unless something comes up?
I said goodbye and was just about to turn off the stream when a donation flew in.
[ㅇㅇ donated 1,000 won!]
I don’t think the bread from before was burnt. Aren’t you overreacting?
I felt myself bristle a little, but I decided not to react. Don’t let it get to you, Jian.
All right. End stream….
[ㅇㅇ donated 1,000 won!]
-LOL, you cooking-illiterate bitch.
Or so I thought.
Round two was on.
I checked the ID and found it was the same person who had donated earlier.
Was this the one who uploaded the bread photo? This won’t do. You and I need to have a serious talk.
-Serious?
-Gasp.
-This is a reward.
“Enough nonsense. Hey, you, stop donating and come over here. Ms. Haeun? Tell me.”
HaeunLoveDog : It’s not burnt at that level. It’s just well-baked.
I checked the photo again. It was definitely burnt.
“It is burnt. Since it’s a photo and not the real thing, I can’t be exact, but either something burnt onto the grill or pan got stuck to the bread, or the bread itself burned.”
HaeunLoveDog : Anyway, it isn’t.
“I’m telling you, it is.”
HaeunLoveDog : No.
“It is.”
HaeunLoveDog : Nope.
The chat kept repeating nothing but “it is” and “it isn’t.”
-A battle between an unstoppable spear and an impenetrable shield!
-I’m getting fucking petty.
-Hmm… Looking at the nickname…
“Haeun, you little shit!!! I’m right. If you want, call it Maillard, but why the hell do you keep insisting that burnt bread is ‘well-baked’? Do you want to die?”
-Looooooooooooooooooooooooool
-He went from zero to a hundred lol
-Haeun, sleeping at home, just got startled awake.
HaeunLoveDog : LOL, there’s your idiot level, huh? Maillard comes from protein, you moron. Maillard in bread? Stop pretending to be an expert.
-?? Bread has protein too, doesn’t it?
-Technically, sure, but you don’t look at browned bread and go, “Oh, Maillard,” like an idiot.
-Yar~
This “yar” bullshit. And what do you mean, “fake expert”? Fine, you walked right into this. Let’s see you die today.
“Level? Leeeeeeevel? Hey, do you even know what the Maillard reaction is?”
Haeun was silent.
“What would you know? All you can do is watch YouTube and swagger around with scraps you overheard about people calling what happens to meat a Maillard reaction or whatever.”
I searched the internet for a paper on the Maillard reaction and opened it on the screen.
I skipped all the stuff about Mr. Maillard discovering it and the chemical reaction, and enlarged the most important passage.
“See this? The reaction between amino compounds and reducing sugars is called the Maillard reaction. In simple terms, protein and sugar.”
I put the photo of the burnt bread up beside it, too.
“Hey. Do you think there’s no sugar in this bread? It looks like sliced bread, so you don’t know how much sugar goes into bread, do you?”
“And even if there were no sugar, didn’t you learn that carbohydrates break down and turn into sugar?!”
The chat fell silent, just as I’d expected.
“Right. What would you know? Have you ever made it or looked it up? Fine, whatever. But don’t use that paltry knowledge to put other people down, you pathetic idiot.”
-Gasp, poor deficient Haeun T_T
-Jian wins the ruling!
-Jian delivers the killing blow!
-Where’d Haeun go?
I told you I was right, so what the hell was Haeun talking about? Even if I’m like this now, considering my previous career, I’m on an entirely different level.
HaeunLoveDog : Who are you to call that Maillard? Even the famous person I know doesn’t call it Maillard.
-Famous, my ass lol.
“What, is it not Maillard just because a famous person doesn’t call it that? What kind of ridiculous logic is that? If that’s your standard, a famous pastry chef I know said it is Maillard, so what now?”
-Pastry? You mean pastry? (snorf snorf)
-Looooooooool
HaeunLoveDog : And sugar in bread? LOL. Then just call it caramelization, you idiot LOL.
Haeun must have gone and looked something up in the meantime, huh? Fine, let’s start round two.
“Caramelization is a chemical process that occurs with pure sugar alone, without protein. Do some proper research. Stop reading those dumb blogs with their thumbs-up signs.”
HaeunLoveDog : Who cares, you fucking bitch? You’re wrong, period. What would some fake expert with no experience know? We’re on such different levels we can’t even have a conversation, tsk tsk.
-Whaaaat are you saaaying, you bread biiitch? Anywaaay, yooou’re wroooong.
-Haeun, calm down and try saying that again.
-Kyaaa, Jian wins the Maillard War by a landslide!
“I won, right? He couldn’t refute my message, so he attacked the messenger, huh? Getting all shaky? Haeun, you’re cut, cut, cut! Haeun, I hope you enjoyed that. Let’s never see each other again~”
[ㅇㅇ donated 1,000 won!]
HaeunLoveDog : If you’re craving HaeunLoveDog’s cock, start with me~
-Cock.
-Penis.
“Ahem. This is not that kind of room, everyone. Go do that in your home base. My stream is a very clean and normal cooking stream that I strongly recommend.”
-Wait, you little shit, did you just say “dog-recommend”?
-LOL, what kind of normal stream is this? It’s just a fucking underground stream.
-For real lol.
Ahem. Stop slandering me. Again, this is not that kind of room. People can make a slip of the tongue. Dog-recommend. Anyway, now that we’ve established the winner and loser, let’s punish the loser….
“What? Where did this guy go?”
-Haeun’s doing a pants-run at top speed, bb.
-He was already gone.
-Looks like he already went cold.
Running away—what an ugly bastard to the end. The wounds on one’s back are a swordsman’s shame… Wait, Haeun isn’t a swordsman. Then I approve.
Once I’d calmed down a little, I remembered how worked up I’d just gotten.
I really should fix this tendency to blow my top whenever cooking comes up.
Not easy.
Still, I won, and the viewers enjoyed it, so isn’t that enough?
Looking at the viewer count, there was one fewer, leaving twenty-one Spartans.
The only thing worrying me was that there might be another person like Haeun.
‘It’ll be okay, right?’
If another one showed up here, they’d just be a clone…. I trust our viewers.
Anyway, time passed, and it was time to end the stream.
“That’s all for today’s stream. It was a new attempt of sorts—what did you think?”
-But aren’t we screwed now?
-Who cares lol.
-That was fun lol. A hilarious final stream.
-For real lol.
-Feels like this is about to blow up.
-Done! Good work. See you after you reincarnate as a VTuber.
Why? Why are they acting crazy again?
-Search the platform for Haeun <<
Haeun? Wasn’t that the nickname from earlier…. A chill ran down my spine.
A search turned up a live stream with 5,000 viewers.
Guys, it can’t be, right? We can’t do this to each other.
[ㅇㅇ donated 1,000 won!]
Info) Haeun is a mega-streamer with over 800,000 YouTube subscribers, famous for having fiercely loyal viewers. For reference, that bread Haeun bragged about as being well-baked is Haeun’s dinner tonight.
“What? No. Why didn’t you tell me?”
-Because…
-Because it’s fun!
-As long as it isn’t me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Enough, enough, enough, enough, you bastard.
-Thith ith too hawd to wead.
-Looooooooooooooooooooooooool
-This is fucking hilarious x3.
What did I even do today?
I insulted Haeun. Called Haeun’s cooking trash. Said “dog-recommend,” too….
I take back saying I trusted you. You bastards.