Chapter 806: Ice Sculpture
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The system displayed, “The fresh beer will be supplied without limit during business time.”
“Without limit? So that’s why.” Yuan Zhou understood then.
“What about the price?” Yuan Zhou continued asking.
The system displayed, “The fresh beer is 302 RMB per cup.”
“That’s weird! System, doesn’t the price normally end with 6 or 8? Why did it change to 2 this time?” On seeing the price, Yuan Zhou noticed this problem.
With regards to Yuan Zhou’s query, however, the system didn’t give any answer.
After he checked the beer, Yuan Zhou directly went to the second floor and conveniently carried a barrel of beer upstairs. After all, he had too much pride to ask Shen Min to carry the heavy barrel. A barrel of beer was at least 30kg and with the barrel itself, it would be almost 35kg.
As soon as he went upstairs, Yuan Zhou caught sight of a row of glass cups that had newly appeared on the countertop. They were all narrower at the lower part and wider at the mouth. It was a tall and slender cup that could hold 600ml.
“The beer glass looks fairly nice.” Yuan Zhou set down the beer barrel and picked up a cup thoughtfully.
The cup in Yuan Zhou’s hand wasn’t small, but just this kind of cup could best express the taste and foam of the beer as well as its unique fragrance.
But this cup was indeed very big. Its capacity of 600ml was even more than that of a big bottle.
“302 RMB per cup with an unlimited supply. It seems I need to consider for a while.” Yuan Zhou put the glass cup down gently and then went back to the kitchen.
As he was preoccupied with this matter, Yuan Zhou didn’t sculpt in the morning. Instead, he carefully tidied up the first floor of the pub. Even if the system had already cleaned the dust when it offered the reward, Yuan Zhou still cleaned the room again out of an abnormal fear of dirt or contamination.
The whole morning passed while Yuan Zhou was cleaning the room. Lunchtime arrived on time and ended on time. When it came to the afternoon, Yuan Zhou took out the ice block prepared the previous night and prepared to sculpt.
That’s right. Yuan Zhou prepared to continue sculpting pieces of ice as it could improve his sculpting skills.
In order to sculpt a piece of ice well, Yuan Zhou had also found many videos of talented people and their ice sculptures recently in the hope of being inspired.
He didn’t get inspired, but found out something else instead.
First of all, most of the videos Yuan Zhou could find on the Internet came from abroad. Besides, the protagonists of these ice-sculpting video weren’t all chefs. They covered various occupations including artists, sculptors, bartenders, and some other occupations.
Some people had excellent sculpting skills while some others had inferior skills. However, none of them could finish the work with the kitchen knife like Yuan Zhou did.
That’s right. Yuan Zhou had evolved from using the professional carving knife back to using the kitchen knife. He was definitely an exotic flower in the ice-sculpting circle.
Coming back to the story. That didn’t mean there were no talents from China in this circle. Precisely speaking, the ice-sculpting activity first originated from China. And the reason why he couldn’t find any video of Chinese sculptors was probably that most folk talents liked concealing their strength and not showing to others.
Yuan Zhou could clearly remember, the old man who drove the rickshaw once mentioned about a person who could sculpt an ice dragon.
This ice-dragon old man was said to have been crowned the champion twice in the Harbin Ice Sculpture Competition. However, he was reluctant to show his capabilities to others even if he was starving.
One would never know about the difficulties if one didn’t do it himself. After the hard practice recently, Yuan Zhou got to understand how hard it was to sculpt an intact ice dragon.
“As a successful achiever, is it a must to retain a final card? Like pulling a punch,” Yuan Zhou muttered to himself, but he immediately ended this thought.
Never think of pulling a punch. Quite a few good things failed to be handed down from past generations because of such kind of thoughts.
Yuan Zhou’s thinking might be heading to the extremes. He believed that for craftsmanship, it was better to make them known to everybody rather than burying them underground. It was quite exaggerated. Due to the great difficulties of certain craftsmanship, it was unlikely to popularized. However, wasn’t it at least better to let more people know them?
“The ice sculptures can finally be taken out to show others.”
While Yuan Zhou was muttering to himself, he had started working. The washbowl-sized ice block gradually took shape under Yuan Zhou’s kitchen knife.
The technique for sculpting ice was quite different from that of sculpting vegetables. The vegetable sculpting was particular about “carefulness, exquisiteness, and ingenuity” and also required more skillful force.
However, the ice sculpting was particular about “steadiness, precision, and restraint.” Yuan Zhou raised the kitchen knife slightly in his hand and restrained 70% of the strength at the knifepoint going downwards. Then, the sharp tiger eyes came into being.
The vegetable sculpting required skillful force while the ice sculpting required restraint. Many failed ice sculptured were the result of excessive strength from the sculptor rather than insufficient strength.
If there was a ranking of the ice sculptors, those who could sculpt a deer were at the first level while those who could sculpt the head of a dragon were at a higher level. Just as mentioned previously, one could be called “great master” if he could sculpt an intact dragon.
Yuan Zhou himself had a high degree of professional proficiency after his hard work in sculpting the radishes or vegetables. Though the sculpting skills required were different, he had a very solid foundation. So after the hard training for quite a while, his sculpting skills were pretty good.
The first ice sculpture was not only seen by Ji Yi, but also by some other customers. They all saw the failed sculpture at that time. So Yuan Zhou had devised a plan for a very long time to restore his reputation.
He remembered clearly who they were. Apart from Ji Yi and Liu Zhang, there were five customers who saw his first failed ice sculpture. As for whom the five people were, he didn’t want to tell others. Anyway, he finally waited until all five customers appeared in his restaurant.
He must avenge the insult.
Therefore, Yuan Zhou bought a big ice block. He was going to sculpt it into the profile of “Two Dragons Chasing A Pearl”, which was of greatest difficulty.
The difficulties of this lay not only in the sculpting skills but also in the artistic conception of “chasing”. To achieve this goal, the dragons he was going to sculpt must be very realistic.
Yuan Zhou carried the ice block on the table, took up the kitchen knife, observed it very carefully and looked for where to start.
Meanwhile, the onlookers at the side couldn’t help discussing.
“So Boss Yuan wants to do an ice sculpture?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“It’s probably not easy to sculpt it since it’s so large.”
“Exactly. It was a small one last time, but this time, he suddenly changed to a large one?”
“No. I remember it was as big as a washbowl. Boss Yuan directly sculpted a pond with it and the fish inside felt like real fish.”
“What will Boss Yuan sculpt with the ice block this time?”
“Considering the size, it’s going to be a big sculpture.” A man with glasses said with seriousness.
“Nonsense.”
It was a reply from somebody else who heard the person’s mysterious answer.
The clamor of the customers actually didn’t affect Yuan Zhou’s work. Before he started to work on the ice block, Yuan Zhou specially turned his head and took a look back.
“Good. Everybody is here.” Yuan Zhou nodded his head secretly in his heart before he started to sculpt the ice block.
The blade of the kitchen knife was awfully sharp. Whenever he waved the knife around, it was like a silver thread flickering across the ice block and then a piece of ice dropped down at the sound of the cut. The cut was neat and smooth and there weren’t any knife scratches at all.
“Shua Shua Shua”. Along with the waving of his kitchen knife, the ice block under his hand gradually took shape. The rough image could be clearly recognized
Another difficulty of sculpting the ice block was how to cut the ice block and meanwhile maintain its intactness. And one more difficulty was the speed of sculpting. Otherwise, it would be quite embarrassing if he still couldn’t finish it when the time was up.
The current craftsmanship of Yuan Zhou could basically meet the two requirements of quick action and vigorousness.
EMPTY
