The spectators stared with their eyes wide open, their faces filled with disbelief.
Most of them had lived half their lives without ever seeing a dumpling move on its own.
It was simply too incredible.
Standing among the crowd, Haruto watched the Rising Dragon Dumplings proudly lifting their heads inside the steamer, anticipation showing on his face.
Even though he already knew the story and understood exactly how the trick worked, seeing it happen with his own eyes was still fascinating.
This had gone beyond ordinary cooking.
If Wu Xiong’s Giant Dragon Dumplings were exquisitely crafted works of art, then Mao’s dumplings felt alive.
The surrounding diners continued crowding around Mao, bombarding him with questions about how he had made the dumplings move.
Haruto had no interest in joining the interrogation.
He calmly picked up a steamer of Rising Dragon Dumplings for himself.
The dragon-shaped dumplings were still standing proudly upright.
Their wrappers were made from two completely different types of dough.
The upper layer was translucent rice-noodle-sheet skin, clear enough that the pale pink shrimp filling inside could be seen through it.
The lower layer was a wheat-flour wrapper carrying a faint aroma of grain, sturdy enough to support the entire dragon-shaped structure.
Haruto picked one up with his chopsticks.
The moment they touched the wrapper, he could already feel the difference between the two layers.
The rice-flour skin above was smooth and tender.
The wheat-flour skin below had exactly the right amount of resilience.
Haruto placed the dumpling into his mouth and bit down.
The upper rice wrapper touched his tongue first, silky and soft with a light fragrance of rice.
Then his teeth broke through the lower wheat wrapper.
It had a pleasant chewiness that contrasted beautifully with the smooth tenderness above.
The two textures collided in his mouth, completely different yet strangely harmonious.
And the instant the wrapper opened—
Hot juices burst across his tongue.
Compared with Wu Xiong’s Giant Dragon Dumplings, the broth inside Mao’s Rising Dragon Dumplings was even fresher.
The sheer intensity of the shrimp flavor made Haruto’s scalp tingle, almost as if a whole live prawn were leaping around inside his mouth.
Yet the flavor remained remarkably clean and refreshing, without the slightest heaviness.
Then his teeth reached the shrimp filling.
Crisp.
Springy.
Tender.
The shrimp bounced lightly between his teeth before bursting apart with its natural juices.
Its sweetness had been brought out to the absolute limit.
Even the wheat aroma and rice fragrance of the wrappers seemed to exist solely to support that pure seafood sweetness.
Every bite brought another small surprise.
After swallowing, the fragrance lingered for a long time.
Even his breath seemed to carry the clean sweetness of fresh shrimp.
Having tasted Mao’s Rising Dragon Dumplings, Haruto thought back to Wu Xiong’s Giant Dragon Dumplings.
The difference immediately became obvious.
Wu Xiong’s creation had seemed nearly flawless when eaten on its own.
But compared directly with Mao’s, the shrimp flavor suddenly felt as though it were missing something.
The Rising Dragon Dumplings did not merely surpass the Giant Dragon Dumplings in creativity.
They surpassed them in flavor and texture as well.
When a dish could satisfy the palate, overturn expectations, and give the diner an experience they had never encountered before, the outcome was already decided.
Haruto finished his serving and smacked his lips, still wanting more.
Then, without drawing attention to himself, he casually picked up another steamer.
Before long, everyone present had finished tasting Mao’s Rising Dragon Dumplings.
The tasting portion of the final officially ended.
The host looked over the crowd’s reactions, took a deep breath, and raised his voice.
"Voting now begins!"
"Please form an orderly line. If you support the Dumpling Brothers’ Giant Dragon Dumplings, place your red ball into the voting urn!"
"If you support Yangquan Restaurant’s Rising Dragon Dumplings, place your white ball into the white urn!"
The diners quickly formed long lines.
One by one, they stepped forward and dropped their chosen ball into the corresponding urn.
Around fifteen minutes later, voting was complete.
The urns were moved into a designated area while every eye in the square followed them.
"All right, everyone!"
"The final champion of this year’s Guangzhou Dumpling Contest is about to be decided!"
"Today’s final has truly been a battle of dragon against dragon!"
"Will victory go to the Giant Dragon Dumplings that roam the seas?"
The host raised his voice dramatically.
"Or to the Rising Dragon Dumplings that soar into the heavens?"
"We’re about to find out!"
As soon as he finished speaking, a burly man carrying an enormous wooden mallet stepped toward the urn.
He raised the mallet high overhead.
Then brought it down with all his strength.
CRASH—!!
The huge ceramic urn shattered.
A dense flood of white balls poured from the broken vessel, rolling across the ground until the entire area was covered.
The host pointed toward them and shouted at the top of his lungs.
"White!"
"They’re all white!"
"Every single vote is white! There isn’t a single red ball!"
"I hereby declare the winner of this year’s Guangzhou Dumpling Contest—Yangquan Restaurant!"
"And taking first place this year are Liu Maoxing’s—Rising Dragon Dumplings!"
The moment she heard that Yangquan had won, Meili threw her arms around Mao.
"We won! We actually won!"
Master Zhou Yu stood nearby, looking at Mao with a deeply satisfied smile.
On the opposite side, Wu Xiong stared at the scene in silence.
His entire body seemed frozen.
Then his shoulders slowly sagged.
His eyes were filled with defeat.
He had never imagined he would lose so completely.
"Wait! I still don’t accept this!"
A Lu suddenly rushed forward and shouted toward the celebrating Yangquan group.
"So what if the dumplings can move?! There’s no way my brother’s Giant Dragon Dumplings could lose to some childish little trick like that!"
In A Lu’s mind, there was simply no possibility that Wu Xiong’s Giant Dragon Dumplings could truly be inferior to Mao’s Rising Dragon Dumplings.
At that moment, Elder Guan slowly stepped forward.
"In that case, why don’t we analyze both dishes properly in front of everyone?"
"Then we can see exactly where the difference lies."
He had both dumpling dishes placed on a table before the crowd.
Then he gestured toward Wu Xiong’s Giant Dragon Dumplings.
"First, presentation is an essential part of any dish."
"In terms of visual impact, Wu Xiong’s Giant Dragon Dumplings are the culmination of extraordinary knife work and precision shaping."
"The carving of the dragon and the overall construction are genuinely flawless."
He paused before turning toward Mao’s Rising Dragon Dumplings.
"However, what deserves even greater attention is Mao’s creativity."
"He made the food move."
"He gave the dumpling the appearance of life."
"That idea goes beyond simple presentation."
"When it comes to creativity, Mao has undoubtedly gone one step further."
The surrounding diners immediately nodded and murmured their agreement.
After all, none of them would ever forget the moment they had watched a dragon-shaped dumpling slowly rise from the steamer.
Even Wu Xiong and A Lu had no way to argue with that.
After finishing his assessment of the creativity, Elder Guan turned toward Mao.
"Mao, now you can reveal how you made the Rising Dragon Dumplings move."
"I imagine everyone here has been dying to know."
The crowd immediately erupted.
"Yes! Tell us!"
"How did the dumpling lift its own head?!"
"I’ve been wondering the whole time!"
Mao did not keep the secret any longer.
He picked up two different wrappers and held them up for everyone to see.
One was a crystal-clear rice-flour sheet.
The other was an ordinary wheat-flour wrapper with a faint grain aroma.
Their thickness and texture were visibly different.
"The secret lies in these two different types of wrapper."
The crowd looked confused.
Two wrappers?
How could that make a dumpling move?
Seeing their expressions, Mao continued explaining.
"The upper half of my Rising Dragon Dumplings uses a rice-flour wrapper like the kind used for rice noodle rolls."
"The lower half uses a wheat-flour wrapper."
"When they’re steamed, the two kinds of dough expand by different amounts."
"The wheat wrapper underneath expands more, and that difference in expansion forces the dragon upward."
"That’s why the dumpling moves."
Understanding dawned across the crowd.
"Oh! So that’s how it works!"
"That sounds so simple!"
"I thought it was some kind of magic trick. It’s just because the two wrappers expand differently!"
People began laughing and discussing it as though the whole thing suddenly seemed easy.
Watching the expressions around him that clearly said, I could do that too, Haruto could not help shaking his head.
It sounded simple.
Actually doing it was another matter entirely.
Making the Rising Dragon Dumplings rise properly instead of tipping over or tearing apart required an absurd degree of precision.
The ratios of the two doughs.
Their thickness.
Their moisture content.
Even a minor difference could alter how much each wrapper expanded and leave the dragon unable to rise.
The seam joining the two wrappers also had to be perfect.
Too weak, and the dumpling would split apart as it moved, spilling the filling everywhere.
Even the weight and exact placement of the filling had to be calculated.
Too heavy, and the wrapper could not lift it.
Too light, and the whole dumpling might simply topple over.
There was nothing easy about it.
Haruto had actually tried reproducing the Rising Dragon Dumplings himself the previous day.
To be precise, he had only attempted to reproduce the mechanism that made the dumpling move.
Yet even with Nen assisting him, it had taken more than a dozen attempts before he finally succeeded.
Mao had gone from the initial idea to a completed, functional dish in a single night.
That was not luck.
It was proof that Mao’s understanding of ingredients had already become instinctive.
He possessed a natural sensitivity toward food that could not simply be learned through repetition.
Some people were simply born for cooking.
And Liu Maoxing was one of them.
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