He suddenly felt something in his head. Like a presence or voice was asking him to close his eyes and calm down. The more he struggled, the stronger the feeling became. He was afraid of closing his eyes, worried that it would send him back. He tried his hardest not to close his eyes and relax. But his effort was futile as only seconds later his eyes closed again.

w.a.n.g Ming steeled himself for the pain, for the knives to stab his heart, but the only thing he felt was comfortable. No pain at all, just a soothing feeling, like how a baby feels when they are showered with love by their parents. He was standing in a forest and could hear the birds chirping, see all kinds of animals running around the woods like bears, rabbits, foxes, and deers. He didn't know why they weren't aggressive towards each other or to him. He didn't have time for it either as he heard the voice again. It told him to walk, and his body just followed after.

He just walked and looked around curiously. Where was he? Had he been teleported? Was this just a nightmare, would he wake up again with functioning arms and legs? Then his legs suddenly stopped as he saw a beautiful treehouse. It looked lovely in the shade of a big oak tree. It had a small door that would just about fit his body. Even though it entirely made out of wood, it didn't look old or ancient at all. It looked well taken care of and had a modern look to it. He didn't know how the house was kept together using only wood as the doors and windows. Even the windows were a type of glossy see-through kind of wood.

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OPEN THE DOOR the voice roared at him. This time though he could hear it not just in his head. He could see the trees rustling and sway because of the strength of voice. w.a.n.g Ming thought that since maybe it was a dream, then let's follow whatever it says. He walked up to the door and opened and was shocked by how the house looked inwards. Beautiful marble colored floors, the walls were gray with a s.h.i.+ne to them. It also hung every type of skins you could imagine on the walls with the heads still attached, bears, lions, tigers, boar, rhinos and more. His body started to steer itself again as he walked into the underwhelming kitchen. It was just a stone stove, firewood, stone table, a bowl with different kinds of herbs and vegetables, and a dead chicken that laid on the stone table.

Then he heard the voice again this time talking to him. "Welcome, Human pa.s.s this test, and you will find the answers you seek. Do you want to be the best chef in the world? The Food Master? Then pa.s.s this test. If you don't want to be a cripple for the rest of your life, pa.s.s this test. To be a great cook, you need to be able to make something out of nothing. Cook the chicken and if it's satisfactory you pa.s.s. Now Good Luck"

"What do you mean? What test? What do you want me to even cook with there's nothing here!" w.a.n.g Ming shouted back, but all he could hear was his voice echoing. w.a.n.g Ming then saw that to the left of the chicken was a knife and had a daring thought. If this is a dream, then this shouldn't hurt. He then hesitatingly took the knife and with a deep breath cut a shallow cut on his arm. He laughed as he didn't feel any pain. Then this has to be a dream, he thought. But then he felt a burning feeling right above his arm, it felt so real, and it hurt so bad. He looked at his arm and saw an orange glow right above the cut he had made. That slowly healed his wound as it burned. w.a.n.g Ming gritted his teeth together and just waited for it to be over. After a couple of minutes, the light finally died out, and he sighed a breath of relief, he then took a mental note of never being an idiot and hurting himself.

w.a.n.g Ming then knew how grave the situation was. If he felt pain and didn't wake up, then this had to be all real. But where was he? Where were his injuries? Then he saw the chicken and decided to cast all of his questions away and focus on the task at hand. w.a.n.g Ming then decided to check out everything in the kitchen, which was not much. Herbs, vegetables, leaves, stone stove, and the chicken he didn't have much choice at all in what to make. It had to either be to try and grill the chicken right over the stove or to scavenge the forest to find something that could be used to make a pan or a ca.s.serole. But then it clicked for him he had seen it before in movies when you only had a chicken and nothing else what would you make? Beggar's chicken. He could try out the herbs and see what kind they were then stuffing them in the chicken then lastly use mud and fire for cooking the chicken.

w.a.n.g Ming decided to see what kind of herbs and vegetables he had first and taste them because they would decide how his chicken would taste. He could already see some he recognized like ginger, garlic, dried chilies, rhubarb, salvia, licorice, and cinnamon. There were some other herbs and vegetables too. w.a.n.g Ming felt like it was best to cook with what he knew or else he didn't know if he was going to pa.s.s this test. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d test," he cursed under his breath.

w.a.n.g Ming knew that he didn't have the five-spice powder, thas is essential for any Beggar's Chicken. So he had to adapt firstly he finely chopped ginger, garlic and dried chilies. Then he finely chopped some rhubarb and grounded some cinnamon together to make his five-spice powder. w.a.n.g Ming thought that this was almost perfect, but it would maybe be a bit too sour with both the rhubarb and ginger. Luckily for him at the bottom of the bowl, it was leaves of stevia, which he could cut and ground up as much as he could with the bottom of his knife to make the perfect sugar subst.i.tute.

Then he started on the filling for the chicken. w.a.n.g Ming took a bundle of mushrooms and lettuce and chopped it up in chunks before taking the spice mix and mixing it with the mushrooms and lettuce. The smell of the spices was intense, and w.a.n.g Ming's nose burned when smelling it but in a good way. Now the only thing left was to clean the chicken. Usually, he would have boiled the chicken so he could easily remove the feathers and clean it, but since the only thing available was a stove, so he just had to use it to grill the chicken instead. Since cleaning an uncooked chicken, increases the risk of food poisoning because of the bacteria campylobacter bacteria. w.a.n.g Ming then proceeded to remove all the feathers of the chicken by pulling them off. (Here should be all the details about how you clean a chicken, but it's tedious and nasty).

After the chicken was all cleaned up, w.a.n.g Ming then put the filling inside the chicken. Then made a spice rub with cinnamon and dried chilis to give a lovely kick in flavor to the chicken. After filling up the chicken and rubbing the whole chicken, he wrapped it in leaves and then went out of the house to gather dirt to cover the chicken with before grilling it. But when he tried to step out of the kitchen, he felt a force stopping him at the door. "Come on, man!!!, I only want some f.u.c.king mud." w.a.n.g Ming screamed at the top of his lungs.

"You asked, you shall receive." replied the voice to w.a.n.g Ming. w.a.n.g Ming suddenly saw a big plastic bowl falling from the air towards him, so he hurriedly took out his arms to catch it, but it was too late, so it landed on the floor and splatted, but the mud only hit w.a.n.g Ming and nothing else.

w.a.n.g Ming was p.i.s.sed and thankful for the mud. He hated how the voice was toying with him but relieved that it gave him the mud. w.a.n.g Ming used it to cover the chicken which he had wrapped in leaves. The mud would protect the leaves from burning, and the leaves would keep the moisture inside what a great combination. w.a.n.g Ming then placed the mud ball above the stove. He had to figure out how to get a fire going, but before he could, the oven suddenly started to smoke and fire up by itself.

Then came the best part of cooking anything, and that was waiting. But since w.a.n.g Ming did not have a clock, he had to just time by feeling and by when the mud is dry. Beggar's chicken has to be cooked for 3-6 hours before it's cooked perfectly, any less or more would probably ruin the chicken. But since w.a.n.g Ming couldn't control the temperature or even see the time he just had to play it by ear and try to judge it by the hardness of the mud. The time went on, and w.a.n.g Ming started to get nervous if the chicken was anything less then perfect. Then maybe he would be crippled forever. The mud had hardened all over, and it felt just right. Now was the time to open it. w.a.n.g Ming began to chant the name of every G.o.d, buddha and holy being he knew. He then took the b.u.t.t of his knife to crack open the hardened mud. When the dirt broke, the smell and aroma of chicken, cinnamon, and chilies erupted. He felt his mouth starting to water, and his lips tingle just from the smell.

w.a.n.g Ming then proceeded to take his knife and cut open the leaves, and there it was the most beautiful chicken he had ever seen. The chicken skin was tender and was a bit brown from absorbing the cinnamon and chilies rub. The meat looked so delicate that it seemed like he could blow on the chicken to tear it apart. He then took the knife to cut the chicken straight down the middle. The chicken fell into two parts revealing the mushroom and lettuce. The aroma erupted even more, and w.a.n.g Ming could almost taste the dish just from the smell alone. The intense chili, sweet, and savory smell. He then took lettuce and used it as a rice cracker and put some of the chicken and mushroom on it.

His arm was trembling when he slowly put the food towards his mouth. The food HAD to taste good it looked and smelled so delicious, for me, for my body and dreams, w.a.n.g Ming thought. He then bit down on the lettuce. It tasted so fresh, but the best was, of course, the chicken and mushrooms. It had an unbelievably fresh taste to it. The chicken and mushrooms were so soft and tender, coupled with the intense flavor from chilies, sweet and sour taste from the stevia, rhubarb, and ginger was just perfect. It was so good that w.a.n.g Ming ate it up on the second bite. He then tried to take a chicken wing but before he could do it. The chicken and everything around him disappeared as it had never existed. The floor beneath him started to sink. It created a whirlpool sucking him into it. As he fell into it, he heard the voice saying, "You barely pa.s.s, here's your reward." A book then smacked him in the face he managed to grab it and said "A Book...!?!", before losing his consciousness.