Chapter 78
Chapter 78
Translator: Penny
Chapter 78
Ryu Jaehee, the third batter assigned to preparing ingredients, lifted up a package of konjac noodles after discovering the unexpected ingredient.
"The recipe clearly states to slice the konjac into rice cake shapes. Why are these random konjac noodles here?"
Remembering who was in charge of ingredients, Ryu Jaehee nodded in understanding.
"Dobin Hyung has inevitably 'Kim Dobin-ed' again. This is going to be a real headache for Eden Hyung, who's in charge of cooking. It's practically a change in the main ingredient."
After slicing the cabbage and scallions and cutting the fish cakes into bite-sized pieces, Ryu Jaehee reached for the carrots.
He scrubbed the dirt off the carrots, placed them on the cutting board, and stared intently at them.
"Can I just chop it like this? Or should I peel it? The recipe only says to cut it into bite-sized pieces... I've never even prepped a carrot before."
With a determined expression, Ryu Jaehee picked up the kitchen knife again and began slicing the carrot without peeling it. This was the second tragedy.
After neatly arranging the thickly sliced ingredients on a plate, Ryu Jaehee immediately summoned the next participant.
"Finally, it's my turn. Before we start cooking properly, I'm going to guess the recipe just by looking at the ingredients."
Yoon Eden, the fourth participant in charge of cooking, strolled into the kitchen wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt and a hooded zip-up, his hands tucked into the zip-up pockets. He glanced at the plate of Ryu Jaehee's prepped ingredients and remarked, "Hmm..."
"What's this? Vietnamese spring rolls? No, there's no rice paper. Curry? And what's with the Sikhye can? Did he buy it for me to drink while cooking? Dobin's actually acting mature for once."
Yoon Eden grumbled as he checked the recipe.
"Figures. It's not for drinking, it's an ingredient. And Yehyeon Hyung has no sense. I mean, if my specialty is Tornado Omelets, there are things like omelet rice with a Tornado Omelet on top, but he had to pick Konjac Noodle Tteokbokki."
Yoon Eden continued to grumble as he scanned the long, detailed recipe.
"At least it doesn't seem too difficult... For Hajun, who has to eat this, I'll do my best."
He poked at the roughly prepared ingredients and continued,
"But I can't guarantee the results. I already bought Jun some digestive medicine, just in case."
Yoon Eden was more objective about his cooking skills than anyone else.
"But Yehyeon Hyung beat me to it and bought some first. Jun was worried, wondering what I was planning to feed him that would require two people to buy digestive medicine. I couldn't exactly tell him not to worry."
He chuckled awkwardly, then picked up a strand of konjac noodles and squinted at it, muttering, "Is this right? If I use this, won't it be rabokki instead of tteokbokki?"
After glancing at the recipe again, he shrugged.
"This isn't what the recipe calls for. Dobin must have just grabbed whatever konjac he saw when he couldn't find the specific type I asked for."
Making a nearly correct deduction, he carefully placed the konjac noodles on the plate, as if they might break.
"This is already a disaster..."
Since the main ingredient was different, he doubted how helpful the recipe would even be.
Yoon Eden picked up the can of Sikhye and shook it vigorously. Then he noticed the thick underline beneath the instruction to strain the Sikhye rice grains through a sieve, along with the numerous stars drawn beside it. He clicked his tongue and began searching for a sieve.
"Jun... Ah, right. No communication allowed."
Yoon Eden paused, remembering the rule as he instinctively tried to call out to Gyeon Hajun.
"There's no sieve. Where is it? It's really not here."
He rummaged through the kitchen, eventually giving up on finding a sieve.
Of course, there was no sieve in the Reve dormitory kitchen.
This was Seo Yehyeon's miscalculation—he had checked the ingredients in the refrigerator but overlooked the cooking utensils.
"I've hit a snag right from the start. Sigh... Why did I shake this can so vigorously?"
Yoon Eden stared at the Sikhye can he had just shaken with gusto, his expression a mix of frustration and resignation. He sighed deeply before popping the tab.
"First, I'll carefully pour it out and strain out the rice grains."
As he cautiously poured the Sikhye into the pot, the rice grains came tumbling out with the liquid, prompting a wry chuckle.
"It would have been so much easier to just use sugar. Why did I have to pick a recipe that uses Sikhye as an ingredient?"
Yoon Eden grumbled as he painstakingly picked out each rice grain with a spoon.
After laboriously removing all the solids, leaving only the clear broth, he turned his attention back to the recipe card.
"Add 200ml of water, then one tablespoon each of gochujang, gochugaru, and soy sauce. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a vigorous boil."
After pouring in the water and adding the seasoning ingredients with a spoon, Yoon Eden unhesitatingly dumped the chopped ingredients from the plate into the pot.
"How long should I boil this for? Huh? Wait, the konjac noodles should be blanched in vinegar water for 3 minutes first, then rinsed in cold water before adding..."
Yoon Eden glanced dejectedly at the konjac noodles already submerged in the water, then reread the recipe and sighed again.
"They should have written that first."
He naturally blamed Seo Yehyeon, but realistically, 90% of the fault lay with Yoon Eden for not reading the recipe thoroughly beforehand.
"Can I take them out now...? Wait, these are konjac noodles, but the recipe just says 'konjac'?"
Staring at the konjac noodles already swaying in the red broth, Yoon Eden quietly closed the pot lid.
"It can't be helped. Since it's konjac noodles, they'll cook quickly even without blanching."
This was the third tragedy.
"Nothing's cooked through. The youngest member cut the cabbage too large, and the carrots are too thick. We should have boiled the vegetables first before adding the fish cakes and konjac."
Yoon Eden, stirring the bubbling broth with a spoon, scratched his cheek and said, "Isn't tteokbokki broth supposed to be thicker? Why is this so watery? I have no idea how much longer I need to boil it to make it like the store-bought kind."
He swirled the broth with his spoon, then scooped up a spoonful. The broth immediately dripped off, leaving him flustered as he recalled the thick, viscous texture of typical tteokbokki.
If I just keep boiling it, it'll thicken up eventually, he thought, turning the heat up to high and letting it boil vigorously.
"Is this even right?"
Something that could hardly be called tteokbokki had been born.
The broth remained thin and watery, sloshing like plain water.
It was the result of tragedy upon tragedy upon tragedy.
As he transferred the dish—which could no longer be called tteokbokki—into a bowl, Yoon Eden's expression remained peculiar.
He wondered where the burning smell was coming from, only to discover that the ingredients had stuck to the bottom of the pot, leaving the bottom charred black.
As a final act of conscience, he placed the pot in the sink and filled it with water.
"Cooking's done! Tasting team, come on out!"
"Why does it smell like something's burning...?"
Gyeon Hajun emerged from his room, wrinkling his nose. The final member of the tasting team had arrived.
At this stage, they could finally communicate with each other.
Of course, even with communication at this point, no miracle could revive the ruined dish.
Curious, the Reve members swarmed around to inspect the finished dish.
Silence fell as they stared at the neatly plated concoction.
"Is this... tteokbokki...?" Seo Yehyeon voiced the group's collective sentiment.
In the thin, crimson broth floated konjac noodles and overcooked ingredients. To anyone's eyes, it looked more like dog food—no, not even fit for a dog.
Yoon Eden, the creator of this culinary disaster, stood beside Gyeon Hajun, a glass of water in one hand and a digestive pill in the other, ready to assist.
"Does Hajun Hyung really have to eat this? He just wasn't good at Halli Galli. What crime did he commit to deserve this ordeal?"
"Wow, it looks like it'll kill you if you eat it."
"Dobin, this is your fault. If you'd just bought the konjac noodles properly, it wouldn't look this bad."
Yoon Eden retorted as he watched Gyeon Hajun's konjac noodles snap apart the moment he picked them up with his chopsticks.
"It's not about the appearance... sigh..."
Gyeon Hajun took a spoonful, tasted it, and immediately set the spoon down.
He wordlessly accepted the antacid and water from Yoon Eden and swallowed the pill.
"I'm going to stop eating now. I don't want to risk my health."
Gyeon Hajun shook his head. The production team, realizing it was cruel to force anyone to eat this unidentifiable dish, agreed.
Even after washing it, the carrot still had bits of dirty peel clinging to it. Gyeon Hajun lifted it with his spoon and advised, "Jaehee, you should peel and slice carrots with a vegetable peeler next time."
"Yes, sir! I'll do that from now on."
Seo Yehyeon sighed as he stared at the Konjac Noodle Gochujang Soup that looked like it had crawled straight out of hell.
"How could you mess up such a simple dish so badly? I even wrote the recipe with excruciating detail, just in case."
"It's Dobin's fault for buying Konjac Noodles. And you should have mentioned boiling the noodles first!"
"If we're playing the blame game, isn't it Yehyeon Hyung's fault for replacing the rice cakes with Konjac in the first place?"
"No, I think if Jaehee had chopped the ingredients smaller, it wouldn't have turned out this disastrously."
"I did everything perfectly except for the carrots! My contribution to this dish is only 10% anyway!"
They began shifting the blame for this catastrophic failure onto each other, a truly tear-inducing display of teamwork.
No one could deny that Gyeon Hajun, who ended up only doing dishes without getting to eat any proper food, had gotten the worst deal.
"Well, everyone before me made mistakes, but whose fault is the biggest? It's definitely Yehyeon Hyung, who insisted on making konjac tteokbokki instead of regular tteokbokki, drastically increasing the cooking difficulty. If we'd just made regular tteokbokki, none of this would have happened."
After the interview, the cameraman led Gyeon Hajun, the final participant, into Kim Dobin's private room where the camera crew was waiting.
Hajun leaned back comfortably on the sofa and let out a deep sigh.
"I think we chose the wrong content for the first episode of the reality show. The ocean, the cooking..."
"The ocean was a real disaster."
"Let's admit the cooking was a disaster too. What even was that? It looked like tteokbokki from hell."
Seo Yehyeon shook his head.
[☺ Fan Count Reached 80,000!]
[Reward: Original Intent Score +10, Item Selection Ticket]
The Original Intent Score, which had been gradually decreasing, recovered and stabilized in the safe 80s range.
It felt like just yesterday he'd hit 70,000 fans, and now he was already at 80,000? Had there been some kind of buzz even before his comeback?
[Original Intent Recovery Project for Idols Who've Lost Their Way!]
[Mandatory Condition: Having disappointed 30,000 fans, you must now delight 30 million! (88,401/30,000,000)]
Looking closer, he noticed the number of fans he'd delighted was different from the total fan count achieved.
It seemed even fans who had quit or casually liked the group before losing interest were being counted. That was a small mercy.
As soon as Gyeon Hajun emerged from his interview, Ryu Jaehee pounced on him.
"Hyung, what exactly did it taste like? You couldn't even keep a straight face and put it down after just one bite!"
"The moment I tasted it, I felt like I might wake up in a hospital tomorrow."
At that, everyone's eyes turned to me, the one responsible for the dish.
"I only followed the recipe exactly, adding the ingredients and simmering it!"
I was genuinely indignant, having followed the instructions to the letter. This was all because the guys before me hadn't done their jobs properly!
📝 Translator’s Note:
You may notice that certain lines or phrases in this novel appear both in their original Korean (or Hanja) form and in English translation.
This is intentional — these phrases are classical idioms, divine titles, or poetic expressions that carry layered meanings.
To preserve their original tone and authenticity, the raw text has been kept for reference, while the English interpretation is provided right before or after it. This helps convey both the literal and cultural nuance of the original work.
but if you guys dont want tha raw for future chapters or my future other novels u can just text me on discord and say so discord name Mr.Penny