Chapter 52: [Third Update]

The buzz kept building.

Under the #TongueTipsoftheImmortalRealm# topic, submitted entries were piling up fast.

Honestly, the whole vibe was kind of chaotic-fun rather than serious, so viewers were totally into it.

It gave food-comedy creators a massive playground.

Food comedy creators — sounds weird at first, but yeah, they exist.

Because kitchen disasters are universal. Even with a tutorial, some people still wreck it. Relatable content hits different.

So submissions basically fell into three camps —

Camp one: content creators. Skilled, trained food bloggers who poured serious time and energy into designing elaborate dishes. Then the comedy crowd, pushing the floor of what Tongue Tips of the Immortal Realm would even accept.

Camp two: professional chefs.

Camp three: regular people. Some genuinely creative, some just spamming for volume.

The longer the event ran, the more entries stacked up — it hit a genuinely scary number.

Some entries you could tell were getting filtered out at a glance, but there weren't enough hands.

The project team scrambled to borrow staff from other departments just to keep up.

The industry was shook.

What a scene.

Sang Yu had already made waves in film and TV — but a cooking variety show blowing up this hard too?

Aurora Fairyland's official account hit over a million followers in no time.

Easy mode, honestly.

For context: most variety shows or dramas launching a Douyin account either buy an existing one, inherit one from a finished project under the same company, or start from absolute zero.

You just had to envy how everything Sang Yu touched seemed to inherit his energy. People were green with jealousy.

Just when it felt like it had peaked — drama dropped.

Someone stole a dish.

The news hit like a bomb.

Next day it was on the trending list. The hashtag was clunky and barely made sense —

#TongueTipsoftheImmortalRealmDishTheft#

[Looks like that old QQ Farm stealing crops thing lol, did Tongue Tips of the Immortal Realm just drop a game mode]

[Two bloggers are about to go at it — one says the other copied their original dish, the other hasn't responded yet, waiting for a clap-back]

[This sounds like a fanfic plot: 'I was reborn on the day my junior sister stole my exclusive recipe...']

[Wait, there's tea?? Let me in!!]

[Me too!!]

Sang Yu: Me too!!

He'd seen plenty of plagiarism drama involving authors, but never a recipe plagiarism scandal. This was new.

With regular home cooking, plagiarism claims could go either way — some people think identical steps count as copying, others disagree since regional recipes often share the same method.

But 'original recipe' has the word 'original' right there. That's a line.

So this tea smelled good.

Sang Yu rushed to the scene.

In the plagiarism drama, the one firing first — blasting Blogger B for copying — was Blogger A, called Well and Star Kitchen. A couple running the account together.

Blogger B was Yinglai's Cooking Magic House — a young chef who'd trained abroad.

Well and Star Kitchen had 13 million followers; Yinglai's Cooking Magic House had 9 million. Numbers-wise, Well and Star Kitchen had the edge.

Sang Yu tapped their latest Douyin post. Different from the usual thumbnail — no food this time. Real faces.

In the video, the couple sat side by side at their kitchen island, the iconic vintage dish cabinet behind them.

Big text on the cover: [A 9-million-follower blogger plagiarized me?]

Sang Yu felt a little buzz of excitement.

He loved this kind of drama.

The husband, Old Jing, spoke first, expression heavy: 'Hey everyone, it's Old Jing. No recipe today — got something real to address.'

His wife, Xing Jie, picked up, eyes a little red: 'I've been a food blogger for seven years. Never had anything like this happen.'

Old Jing pulled out a stack of printed pages covered in comparison charts.

Sang Yu blinked.

Oh — that's basically a Color Palette, the kind used to call out plagiarism.

Quick explainer: a Color Palette isn't an actual paint palette. It's a comparison table that lines up the alleged copy against the original. To show which part mirrors which, matching sections get highlighted in the same color. The background colors rotate so it doesn't blur together — making the whole thing look like a riot of color. Looks like an art student's Color Palette, hence the name.

Sang Yu hadn't finished looking before the image cut off.

Hopefully the blogger would walk through it.

His cooking skills were also not exactly up to judging.

Old Jing: 'Here's the recipe comparison between my Reviving Spring Rice and Yinglai's Cooking Magic House's Wuyou Rice.'

'Ingredients, cooking steps, plating style — over 80% similarity. You think that's just a coincidence?'

Xing Jie followed up: 'I can't help but be suspicious.'

'My Reviving Spring Rice was posted on May 27th. Their Wuyou Rice went up May 30th.'

'Three days apart.'

'I teach people to cook for a living. I don't mind people taking inspiration. But this is a commercial competition.'

Old Jing set down the papers and looked straight into the camera, voice heavy: 'I'm not here to start a fight. I just want original work to get the respect it deserves.'

The comments exploded.

[@Yinglai's Cooking Magic House, you've been called out by the original creator. No apology?]

[Caught red-handed.]

[The 'soak, blanch, rest' technique with just a name swap — copying a signature method like that is seriously wrong]

[Let the bullet fly a little longer. How many times have netizens been used as weapons? I'm not picking sides until there's a response]

[Xing Jie looks like she's about to cry, that's heartbreaking]

[Original work deserves protection! Stand with the creator!]

But there were some dissenting voices too.

[I looked at the Color Palette myself — the way it's applied feels really forced?]

[By that logic I could find the same 'match' in a white-cut chicken recipe... is this technique really that unique?]

[Why make netizens play judge again? If you think they copied, just hire a lawyer. Don't be cheap about it]

Sang Yu was eating this up.

Influencer drama hits different from celebrity drama.

Celebrities usually go quiet, send legal letters, have their agencies respond — they don't get in the ring themselves.

Influencers? They go in swinging, no hesitation — because of the nature of the job — a well-won public fight can pull in a million new followers.

They can even turn the whole thing into a series. Episode one, episode two... until one side taps out or viewers lose interest.

Losing doesn't mean it's over either. The internet has no memory. Catch the next trending moment and you can climb back.

As long as you don't cross any hard lines, of course.

Yinglai's Cooking Magic House didn't keep anyone waiting long.

The 'camping here, someone kick me when there's a response' comment in the thread got new replies instantly — the tea-drinkers were fast.

'Hey everyone, I'm Yinglai. Regarding the plagiarism accusation — I'll let the evidence speak.'

She dropped her own counter-Color Palette — a Color Palette against the Color Palette.

Left side: Well and Star Kitchen's Reviving Spring Rice. Right side: her Wuyou Rice.

Annotated like an academic paper, every section re-highlighted with fresh markers.

Sang Yu: 'Oh wow.'

Out of respect, he sat up straight.

This tea was getting good!

Blogger B continued: 'I'll admit there are similarities. Like steps one, two, and three — my count matches too.'

[?]

[Self-report speedrun?]

[She admitted it but didn't admit it — is that sarcasm I'm hearing?]

'My version is 'marinate first, then stir-fry, then braise' — yes, the step count matches. I'm an adult. I can count.'

[Yep, confirmed. That was sarcasm.]

[So she's going full confrontation?!]

[Fight! Fight!]

Blogger B went through the Color Palette point by point.

Sang Yu thought she had a point too. — Wait, how am I getting pulled along so easily?

Looks like netizens and I are the same, lol. Reassuring, in a way. Someone's always got our backs .JPG

The comments were spinning too.

[So who's actually right? Do we need a 3.0 Color Palette now?]

[Looking closely, the 1.0 Color Palette is kind of sus — they highlighted adding salt in red. Who cooks without salt??]

[Honestly both sides are making sense to me...]

'But —'

Blogger B shifted gears.

'I searched the entire platform using the exact keyword the other side kept pushing, and found a review video on a long-form video app.'

'Found a passage that was word-for-word identical.'

'No —' Yinglai's Cooking Magic House smiled, cool as ever. 'Do you know what that review video was called?'

[...okay I have a feeling she's about to drop the nuke]

[This blogger is completely unbothered]

[What's she saying lol? She's so pretty — why is someone this pretty a food blogger? The beauty niche's loss. What a waste!]

[That little smirk is everything, sis]

[I've followed Yinglai for over three years. I don't think she'd plagiarize — she always puts so much effort into her recipes]

[I'm nervous... here it comes...]

The blogger tilted her chin up and smiled: 'The title of that review was: 'I asked AI to generate a creative dish for me — would it taste good?''

'And there's more than one 'match,' by the way. That's just the earliest one I found.'

'On the same platform as me, some of those creative dishes used that exact same copy.'

'Which means this method came from AI — that's why so many people ended up with the same wording.'

Confident.

So confident the satisfaction was practically leaking out of her.

She included a clip for viewers to check — the original video didn't have many views, just over 20,000.

But it existed.

The original creator's voice-altered script and Well and Star Kitchen's copy had huge overlapping sections.

Netizens were floored.

No way. A reversal...

A massive reversal?!

When Yinglai's Cooking Magic House dropped that clip, Sang Yu had a water chestnut halfway to his mouth.

Almost forgot to chew.

Chew chew .JPG

Too good!

This plot twist would be anti-trope even in a novel — you'd expect multiple rounds of back-and-forth, not a one-shot knockout.

Who would've thought someone would use AI to generate a recipe for something like this?!

Yinglai's Cooking Magic House: 'If I remember correctly, Tongue Tips of the Immortal Realm requires original recipes.'

'The dishes that get selected become 'premium products' with revenue sharing — that's exactly why originality is emphasized. That's someone's earned income.'

'I don't know about the other side — but would they consider this... original?'

Netizens followed her logic.

An AI-generated 'original' recipe... that word 'original' needed serious air quotes now, because putting 'original' and 'AI-generated' in the same sentence felt deeply off.

So an AI recipe —

Does it even have copyright?