"So you're planning to make me and Lumine the judges?"
Rowan pointed at his own nose, baffled.
Lumine he could understand—she at least had some real talent for cooking.
Otherwise, Paimon wouldn't have been stuck to her like glue this whole time.
Because Lumine's cooking talent was pretty decent, a bit of guidance was all she needed.
She might not be on the level of a master chef like Xiangling,
but she was still far better than those so-called head chefs at Xinyue Kiosk and Liuli Pavilion.
Rowan, on the other hand, truly knew nothing about cooking.
He only knew how to eat.
Asking him to judge whether a dish was well-made? Absolutely impossible.
At most, he could tell if it tasted good or not.
If you asked him to give feedback, the only thing you'd get out of him was: "It's tasty."
Making him a judge was just making things hard for him.
"That's right—we mean you," Lumine said.
"Your status is more than enough. As for the judging… why don't we add a final round where they evaluate each other's dishes?"
Lumine had no objection to Rowan serving as a judge,
but she strongly doubted his ability to critique food.
If you wanted to sit on the judge's panel, you should at least be a chef yourself—
preferably a seasoned master. Someone like Xiangling or Brook, for example.
But since those two would be the ones competing today, they obviously couldn't be judges.
So adding a mutual evaluation round at the end was the best way to prevent either side from feeling dissatisfied.
"That works for me. I've got no objections," Brook said.
Naturally, she had nothing to complain about—
her confidence, especially when it came to meat, was through the roof.
And since Xiangling was the one who had suggested this arrangement in the first place,
she had no objections either.
So the two sides agreed: they would each prepare their ingredients over the next day,
then face off in a cooking duel in Springvale.
In the end, the outcome was the same as in the original story.
Xiangling took the final victory,
because she had managed to find a wild boar believed to have gone extinct in Mondstadt over three hundred years ago.
Of course, that wasn't entirely accurate—
somewhere in Dragonspine, there was still a boar king that had survived for over three centuries.
Duraf, meanwhile, ended up gaining a "new ancestor":
his forebear Olaf, who had vanished three hundred years before while chasing those very same boars.
After tasting the meat dishes Brook prepared,
Xiangling also agreed that Springvale's pork was excellent.
She promised to promote Springvale's meat
and even signed a contract with Duraf—
from now on, Wanmin Restaurant's pork supply would be provided by Springvale.
Duraf was overjoyed by her decision.
Before leaving, Xiangling entrusted all the recipes she'd mastered to Lumine,
this like-minded friend who shared her passion for cooking.
Only then did she finally leave, clutching the dragon meat Rowan had given her.
The main reason was that she'd received a letter from her father back at Wanmin Restaurant.
With the Rite of Descension approaching, more and more merchants and travelers were flooding into Liyue Harbor.
Wanmin Restaurant desperately needed Xiangling back to hold the line.
If not for that, Xiangling would never have left until she'd fully researched that dragon meat.
Before her departure, Xiangling warmly invited Lumine to go to Liyue with her.
Lumine thought it over. She was tempted.
But then she remembered she still hadn't met the Anemo Archon—
and in the end, she refused.
She wasn't that "slacker Lumine" from later tales;
she still remembered she had a brother to find.
Until she met the Anemo Archon,
and confirmed that he was not the mysterious god who had stopped their journey and taken her brother,
she had no intention of leaving Mondstadt.
"You want to meet the Anemo Archon?"
"You could've just come to me."
After Xiangling rowed away in her boat, Rowan asked with a smile.
"Yeah. My brother was taken away by a strange god," Lumine said.
"So I have to visit every nation's Archon
to confirm whether any of them are the one who took him."
"Speaking of which, Rowan, you're the Knight King of Mondstadt," she continued.
"You must have met the Anemo Archon before, right?"
"Could you introduce us?"
Paimon, ever the "mouth of god," jumped in before Lumine could finish.
She rattled off the whole story in one breath.
Since Paimon had already explained everything, Lumine didn't add anything more.
She simply planted her hands on her hips and waited for Rowan's answer.
Rowan stroked his chin and looked Lumine up and down, as if weighing something.
But Lumine completely misread his expression.
Her eyes filled with suspicion, and she quickly raised her arms to cover her chest.
Seeing this, Rowan immediately understood what she was thinking and said, exasperated,
"Relax. I'm not interested in you."
"I like them bigger. You're too small—I can't afford you."
Lumine's face flushed—
not from embarrassment, but from anger.
Anyone would feel humiliated being sized up like that.
Especially when she didn't have much to show off in that department to begin with.
Paimon burst out laughing behind her hands.
Unfortunately, she forgot that Lumine was standing right there.
The moment Lumine heard that laugh, she grabbed Paimon out of the air in one swift motion
and proceeded to mercilessly knead and squish her in her arms.
"You still dare laugh at me? You think I don't have a temper?!"
While the two of them were roughhousing,
Rowan suddenly spoke up out of nowhere.
"I can take you to meet the Anemo Archon."
"Really?"
The instant she heard that, Lumine forgot all about wrestling with Paimon.
She tossed Paimon aside in one motion.
Paimon dropped into the grass head-first like an upside-down radish.
Fortunately, the ground was soft enough—otherwise she would've ended up with a few new bumps for sure.
Lumine hurried over to Rowan, eyes full of hope.
Rowan smiled lightly, reached out, and ruffled her golden hair in a lightning-fast headpat.
"Of course," he said.
"Come with me."
After Rowan's surprise headpat, Lumine's cheeks flushed a rosy pink.
She suddenly felt a little shy
and unconsciously followed behind him as he headed toward Windrise—
so distracted she even forgot about her partner Paimon.
Paimon had barely crawled out of the grass
when she saw Rowan and Lumine already heading off into the distance.
She scrambled to catch up.
"Hey, wait for me!"
"I haven't gotten on the ride yet!"
An hour later—
The three of them—
or rather, two people and one mascot—
arrived at the Statue of The Seven in the heart of Windrise.
"Uh… what are we doing here?"
"Didn't we come to meet the Anemo Archon?"
Paimon flew a circle around Rowan's head,
staring up at the towering great tree before them.
Then she plopped down on Rowan's head, grabbed a single strand of hair sticking up, and tugged at it curiously.
Yes, Rowan also had a little ahoge.
It had sprouted the moment he became King Arthur,
and no matter how he tried to comb it down, that single rebellious strand refused to obey.
After a while, he'd simply given up on it.
Lumine also looked at Rowan in confusion.
Where was the Anemo Archon?
"Right here," Rowan said.
"This is the only place you can actually see him."
He plucked Paimon off his head and tossed her back to Lumine,
then walked over to the great tree beneath the statue.
"Venti, get your lazy butt out here!"
"Quit sleeping already!"
(End of Chapter)
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