Night fell.
In the separate courtyard of Zhang Yu's attic, Mo Bai had bathed and burned incense, changed into a fitting suit, combed his hair to look like an adult, and sat upright on the sofa, his eyes constantly darting towards the door.
"Old Bai, do you know what word comes to mind seeing you like this?" Little Bai had black lines over his head. It was just a meeting at night, wasn't it? He was acting like it was a blind date.
"Dashing and elegant? Suave and unrestrained? Extraordinary bearing? Or perhaps more directly: damn handsome?"
"Damn—" Little Bai dragged out the tone.
"I like this direct and unpretentious evaluation. You have good taste." Mo Bai slicked back his gel-covered, shiny hair.
"—shifty-eyed."
Realizing he had been played by Little Bai, Mo Bai's smile gradually disappeared. "Get lost! What the hell does a System Sprite know about aesthetics?"
"Wakakaka!" Little Bai laughed strangely.
"Try saying 'Wakakaka' one more time!"
As the two horsed around, a breeze sprang up inside the tightly closed room.
"Good evening." Mo Bai's pupils reflected the image of Ryougi Shiki appearing out of thin air with a charming smile. Her wooden clogs made a crisp sound as they touched the floor.
Thud! Don't misunderstand, this wasn't the sound of Ryougi Shiki's weight. Rather—System Sprite Little Bai had declared himself in seclusion and played dead.
The sudden sound of a heavy object hitting the ground from Little Bai brought Mo Bai back to his senses.
"Um, good evening, Shiki-san." Mo Bai blushed slightly, not daring to look directly at Ryougi Shiki.
Ryougi Shiki chuckled softly, her gaze landing on the cherry branch still blooming in the vase by the bed. "It seems your gardening skills aren't bad."
"I just searched for tips online and bought some nutrient solution." Mo Bai scratched the back of his head, grinning sheepishly.
However, speaking of the cherry branch—
"Shiki-san, where have you been lately? I wanted to treat you to a celebration feast after winning the competition. But the cherry branch just glowed a few times and then went silent." Mo Bai was incredibly curious about Ryougi Shiki's itinerary and her method of appearing out of thin air.
"Ah~ that might be because the distance was too great and the signal was poor."
"Signal... was poor?" Mo Bai's face was a wonderful mix of shock and disbelief.
"I took a trip to the Ice Hell in the Inner World." Ryougi Shiki didn't stand on ceremony, sitting down gracefully next to Mo Bai.
"Inner World?" Mo Bai caught a whiff of the faint fragrance from Ryougi Shiki's body, and immediately felt his heartbeat accelerate to break through the heavens.
"You can understand it as a world inhabited by gods and monsters. Nine out of ten of the most precious 'Fantasy Ingredients' in your culinary industry come from the Inner World." As Ryougi Shiki spoke, she opened the food box she had brought.
A mysterious and magnificent aurora rose from the food box, floating in the air.
A rich scent of the ocean rushed over him, reminding Mo Bai of his own nine-star recipe, "Shattered Mountains and Rivers! Raging Tempest." The two shared a similar wondrous quality.
Mo Bai took a deep breath and looked into the food box, but it appeared empty.
"Eh?" With a light exclamation, Mo Bai focused his gaze on the box again. Inside, there seemed to be light and shadow flowing within a liquid so transparent it was invisible.
Transparent soup, a seven-colored aurora.
These two distinctive features reminded Mo Bai of a dish from a certain gourmet (hot-blooded) anime.
On a frigid continent, the Gourmet Showcase stands in the center of the Ice Hell. It was where many ancient Gourmet Hunters stored their ingredients. Every few years, due to ingredient saturation, the Gourmet Showcase would dissolve and precipitate a liquid.
That precipitated liquid was—
"Century Soup!" Thinking of the power levels in that gourmet (hot-blooded) anime, Mo Bai's heart was filled with nothing but 'holy shit'.
"As expected, you know of it. Well then, do you want to drink it?" Ryougi Shiki's lips curved into a smile at Mo Bai correctly naming the soup.
"Drink, drink, drink! I'll go get a bowl."
With such gourmet food before him, would he be human if he didn't taste it? Moreover, considering the climate of the Ice Hell in the original work and the Inner World Ryougi Shiki spoke of, Mo Bai might just be the first person in the modern era to drink Century Soup.
Mo Bai rushed excitedly to the kitchen to fetch a small bowl and a spoon.
"The The Century Soup lives up to its reputation." Even after switching to a porcelain white bowl, Mo Bai still couldn't distinguish the clear broth. Only through the lighting and the flow of the liquid could he barely catch a glimpse of the soup's boundary line within the bowl.
As for the taste, the umami scent that rushed to his nose and made his mouth water explained everything.
Mo Bai impatiently brought the bowl to his lips, allowing the warm liquid to flow into his mouth.
Instantly, Mo Bai's eyes went wide.
The clear, formless The Century Soup actually harbored an incredibly heavy mouthfeel. The moment it entered his mouth, Mo Bai thought he had bitten his tongue.
Immediately after, endless deliciousness burst forth on his taste buds. Unable to identify a single ingredient, he quickly gave up thinking, immersing himself wholeheartedly in the pleasure, as if he had swallowed the ingredients of an entire ocean.
His entire body was filled with the aquamarine color of the ocean.
Satisfaction!
This was the only thought left in Mo Bai's mind.
Incomparable satisfaction!
Satisfaction that made one unable to stop the corners of their mouth from lifting into a smile, and smiling again...
The thick soup flowed down his throat, leading not only to his stomach but also to his heart.
In a trance, Mo Bai crossed the river of time and appeared on an ice field shrouded in wind and snow all day long.
Humans clad in animal furs were struggling to survive on the ice field—the temperature here was simply too low; food stored in the open would be frozen and inedible overnight.
To preserve ingredients, the tribe's leader chose a spot among the glacial mountains to excavate an ice cave downwards for food storage.
The glacier ice, hard as iron, made excavating the ice cave incredibly difficult. After generations of effort, the ice cave barely took shape.
Until one day... the tribe leader picked up an unremarkable stone from somewhere, and almost overnight, the Gourmet Showcase was established.
After a long passage of time, countless human and non-human species discovered this treasure land capable of storing food unchanged for centuries, and one after another stored the ingredients they hunted here.
However, the Gourmet Showcase, built upon the mysterious power of the stone, also had a lifespan. Through the countless years from ancient times to the present, the Gourmet Showcase had already reached the end of its life.
Mo Bai looked up. Blue light spectrums shone on the surrounding ice walls, and the ice pillar in the center, laden with countless ingredients, was particularly striking.
But Mo Bai could feel that this ice pillar, which looked like crystal on the outside, was already full of cracks on the inside.
It stood stubbornly in the ice cave, making its final stand.
"As expected, is the Gourmet Showcase about to meet its end?" A voice coming from behind gave Mo Bai a fright.
"Who!?" Mo Bai turned his head to look. A man wearing ancient attire of black brocade embroidered with gold patterns was looking up at the Gourmet Showcase.
However, he didn't seem to sense Mo Bai's existence, speaking to himself. "It seems the frenzy of Inner World species invading the Surface World is coming again."
"Huh? Hey! What are you talking about?" Mo Bai spoke again, finally making the man in ancient costume realize there was a second person in the space.
The man raised his head and turned towards Mo Bai. His golden pupils were like the scorching sun in the sky, exerting immense pressure.
"There is actually a spiritual consciousness here?!"
"Huh?" Mo Bai didn't understand, but felt intimidated.
"Thou...!" The man looked stunned, then laughed loudly.
The loud laughter shook the mountains, and the ice cave swayed unceasingly.
"Priest! To think a Priest still exists in the era of the Surface World!"
"Interesting!"
"We—are greatly pleased!" The man's lips pulled into a predatory smile. When his eyes fixed on Mo Bai, Mo Bai felt a deep, piercing pain.
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