"By the way, Apprentice, are you the 'him' Uncle Zhang was talking about?"
Having finished her daily bickering with Tangerine, Ximi looked at Xia Yu curiously and asked as if she had just remembered.
"The mysterious person who performed the Soul Return Art on Uncle Zhang and stuffed him with a massive amount of souls was you? But how do you know Necromancy Spells? I don't remember ever teaching you."
"Also, when did you find out about the stargate and the colonies? All that was over by the time I created you. You're just a newborn zombie, so how do you know so much?"
Faced with so many questions, Xia Yu scratched his messy hair, not quite knowing how to explain.
He could currently be seen as two people: one was the original owner of the body, and the other was himself, who had descended into that body.
The original owner's existence had completely vanished from everyone's perception, so explaining it would require letting everyone know about the original owner's existence.
"Just know that I am him. All the mysteries will be revealed eventually."
After thinking it over, Xia Yu decided to be a bit cryptic. These puzzles would all be solved in the end, and explaining everything now would be too much trouble.
"Phew, fine. I just need to know that you're the one who cured Uncle Zhang." Ximi took a deep breath and thanked him with a serious expression. "Thank you so much for curing Uncle Zhang. I will keep this kindness in my heart!"
"Me too. Otherwise, Ximi and I would still be drowned in grief. Thank you, Apprentice!" Tangerine also floated over and said earnestly.
A moment later, however, both of them looked awkward and uncomfortable.
"I'm still not used to saying things like that. It felt so awkward just now."
"Same here. It's way too embarrassing to say out loud."
At that moment, Uncle Zhang walked over cheerfully and said, "By the way, I still have the True Ancestor's Secret Monster Cookbook that I was always reluctant to teach you. To avoid the government's investigation back then, I remember hiding it in the City Hall building of Jiayan Sand City. Let's go find it now."
"The True Ancestor's Secret Monster Cookbook? Uncle Zhang, you actually have a cookbook you didn't teach us?" Ximi and Tangerine shouted simultaneously.
"I hid it mainly because I was afraid it would bring you danger back then," Uncle Zhang said with a chuckle.
During the Dungeon Era, the Supreme Union, acting as the ruler to ensure humanity's survival, implemented a very strict and iron-fisted rule.
The strictest part was the control over food. The Supreme Union forbade civilians from cooking privately; they could only eat the nutritional paste provided by the government.
Although the nutritional paste could sustain life, it was completely incomparable to real food.
One day, Tangerine suddenly wanted to eat a real meal, so she decided to take a risk and stole a crate of monster fish.
But neither she nor Ximi had any experience cooking monsters. However, they knew Uncle Zhang, a true master chef.
So they chose to take Uncle Zhang as their master. Later, under his guidance, they successfully became experienced monster cuisine chefs. By that logic, Uncle Zhang was actually Xia Yu's grandmaster.
After all, Xia Yu studied under Ximi and Tangerine, and they studied under Uncle Zhang... "Since your memory has returned, Uncle Zhang, why do we still need to go to Jiayan Sand City? Can't you just teach us directly?" Tangerine asked in confusion.
If Uncle Zhang were still in a state of senile dementia, they would have no choice but to look for the cookbook he left behind. But now that Uncle Zhang had regained his sanity, he could just tell them.
Regarding this question, Uncle Zhang tapped his skeletal head and said, "Although I really want to tell you two little geniuses what to do, the truth is that only a tiny bit of my soul remains. Therefore, most of my monster cooking memories have vanished."
Hearing this, Ximi lowered her head sadly. When Doomsday occurred, she had extracted Uncle Zhang's soul just in time.
However, during the process of a living being transforming into a C-04 infected host, the soul is rapidly consumed as infection energy. Thus, by the time she successfully stripped Uncle Zhang's soul, very little of it was left.
This had caused Uncle Zhang to be in a state of senile dementia ever since he was resurrected as a skeleton. Only the Soul Return Art performed just now had allowed him to successfully find himself, but a large portion of his memory was still missing.
"Don't be sad. I'm really happy to be able to see you two again with a clear sense of self."
The sentimental atmosphere didn't last long before an express train suddenly crashed through the wall and screeched to a halt in front of the four of them.
The train door opened with a heavy click, and a boisterous voice rang out from the train's screen.
"The express train has arrived. I think it's better for me to drive, as I have a lot of experience in this area."
A Xiang's pixelated face appeared on the train's scrolling screen, followed by a pale yellow light screen unfolding to show naike's projected image.
"Request denied. It is unacceptable for a low-level artificial intelligence to fight for control with me, even if I lack a qualified transportation piloting system."
The bickering between the two artificial intelligences caught everyone's attention. Tangerine looked at A Xiang with a bewildered expression. "You're A Xiang? Why do you look like this?"
"Uh, hi, former Director. You've changed a lot too. I guess both our situations are hard to explain in a few words," A Xiang explained with a blank face.
"To prevent naike's consciousness from being destroyed, I urgently transferred her to the ark's main computer, which is where I originally lived."
"But she takes up too much capacity, so there's no way for us to share the space. I had to transfer myself here."
As soon as he finished speaking, naike couldn't help but interrupt, "I suggest everyone stop the meaningless pleasantries and get in the car. My digital consciousness must be immediately transferred to a new supercomputer host. Staying in the same facility as this low-level naike will cause continuous damage to my intelligence."
"I accidentally let her read my memories while I was repairing her, so she hates me now..." A Xiang said weakly.
"The supercomputer closest to our current location is in the Jiayan Sand City Hall. I suggest departing for that location immediately."
"The Jiayan Sand City Hall! That's exactly our destination. Apprentice, let's go find the True Ancestor's Secret Monster Cookbook together!"
Ximi seemed very excited about naike's suggestion. As a monster cuisine chef, she couldn't wait to find out what kind of delicacies were recorded in the True Ancestor's Secret Monster Cookbook!
Xia Yu gave a faint smile and followed the others onto the train.
He had to go on this journey as well, because the dishes recorded in the True Ancestor's Secret Monster Cookbook could open a space leading to all the answers.
In that space, the answers to all the puzzles were recorded, and various weapons capable of tearing through space were also stored there.
To defeat puchui, this final True Ancestor's Secret Monster Dish must not fail.
Although it sounded a bit strange, if one changed the explanation, the cooking could be seen as a magical formula.
Monster cuisine might seem like just food, but it was actually a concentration of magical formulas. This explained why one could gain power just by eating the food—because while eating, the magical formula was being etched into the body.