“Jin, you are late!” Lynn stuck her tongue out and closed her eyes to express happiness in cheek. While Jin, Yun and Claire had been talking about settling the project proposals and the written documents for them, Lynn had teleported over.
Grandma Yuan, who had just woken up from her afternoon nap, had stumbled upon the Chef in the kitchen as she felt thirsty. Despite grumbling about how the System was inconsiderate for teleporting Lynn into her house without prior notice, she was actually quite glad to see Lynn first. (especially with a hot drink in hand). If not for Lynn’s quick new year greeting, Grandma Yuan would already have thought that she was some intruder that came by and was prepared to blast the kitchen along with it.
But now with the tea in her hand, the slight charcoal smell of the roasted tea leaves inside that one fresh cup that had been prepared to perfectly suit her taste pallet. She could feel her soul being at peace and to add on to that bliss, Grandma Yuan was delighted to enjoy the afternoon tea with a small plate of Matcha mochi (rice cake). Although Lynn had solely prepared it for Grandma Yuan, the elderly woman could not bear to eat without any company and thus asked Lynn to join her.
The two women had enjoyed a short chat while waiting for the rest to come in, and they exchanged pieces of information that held dear to their hearts. It was to a point, Lynn could feel where it was leading to and felt a bit uncomfortable hearing it from Grandma Yuan. Yet, Jin and the others’ arrival brought her a chance to escape. However, the old veteran cultivator knew what she was thinking.
“Don’t you dare use this opportunity run away from the conversation, Lynn darling.” Grandma Yuan insisted as she used her chi to hold on to a teaspoon and knocked the fleeing girl’s forehead with it.
“Oops!” Lynn said, and the two of them laughed heartily together.
“Did we come at the wrong time?” Claire yawned once more. She would not mind drinking Lynn’s creation. The Blue Mountain Coffee had been fantastic, but that rich roasted smell from those Japanese tea leaves was enough to make all three of the newcomers crave some.
“It’s not that bad. Are you okay, Claire? You look extremely tire, how are you even standing with those large eye bags under your eyes?” Lynn questioned as she stood up and started to pour some of the roasted tea for the rest of the group. “It’s not as great as the first batch of tea, but it should still taste good.”
“Maybe, this is why the System finally accepted me as part of you guys. I had to become a Panda first… Hahaha.” Claire joked as she thanked Lynn for the tea.
“Woo! That’s great news! Congratulations!” Lynn even clapped softly with delight.
“Happy New Year, Grandma Yuan,” Jin said before taking the cup of tea while presenting a pair of oranges in front of her.
“No other greetings? How typical of youngsters these days.” Grandma Yuan lightly complained as she ignored Jin and continued to drink Lynn’s roasted tea.
“I actually do have some news on the progress of the Cultivation Zoo and the JODE advanced training centre.” Jin immediately brought out his trump cards because there was no use hiding them (Mostly when those were also the only tricks he had underneath his sleeve).
“Oh?” Grandma Yuan lifted her eyebrows as she slowly placed the teacup down and decided to return the greeting to Jin.
“Happy New Year to you, Instructor Yuan.” Yun was the next in line with the new year greetings and similar to Jin, she did not have many fancy words to give to Grandma Yuan as she knew the other never liked them. Unlike Jin, Grandma Yuan quietly accepted the oranges and passed her a red packet.
“Why don’t I get one as well?” Jin wondered but decided to keep that thought to himself. It’s best not to offend Grandma Yuan. She excused herself and returned to her room for a moment. When she came back, she was holding a small key which she passed to Yun once more instead of Jin. However, her body language was directed to the dungeon supplier as she spoke to Yun.
“This key helps unlock one of the insurance boxes that Ming was supposed to keep in my name. This is not part of Ming’s collection but my own. Just open it when you think it’s time to do so.” Yuan instructed as she placed the key onto Yun’s hand and grabbed her palms softly as if she was entrusting something precious to her.
Yun slowly nodded her head in acknowledgement, and the entire group enjoyed a session of tea. The conversation on the table was at first merely an exchange of simple pleasantries, but it slowly turned towards Grandma Yuan’s projects and mainly her opinion on the matter.
“Why should it matter what I think of it? All these projects are youngling stuff.” Grandma Yuan declined the opportunity to get involved, but Jin insisted that her opinion was VERY important since she had a vast amount of experience. He even went so far to tell her that without her input, these two projects were bound to fail.
She sighed at this blatant attempt of curring her favour and just reminded Jin to go to Shenzhen Cultivation Zoo once more to understand why they are that successful. “I bet you did not ask those guys under you about the results of the training centres, now did you?”
“I mean I read all their reports… but they felt too normal. Although I guess it couldn’t hurt hearing it from them personally.” Jin replied back.
“If only you wouldn’t be too busy you could actually talk to them .” Claire pointed out while yawning once more.
“Alright, alright, System please put that on my agenda.” Jin sighed in defeat, yet the System denied the request.
“It has already been part of User’s agenda for more than five weeks. Please stop putting things on ‘your agenda’ if you’re not periodically checking up on them. System would also like to remind User that it is NOT your secretary.” The System answered rather vehemently despite its deaf tone reply.
“Then I seem to have good news for you. I’ve planned to invite those four for a steamboat session today. You guys should just stay for dinner. “Grandma Yuan suggested, and Claire looked confused.
“I thought you wanted to keep your night empty. Didn’t you tell me you did not want to entertain anyo- Ow!” Claire questioned Grandma Yuan before she got hit by the very same teaspoon.
“At this rate, that teaspoon is going to come to m- ow..ow Ow!!!” Jin realised he should not open his mouth to tease the girls as the teaspoon turned and hit not just his forehead, but it flew towards his nose, and Grandma Yuan slammed it hard.
“I did say I PLANNED to invite. However, this reminds me that just like you, they are technically no longer under my care. Jin, you shall therefore have the privilege to call them for tonight’s dinner.” Grandma Yuan declared.
“I don’t mind providing the steamboat dinner. We still have quite a bit of food remaining from yesterday’s massive buffets.” Suddenly Lynn got red in her face because she realised that using leftover ingredients might be a bit of an insult to Grandma Yuan. Hence, she quickly covered her face (especially her nose for fear of the flying teaspoon) “Ehhh I will get new materials immediately!”
“Hahahha! You don’t need to bother my dear Lynn.” Grandma Yuan laughed as she looked cheerfully at the dungeon supplier’s chef.
“Yesterday’s ingredients will do. Those brats who have such a luxury life will not know the difference when it comes to eating commoner’s food. In fact, I think they will be delighted to have a steamboat dinner.” Grandma Yuan said, and the rest suddenly felt degraded by the comments.
Steamboat dinner was considered commoner’s food?! What had they been eating that made the steamboat dinner feel cheap?
“Are you serious? I do not think they are that much different from them! Besides, any food made by Lynn is no commoner’s food! Her food is fantastic that it could easily be served to Kings and Queens of the past!” Jin commented in defence of Lynn. (Well, she ‘did’ serve Kings and Queens of other worlds.) His tone was for once quite aggressive, to the point that it stunned Grandma Yuan. She shook her head and let out a soft laugh.
“My bad. It was a common saying during my time, but it seems to have been mostly forgotten in this day and age. Do forgive me for that, my dear Lynn. I did not want to insult your cooking.” Grandma Yuan apologised, and for all of them, this was the first time to see the prideful instructor lower her head. Even Claire was wondering whether the lack of sleep was making her see things.
“Allow me to rephrase my answer. They will learn what a fantastic chef they have in their midst.” Grandma Yuan said, and this time it was Lynn who lowered her head with gratitude.
“You are giving me too much credit, Grandma Yuan.” She said and immediately stood up. “I will prepare the ingredients!”
“I shall call the four of them then. After all, I have yet to congratulate them for a job well done during the Loopa Ooofpa fight. I heard they were instrumental in the battle.” Jin said as he started to call them individually and each one of them who picked up instantly agreed to it the moment they heard they were going to Grandma Yuan’s place for dinner. (If it had been Jin that invited them, they might have been reluctant.)
