Chapter 68.1: Dumplings
Wu Heng’s brief hesitation immediately gave others a chance to jump in. Seeing the opening, Zhang Jinnan quickly pulled Zhang Jinya behind him.
“Yes, yes! My sister can cook—she’s really good at it! She used to have over two million followers online. She often did live cooking streams and even visited restaurants for food reviews…”
Lin Mengzhi scrutinized the woman’s dirt-smeared face for a long while. Suddenly, his eyes widened.
“Little Cat Lili!!!”
Before Zhang Jinya could even react, Lin Mengzhi shoved her brother aside and dragged her away.
“The rest of you—get lost, as far as you can.”
Wu Heng, however, remained fixated on one thing.
“She cooks well?”
Lin Mengzhi nodded with certainty. “She was the vice president of the Hanzhou Culinary Association, and she’s won plenty of awards. Her specialty is central-region cuisine—she can even fry dough balls so they bloom like flowers!”
Only then did Wu Heng truly look at her.
Zhang Jinya wrung her hands nervously in front of her. The thin clothes on her body couldn’t stop her trembling, and the look in the boy’s eyes made her feel that he wasn’t seeing her as a fellow human being at all.
On the road, they had encountered many dangers, but never someone with eyes like that—nonhuman, detached.
“Follow me,” Wu Heng said lightly.
Zhang Jinnan’s steps were even quicker than Zhang Jinya’s.
Lin Mengzhi moved sideways to block him. “Did he call you? Why are you following?”
Zhang Jinnan was stopped in his tracks. “I’m her brother! You think I’d let her go off with you alone? Who knows if you’re really taking her to cook? What if you—what if you do something beastly, I—”
Before he could finish, the wooden plank in Lin Mengzhi’s hand clattered to the ground. He raised his hand and clamped it around his neck.
Zhang Jinya, along with Li Qiong and Huang Yu who had just caught up, hurried forward in alarm.
Only when Zhang Jinnan’s face turned purple did Lin Mengzhi finally toss him aside in disgust.
“What’s your problem? You steal food and then talk disgusting nonsense. Psycho.”
He had originally wanted to say, “Have you even looked at what his childhood friend looks like, and then looked at your sister?”—but he stopped himself, realizing how insane that would sound. Forcing the words down, he turned to Zhang Jinya and said, “Are you coming or not? If you’re not, then forget it.”
Still coughing violently on the ground, Zhang Jinnan lifted his head when he heard Lin Mengzhi urging them on. His eyes locked tightly onto Zhang Jinya’s face, as if trying to warn or remind her of something.
Wu Heng’s figure was already long gone.
When they returned to their lodging, Dou Lu and Shen Ping’an were standing beside the bus, studying something.
Shen Ping’an pressed his palm to the ground, and a vine emerged from the earth, crawling into the not-so-cold interior of the bus. If one didn’t look carefully, it would be almost invisible, its roots still anchored firmly in the soil.
The moment it saw Wu Heng, the vine quickly slithered out of the bus and brushed affectionately against his face.
“I plan to plant two vines by the bus and the door,” Shen Ping’an said. “That way, if something like last time happens again, they can act as a barrier.”
Wu Heng pushed away the sticky, clinging tendril. “Won’t it be too cold for them?”
Leaning against the bus, Dou Lu said, “Let Lin Mengzhi handle it. Build a fire nearby or stuff a fireball inside a lampshade—it’ll keep things warm enough.”
After saying that, she sighed. “When it comes down to it, we’re still too rich for our own good.”
“There’ll definitely be more situations like this in the future,” Shen Ping’an replied.
This time, Dou Lu’s sigh wasn’t full of self-satisfaction. “I think humans aren’t really human anymore.”
Wu Heng couldn’t summon any feeling of sadness. He walked inside.
Not long after, Lin Mengzhi returned with Zhang Jinya in tow. he led the woman straight into the kitchen.
“Once you finish cooking,” Lin Mengzhi said, “you can take a serving of food and leave. There are plenty of empty houses in the village—find one and stay there.”
“I can’t stay with you?” Zhang Jinya asked in surprise.
“Your brother already settled into one of the nearby houses. If you’re not staying with him, then why would you stay with us?” Lin Mengzhi said.
When he used to watch Little Cat Lili’s cooking videos online, her brother often appeared on camera as well. He was good-looking, which boosted their popularity—viewers frequently requested the siblings to do joint livestreams. Lin Mengzhi had even stumbled across one of their joint streams before, and from what he saw, Zhang Jinya obeyed Zhang Jinnan’s every word without question.
Zhang Jinya’s face flushed red. She hadn’t expected the other person to notice that Zhang Jinnan and the others had quietly taken shelter in a house on the very edge of the village.
Lin Mengzhi had originally wanted to learn a few cooking tricks from her—he really did love cooking—but to his disappointment, she turned out to be a rather muddleheaded person.
He dropped a sack of wild vegetables onto the floor, sat down by the kitchen wall, and stared at her without blinking, making sure she didn’t try to pull any stunts.
Zhang Jinya found a clean cloth to wipe her hands and face, then rolled up her sleeves and began preparing.
Ruan Silian entered the kitchen just in time for dinner, only to find a stranger already at work there. She froze for a moment, then smiled and greeted her.
Dou Lu pulled Ruan Silian aside and filled her in on what had happened that afternoon. The warmth on Ruan Silian’s face immediately cooled.
Still, one had to admit—Zhang Jinya’s cooking skills were impressive.
She emptied the bag of wild vegetables onto the floor, crouched down, and began carefully sorting and classifying the edible ones. Though slightly wilted, the greens were large and plump, their leaves tender between her fingers.
It had been quite some time since Zhang Jinya had seen real food. Even though these were just wild greens, joy lit up her thin, bony face.
“This one’s shepherd’s purse,” she said. “It’s rare to find such fat, tender ones—they haven’t even started blooming yet. Once they flower, they lose their flavor. And this here is cudweed—it’s best for pickling. This one’s Artemisia selengensis—you can use it to make mugwort cakes.”
“Wild vegetables like these are usually best found in spring. With snow this heavy, it’s amazing we can still gather so many. This damned world really never stops throwing surprises at us.”
Zhang Jinya kept chattering nonstop. Even though the few people in the kitchen ignored her at first, she carried on talking to herself—posing questions, answering them, changing topics seamlessly. Strangely enough, after a while, everyone went from wary silence to listening with interest.
No wonder she’d been a livestreamer, they all thought.
—
Wu Heng took out the ice-type energy core he had just obtained, along with two packs of biscuits, and placed them beside Wu Zhi’s pillow.
Then he stepped out of the room.
On his way, he noticed the damaged flowerpot leaning against the wall. If one didn’t look closely, it just looked like a pot of soil—but buried within was a tiny green sprout.
Next to the pot was a half-filled bottle of water—melted snow that Xie Chongyi had asked Lin Mengzhi to conjure. Before heading out that morning, Xie Chongyi had even carefully poured a handful of it over the plant.
Wu Heng walked over and crouched down, studying the poppy seedling for a long time.
Then he unscrewed the bottle and watered it the same way Xie Chongyi had done. Half a bottle went by quickly, and before he knew it, the pot overflowed.
“…”
Downstairs, he heard Ying Liuquan’s voice. Ying Liuquan was Xie Chongyi’s partner.
The plant’s owner was back.
For once, Wu Heng panicked. He quickly set the empty bottle back, picked up the pot, and carried it out to the balcony. There, he carefully poured off the excess water before returning it to its original spot.
By dinnertime, Xie Chongyi still hadn’t noticed anything.
“This doesn’t taste like something you’d make,” Xie Chongyi said, glancing toward Ruan Silian.
The dishes on the table were clearly crafted with skill and care. The plate of mugwort leaves, coated in a light batter and fried to a crisp golden color; the steamed rice mixed with diced wolf meat and mugwort stems; the neatly shaped squares of mugwort cakes; the salted cudweed; and a large bowl of steamed dumplings filled with shepherd’s purse and wolf meat—each dumpling beautifully made, distinct from machine-shaped ones, yet even more pleasing to the eye than most handmade versions.
None of them possessed this level of skill—whoever had cooked these dishes clearly had professional training.
As Ruan Silian handed out chopsticks, she briefly retold the story Dou Lu had shared earlier. Then, glancing at the spread of food before them, she couldn’t help but smile in admiration.
“I was worried Mengzhi might’ve mistaken her for someone else,” she said. “But I was just overthinking it. She really used to be a food streamer. She’s a great cook—and her personality’s so cheerful, too.”
Xie Chongyi nodded, not offering any comment. But just as he took the chopsticks, his hand paused mid-motion. He raised a brow at Ruan Silian.
“Since when did you start calling him ‘Mengzhi’ too?”
Ruan Silian looked puzzled.
Beside her, Dou Lu was far too busy eating to notice. She held up a soft piece of the mugwort rice cake and took a bite. The natural fragrance of wild greens mixed perfectly with the sticky softness of the glutinous rice flour. Tears of nostalgia welled in her eyes.
“Oh my god, it’s so good! My mom’s wild veggie dishes always had a bitter edge—hers doesn’t!”
Lin Mengzhi grabbed one, too. “Let me try.”
After two bites, his eyes lit up, and he couldn’t help calling out, “A’Heng—!”
Wu Heng was a carnivorous plant.
The others were showering the food with praise, but the moment Wu Heng took a bite, his face went stiff. He immediately stood up and went outside to spit it out.
“…Not good?” Xue Qi hesitated. He had been ready to take a big bite but, after seeing Wu Heng’s reaction, changed to a small nibble. The next moment, his face twisted dramatically. “Damn it—this is divine cuisine!”
“It really is good,” Shen Ping’an said between mouthfuls. “The crust’s so thin and crisp—it’s perfect.”
Xue Shen tasted it next and nodded. “It’s quite good, indeed.”
Even Ji Zhelan, who rarely spoke, offered praise. “The girl’s got real skill.”