The group rode on horseback in a grand procession from the stronghold in Nanqing Prefecture to the stronghold in Wei’an Town. Along the way, any scattered red-named players they encountered were dealt with, though the escort-robbing guild they had heard about earlier was nowhere to be seen.
“Didn’t they say members of Danfeng were robbing escorts? We haven’t seen a single one of them along this road,” Feng Qian asked, looking puzzled.
“Oh, they probably jumped maps to rob escorts somewhere else. They do that all the time. Whenever we organize people to counter-rob, they just head to a different map, acting just like rats,” Chun’ai Xiaomao, a team member who was well-acquainted with their habits, explained to Feng Qian.
Hearing this, Feng Qian opened the faction channel, and sure enough, the escort robbers had already moved to another map.
Faction [Yunmeng Fusheng]: Is Shang’an safe?
Faction [Chang’an Deng]: Shangning County is not safe. The members of the Danfeng guild are robbing escorts, so let’s go run trade routes on a different map first.
Faction [Yunmeng Fusheng]: Okay, thank you.
He shared this news with the people in his group and asked, “Should we switch maps to fight them or just disband?”
As an active battle enthusiast, Chun’ai Xiaomao eagerly replied, “Of course we switch maps to fight them! Aren’t guild wars happening in a few days anyway, so let’s build up our momentum.”
“That makes sense. Brother, should we call for a few more people in the faction and guild to sweep the map?” Feng Qian turned around to ask Xianyun for his opinion. Although he usually liked to fool around and was somewhat unreliable, most of the guild’s activities were actually organized by him. Xianyun agreed with his suggestion, and thus began the process of recruiting players.
Faction [Xianyun]: Anti-escort robbery group, join up, pluses.
Faction [Chun’ai Xiaomao]: Fight Danfeng, come on over, pluses.
Faction [Want to Chat With You]: Coming, coming. My trade goods were just robbed by them earlier, and I lost so much loose silver, so we definitely have to fight back!
Before long, many more people opened groups to join. After setting up their rooms, they began to accurately track down the opponents with the help of faction players.
Su Wenqi was participating in this kind of activity for the first time and found it quite interesting, though the frequent map-switching and searching later on left him feeling a bit exhausted.
Private Chat [Charcoal of a Spring Day]: I am not fighting anymore. I am logging off to eat dinner.
Private Chat [Xianyun]: Alright, are you cooking for yourself?
Private Chat [Charcoal of a Spring Day]: Yes, and it tastes just as good as the food in the game!
Over the past few days, he had figured out the other person’s foodie tendencies, so he intentionally said this to tease him. What he did not know was that ever since Wen Shaochuan tasted the food he made in the game, eating the meals prepared by his own family’s chef after logging off had become somewhat unpalatable, and recently he had been relying entirely on nutritional fluids to supply his body’s needs.
Private Chat [Xianyun]: I have not eaten for three or four days, do you even know how I survived this week!
Private Chat [Charcoal of a Spring Day]: Ah? Why didn’t you eat?
Private Chat [Xianyun]: The chef’s food tastes too terrible, I could not swallow it, so I have just been drinking nutritional fluids these past few days.
Private Chat [Charcoal of a Spring Day]: Is it really that bad?
After sending this message, Su Wenqi thought of the steamed buns he had tasted before, and they seemed, indeed, quite terrible. Yes.
Thinking of this and looking back at the message he had sent, he felt a little guilty, coughing as he realized it might actually have been a bit too harsh.
Private Chat [Charcoal of a Spring Day]: Cough. I will research some new dishes after I finish eating, do you want to come and help me taste-test them?
Private Chat [Xianyun]: Of course I do! Hurry back!
As expected, a foodie was the easiest person to coax. Su Wenqi smiled and logged out of the game.
During the past few days, he had taken the time to make all the small snacks required by the guild and handed them over to Xianyun. He had even returned to Linlan Village once to visit Granny Wang, and his days had been wonderfully fulfilling.
He also heard that opening a shop was possible within the game. When he was researching new recipes, he had produced quite a few blue and purple-quality items in large quantities. Even after sending a substantial amount to Xianyun and the others, he still had a lot left over, which naturally gave him the idea of opening a shop.
Opening a store in the game was much easier than in real life, and he planned to go understand the process tomorrow, striving to get his shop up and running within the next two days, puffing out his chest with confidence.
After finishing dinner and logging back into the game to return to his homestead, the moment he stepped into the kitchen, he saw Xianyun already waiting by the dining table, except that the other person had a blank, dazed expression on his face, clearly having tabbed out of the game to work.
It was rare to see this kind of expression on his face, as he was usually a low-key, cold, alpha male type, and seeing him looking so blank now gave him a special kind of cuteness.
Therefore, Su Wenqi stepped closer to him, opened the camera mode, and took a picture. Just as he was about to stand up straight, he happened to lock eyes with Wen Shaochuan, who had just snapped out of it.
Under the leadership of several generations of leaders in the Wen family, the Wen Corporation could be described as thriving at the peak of its success, especially after Wen Shaochuan leveraged government backing to mastermind the creation of “Huaxia,” which made him even more formidable.
Although the company was massive in scale, Wen Shaochuan excelled at discovering talent and continuously expanded the secretary department to share a significant amount of pressure for him. In the end, only the most important documents were handed over to him, saving him a lot of time and energy.
Once he finished signing today’s documents and tabbed back into the game, he saw Su Wenqi’s face leaning in close.
His facial features were already exceptional, and now, being so close, they possessed an extreme aesthetic appeal, causing Wen Shaochuan’s heartbeat to skip a beat. In fact, the very first time he saw Su Wenqi in Linlan Village, he had fallen for him at first sight, otherwise, given his personality, he would never have gone up to strike up a conversation.
Not only him, but Su Wenqi felt the exact same way. The dazed Wen Shaochuan had looked like a blank doll, but as soon as he came to his senses, it was as if a soul had been infused into him. Cold, handsome, and powerful, Su Wenqi felt his heart beating wildly.
Oh no, could it is that I have also awakened the looks-obsessed attribute? Watching the other person’s face slowly draw closer, he remained frozen in place without reacting, his heart simply beating faster and faster.
Meanwhile, Wen Shaochuan rarely saw Su Wenqi looking like this, so he couldn’t help but feel a bit mischievous.
He slowly leaned closer until the distance between their noses was about the length of a single fist, raised both hands to cradle Su Wenqi’s head, and then pinched Su Wenqi’s cheeks. Feeling the warm and delicate texture against his hands, he couldn’t help rubbing them a couple of times.
“!” Feeling the temperature on his face that did not belong to him, Su Wenqi instantly snapped out of his trance, and seeing this, Wen Shaochuan quickly lowered his guilty hands.
“You!” Su Wenqi flinched backward in a panic, instinctively rubbing his cheek with his hand. Unbeknownst to him, his face was turning red at a visible rate.
Wen Shaochuan looked at this sight with satisfaction, especially noticing that even the other person’s ears had turned red, and felt immensely proud inside. It seems Spring Day really likes this face of mine, and judging by his reaction, he doesn’t hate my touch either. Looked at this way, I still have a chance!
Unwilling to admit that he had actually been staring blankly at the other person’s face, he stood up and walked over to the stove, pretending as if nothing had happened.
He wanted to turn the page, but the other person did not.
Wen Shaochuan followed him to the stove as well, speaking to him in a cheap, playful tone that completely clashed with his usual persona.
“What were you doing leaning in so close to me just now? I heard the sound of a camera, did you secretly take a picture of me? Ha, I knew my face was hard for anyone not to fall for. Speaking of which, your face is really nice to squish too, it’s so soft!”
What the heck, buddy, did your personality glitch out? You aren’t usually like this!
Hearing his words, Su Wenqi was somewhat bewildered and turned to look at him. He saw that the other person still maintained a poker face, yet the words coming out of his mouth completely contrasted with that expression.
Perhaps Su Wenqi’s look of confusion was too obvious, as he gave a light cough and returned to normal.
“I mean, let me see what you took pictures of, and what are you making today?” Thus, he awkwardly changed the subject, attempting to pull Su Wenqi’s attention elsewhere.
Hearing Xianyun’s normal tone once again, Su Wenqi felt as though he might have just experienced auditory hallucinations, and he cast a complex glance at the person who had already turned around, thinking to himself: Could this actually be his real personality?
Since both of them tacitly avoided mentioning what had just happened, the atmosphere remained fairly harmonious.
The dish Su Wenqi wanted to make today was steamed crab soup pork buns, because the small soup buns Xianyun had brought back from the restaurant a couple of days ago had caught his attention.
The food at the restaurant was better than what average players made, but compared to his own cooking, there was still a gap. Since he had nothing pressing to do recently, he decided to try making them himself.
Seeing Xianyun pacing around the room in absolute boredom, he called the other person over: “Xianyun, help me mince this pork into fine meat paste, I will need it shortly.”
“Oh, oh, coming! Is there anything I need to pay attention to?” Hearing his crush call out to him, Wen Shaochuan blossomed with joy and dashed right over to receive his task.
Su Wenqi had long since learned about the cooking skills of interstellar people, and looking at Xianyun, he didn’t look like someone who could cook, so he only assigned him a simple job.
He took out the pork he had selected in advance, placed it on the cutting board, handed a kitchen knife to the other person, and said: “There is nothing special to look out for, just make it as fine as possible. Call me when you are done chopping, and I will season it.”
And so, amidst the rhythmic thud, thud, thud of meat being chopped, Su Wenqi began his work.
He directly turned on two stoves, placed the hairy crabs onto the steamer baskets, and then began preparing the pig skin.
He meticulously plucked away any stray hairs on the pig skin, poured cooking wine into another pot to bring it to a boil, and then dropped the pig skin in. Once the pig skin was boiled until soft, he fished it out, trimmed away the fatty layers, and cut it into strips the size of soybeans or thin threads.
During this time, Xianyun had already finished mincing the meat filling. Su Wenqi took out a portion of it to begin seasoning, adding salt, sugar, light soy sauce, white pepper powder, sesame oil, and other condiments, and had Xianyun stir it evenly in a single direction.
He firmly memorized the amounts of the seasonings used this time so that he could adjust the flavor later.
Next, he brought another pot of water to a boil, added the cut pig skin, and boiled it over high heat until the water became cloudy and viscous. After filtering it, he poured the cooked pig skin broth out into another basin.
Both the pig skin gelatin and the meat filling needed to be chilled, so Su Wenqi went to the system store to buy a few freezing talismans and acceleration talismans. Controlling the temperature and time, he then began processing the hairy crabs.
It wasn’t as though Xianyun had never eaten hairy crabs, but whenever this dish was served to him, it was always already prepared, so he watched Su Wenqi process them with great interest.
Watching the other person skillfully remove the crab roe, crab fat, and crab meat, he also picked one up to clean. He slowly went from being clumsy to becoming skilled, and through their tacit cooperation, they quickly finished preparing a whole basin of hairy crabs.
When Su Wenqi stood up to proceed to the next step, Xianyun also stood up, signaling for him to assign another task.
Looking at the person asking him for work, Su Wenqi felt deeply gratified inside. It seemed he had never cooked together with anyone else before. Doing this felt rather domestic.
He assigned the task of chopping the pig skin gelatin to the other person once more. Expecting him to refuse or ask for something else, he was surprised when Xianyun accepted the task without a second word and went straight to work.
He is really a very good person.
Shaking his head, he immediately shifted back into cooking mode. After stir-frying the harvested crab roe, crab fat, and crab meat into a rich crab paste, he mixed the chopped pig skin gelatin into the minced pork filling until well combined and set it aside. Then, he rolled out the pre-fermented dough into thin wrappers and shaped them into individual small buns.
A steamer basket of buns was soon prepared. Once they were steamed, the two of them each took two to taste.
“Ouch, so hot! S-s-s, so good!” Xianyun impatiently picked up a crab soup bun and popped it into his mouth. The scalding hot broth instantly burst inside his mouth, and being both burned and reluctant to spit it out, he could only open his mouth and blow air to cool it down.
Having already witnessed the moment his persona shattered earlier, Su Wenqi was no longer surprised. He gently bit open the skin of the bun, and upon tasting the filling inside, he felt that there was a bit too much salt.
Therefore, after passing the remaining untouched crab soup bun to Xianyun, he set about adjusting the recipe. After a night of adjustments, he finally produced a gold-quality perfect crab soup bun, and Xianyun thoroughly enjoyed a satisfying feast that evening.