In the kitchen, Ye Yi briskly picked up the frying pan in one hand and the bowl of meat and diced carrot in the other and walked to the living room.
She bent down and peered into the stove, hey, it had actually lit! Impressive.
Xie Yi, sitting on the floor, naturally reached up to take the bowl from Ye Yi’s hand and set it on the coffee table.
Ye Yi crouched, put the frying pan on the grate, poured corn oil in with her right hand, and waited for the oil to slowly heat. Seeing the oil begin to bubble, she poured in the marinated meat slices. The fatty meat hit the hot oil and immediately sizzled. She stir-fried with a spatula for a while, and as the meat shrank and its fat slowly rendered out, the aroma filled the living room.
After stir-frying a bit and seeing the meat about half done, she poured the diced carrot into the pan, sprinkled a little salt and soy sauce, and kept stir-frying until everything was cooked through.
Judging the heat about right, she picked up the pan and went back to the kitchen.
The water in the stone pot by the sink had already covered the rice. She stuck a finger in to measure the water level, just past the first knuckle. She really hadn’t cooked in a long time. She thought it over hesitantly, the water should be about enough, right?
She poured the cooked meat and carrot over the rice, put the lid on, and, with effort, carried the stone pot to the living room, set it on the briquette-burning stove, and let the rice simmer slowly.
While waiting for the rice, Ye Yi warmed herself idly by the fire. She glanced at the alloy door and window left open a crack, then picked up the paper and pen on the coffee table and began sketching out how to make the metal kang.
First she drew a fire basin, then over it a tall lid with only three sides. A short distance to the left of the lid, she drew a hollow rectangular iron bed, with an iron plate set at an angle beneath it, lower on the right and higher on the left, to help the smoke drift out.
Then she drew a round tube connecting the iron bed and the lid over the fire basin. To the left of the iron bed she drew a door, and to the left of the door a window, finally she drew a tube running from the iron bed to the door, and from the door out past the window.
Having roughly sketched a draft, she handed it to Xie Yi and looked at him expectantly. “Can you make out this sketch?”
Xie Yi studied the sketch for a good while, then nodded hesitantly. He seemed to sort of get it, and sort of not. After thinking, he asked, “That tube to the left of the iron bed, how does it pass through this balcony door to connect out past the balcony window?”
Ye Yi had thought of this problem too, but Xie Yi’s ability could solve it completely. She stood, walked to the alloy door, looked back at the fire basin to roughly fix the position, then crouched and drew a circle on the alloy door with her finger, saying to Xie Yi as he came over, “Can you use your ability to make a hole here?”
Xie Yi looked at where Ye Yi had drawn the circle, crouched, put his palm on it, and slowly began controlling the alloy door to change.
Under his ability, the small circle slowly grew larger. When Ye Yi saw it was about big enough, she told Xie Yi to stop.
Just then the stone pot on the stove let out the aroma of meat. The moment Ye Yi smelled it, her stomach felt ravenous and her strength drained away, she couldn’t care less about the metal kang. She went to the stove, pulled the down-jacket sleeve of her left hand over her right fingertips, carefully set it on the stone-pot lid, and slowly lifted the lid for a look, the rice seemed done.
She directed Xie Yi with her left hand to bring over the baby greens from the coffee table, poured them on top of the meat, and put the lid back on to let them steam-cook.
She went to the kitchen to pour some water to drink and, seeing the eggs, remembered she’d nearly forgotten to fry eggs. She drank some water, picked up the frying pan, grabbed three eggs, and went to the fire basin. She put the pan on it, poured oil, cracked the eggs into the hot oil, sprinkled some fine salt, and started frying.
Soon the three eggs were fried, and the baby greens in the stone pot were done too. Xie Yi got up to fetch bowls and chopsticks from the kitchen.
He sat down, handed the bowls and chopsticks to Ye Yi, and waited contentedly for the meal.
Ye Yi took them and lifted the lid. White steam and aroma rushed at her face, wow, so fragrant! Sure enough, a person had to eat meat.
After waiting a bit for the steam to clear, she stuck the spatula in, gave it a stir, ladled out two bowls of rice, used the chopsticks to put one fried egg in one bowl and the other two eggs in the other.
Xie Yi picked up the bowl with one egg, ready to eat. Seeing this, Ye Yi quickly reached over and took it away, handed him the bowl with two eggs, then turned back for the one-egg bowl. Before lowering her head to eat, she said, “Invalid’s meal, eat up!”
Given that he’d shoveled snow while injured today, he could use an extra egg for nourishment.
Xie Yi looked at the two eggs in his bowl, then at Ye Yi, smiled, lowered his head, and slowly began to eat.
Soon the whole pot of rice, meat, and vegetables was split and eaten clean between the two of them. Afterward Xie Yi took the initiative to clear the messy aftermath, carrying all the bowls and chopsticks to the kitchen to wash.
Full and satisfied, Ye Yi lay contentedly on the sofa to rest. After a while she felt a bit cold and looked up toward where the wind was coming from, it was leaking in from the alloy door. She got up and shut it.
Glancing over, she saw the briquettes in the stove hadn’t gone out, so she turned and carried an iron pot full of water from the kitchen and set it on the stove.
Sigh, no rest for her, the metal kang came first.
She walked to the scrap iron, eyeing the rust on it, thought a moment, picked out the smallest piece, put her hand on it, and silently thought, “Gather.”
“A piece of scrap iron detected. Gather?”
“Yes.”
The scrap iron vanished in an instant, and a white glowing mass appeared. Ye Yi reached out for it out of habit. The glow faded, and a brand-new, clean iron block appeared.
All the rust was gone, it was just that the iron block in her hand felt a little lighter than before gathering.
Xie Yi, having finished washing up, came out of the kitchen just in time to catch this scene. He said nothing, quietly took the wound medicine to the bathroom, re-treated his wound, then, pretending he’d seen nothing, sat by the fire basin to warm his hands.
Looking at the clean iron block, Ye Yi, full of energy, kept picking up scrap iron and gathering it piece by piece. Soon iron blocks large and small were piled beside her legs. Only when the last piece was gathered did Ye Yi stop. Looking at the iron blocks all over the floor, she remembered, how was she going to explain to Xie Yi that scrap iron had turned into iron blocks?
A space ability that could also turn things into another form?
Done for, she’d given herself away.
She turned to look at Xie Yi warming his hands by the fire basin with his eyes closed, not knowing how to broach it.
Hearing that the movement had stopped, Xie Yi opened his eyes, looked at the stunned Ye Yi, and asked first, “Done?”
“Done.” Ye Yi answered blankly.
Xie Yi got up, walked over to Ye Yi, picked up the iron blocks from the floor, carried them beside the fire basin, and simply began controlling them to transform according to the diagram Ye Yi had drawn.
A tall, three-sided iron lid slowly emerged from atop the iron blocks, followed by the tubing and the iron bed, appearing one after another.
Ye Yi could only say she was truly dumbfounded. “Tempted” no longer described her feelings. Five days ago she’d still been an ordinary working stiff, how could she have known that one day she’d get to see, with her own eyes, scenes that appeared in the movies?
Xie Yi transformed all the needed items. The iron tube was thin, not very large, about 15 centimeters in diameter. The iron bed was about 2 meters by 1.8 meters, very big indeed.
Ye Yi stepped up and, together with Xie Yi, lifted the iron bed and set it between the fire basin and the alloy door, carefully placed the iron lid over the fire basin, and had the iron tube connect the lid to the iron bed.
Then she went to the space between the iron bed and the alloy door and held up a tube to connect them. Finally she pushed open the alloy door, hiss, she hadn’t known until she stepped out how truly cold it was outside, the temperature seemed to have dropped again. Looking out the window, the whole town was blanketed in white snow, not a soul on the roads. It seemed everyone was hiding at home keeping warm.
Out for only a moment, her body shivered on its own. She quickly looked for a spot on the window where she could bore a hole. After searching, she directed Xie Yi to make a hole in the metal edge of the window, brought the tube from before near the small hole, and had Xie Yi use his ability to connect them.
The connected tube was a little distance from the alloy door. Xie Yi checked the rough position and re-shaped the tube’s direction to connect to the alloy door.
Successfully done, she just didn’t know how well it would work.
Looking at the iron kang completed per the diagram, Ye Yi was a little impatient to see if there were any shortcomings. She pushed open the alloy door, went to the fire basin, and began adding wooden blocks.
Before long the fire flared up, and the smoke from the burning blocks slowly drifted into the iron tube. Ye Yi went to the alloy door and looked out through the glass. After quite a while, she saw smoke drifting out of the tube past the window outside.
She tentatively reached out and carefully touched the tube, hiss, scalding.
Although the burn hurt, she was still happy. It meant her iron kang had succeeded. As long as there was enough wood to burn, she wouldn’t have to fear the cold.
She ran to the room, grabbed a set of bedding, spread it flat on the iron bed, and carefully climbed up. She’d only gotten half her body up when she felt the bed wobble. Terrified, she froze on it, not daring to move, and cried out, “Xie Yi, quick, this bed’s unstable!”
Xie Yi had been adding wood at the fire basin. Hearing her, he quickly stood, ran over, grabbed Ye Yi, and lifted her down off the iron bed.
Lifted off the bed, Ye Yi was a little dazed. How was this man so strong, lifting her with one hand? Had she lost weight?
No, even if she’d gotten thinner, she still weighed nearly a hundred catties. Or was his strength just that great?
Once he’d safely lifted Ye Yi down, Xie Yi circled the iron kang once, then lay flat on the floor and stuck his head under the iron bed for a look. He pressed down hard on top of the iron bed with one hand, observed for a while, and discovered that the bed was unstable because it had been made too thin.
For a person to get on it, it needed to be made thicker. Moreover, the iron bed had only two legs supporting it, it needed supports on all sides to work.