Benjamin was not in a good mood. By now he had probably worked his way through all forty-nine varieties of trashy melodrama that could possibly have happened to his younger brother.
Liam could see it, so once the new identity card and household registration were done, he dragged Benjamin off to throw money away like garbage.
At noon the two brothers ate at the number one restaurant on Altair. The prices were so extortionate that when Benjamin finished he had to clench everything tight and not dare go anywhere near a toilet.
They had barely sat down to rest before Liam hauled him off to the shopping center.
He bought everything: clothes and bags for his brother and sister, star-beast meat and star-bird eggs, and then a whole batch of machinery for composting and for clearing land on a large scale.
Nor did it stop there. Liam invested in an entire smart rig dedicated to filming and photography. Close to three hundred million silver stars evaporated just like that.
Benjamin’s face held on to its composure at first, then slowly cracked wide open. By the time Liam had settled the last purchase and scheduled the delivery to Cygnus, Benjamin had turned to stone.
When he came back to himself he immediately demanded they return everything. Liam pulled him into a corner and reasoned with him quietly:
"Brother, you have to invest before you can harvest. This is start-up capital I’m putting into our family’s planet. Down the line it all comes back into our pockets."
Benjamin’s face twisted: "Nearly three hundred million silver stars. That’s more than twenty barrels of soil-restoration fluid."
Liam was iron watching itself refuse to become steel: "Stop pining after soil-restoration fluid. I’ve told you I know how to restore soil without it. I won’t promise you anything else, but on this one thing you absolutely have to trust me."
In the end Liam won him over and Benjamin stopped demanding refunds. But his expression stayed funereal, and nothing would lift it.
That evening, back at home, watching Liam pull every scrap of fresh food out of the fridge and cook the lot, his heart bled all over again.
Isabella found her elder brother lying on the sofa like a drowned corpse. She poked him and asked in concern:
"Why have you looked like you’re about to die ever since you got home? Has the illness come back?"
Benjamin shook his head: "It’s worse than that."
He hauled himself upright and recounted in detail the story he had heard from Liam that morning and the speed at which Liam had spent money that afternoon. In less than a day Benjamin felt he had aged a decade. He sighed:
"Our brother really is good at making money, but he’s just as good at spending it. I’ve spent all afternoon wondering whether selling myself would be enough to keep him fed. And if it isn’t, I suppose I’ll have to sell you as well..."
Isabella’s face went black and she hit him hard on the arm: "What kind of nonsense is that? Selling who? He earned that money, he can spend it however he likes. Stop sitting here fretting like somebody’s old mother. Besides, he’s already drawn us a road to walk down. We haven’t even started walking and you’ve decided it won’t work? Our brother is that capable, and we’re his elder brother and sister, we can’t be the ones falling behind."
Isabella’s words cut straight through Benjamin’s gloom, and his face brightened on the spot: "You’re right. I’ve been thinking so much I’ve gone stupid. We ought to be working harder so we don’t hold him back."
He opened the Interstellar Connection network at once: "Quick, into our brother’s broadcasting room to support him."
Liam wouldn’t let them set foot in the kitchen, so surely there was nothing excessive about the two of them watching from the broadcasting room.
Today Liam was making braised meat with eggs, Sawtooth greens and rib soup, crisp-fried sea-beast slices, and grilled meat rolled in Jade greens.
By the time Benjamin and Isabella got into the broadcasting room, Liam had already started marinating the meat for grilling. His voice came out of the screen:
"Honestly, grilled meat is best over charcoal. But they don’t sell it on the market. Another day, when I have time, I’ll show everyone how to make charcoal. Right, the meat is marinated. We’ll leave it about fifteen minutes and then put it in the oven. Now let’s go and fry the sea-beast meat."
"I showed you all the other day how to wash sea-beast meat to get the fishiness out, so I won’t repeat that today. Once the meat is washed, slice it thin, about half a finger joint... *Brother! Sister! Stop throwing gifts! Thirty percent of that goes to the platform! If you have that much money, just transfer it straight into my account!*"
Liam stopped his knife and stuck his head out toward the living room to shout it. Benjamin and Isabella coughed in embarrassment, went red and put both hands up in surrender. In the broadcasting room, everyone had gone into hysterics.
*[Oh my, whose adorable brother and sister are those? Where did the room owner pick them up? Give me the address and I’ll run over and pick up a few myself.]*
Liam snorted: "My brother and sister are not scrap you can pick up off the ground. If you like them that much, ride a time machine back into the past and tell your parents to have some for you!"
*[Hahaha, the room owner’s angry. That was tactless of you, upstairs.]*
*[I was only joking, don’t be angry, room owner. I’m sorry for speaking without thinking.]*
*[Relax, upstairs. The room owner doesn’t sound angry. He’s teasing you back.]*
*[Ha, but he’s not wrong. When is the Research Institute going to invent a time machine, anyway?]*
*[Stop dreaming, upstairs. A time machine isn’t something the likes of us will ever get to touch.]*
Liam cleared his throat and pulled the topic back: "All right, let’s carry on frying the sea-beast meat. Once it’s sliced like this, we start seasoning it. Leave the meat to take up the seasoning, and fetch me two spoonfuls of starch. Choose a starch that binds well."
"Crack an egg into the starch, add a little pepper and beat the egg and starch together. Beat until they’ve combined into a thick liquid like this. If you like less batter on yours, add another small spoonful of water."
"First heat the oil until it’s good and hot. Drop a bead of batter in, and if it doesn’t stick to the bottom, you’re ready. Turn the heat down, then start dipping each piece of sea-beast meat in the batter and lowering it into the pan."
"Anything fried should be fried twice to be good. When the pieces have turned a pale gold, lift them all out, let the oil drain, and fry them a second time in a moment."
While he waited to turn them, Liam put the marinated star-beast meat into the oven: "I’ve set the oven to 180 degrees. For the timing, allow twenty minutes per 500 grams. Here, I’ve set it for forty-five minutes."
Then Liam went back to frying. When the first fry was done, he put the pieces in for a second, and turned off the heat once both sides had gone deep gold. He arranged them on a plate and asked Isabella to carry it out to the table.
He lifted the lid off the braising pot to check, pressed a piece with his chopsticks and found it falling apart, so he turned the heat off. The ribs had softened too, so Liam skimmed off the scum and added the Sawtooth greens.
"The dishes are basically done. Now all we do is slice the grilled meat thin and roll it up with Jade greens to eat."
Liam put on heat-proof gloves and carefully cut the meat into thin slices. The smart system zoomed in automatically on the meat under his knife. Lean and fat threaded through each other, and one cut had the translucent layer of fat weeping out rich juices.
Each slice was thin enough to see through.
The aroma hit the audience in the broadcasting room square in the face, and their drool was running by the yard.
Once the meat was sliced, Liam laid it out on a plate. Then he took a blanched leaf of Jade greens, set it down, laid three slices of grilled meat on it and rolled it up.
"Don’t put too much meat in, three slices is plenty. This dish has to be rolled as you eat it and dipped in the sauce, that’s the only way it’s good. I’ve pinned the sauce recipe in the description if you want it. Enjoy your meal, everyone."
He said his goodbyes and ended the stream, then ladled everything out of the pots into bowls. Benjamin came in to help carry each dish out and lay it out beautifully, because they knew Liam wanted to photograph the finished table.
Once he had cleared up and washed his hands, Liam went out to join them. He took out the smart camera he had bought that day and handed it to Isabella.
"You two have a go at taking the photos."
Isabella nervously set it to automatic. Liam looked at her first attempt and said, "Push the brightness up ten points and drop the contrast by three."
As for the angle, the smart unit would work out for itself what it considered the most beautiful and standard composition. Since neither Benjamin nor Isabella knew anything about filming or photography, Liam let them use the automatic system for now. Once they were comfortable with it, he would teach them to shoot manually.
However well a smart unit performed, its images came out too formulaic, and over time that would wear down a viewer’s interest. Only the endlessly shifting creative thinking of a human being could keep the shots feeling fresh and alive.
Benjamin said with feeling, "Well now. The one we adjusted ourselves looks far more appetizing than the one the AI set up."
Liam nodded: "AI concentrates on whatever formula is considered the most standard. What it produces has perfect proportions, but ten come out looking like one. If you want a product with more flexibility in it, you still need a person stepping in. Which is exactly why, even in an age of high technology, art made by human hands is still valued more highly. I’m a case in point. Right, the photos are done, so let’s eat. I’m starving."
Benjamin put the smart camera away at once.
The three of them sat down at the table and cleared the entire spread at top speed.
For some reason, Liam ate a good deal more than usual today. Not quite as much as Isabella, but not far off.
Liam thought privately that it was probably all the running around he had done, which was why he felt this hungry...