One look at Yixuan’s utterly clueless face and a certain Miguel was left with nothing to say.
Right.
He had it figured out now.
That old fox Mayor Mayflower had relapsed into his usual bad habit.
The man had obviously fed Yixuan a few key pieces of information and then left the girl sitting there to guess the rest on her own.
Which was exactly how Miguel had ended up blowing his own cover today without ever seeing it coming.
Seriously?
Could the riddlers please get out of New Eridu already!
Then again, it hardly mattered.
Sooner or later, everyone here on Yunkui Summit was going to cross paths with Wise and Belle anyway.
Whether his true identity came out now or came out later was only a question of timing, and getting it over with early spared them all a great deal of tiptoeing around each other.
While Miguel was still busy silently drafting his complaints about Mayor Mayflower — Whoosh.
A ball of yellow-and-white fur shot straight up in front of him.
Ju Fufu’s eyes were blazing, her whole face lit up with curiosity about him.
She seized his sleeve, so worked up that her tail whipped an afterimage behind her.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Three of them in a row from the little thing, her voice shaking, her fuzzy ears standing bolt upright.
“You’re really the legendary Savior?!
The great hero who split Hollow Zero open with a single strike back during the Fall of Old Eridu?!” Ju Fufu had grown up on stories of the “Savior.” She had only begun learning about the outside world in any formal way after Yixuan took her in, and of all the famous deeds circulating in the days when New Eridu was being built, none spread further than the tale of Miguel — the man who had single-handedly held back Hollow Zero’s collapse and pulled every last victim out alive.
The trouble was that, aside from Hoshimi Miyabi and her mother, nobody had ever seen Miguel’s real face.
That, plus the way the Mark Nine armor lent its wearer a taller, straighter silhouette once it locked on, left most of the survivors convinced the “Savior” had been a grown man.
Who could possibly have imagined that the hero in question had been all of twelve years old?
Now that Ju Fufu was finally seeing the hero she’d spent years daydreaming about with her own two eyes, questions came crowding into her head faster than she could sort them.
She poked gingerly at his clearly defined arm, eyes shining as she asked, “Whoa!
You can tell right away these muscles belong to someone who trains — but they’re not as huge as I pictured… Don’t all the storytellers out there say that Lord Savior stands eight feet tall and measures eight feet around the waist, that he’s got three heads and six arms, and that he can put away three full-grown Ethereals in a single meal?” What kind of nonsense was this?
The sheer absurdity of the rumor hit Miguel like a lightning bolt.
He yanked his sleeve back and rapped the “big orange cat” on the head.
“Stop, stop, stop.
Hold it right there!” “Those are Ethereals, not roast suckling pigs.
And what decent person is shaped like a cube?
That’s a geometric solid, thank you very much!” Ye Shunguang, who had been standing off to one side and holding herself stiffly ever since the shock of learning who Miguel really was, lost the battle and snorted out a laugh.
Their little comedy routine did a great deal to loosen the air in the room, which had gone heavy during the discussion of the “Azure Empyrean Sword.” Little Guang worked up the nerve to edge closer as well, standing shoulder to shoulder with her Senior Sister, red eyes brimming with curiosity.
“Big Bro Miguel, that Lido War a while back — was it really as brutal as the documentaries made it look?” She tipped her head up as she asked, her voice carrying the pure hero-worship only a young girl can manage.
Looking at the two chattering girls, Miguel knew there was no getting out of here today without satisfying their curiosity.
So he picked out a few things that touched on no core secrets and confirmed a handful of their guesses, which set the pair gasping one after another.
Behind them, Ye Shiyuan and Pan Yinhu reacted in very different ways.
Ye Shiyuan stayed where he was.
Perhaps the confirmation of Miguel’s identity had dissolved the last sliver of worry left in him; whatever the reason, he leaned against the wall and watched his sister standing in front of Miguel in silence.
In his eyes, Miguel could make out a faint gleam — a man catching sight of hope.
Good.
As far as Miguel was concerned, at least some of the pressure and bitterness this Senior Brother had been carrying had found a release today.
A person can’t keep his most fundamental feelings bottled up forever.
Ye Shiyuan lowered his head, looked down at his own palm, and let a smile through.
His sister could be saved.
Nothing mattered more than that.
Beside him, Pan Yinhu was rubbing his two thick bear paws together with a simple, honest sort of glee.
Ordinarily this Panda Thiren counted every coin twice, but at the moment his head was full of exactly which good dishes he ought to lay out to host Miguel, Yunkui Summit’s great benefactor.
The way he saw it, Mr.
Miguel had come to Yunkui Summit, promised to bring back Yijiang, their former Sect Master, and now arranged a solution for the aftereffects of the “Azure Empyrean Sword” plaguing Junior Sister Little Guang.
A kindness that deep demanded a proper feast tonight!
He worked through his menu, chuckling to himself the whole time.
The disciples might have been making a racket, but Yixuan was another matter.
She stood off to the side, quietly watching her students crowd around Miguel and pelt him with questions.
This Sect Master, casual by nature and not above slacking off when nobody was checking, wore a soft look now.
She didn’t join the fun.
She turned instead, without a sound, and walked back to the innermost room of the Tranquil Heart Pavilion.
The light inside was dim.
The woman lying on the bed breathed evenly.
Yixuan sat down at the edge of the wooden bed and reached out to tuck the quilt in around the unconscious Yijiang.
She bent close to her sister’s ear, her voice pitched so low that only the two of them could have heard it.
“Sister, just wait a little longer…” Yixuan took Yijiang’s hand — pale from all those years of unbroken sleep — and pressed it tight against her own cheek.
“Very soon, we’ll see each other again.” So many years of obsession weighing on her, and at last there was hope of it bearing fruit.
Even Yixuan, a Void Hunter tier fighter who had carried an entire sect on her own shoulders, felt her eyes go red.
Half an hour later.
The conversation in the Tranquil Heart Pavilion reached a natural pause, and the people of Yunkui Summit insisted with tremendous warmth that Miguel stay, promising their most lavish dinner for their honored guest.
To prove his sincerity, Pan Yinhu tied on his old apron, washed pale from use, and dove headfirst into the kitchen.
Ye Shunguang didn’t idle either.
She followed him in, made several of her signature pastries, and carried them out to the front hall table ahead of everything else.
Sitting in the front hall, eating the pastries Little Guang brought him and listening to the sound of chopping drifting out of the kitchen, Miguel felt his hands start to itch.
He got up and ambled over to the kitchen doorway.
Pan Yinhu was working a cleaver, reducing a slab of marbled pork into clean, distinct cubes, the cutting board ringing with a rhythm you could have set a song to.
“Ho!
Brother Yinhu, that’s real skill.” Miguel stepped over the kitchen threshold with the compliment.
“Knife work like that doesn’t happen without a solid decade behind it.” Clack!
Pan Yinhu stuck the cleaver upright in the cutting board.
The enormous Panda Thiren spun around, small eyes fixed on Miguel, his voice carrying that same guileless modesty.
“You’re too kind, Mr.
Miguel.
It’s plain knife work, nothing worth showing off.” Miguel neither agreed nor disagreed.
As a cook himself, he could read the craft in Pan Yinhu’s blade far better than the average person.
And more than that, the man’s cooking would have ranked among the very best in all of New Eridu.
Don’t ask how he knew.
Ask, and the answer was that your Big Bro Miguel had the script in hand.
Ah, well.
None of that was the point.
The point was that Miguel had run into a fellow enthusiast for once, and naturally he wanted to talk shop.
“Honestly, when I’ve got nothing better to do, I like puttering around a kitchen myself.
I suppose that makes me a cook too.” At that, Pan Yinhu didn’t even stop to wipe his apron.
He crossed to the doorway in a few strides and grabbed Miguel’s hand.
“Well, I’ll be!
I never imagined Mr.
Miguel had a hand in the culinary arts as well!” This time there was no hiding the excitement in his voice, and both bear paws pumped Miguel’s hand up and down.
“This bunch of ours on Yunkui Summit — all they do is eat and train.
Not one of them understands the mysteries of cooking!” “Senior Sister only knows how to eat meat, Senior Brother is off being mysterious all day, and Junior Sister can make pastries, sure, but with her condition she can’t spend much time in the kitchen.” “Come in, come in!
It’s not every day I get to meet someone like you, Mr.
Miguel.
Let’s really talk this through!” And with that, the Panda Thiren hauled Miguel bodily into the kitchen.
“Take a look at this cut.
I think red-braising locks the juices in best, but Junior Sister Little Guang is frail — would a clear stew suit her better?” “And these spirit bamboo shoots.
Julienne and blanch them, or straight into the wok for a stir-fry?” Pan Yinhu kept a grip on Miguel, pointing at the ingredients on the board and rattling on without pause, the man’s status as the Savior flung clean out of his mind.
To him, the title of “Savior” mattered far less than the fact that here, at last, was a kindred spirit who could trade cooking notes with him.
The onslaught left Miguel somewhere between laughing and groaning.
But he didn’t put on airs.
He followed the thread of Pan Yinhu’s questions and offered a few offhand tips on handling the ingredients.
“This marbled pork is rich in fat, so a clear stew turns heavy fast.
Render some of the fat out over low heat first, then fry rock sugar down for color, and toss in a few slices of hawthorn at the end to stew with it.
Cooked that way the meat’s rich without being greasy, melts on the tongue, and Little Guang can eat it without her stomach complaining.” He picked up a spirit bamboo shoot and turned it over in his hand.
“As for these, they’re tender and sweet enough on their own.
Roll-cut them into chunks, flash-fry them over high heat in the lard you just rendered, and add a pinch of salt to bring the flavor up.
Whatever you do, don’t dump a pile of seasonings on them — you’ll bury the fragrance they already have.” Pan Yinhu nodded along, eyes brightening with every word, all but reaching for a notebook to write it down.
“Brilliant!
Absolutely brilliant!” He slapped his thigh and promptly began pushing Miguel back toward the door.
“Mr.
Miguel, those few sentences opened my eyes wide!
Now go rest out there, quick!
The kitchen’s full of smoke and grease — I won’t have you choking on it!” “And tonight’s meal — if I, Pan Yinhu, don’t bring a hundred and twenty percent to this table, I’ll swallow that wok whole!” Bang.
The kitchen door shut.
Miguel stood outside it, listening to the roar of a wok being tossed at full tilt, and rubbed his nose.
Right, then.
He’d only meant to be polite and lend a hand as a prep cook.
Instead he’d been escorted straight out of the room.
Humming a little tune, Miguel wandered back to the front hall and stuffed another pastry into his mouth.
Bliss.
One trip up Yunkui Summit and he’d not only gotten everything ahead of them arranged, he’d also landed himself a lavish banquet he didn’t have to lift a finger for.
This wouldn’t do.
Wasn’t this how a man learned to be lazy?
The things you people put your Big Bro Miguel through!
Walnut-chan🔥👻 🔥 New history: Zenless Zone Zero: