The sun shone through the thin curtains into her eyes. Lin Yue forced herself out of bed, muscles tight and sore.
To her, the kitchen was a battlefield. And she had lost too much time.
She walked to the main room. Zhao Chen was at the back of the house—she could hear him moving tools around. The scent of him lingered: damp earth and cold sweat. On the table sat a wooden plate with a lump of cold gray rice and a single wilted pickled radish.
This is what he expects me to eat? Her inner chef recoiled. This is not a meal. It's torture.
She moved to the cooking area. No stainless steel pans here. Just a dull, smoke-coated pot.
If a chef's knife is blunt, their mind is blunt. The words of her old head chef echoed in her memory.
Near the water barrel sat a rough flat stone. She picked up the kitchen knife and began to sharpen the blade.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
The repetitive motion calmed her. As the edge grew brighter, she felt a sliver of her old self returning.
An old basket sat on a small table in the corner. Inside, she found a handful of wild mustard greens and a small jar of lard.
She lit the stove and set the blackened pot over the flame. A tiny drop of lard went in first, followed by the chopped greens and a small piece of onion.
Sizzle.
She added a pinch of coarse salt, crushing the large crystals between two stones to help them dissolve evenly. In a second pan, she broke apart the cold rice with her fingers and let it fry until the edges turned golden and crisp.
The aroma changed. No longer stale and flat—now it carried the toasty scent of high-heat stir-fry.
The door creaked open.
Zhao Chen stepped inside and stopped dead.
The air smelled... different.
"You're cooking," he said, his voice tinged with suspicion.
Since when does she know how to do this? He studied her carefully. All these months, she could barely boil water. And now...
Lin Yue didn't answer. She simply gestured to the table. "Sit."
He obeyed slowly, still watching her.
She set the food before him. "Eat."
It wasn't a plea. It was a command.
Zhao Chen looked down at the plate. The rice looked different—golden at the edges, nothing like the gray mush he usually made. The greens glistened with oil, flecked with bits of crispy onion.
He picked up his chopsticks and took a bite.
He froze.
The flavor hit him instantly. It wasn't just salt. There was depth—sweetness from the onion, richness from the lard, a hint of char that made each bite complex and alive.
He had never tasted anything like it.
He looked up at her, a grain of rice still caught on his lip. "How?"
Lin Yue met his gaze, her expression unreadable.
She said nothing. She simply picked up her own chopsticks and began to eat.
Let him wonder.