Chapter 22: Perfect in Color, Aroma, and Taste

Chapter 22: Perfect in Color, Aroma, and Taste

There was a lot of meat, too much to stew all at once, so Yu Sheng processed it into several different dishes.

As the saying went, the first time is raw, the second time is cooked, and the third time gets scallions, ginger, and cooking wine. Early humanity had probably explored and experimented with nature’s gifts according to much the same process during the dawn of civilization.

Humming a tune, Yu Sheng cut the largest portion into large chunks, blanched them in boiling water to skim off the foam, then placed star anise, fennel, cloves, cinnamon, and other stewing spices into a clay pot. After adding the meat, enough water, salt, soy sauce, and cooking wine to remove any gaminess, he set it on the stove to simmer slowly.

While the stew cooked, he stir-fried the remaining meat into two separate dishes, one with chili peppers and the other with garlic shoots. After tasting a little, he found it fresh, fragrant, and pleasantly flavorful. Neither tough nor undercooked, the slices were tender and smooth, though he could not quite identify what kind of meat it resembled. In terms of texture, however, it was somewhat close to exceptionally tender beef.

As for what remained, he planned to wait until he finished this meal and confirmed there were no problems before processing it into cured meat for storage... Or perhaps marinate and age it, then dehydrate it in an air fryer into salty jerky? He had never tried that before and did not know whether it would work...

Various thoughts spun through Yu Sheng’s mind. He felt like an adventurous scientist, exploring possibilities in a field no one had ever set foot in before.

Thus he spent nearly two hours experimenting in the kitchen. After a great deal of activity, he finally opened the door and carried plates, bowls, cups, and the clay pot of stew to the dining table one trip at a time.

Inside the oil painting, Irene watched Yu Sheng bustling about with a horrified expression. Her face simultaneously displayed two completely contradictory emotions: “Forget it, I’m tired, just let him do whatever he wants,” and “You can’t, you absolutely can’t do this.” After quite some time, she finally could not hold back anymore.

“You’re not seriously planning to eat that, are you? That thing came out of an Other Domain! What if you eat yourself to death?!”

Yu Sheng glanced up at Irene.

“What if I told you I’ve already eaten it twice over there?”

The conflicting expression on Irene’s face vanished instantly, leaving behind only horror.

“...Huh?!”

“Look at me, I’m still alive and kicking, so it should be fine. It took real effort to bring back this trophy. Throwing it away would be such a waste,” Yu Sheng said as though it were perfectly natural. “You know hunting, right? This is my prey. One day, I’m going to bring that whole thing back and make it understand exactly who’s at the top of the food chain!”

Irene did not respond. Looking at her dumbstruck appearance, Yu Sheng grew curious and asked another question.

“That reminds me, has nobody ever actually tried tasting an entity from the Other Domain? Didn’t you say they come in all shapes and forms? There should be plenty that look edible.”

“Who would try something like that?!” Irene looked completely exasperated. “They’re things with all sorts of bizarre properties. Poison would be the least of your worries! Who just puts that stuff into their mouth like you do?! And you’ve eaten it twice... Wait, you really ate it twice?!”

“Yep. Though the first two times were sashimi. The situation was pretty urgent back then, so there wasn’t time to cook it. It was the kind of emergency where if I didn’t eat it immediately, I’d be dead before I got another chance.”

As he spoke casually, Yu Sheng sat down across from Irene and casually picked up a slice of meat with his chopsticks, tossing it into his mouth and eating with obvious enjoyment.

Irene listened in a daze.

“T-then what happened after you ate it?”

“I died afterward.”

Yu Sheng answered with complete honesty.

“Then why are you...” Irene blurted out instinctively before realizing something felt off. Since she knew nothing about Yu Sheng’s ability to return from death, she simply assumed he was teasing her, and glared at him in irritation. “I’m being serious!”

Yu Sheng grinned broadly and laughed at the sight of the furious doll in the painting.

He realized he was beginning to enjoy bickering with her.

After all, she could not jump out of the painting and headbutt him.

He still did not explain his return from death to Irene. On one hand, at this stage she was completely incapable of perceiving his death process, so any explanation would sound like nonsense. On the other hand, he still had far too many unanswered questions regarding the changes occurring within himself. He hoped to understand more before discussing them with Irene.

Unaware of the countless thoughts hidden behind Yu Sheng’s mischievous smile, Irene merely glanced again at the abundant food on the table before staring blankly at his chewing.

It actually looked rather appetizing.

And after being cooked, its appearance was no different from ordinary meat. There was no trace of its original bizarre form.

“...Is it good?”

The doll in the painting finally could not hold it in any longer and asked in a deliberately casual tone.

Yu Sheng immediately laughed. As though he had anticipated this moment, he casually picked up an empty bowl and plate that he had prepared earlier, filled them with rice, dishes, and soup, and placed them in front of the oil painting.

“I never said I wanted...” Irene muttered.

Yu Sheng replied casually, “You can’t actually eat it anyway, so there’s even less reason to care about what the ingredients are, right?”

Irene thought about it and found that strangely reasonable.

“Y-yeah, I guess?”

Thus she relaxed completely and once again assumed an appearance before the arranged bowl and chopsticks that made it seem as though her voice and smile still lingered in the world.

Halfway through the meal, their conversation naturally drifted back to the earlier discussion about the “professionals.”

“Actually, there’s another possibility for why nobody has come looking for you yet,” Irene said while hugging her teddy bear and sitting very close to the edge of the frame. “Some organization or official personnel may have already noticed that something is wrong here, but based on professional judgment they can’t act immediately, or they still haven’t precisely located the connection point to the Other Domain or gathered enough information. So all they can do for now is arrange surveillance.”

“Surveillance?”

“Yeah. For all you know, there might already be a bunch of plainclothes watchers outside your house. After all, you got out of the Other Domain on your own before anyone could rescue you. Whether that’s because of skill or luck, the people who specialize in handling these things never got a chance to intervene. Which probably means they never got a chance to pinpoint your location either, so naturally the only thing they can do is monitor the area. Over the next couple of days, pay attention to whether any unfamiliar faces show up nearby. They might be plainclothes agents, detectives, investigators, or something similar. It’s just a matter of keeping an eye out. It won’t interfere with checking utility poles for advertisements...”

Yu Sheng ignored her remarks about utility-pole advertisements and instead looked out the window.

Irene made it sound simple, just pay attention to unfamiliar faces nearby.

How was he supposed to know who counted as unfamiliar?

He had only lived here for two months. During the first month, he had practically stayed indoors the entire time. On top of that, he was somewhat bad at recognizing faces. In his eyes, half the people around here were unfamiliar faces already!

“Do you think the guy selling pancakes at the intersection looks like an undercover agent?” After staring suspiciously out the window for quite a while, Yu Sheng whispered to Irene.

“I don’t know. I can’t see.”

“Oh, right, I forgot.”

Yu Sheng quickly stood up, picked up Irene’s painting, and placed it by the nearby window facing outside.

“That guy over there...”

“Nope.”

“That certain?”

“Obviously. He can make a pancake with sausage and egg in fifty seconds. If he were really undercover, he’d probably still be figuring out how to spread the oil.”

“...Fair point. Then what about the guy applying phone screen protectors next to him?”

“Not him either. His hands are too fast.”

“Oh... Hey, then what about...”

“Stop looking. All this suspicious guessing is pointless. And if they’re professional surveillance personnel, you definitely won’t be able to spot them anyway,” Irene interrupted him. “Instead of wasting time guessing, why don’t you spend the next few days walking around more? You’ve been tainted by the aura of the Other Domain. Any professional who gets close enough will definitely recognize it immediately.”

“...Yeah, that’s true.”

Yu Sheng sighed. He could not really argue with that, so he turned and prepared to clean up the dishes on the table.

The moment he turned around, however, Irene suddenly shouted from behind him.

“Put me back first! I’m still hanging out by the window!”

Helplessly, Yu Sheng sighed again. As he turned around to carry Irene down from the windowsill, he muttered under his breath.

“Tch. What a hassle.”

“Then hurry up and get me a body. That way I can move around by myself.”

Inside the painting, Irene lifted her eyelids and looked at Yu Sheng as he set her back on the dining table.

Then she added another sentence.

“I feel like we’re a bit more familiar with each other today, so I’m asking again...”

At once, the corner of Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched.

Irene had indeed said earlier, when discussing possible ways to free her, that they were not familiar enough yet and should wait until they knew each other better before discussing cooperation.

What he had not expected was that her standards for becoming “familiar” were apparently so flexible.

“We’ll talk about it later. I’ve got enough things on my plate already. At the very least, wait until I get through this busy period...”

“Yeah, alright,” Irene said. She was surprisingly easy to persuade. Though slightly disappointed, she still nodded. “Just don’t forget!”

She remained quiet for only a short while. Then, after watching Yu Sheng clear away the dishes, she started chattering again.

“So what are you going to do next? Heading out to look for utility poles?”

“Do you have some kind of obsession with utility poles?” Yu Sheng immediately glared at her. “I’m going upstairs to sleep! After everything that’s happened, I’m exhausted!”

Irene let out an “oh” and pointed at the television across from the painting.

“Then could you fix the TV first? It suddenly lost signal and I can’t watch anything...”

Yu Sheng: “...”

A moment later, he let out an especially heavy sigh.

After only such a short period of living with this chatterbox, he had already begun to miss his carefree and happy life of living alone.