??Chapter 214: 213. New Year’s Eve (Updated for Alliance Hierarch “In the na of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”!)_1
Chapter 214: 213. New Year’s Eve (Updated for Alliance Hierarch “In the na of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”!)_1
“For the New Year, we must have chicken to bring joy, and we need fish to ensure prosperity year after year, not to ntion pork is a definite must-have…”
Feng Yu said earnestly to Lu Ban about the customs of the New Year, while deftly preparing the ingredients.
She deboned the whole chicken, scored the fish to remove bones, skinned and filleted, and turned cucumbers into sothing that resembled a straw raincoat. She was like the Food God from movies, making the ingredients Lu Ban bought look so clear and precise that one couldn’t help but want to beco the fish under her knife, experiencing the thrill of being cooked with ultimate culinary skills.
Lu Ban took a deep breath.
“I didn’t expect you to be so dosticated, it’s not obvious at all.”
“There’s a lot you haven’t seen.”
As Feng Yu held the tail of the fish fillet with one hand, after coating it with flour, she dropped it into the hot oil. With the other hand, she scooped up the hot oil and poured it over repeatedly until the surface was slightly crispy, then she dropped both fish fillets into the pot to deep-fry them.
In another pot, she was simring a soy sauce pork knuckle, the rich aroma wafting through the kitchen, making the Lu Ban in the mirror almost unable to resist sticking his head out.
When the fish was almost done frying, she fished it out with a slotted spoon, preparing to deep-fry it a second ti. But as she turned to get more ingredients, she saw a thick mist of gloomy, dark fog twining around the vegetables.
Feng Yu frowned.
“Go back to your room.”
Lu Ban quickly waved his hand, causing the dark fog to dissipate and revealing the radishes beneath.
“They might all be hungry.”
After explaining, Lu Ban watched as Feng Yu took that radish, washed and peeled it neatly, then expertly sliced it into radish pieces and, without missing a beat, shredded them into fine strips as if she could perform these processes with anything else placed before her just as unblinkingly and confidently.
“Red braised pork has to be fried first. Otherwise, the fat seems greasy. Shredding the radish helps it absorb flavors better. And chicken broth, cooking it directly makes it too fatty, the taste is better when you boil chicken with it…”
Again, Feng Yu explained her thod while she cooked.
It seed she was really trying to teach Lu Ban.
As they worked until evening, the Spring Festival Gala back-stage show was almost over, and they finally sat down at the table in the living room.
Squirrel Fish, white cut chicken, soy sauce pork knuckle, taro pork belly, stir-fried squid blossoms, crab fried rice cake, Eight Treasures Duck, cured ats platter, spicy stir-fried pork… these were dishes that Lu Ban usually couldn’t have.
A full table made Lu Ban’s living room seem sowhat cramped.
“You don’t usually cook for yourself, do you?”
As Feng Yu watched Lu Ban lay out the chopsticks and bowls, eight sets in total, she paused in surprise.
“You have quite a few people in your family.”
“They’re all friends. We see each other all the ti. It’s New Year’s, so let’s eat together.”
Lu Ban said with a smile.
He and Feng Yu sat on the couch, turned on the TV, and the Spring Festival Gala was about to begin.
“Takeout often uses pre-prepared sauce packs, which aren’t hygienic or nutritious, and to cover up the freshness of the ingredients they add heavy oils and salt, which can easily lead to weight gain. Whenever possible, you should cook for yourself and eat lighter foods.”
As Feng Yu spoke, she placed the biggest chicken leg in Lu Ban’s bowl.
“…eat so lighter foods.”
He wasn’t sure if their understanding of “light” was sowhat different.
On TV, the Spring Festival Gala program began, full of peace and joy.
In the living room, Lu Ban and Feng Yu ate their New Year’s Eve dinner while chatting. The dishes they thought they wouldn’t finish sohow mysteriously got all eaten up.
Lu Ban even felt like he hadn’t had enough.
It seed everyone enjoyed the al a lot.
Watching the not-so-funny sketches on TV, he thought sotis this was quite nice.
“Indeed, my feeling back then wasn’t wrong.”
Lu Ban couldn’t help but feel emotional.
“What feeling?”
Feng Yu asked from the side, watching the Spring Festival Gala intently, sotis chuckling at strange punchlines, her shoulders shaking non-stop.
“That you could be the woman for my mother.”
Lu Ban spoke honestly.
“I suppose I’ll take that as a complint.”
Feng Yu pursed her lips in a smile, not minding Lu Ban’s whimsical thoughts.
“It’s snowing.”
She saw out the window, the persistent gloom finally ford ice crystals, snowflakes fluttering down from the overcast sky.
Looking down through the window, one could see so young people stepping out of their hos, strolling in the snow below; they looked exactly like Southerners who hadn’t seen snow in over a decade.
“I’m ready to leave as well, shall we go downstairs for a walk?”
Feng Yu picked up her clothes; she certainly wasn’t planning to spend the night here.
“Alright, I’ll have them clear the table.”
Lu Ban also took a coat, and the two went downstairs.
The snow had already accumulated sowhat, it had not completely covered the road surface yet, but stepping on it produced a crisp crunching sound. Lu Ban and Feng Yu walked one after the other on the community road.
At such a ti, Lu Ban would feel that there was nothing different about this world; the scenery of the Foreign Domain seed like sothing conjured by fantasy, distant and unreachable.
However, Lu Ban soon realized that the community was not, in fact, noisy. Those playing in the snow had no sound of footsteps on the ground, their conversations were ethereal, and the entire world was as deathly silent as ever, with only the sound of the snowflakes lting.
“This world is undergoing changes.”
Feng Yu whispered softly.
“Pollution from the Foreign Domain is gradually seeping in here, or perhaps certain beings that have been sealed in this place are about to awaken; whichever it is, the end result is likely to be outcos you wouldn’t want to see.”
“Is there anything I can do to stop it?”
Lu Ban asked.
Personally, he would rather live in a carefree modern city than a world where a Blood Moon could descend at any mont, with monsters harassing and pests invading.
“There’s no way to stop it. This is the trend of the entire world. Do you know about heat death? When the entropy in the universe increases indefinitely and reaches its maximum value, everything in the world will transform into thermal energy, and the energy to sustain life will no longer exist.”
“Is this so sort of sci-fi novel plot?”
Lu Ban was puzzled.
“Although this theory is not complete, at least within my understanding of the Foreign Domain, there is a phenonon similar to entropy increase, which is the expansion of Pollution.”
“With the Corrosion of Pollution, all reason will eventually tend to madness, humans will mutate into monsters. The more peaceful the world, the more severe the consequences after being polluted. The Corrosion here is too slight; any ergency could trigger a chain collapse.”
Feng Yu sighed.
“You an, everyone’s Sanity is high, and thus when encountering those monsters, the drop in Sanity is more severe, and it’s easier to mutate?”
Lu Ban sowhat understood what Feng Yu ant.
In the Silent Lands, knowledge represents Pollution, Pollution equals knowledge. In places like the Night Country, knowledge about the Evil Gods, about Indescribable Great Beings, is already deep, but Shia and others have not fallen into madness. Perhaps the mages of the Night Country have found a way to alleviate the Pollution brought by knowledge.
Or perhaps more simply, the cognition of Shia and others has already changed due to the alterations of the world, and the existence of many monsters has beco a normality, so they are not tornted by Sanity.
Whereas where Lu Ban is now, it could be said to be almost unaffected by Pollution; public awareness is still above a normal baseline. Hence, any abrupt invasion of knowledge from the Foreign Domain would lead to swift Corrosion.
“You can think of it that way. Those Foreign Domains, after suffering catastrophic blows, found so way to coexist with Pollution. As for this world, there’s still no direction.”
Feng Yu nodded.
“Perhaps… What if, I say, if I subtly disseminate the knowledge of those Foreign Domains, the knowledge of those Indescribable Great Beings, those Evil Gods, into this world, is it possible to mitigate the subsequent Corrosion to so extent?”
Lu Ban suddenly had an idea.
Everyone has high Sanity, and when confronted with strange events, they easily fall into madness. This is much like soone who’s never watched horror movies gets more scared when they do.
If everyone often watched horror movies, had their Sanity tested in so way, then when truly strange things, monsters, Evil Gods, Indescribable Great Beings arrive, would the impact on people be smaller?
“… Are you serious?”
Feng Yu hesitated for a mont, stopped walking, turned around to look at Lu Ban, and asked back.
“One has to try.”
Lu Ban felt that this thod might actually work.
“But perhaps it is indeed a thod; to combat madness, one must first descend into madness.”
Feng Yu’s soft murmur was buried among the falling snow.
“Since the world will inevitably change, it wouldn’t hurt to have the world adapt in advance, right?”
Lu Ban gazed into the sky, thoughtful.
*
Alliance Hierarch added more 2/2
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