act40side

We had no clue why someone would be making noodles there, but we were past the point of wondering, of asking, even of fighting.

That wonderful smell and those piping hot noodles drew all of us near the wok, and we waited around him quietly.

Never before had I eaten something so delicious...

The moment those noodles entered my mouth, I felt like my tongue had been numb for decades, only to spring back to life right then and there.

All along, I never knew that a meal could taste so arresting, so absorbing.

It felt like a flavor beyond us humans...

By the time I finished my noodles and looked up from my bowl, he was gone.

Who knew that in my lifetime studying as a cook, the most profound lesson I'd learn would be in a shack of a temple outside Baizao City.

From then on, I apprenticed all over, so that one day, I might make a bowl of noodles like those.

But I couldn't... In the end, I just can't.

You know, what if you're misremembering... I mean, look, you were starving at the time, maybe that's why you found that bowl of noodles so tasty—

Do you not trust my tongue?

Thirty years a bowl of noodles has been burned into my mind. Thirty years I've been searching for it.

If whoever that was is still in Baizao, he must be over fifty by now...

I searched all over this city. The well-known tea maker in the north, nothing. The guy who made the best pastries in the south, still nothing...

I searched and searched, until my fellow oldies in cooking retired, and only I was left. I was on the verge of giving up...

But today, once more, I tasted it...

I don't know why... her cooking skills were immature, but the noodles she brought forth tasted exactly like it.

It was your chef here who taught her those noodles, am I right?

How do you know...

We sent out a hundred written invitations for the Ding Feng Lou competition. I can recall every one. I've long been aware your Savors at Yu's had a reputation.

I don't know what kind of relation your chef and that savior of mine have, and I have no clue why he's willing to waste his talents away like this.

But I won't do the same... All the cooking skills I've inherited over the years, I can't let them end with me.

Mo Bufu stands, produces a letter from his pocket, and places it on the table.

...You tell him this. That untrained disciple of his? She passes.

Tell her to report to Ding Feng Lou two days later before noon.

Huh...? She just—passes?

You get good enough business here. Did this doorstep sink again recently?

We haven't replaced it in over ten years.

Low doorsteps can't keep the wind out. It's getting colder in the coming days.

The boss won't let me. He says the lower, the better. Too high and all the diners will stop coming.

Mo Bufu steps over that low, low doorstep, and disappears into the thick of night.

Once again, the restaurant is empty save for squalls of wind through the hall. Their whistle grows louder, as if lamenting.

...Is he gone?

*Sigh*... You really are—*Sigh*!

I heard Blaze passed the test? Does that mean the prize money—

Forget about the prize money!

What's wrong with you to torment a man like that... He's seventy, eighty years old, and you'll just watch him freak out like that?

He just can't find an apprentice to fit him, right? What's to worry about... Look at me, I never worry about things like that.

Put yourself in his shoes, he's spent a lifetime honing his craft, just for it to be lost in a blink—

Well, if it's lost, it's lost.

Ai—!

It's his future reputation he cares about right now, it's the title of 'first under heaven' he's carrying, it's others' cuisine he's obsessed with—there's no way he can focus on his own craft and improve it at this rate.

If he can't make it through this, nobody can help him.

Aiyo, Blaze's back.

Look how late it is, I bet you haven't eaten? I'll go make you something now.

Yeah...

Congrats! I've got good news for you, you passed the Ding Feng Lou exam.

We'll split the reward money thirty-seventy like we agreed—

Yeah.

You don't care?

If you're that good for money, how about leaving your thirty percent of—

Huh? Xingzhu didn't come back with you?

Right, where's Xingzhu?

Oh, she dropped in this afternoon while Jiang was out buying ingredients. She left you a note too.

Left me a note...?

You have passed the Ding Feng Lou Chef Selection. Please fol—

Oh, whoops, whoops, wrong one. It's this one.

What could be so secret she has to leave it in a note for you?

She's... inviting me to her home.

...Ning Manor?