Did You Add Mushrooms to This Meal? (Please Keep Reading)

"Minato, do you smell something?" Kushina suddenly caught an incredibly enticing scent as she prepared to cook.

"I do. It smells like something delicious being fried." Minato nodded.

"Yeah, it smells so good. How did they make it?" Kushina sniffed the air, unable to suppress her curiosity.

She cooked too and had made fried foods like Tempura before, but she had never produced such an alluring aroma. Just catching the scent, she could already imagine the food's perfect golden, crispy appearance.

"No, I have to go take a look." Kushina said as she headed outside.

She carefully sniffed the air and discovered that the scent was coming from the house to the right of Minato's home.

"Huh, isn't that Hanyu's house? Minato, come out here!" Kushina waved at Minato inside.

If she remembered correctly, that house belonged to Hanyu Muyue, the Ninja Academy teacher.

Though they had only known each other for a few days, Mu Yue had left quite a deep impression on Kushina.

Golden hair and blue eyes similar to Minato's, eloquent, and an excellent teacher.

Minato came out, looked where Kushina was pointing, and nodded. "Yeah, that's Hanyu's house."

"Come on, let's visit our neighbor." Kushina pulled Minato over and knocked on Mu Yue's door.

Mu Yue placed the shrimp he had picked up into his bowl, set down his chopsticks, and went to open the wooden door.

The moment the door opened, Kushina impatiently asked,

"Hanyu, are you making dinner?"

"Sorry for disturbing you." Seeing that Mu Yue was still wearing his apron, Minato apologized.

"It's fine. I'm already done cooking and was just about to eat. You came at the perfect time." Mu Yue smiled gently and invited them inside.

Following the scent, Kushina walked straight to the dining table. When she saw the lightly golden Tempura on the plate, her eyes instantly lit up. That was the smell.

But after entering Mu Yue's home, Kushina realized there was also the aroma of fried rice.

"Hanyu, you're secretly an amazing chef. I could smell that Tempura from next door." Kushina praised him.

"I wouldn't call myself a chef. Since I'm often alone, I got used to cooking." As he spoke, Mu Yue took two cups from the cabinet and poured Minato and Kushina each a glass of water.

"You can try some. I just made it all." Mu Yue brought out two sets of tableware.

"Is that okay? It looks like you haven't even eaten yet." Kushina stared at the Tempura.

She really wanted to know what Tempura that smelled so good tasted like.

"I'm starting now." Mu Yue smiled and picked up a piece of Tempura from his bowl, placing it into his mouth.

"Sorry to trouble you, Hanyu." Minato thanked him.

"Thanks for the meal." Kushina said with great ceremony, pressing her hands together before picking up her chopsticks and putting a still-steaming piece of Tempura into her mouth.

"Mm!" The moment she bit through the crispy outer coating, the moist, incredibly tender shrimp inside made Kushina's eyes widen.

Then something even stranger happened. For a moment, Kushina felt as though she had arrived in the ocean, surrounded by a mysterious and gorgeous blue world. She was a carefree little fish, swimming joyfully through the sea every day.

"Hm?" Kushina quickly snapped out of it, nearly thinking that she had fallen under a genjutsu.

But after thinking carefully, there was no one present who could have put her under a genjutsu.

"Mu Yue, how did you make this Tempura? You didn't add some strangely colored mushrooms, did you?" Kushina asked suspiciously.

She had heard of a ninja who picked mushrooms in the forest during summer, ended up at Konoha Hospital, and kept saying that he had too many branches and leaves growing on him, asking whether someone could trim him.

"Uh, no. I just did this, then that..." Mu Yue briefly described his cooking process.

Just then, Kushina noticed that Minato had barely spoken after taking a bite of fried rice. She looked at him and found that he was spacing out, so she gave him a pat.

"Minato, what's wrong?" Kushina asked.

Minato instinctively replied, "Eating wild vegetables."

"Where are there wild vegetables here?" Kushina looked at the fried rice. Other than eggs and chopped scallions, there was nothing else—no mushrooms either—so she asked in confusion.

"After I ate the fried rice, I felt like I had turned into a pheasant living in the mountains..." Minato explained.

Kushina looked at the fried rice on the plate. Every grain was plump and golden, as if it were giving off a faint golden glow.

Because she had been focused on the Tempura, Kushina had only just realized that the fried rice seemed to be glowing!

"This is the best fried rice I've ever had." Minato said as he could not help scooping up two more spoonfuls and stuffing them into his mouth.

"Is it really that good? You should try the Tempura instead." Kushina said doubtfully.

Then Kushina ate the egg fried rice, while Minato ate the Tempura.

Expressions of shock and bliss appeared on their faces once again.

"Hanyu, did you develop a Ninjutsu that makes food taste better? This is way too delicious!" Kushina joked.

"Hanyu, if you ever decide to open a restaurant, please make sure to tell me." Minato said seriously.

He was not someone who cared much about material pleasures, but Mu Yue's fried rice and Tempura had given him an experience unlike any he had ever had.

"If you like it, feel free to visit more often. It's rather quiet around here anyway." Mu Yue smiled and invited them.

"As long as you don't find us troublesome. You can try Minato's and my cooking sometime too, though it won't be as good as yours." Hearing Mu Yue's invitation, Kushina became a little excited.

"Then I'll be looking forward to it." Mu Yue replied with a smile.

After seeing them off, Mu Yue thought to himself that the new skill was indeed powerful. In no time at all, they had progressed to mooching meals off each other.

Mu Yue brought some books down from his second-floor bedroom. He could gradually start showing his interests.

With Mu Yue's encouragement and Asuma setting an example as a friend, Obito was full of motivation. By Saturday, he was close to finishing his control training and beginning to cultivate Nature Transformation.

When the Weekend arrived, it was time for Mu Yue to work as a private tutor again.

"You liar!" Asuma shouted angrily at Mu Yue.

The previous week, so as not to waste the expensive tutoring fees, he had truly trained himself to the limit and collapsed from exhaustion whenever he got home.

The harder and more painfully he had trained, the more Asuma hated Mu Yue after learning the truth.

"Oh? What did I lie to you about?" Mu Yue asked with a smile.

"Your tutoring fee was obviously 2,000 Ryo an hour, yet you lied and told me it was 25,000 Ryo!" Seeing that Mu Yue would not admit it, Asuma grew even angrier.

"But did you lose anything? Did you really give me 25,000 Ryo?" Mu Yue continued asking.

"Of course, I..." Asuma wanted to say something, but suddenly realized that he had not actually lost anything.

"See? You didn't lose anything. You even made a profit. You thought you spent 200,000 Ryo, but you actually only spent 16,000 Ryo. You made 184,000 Ryo. You should thank me." Mu Yue quickly said.

"I made money?" Following Mu Yue's line of reasoning, Asuma felt that he really had made a profit.

"Then there's no problem. Let's start training." Mu Yue said leisurely.

"No, something's wrong. Very, very wrong." Asuma felt that something was off.

Interlude