The two returned to the living room of Edward's home. Andrea hugged her sword and plopped down on his sofa, showing no intention of taking her leave anytime soon. Her eyes darted back and forth between Edward and the Open Kitchen.
Edward checked the time. It was almost one in the afternoon, and he immediately realized he should treat her to lunch. He replaced the princess's tea with a fresh cup, tied on an apron, and went into the kitchen.
It was getting late, so he needed to cook quickly. He estimated how much the princess had eaten last time and made his decision. He set three large pots of water to boil on the stove, then started peeling garlic and crushing it into a paste.
By now, you could probably guess that Edward wanted to treat Andrea to dumplings. After all, by the calendar he'd used in his Previous Life, today was the first day of the Lunar New Year! The fish he'd bought last time had already been wrapped into dumplings and was still stored in his Spatial Ring.
Edward's Underground Laboratory had a dedicated food-processing workshop, equipped with all sorts of machines: automatic dumpling makers, automatic bun makers, automatic canning machines, and so on. Lazy people had their ways of getting things done. He did enjoy cooking, but if a simple machine could take care of it, he couldn't be bothered to do everything by hand.
A little over ten minutes later, plates of dumplings filled with Spanish mackerel and beef were brought to the table, piping hot. Andrea had already washed her hands without being asked and taken a seat in a high-backed chair.
"What are these? How do you eat them?" Andrea asked, rubbing her hands together. The snowy-white dumplings, unlike anything she'd ever seen,