The Book of Creation's Culinary Turn

He could even micro-manage the way the dough was made. For instance, he could arrange the starch molecules in a more orderly, uniform sequence and stack them up. The resulting sheet was naturally very thin and full of elasticity; he could toss it directly into the frying pan without needing a glass bottle to roll it out.

Huang Si made several fried dough sheets in a row and then tried them.

The sheets were thin, crispy, and fragrant with oil, but he always felt they lacked something in flavor.

Why was that? Huang Si felt the texture still fell short compared to normal flour-based foods.

He took out the original bag of flour he had started with and carefully examined the ingredient list.

Main ingredient: Wheat flour.

No additives? Huang Si scratched his head.

He pinched a small amount of flour and dove back into it to observe.

Huang Si saw the molecular composition of the flour again. This time, he zoomed in and out, observing it meticulously, and finally discovered a type of molecule he hadn't noticed before.

It was an extremely complex and massive molecule—at least, compared to the starch and water molecules, it was much larger. Unlike the bright starch and water molecules, this one appeared a faint gray, which was why Huang Si hadn't noticed it at first.

Its quantity within the flour was also relatively low.

What was this? It looked like the fighter jet of molecules.

After pondering for a moment, Huang Si realized that this was likely the protein component of the flour.

Plant protein molecules?

It seemed this was what provided part of the fragrance and texture of the pancake, which was why the pure starch pancakes Huang Si created lacked flavor.

According to the middle school chemistry in Huang Si's memory, starch molecules were composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, while protein molecules were far more complex; they certainly contained nitrogen, and possibly elements like iron.

However, that wasn't important. What mattered was whether he could attempt to replicate the protein molecules.

Trying to divide a sliver of his power to envelop the plant protein molecule, Huang Si worked hard to analyze and memorize its molecular structure.

Then, he condensed his power slightly.

A strange-looking large molecule suddenly appeared near Huang Si, then underwent a bizarre distortion, and finally disintegrated into short chains before dissipating.

It was a failure, but that was fine; Huang Si tried a dozen more times.

In any case, as long as the power threads he divided were fine enough, the consumption for molecular-level operations was minimal.

By the twenty-third attempt, Huang Si was finally able to condense a protein molecule with a complete structure that didn't collapse.

Huang Si recorded the composition of the protein molecule in the Creation Book.

Next, Huang Si kneaded ordinary flour into a small dough ball, examined its microscopic structure, and after a few tries, finally succeeded in creating a dough containing starch, water, and protein that was no different from ordinary dough!

Into the pan, deep-fry!

Eating the second version of the fried dough sheet, Huang Si was satisfied. The texture was crispy and delicious!

Huang Si also registered the structure of the second version of the dough in the book.

However, Huang Si faced a dilemma when it came to the fried dough sheet itself, because its structure wasn't simple. If he only followed what he learned in middle school chemistry—the full gelatinization of starch during frying and the denaturation of protein—those were fine.

But the key was that the dough underwent an overall change during the frying process, such as puffing up, layering, and so on.

The final fried dough couldn't be mass-produced with a simple chemical formula.

Huang Si kept trying until his power was exhausted, but he couldn't fully replicate a fried dough cake. It seemed he would have to stick to pan-frying his dough for now.

For lunch, Huang Si simply chopped up half a potato and half a ham to stir-fry, and threw in some minced carrots as well. The carrots had been sitting for a while and were a bit dehydrated, but they were still edible.

The staple food was, naturally, more pancakes.

Having eaten what might be the last grand meal of his life, Huang Si rubbed his belly and continued to sprawl in the living room.

Comforting, even if he didn't know if there would be a next meal after this one.

He specifically saved half of the potato and ham; who knew, maybe he could use them as a blueprint to create some replicas later?

With his power depleted and nothing to do, a bored Huang Si checked his phone's battery level.

The battery was down to 69%.

To be fair, he had used his phone as a flashlight all night yesterday, and it still had 69% left today; the battery had been quite generous.

Huang Si switched the phone to super power-saving mode and tossed it aside. The house still had no running water or electricity, and other than the light provided by the Creation Book, there was no energy source.

Unable to play on his phone, Huang Si wandered into the study.

He had quite a lot of books in his study, and as an engineering student, he had plenty of science books. Huang Si decided to look for any chemistry-related texts; they would surely help his grand manufacturing endeavor.

Before long, Huang Si had flipped through the entire bookshelf.

However, to his despair, he really hadn't bought any chemistry-related books.

That made sense, he supposed. As a computer science graduate, buying books on physics and circuits was one thing, but what did chemistry have to do with computers?

Not much.

Huang Si couldn't help but ask himself: Why wasn't I a chemistry major? Why did this book have to pick someone from the computer department? If it's so chemistry-oriented, why didn't it just find someone who studied chemistry?

But the fact was already established, and worrying wouldn't change anything.

Bored to the point of desperation, Huang Si could only pick up a copy of VOA Standard English: Tech News to read.

It wasn't that he suddenly wanted to learn English, but he realized that this book hadn't even been unwrapped since he bought it. Since this room full of books was his only remaining spiritual wealth, he figured he should at least read through them properly, right?

After reading for a while, Huang Si gave up; he was in no mood to learn English. Tossing it aside, he reached for a novel instead.

A day passed peacefully. By evening, Huang Si considered that if he stayed in this enclosed environment for too long, he might develop physical and mental health issues.

Fortunately, there was an elliptical machine at home. Although it was a cheap piece of junk bought from Jack Ma's site for 899, it had gloriously transformed into a clothes rack after only a few uses.

But now, it seemed it might actually come in handy?

Huang Si pedaled on the elliptical for half an hour until he was panting and drenched in sweat.

Then, he went to the bathroom, condensed a large amount of water on his skin, and took a shower.

Simply condensing water molecules consumed very little power. After the shower, he had used at most one unit of power.

Huang Si felt the recovery speed within his body; this bit of power would be restored in just a little while.

Feeling much refreshed after the shower, Huang Si put on his pajamas and got into bed.

It was only 8 o'clock. Once he had no phone or computer to play with, and couldn't go online or play games, this time became particularly difficult to endure.

Huang Si flipped through his bookshelf again. Half the shelf was filled with professional books, along with dozens of social science works like Someone Changed China. There was also a pile of English learning materials, as he had been preparing to take the IELTS recently. The rest were just various miscellaneous books.

Huang Si deeply regretted not bringing more books from his hometown. He had two sets of encyclopedias and a complete set of One Hundred Thousand Whys, but those were books he read as a child and had left at his parents' house after he started working.

If he thought about it, if he had those three sets of basic science books in his hands, wouldn't he have everything he needed? He wouldn't be stumbling in the dark when trying to create things!

While wallowing in regret, Huang Si picked up a novel and lay in bed to read.

The novel wasn't very good, and Huang Si read it half-heartedly. Then, suddenly, he felt he had overlooked something important.

Encyclopedias?

Using encyclopedias to assist in creating things?

Because they contained relatively detailed explanations?

"Damn it!"

Huang Si stopped reading, threw the book to the side of the bed, and sprang up like a carp. How could he have forgotten this? His laptop contained the entire offline version of Wikipedia!

It was a good method for learning English he had discovered previously, so he had downloaded the database of the Chinese and English Wikipedia and used software to extract them into an offline browser.

This way, he could conveniently learn English through bilingual comparison.

But... wasn't this the most precious and important wealth of all?

The crystallization of human civilization in simplified form: the bilingual offline version of Wikipedia!

He stopped reading and stopped trying to sleep. Huang Si leaped up and ran to the study without even putting on his slippers.

There was no electricity now, but his laptop was always plugged in, so the battery must be full.

Huang Si immediately turned it on.

The familiar system interface appeared, and Huang Si clicked on the database program on the desktop.

He opened the English and Chinese versions of Wikipedia one by one.

Now, he could look up any entry. Although the descriptions were relatively brief, the knowledge he needed, including chemical formulas and the like, was all there!

Fantastic, this was great! Huang Si wept with joy; he had never been so grateful for his recent efforts in studying English for the IELTS.

However, he couldn't be happy too soon. Huang Si glanced at the battery level in the bottom right corner of the screen.

99%, still plenty. He clicked on it, and the system prompted: 5 hours and 32 minutes remaining.

In other words, he only had five and a half hours to look up data.

Thinking of this, Huang Si immediately closed the database and clicked shut down.

After the laptop screen went black, Huang Si sat in the dark room and pondered for a while.

It seemed necessary to carefully plan the use of these five and a half hours.

Huang Si took out paper and a pen, placed the Creation Book to the side for light, and touched the tip of the pen to the paper.

He was not a short-sighted person; he did not view these five and a half hours as an absolute limit.

The most urgent task was to find a way to keep the laptop running before those five and a half hours were exhausted.

In other words, he had to find a way to provide it with energy—to charge it!

Huang Si looked at the Creation Book glowing brightly to the side.

The book was providing light energy, and this light was the only inexhaustible source of energy in the room at the moment.

As for other energy sources, Huang Si thought, although he could not directly create energy, he could create matter.

And matter contained energy!

For example, liquefied petroleum gas, or batteries—these things possessed energy.

Huang Si had already tried; he could not make changes to existing matter. In other words, his power could only be used for creation and could not directly alter the objects themselves.

Therefore, he could not restore a dead phone to a charged state.

Thus, to charge it, he had to start from the outside and find a way to generate electricity.

Huang Si drew a mind map on a piece of paper.

In the center of the mind map, he wrote the two characters: "Energy."

Then, he extended four branches outward:

"Light Energy," "Chemical Energy," "Electrical Energy," and "Thermal Energy."

Next to Chemical Energy, Huang Si wrote: "Carbon-zinc batteries," "Alkaline batteries."

Next to Light Energy, he wrote: "Solar cells."

Next to Thermal Energy, he wrote: "Steam generator."

Next to Electrical Energy, he wrote: "Direct current" and "Alternating current."

Then, he drew lines connecting the aforementioned three types of batteries to direct current, and connected the generator to alternating current.