After leaving Flamefire Hall, Pan Yunzhou silently descended the stone steps and returned to the Peaceful Lake area.
By then, the great sun had sunk in the west, leaving only a little fading light over the lake, still coated in ice and heaped with snow. At a glance, it was cold and desolate.
Pan Yunzhou stopped and gazed into the distance for a while, then made his way to the dining hall in a daze.
He was about to choose his dishes as usual when an impulse suddenly struck him. He rummaged through his purse, took out a Silver Sycee left over from before, and handed it to the serving woman:
"Bring me a jar of Rose Dew, a small jar of Guangning Fireblade Liquor, and Taro-Steamed Pork Ribs, Seven-Spice Roast Chicken, fish head stewed with tofu..."
He ordered a whole array of dishes.
In the Xiaoming Sect, disciples paid nothing for their regular daily meals. But if they wanted better food, some fine liquor, or a few extra dishes, they had to pay out of their own pockets.
The food and liquor Pan Yunzhou bought filled a square table. He unfastened his saber, set it beside him, and stared blankly at the spread for the time it took to drink a cup of tea.
Reaching out with both hands, he tore a leg off the Seven-Spice Roast Chicken. Juices ran everywhere, exposing the spices stuffed inside its belly.
One bite sent savory skin, meat, and juices bursting across his tongue. Pan Yunzhou abruptly remembered his first days wandering the martial world, when he often ate in the wind and slept under the open sky, filling his stomach with dry rations. Once, a traveling companion had bought a chicken, coated it in mud, and roasted it in a pit. There