By the time Dai Xiaoyao returned, the last rays of the setting sun were already streaming through the window lattice, scattering mottled light and shadows across the bluestone floor.
Only then did Tang Shan's mother realize how late it was. She quickly stood and said, "If you two gentlemen don't mind, please stay for a simple meal."
"Sure!" Dai Xiaoyao readily agreed, rolling up his sleeves and following her into the kitchen. "Godmother, let me help you."
Li Chen stood in the courtyard, seemingly admiring the mountains in the dusk, but he was actually considering how Dai Xiaoyao would play wingman.
As far as Li Chen could tell, Tang Shan's mother certainly had no idea that Dai Xiaoyao intended to offer her to him.
That very lack of awareness, along with a mature woman's reserve, was what Li Chen liked most.
Inside the kitchen, Dai Xiaoyao deftly prepared the ingredients.
His knife flowed like drifting clouds and running water, turning a piece of beast meat into slices as thin as cicada wings in the blink of an eye.
"Your knife skills are quite good, Xiaoyao. I never thought you'd know how to do this even as a king," Tang Shan's mother praised.
"Oh, it's nothing. Back when I was training in the sect, little Shan always said my knife skills were master-class," Dai Xiaoyao boasted.
As she stir-fried the spirit vegetables in the wok, Tang Shan's mother asked with apparent casualness, "That friend of yours is no ordinary man, is he?"
The knife spun in a graceful flourish between Dai Xiaoyao's fingers. "You have a sharp eye, Godmother. Young Master Li is indeed no ordinary man."
Tang Shan's mother scattered a handful of spices into the wok, her profile looking particularly gentle through the haze of steam. "He knows superior