Seeing the young women below fall silent, Qian Chongling could not help smiling as he slowly descended from the sky.
"Then leave it to me."
The sudden voice put the two Soul Saints, Chen Xiaoxue and Qin Yun, on guard at once, but its familiar tone also made them pause.
They turned to look and saw Qian Chongling, who had changed into his elderly appearance. Both relaxed. "Teacher Qian, you're back?"
"I met two old friends. Naturally, I came back after catching up." Qian Chongling took the enormous lobster from Chen Xiaoxue as he spoke casually.
"Don't just stand there. Give me a hand."
Qian Chongling took all his cookware and utensils out of his Soul Tool, then instructed the two women to help prepare the ingredients.
First came a wooden box filled with dried ingredients: bamboo fungus, termite mushrooms, phoenix-tail mushrooms, matsutake, lion's mane mushrooms, and more. Chen Xiaoxue's task was to soak them in water until they rehydrated.
Beside her, Qin Yun was folding sheets of paper. Once finished, they formed a rather large paper pot. But Qin Yun did not stop there; she continued folding, because Qian Chongling had instructed her to make at least five.
Meanwhile, Qian Chongling held a Boning Knife, commonly used to open lobster shells, in his right hand, and a small Paring Knife in his left!
He inserted the Paring Knife into the joints to hold them steady, then used the Boning Knife to pry open the lobster's hard shell!
The two blades worked in perfect harmony. With deft pressure, the Paring Knife always slipped into precisely the spot where the Boning Knife needed leverage. After just a few movements, the shell along the lobster's back had been pried completely open...
Then he switched to holding the lobster steady with the Boning Knife, while the Paring Knife sliced through the points where the flesh joined the shell. Before long, the entire lobster had been peeled, its flesh still retaining the shape of a lobster.
Qian Chongling first removed the lobster's intestinal tract, then divided the meat into eight portions. After pounding it into a roughly minced state, he picked up the powdered seasonings and spices he had prepared earlier and poured them into the lobster meat one by one.
"Have you adjusted the ratio of egg whites to wheat flour?" Qian Chongling asked Chen Xiaoxue, who was now standing idle beside him.
"I've mixed them according to your instructions, Teacher Qian," Chen Xiaoxue said.
Adding the prepared egg whites and wheat flour to the minced lobster as a binder, Qian Chongling began kneading it like dough. Before long, he had rolled out one lobster ball after another.
The paper pots Qin Yun had folded now came into use. Under the two women's astonished gazes, Qian Chongling poured some water into them and set them over the fire.
The water in the paper pots before him gradually came to a boil. Qian Chongling added the mushrooms one by one, in order of their required cooking times, and let them simmer. Finally, he placed the lobster balls in the paper pots. All that remained was to wait until they were ready to serve.
Half an hour later, Chen Xiaoxue and Qin Yun could not help swallowing as they smelled the fresh fragrance of the lobster and mountain delicacy hot pots. The broth was clear enough to see the bottom, and various wild greens and mushrooms surrounded several irresistibly tempting lobster balls.
"Call them over to eat," Qian Chongling said with a smile.
Qin Yun nodded and ran off on her long legs. Moments later, a fragrant breeze swept over, and the five young women from Skywater Academy stood prettily before Qian Chongling, every pair of lovely eyes fixed on the lobster and mountain delicacy hot pots.
Seeing how impatient they were, Qian Chongling simply had Chen Xiaoxue and Qin Yun portion out the food for them, while he naturally began enjoying his own share.
Once the young women received their portions, they eagerly began eating. But the moment the food entered their mouths, the atmosphere changed.
"Mmm."
The young women began making ambiguous little sounds through their noses. Only one scene remained in their otherwise empty minds: dressed in coarse cloth and hemp, they ventured deep into the mountains, diligently gathering matsutake, lion's mane mushrooms, phoenix-tail mushrooms, and other ingredients for drying.
Suddenly, a shadow enveloped them. They looked up and saw an incomparably enormous lobster.
The gigantic lobster spoke in a human voice. "You trespassed on my territory without permission. You must be punished!"
And so, a scene of pursuit and flight slowly unfolded in their minds.
In reality, Qian Chongling, with his keen hearing and eyesight, had already hidden far away.
At some point, he had discovered that his God-Level Cooking was a combination of Cooking Master Boy and Food Wars!, possessing both the glowing-food effect and the aphrodisiac effect.
Strangely, however, this effect only worked on women. Men who ate his cooking did not experience the aphrodisiac effect; they merely marveled at it.
Thus, whenever women were among those eating his cooking, he always kept far away. Having a man witness that sort of public mortification would be terribly troublesome.
Two hours later, feeling that the effects had more or less worn off, Qian Chongling strolled into the students' tent. The sight that greeted him was this.
The young women lay sprawled out, their jade-like bodies on display as they stroked their slightly rounded bellies. Their faces were flushed, and they looked utterly satisfied, still chatting among themselves.
"Teacher Qian's cooking really leaves you unable to tear yourself away."
"Ever since I tasted Teacher Qian's cooking, I feel like everything I ate before wasn't even fit for human consumption."
"Same here. What will we do if we can't enjoy it anymore?"
"If Teacher Qian opened a restaurant, he'd surely count Gold Soul Coins until his hands cramped."
"Hmph, how vulgar. Teacher Qian would never do such a thing."
As the young women chattered over one another, Qian Chongling finally could not take it anymore. He turned away and coughed softly twice.
"Ahem. Get some proper rest tonight. Tomorrow, we'll set off for Skywater Academy," Qian Chongling told the seven young women behind him, feeling rather speechless.
"Understood, Teacher Qian." Their pretty faces reddened slightly as they answered.
In the silver-clad Far North, Qian Chongling lounged lazily on a large, ice-white tree in the outer region, Green Plum Wine in hand, gazing at the silver moon hanging high above.
"Qingyue, it's been almost fifteen hundred years, and I still haven't become a god. Am I really that useless?"
Qian Chongling abruptly took a swig of Green Plum Wine. Before he could swallow it all, the wine trickled down his sharply tapered chin and over his Adam's apple, which bobbed as though alive, before slowly slipping beneath his slightly open collar, taking on a blue-red sheen in the night.
Before his eyes, a young woman seemed to appear, dressed in a jade-green gown, graceful in bearing, with beauty that could make fish sink and geese fall from the sky. She gently stroked his cheek, but just as he tried to grasp her slender, jade-like hand, she suddenly became a phantom and vanished.
"But now, all I can do is keep following this path. Still, the night is beautiful tonight. Don't you think?"
Qian Chongling slowly raised his right arm, his palm facing the bright moon and his fingers spread. Through the gaps between them, he admired the brilliant starry sky before him, and a rare, heartfelt smile lifted the corners of his lips.
Before you continue