"The easiest way to buy all the ingredients and seasonings for spicy crayfish tails and mapo tofu in one trip is to go to the Chinese supermarket, 88 Marketplace. Their seasoning section has an entire wall of Sichuan seasonings."
Early that morning, Lu Mingfei had gone to the staff dormitory to ask Ye Sheng how to make spicy crayfish tails. When Ye Sheng learned that he was cooking for Zero, he had pulled him into his Alfa Romeo 8C without another word and driven straight to Jefferson Street in Chicago to buy ingredients.
"Not bad at all, Lu Mingfei," Ye Sheng said, weaving through traffic in his red sports car. "I heard ages ago that the prettiest freshman in your year has been cooking for you. Is her food good?"
"...Yes," Lu Mingfei said hesitantly. To be fair, when he wasn't hungry, nothing appealed to him. Zero's cooking certainly wasn't bad, but the only meal he had truly enjoyed was the barbecue he had eaten with everyone after exhausting himself at the Three Gorges.
"So it's not good," Ye Sheng said. "I get it. I've eaten Aki's cooking too."
Uh... Lu Mingfei looked at Ye Sheng. What was with this sudden feeling that he'd found a comrade in arms? Zero's cooking isn't bad. I'm the one with no appetite!
"The only edible thing she made was the fried eggs, and even those were burned." Ye Sheng wore an expression that said the past was too painful to revisit. When he and Aki had been interns in the Executive Department, their senior Fingel had still been there. One day, Aki had seen how dispirited Fingel was and wanted to comfort him, so she had made him fried eggs. The next day, Fingel had quit the Executive Department.
Ye Sheng remembered the