------

“I’m going to show you how to peel and cut an onion”

Fu Chen placed the onion onto the cutting board and picked up the knife. 

“First, cut off the top and bottom parts.”

He cut off the top of the bulb and the bottom that would be connected to the roots.

“CHK, CHK”

“Next, cut the onion in half”

“SCHK”

He placed the two halves of the onion flat onto the cutting board.

“Then, while using you other hand curled on one of the onion halves, slice half moons”

With the knife point touching the cutting board, Fu Chen made rocking motions with the knife and cut the halved onion. He cut the other onion the same way to show Fu Lian how to do it again.

“Now, you try.”

Fu Chen placed an onion on top of the cleared off cutting board. He set the knife down and gestured to Fu Lian.

“ChK, ChK”

She cut off the top and bottom of the onion a bit unevenly, but it was acceptable. Then, Fu Lian cut the onion in half and mimicked Fu Chen’s motions while cutting the two halves of the onion. “Chk”

Fu Lian finished chopping and the cutting board had onion slices of uneven thickness. Her tail drooped down when she saw how the onion slices looked. A tear ran down her face that might have been from cutting the onion or something else. A hand patted her head.

“It’s okay, this is your first time. Don’t expect perfection, just aim to improve each time.”

Her tail wagged a bit.

“This is a bulb of garlic.”

--------

“Sister, I met some stuck up teenagers that really pissed me off earlier today.”

Su Zhenya looked up from her holographic display that had some energy tool diagrams currently on the screen and saw Su Zheng sitting at his desk. Zhou Ru was standing behind Su Zheng kneading his shoulder muscles. He was sighing in pure bliss until he remembered what had happened at the end of his dinner. 

“Some young masters from the Ben and Dan clans tried to enter the Abyss Restaurant when it was about to close, but then they were turned away.”

Zhou Ru laughed, “Serves those spoiled kids right, but isn’t the owner of the restaurant worried about them causing trouble tomorrow?”

Su Zhenya shook her head, “The owner gives off an odd aura. Whenever I was near him, I started to feel a terrible hunger. The feeling was even stronger when he threatened those wolf men.” 

She started to shudder and tremble as she remembered the terror she felt when Fu Chen unleashed a miniscule amount of his power. Since she was a mid-level stage 7, she could detect energy way more accurately than Su Zheng and Zhou Ru. 

“Whoever tries to mess with the owner or his staff will probably end up with a fate worse than death.”

Su Zheng laughed, “I guess I don’t have to worry about not being able to eat more of their spicy beef curry. Ouch!”

Zhou Ru had suddenly pinched his shoulders. “Don’t remind me about their food right now, I had to stay in the office and do paperwork.” 

Su Zhenya also humphed.

After signing the contract with Su Zhenya, Zhou Ru and Su Zhenya had been very busy working on producing the new crystal suit model.

Su Zheng tried to appease them, “I’ll ask the owner if he does takeout next time I visit.”

----------

(Back to the dark room)

An hour had passed since the leader of the cloaked figures started talking. 

“Does everyone understand their roles?”

Everyone nodded except for several people. The leader turned their head towards the one that didn’t nod. “What are you confused about?”

One of them decided to speak up.

“I don’t understand why we need to get rid of the owner and his staff. Can’t we use his restaurant as cover?”

The other cloaked figures also nodded slightly at that question. The leader didn’t get angry and decided to explain to his confused subordinates.

“We need to get rid of the restaurant because powerful people keep on frequenting the place and they might detect something wrong before we can complete our objective. Since ‘that person’ from our homeland wants us to quickly finish the operation, we’ll just have to go with our current plan. We all know how impatient they are.”

After the leader mentioned the unknown person, all of the subordinates shuddered in horror.

“Anymore questions?”

The previously confused people shook their heads.

“Alright, let’s get prepared for tomorrow.”

-----------

“And that is how you peel a bunch of garlic.”

Cloves of peeled garlic were sitting on the cutting board and Fu Lian was fascinated by how easy the process of peeling garlic was. 

“Now you try.”

The cutting board was cleared off and Fu Chen placed one bulb of garlic on top of it. Fu Lian stepped forward and separated the cloves of garlic from the bulb. After separating them, she placed the cloves with their curved side down onto the cutting board and held the kitchen knife with the flat side facing the cutting board. Fu Lian used her other hand to hit the flat body of the knife.

“bam”

A clove of unpeeled garlic was slightly crushed after the impact. She picked the clove up and easily peeled the clove of garlic. Fu Lian repeated the process until she peeled all of the garlic.

Nodding his head, Fu Chen decided to move onto the next step without demonstrating. He believed that students should try to use the basics that they learned and guess how to use them for things that they weren’t taught.

“Now I want you to slice the garlic.”

Fu Lian was surprised that she wasn’t told to step back and was allowed to try cutting the vegetable without watching Fu Chen first. For some reason, she felt a bit happy that he trusted her enough to cut garlic without his assistance. Her tail slightly wagged.

“shk, shk, shk”

30 seconds later, she managed to cut the whole bulb of peeled garlic into slightly evenly sized pieces.

“Good job.”

Fu Chen patted Fu Lian’s head and gently ruffled her hair. wag, wag, wag

“Do you want to clean up and go to bed now or watch me demonstrate how to make the rest of the spicy beef stew?”

Fu Lian answered with light pink words appearing around her.