The pink words formed a sentence. [I want to continue watching.]

“Okay, I’ll make the beef stock first.” 

Fu Chen opened a fridge that had spirit cattle bones within it and placed it in a large pot. He filled it up with water from a faucet and put it on the stove top. While turning up the head, Fu Chen turned towards Fu Lian.

“First, I’m blanching the bones to remove the impurities which will create a stock that has less scum.”

The water started to boil with large bubbles reaching the top of the water and popping. Fu Lian curiously looked at the bits of impurities rising up along with bubbles of water. This continued for around 20 minutes until Fu Chen talked again. “Now we strain the pot of bones and place them on a baking pan to roast in the oven for 30 minutes.”

While the oven was roasting the bones, Fu Chen gave an explanation for the process. 

“Roasting the bones will create a deeper and richer flavored stock which means that we won’t have to add many other ingredients to flavor the stock.”

30 minutes later, Fu Chen pulled the hot tray out of the oven to reveal bones that had darkened. There were still bits of meat hanging onto the bones that had been heavily browned with a lot of crispy brown bits stuck on the bottom of the pan. A savory smell permeated through the kitchen and Fu Lian enjoyed the smell with her tail wagging. 

“I’m going to add some water to the bottom of the pan to loosen the browned bits.”

Fu Lian tilted her head. [Those bits are edible?]

“Yes, you want to include these browned bits called fond because they are full of flavor that is good for the stock. Now I’m going to cook the vegetables and the bones.”

Fu Chen took out a large metal stock pot and heated it up on the stove top. He took some butter from the fridge, cubed them, and placed them into the hot pot. The butter started to melt and released a slightly nutty aroma. After the cubes of butter fully melted, Fu Chen added in chopped carrots, sliced onions, crushed garlic, and the bones into the pot. The pot sizzled as the vegetables released some water into the pot and the onions started to caramelize. A few minutes later, he removed the vegetable and bones to reveal the bottom of the pan that had the juices of the vegetables along with fond. Fu Chen scraped the bottom of the pan to loosen the fond and added the browned bits from the baking pan in. He took out a container of red paste and placed it on the kitchen counter.

“This is tomato paste, it will add some acidity, sweetness, and umami(savoriness) to the stock.”

He added a large amount of the tomato paste into the pot along with some water to create a mixture.

“I’m going to simmer this for a few minutes and then add the ingredients back in.”

The mixture started to bubble and released a complex slightly sweet, sour, and savory aroma in the kitchen. 

“gulp”

Fu Chen turned and saw Fu Lian with her head down and was fidgeting.

“I’ll let you try some of the stock later.”

Fu Lian perked up and wagged her tail.

“Now we add the ingredients back in with some more water, energy liquid, bay leaves, and black peppercorns.”

After he finished adding all of the ingredients in, Fu Chen turned the heat up and stirred the pot to mix everything together. 

“bubble, bubble,”

“Okay, we need to decrease the heat now to reduce the stock to a simmer.”

While the stock was simmering, some bits of gray foam started appearing at the edges of the pot. Fu Chen skimmed the scum.

“Do you see how little scum is appearing? That is because we blanched the bones earlier which reduced the amount of impurities. Most of the work for making the stock is done now. I just need to let the stock gently simmer for several hours and stir it from time to time. The longer that you let it simmer, the more flavor the stock will usually have.”

Fu Chen took a soup spoon and scooped up some of the gently simmering stock and presented it to Fu Lian. She slurped some of the stock and was delighted. It had a savory, beefy flavor with hints of sourness and sweetness.

“Let’s make some curry powder now.”

------------

Inside a dark room.

“knock, knock, knock”

“rustle, rustle”

“click”

The dark room lit up showing someone in a bed. They were bleary-eyed and slowly walking towards their door. 

“creak”

The door made a small sound as it was opened and revealed …………… a girl with long black hair wearing pajamas standing outside of the room.

While yawning, the inhabitant of the room rubbed their eyes and asked a question.

“It’s so late. Did you need something, Xinyue?”

Nodding her head, Wan Xinyue started whispering, “Can I go into your room.”

Sighing, Sun Ning stepped away from the door and let Xinyue into her bedroom. Wan Xinyue flopped onto Sun Ning’s bed that was still slightly warm. 

“Eheheh, your bed is so comfy and it smells like you.” 

Sun Ning slightly blushed, “Shut up. Are you just here to sleep in my bed?”

Wan Xinyue appeared to be intoxicated with the smells from Sun Ning’s bed and absentmindedly replied, “Yeah.”

Sighing in defeat, Sun Ning got into the bed with Wan Xinyue and pulled the blankets on top of them. 

“Click”

The room became dark again with some light breathing sounds.

A few minutes later……

“rustle, rustle”

Wan Xinyue whispered, “Are you still awake?”

“Yeah, I can’t fall asleep.”

Xinyue thought of a solution, “Let’s talk about Master Du’s other students.”

Sun Ning responded, “I don’t like them, they act so snobbishly and hate us.”

Wan Xinyue agreed, “Master Du did tell us that they had terrible personalities though. Maybe we just need to spend more time with them and they’ll open up. Also, did you see the looks on Gao Wu’s and Gao Long’s faces when they saw their accessories.”

Giggling slightly Sun Ning replied, “Yeah, it was funny and I saw Gao Long trying to calculate how expensive those energy tools were. I wish I could study their accessories though.”

She had an envious look on her face. Sun Ning was aspiring to become an energy tool creator, but was limited to poor quality tools due to her circumstances. 

Wan Xinyue consoled her, “Don’t worry, Master Du is providing supplies and funds for us to use. He’s even going to treat us to breakfast at the Abyss Restaurant everyday.”

Sun Ning’s mouth slightly watered when she thought of the waffles and crepe cake. Thinking of something, Sun Ning responded, “Maybe we can get closer to the others with our visits to the restaurant.”

Wan Xinyue smiled, “That’s the spirit. What should we order for breakfast tomorrow?”

“Maybe a…..”

Their conversation continued for a while until they fell asleep.