Chapter 90: Children
Under Lu Yunxi’s expert guidance, Shen San’s culinary skills had reached an impressive level. Although he hadn’t yet achieved the official rank of Grandmaster Chef, his proficiency was firmly anchored at the absolute peak of the Advanced tier. Between his training and the sheer variety of rare, exotic ingredients they had gathered along the way, it was fair to say he had cooked and tasted almost every delicacy the world had to offer.
Ultimately, his expertise secured him a resounding first-place victory. Standing in the center of the cheering crowd, Shen San grinned from ear to ear, practically radiant with pride.
“Master… look!” Shen San excitedly waved the gleaming prize in front of her.
Seeing her apprentice practically begging for a compliment, she offered a warm smile and nodded. She opened her mouth to praise his achievement, but the words died in her throat as the surrounding crowd of local aunts and older women suddenly swarmed their position.
“How peculiar. Why do you keep calling your baby ‘child’? Doesn’t the little one have a proper name?”
Shen San’s mind blanked. If I don’t call her that, what am I supposed to say? Call her ‘Master’ out loud?
“Honestly, how can a grown man take a baby out and not even give her a name? It’s utterly preposterous!”
“Look at how you’re handling her! You can’t let that thick, furry blanket cover the poor thing’s mouth like that. The baby will suffocate!”
Lu Yunxi peered up at her apprentice, who was now utterly defenseless against a barrage of lecturing women. A flash of profound sympathy crossed her tiny features.
Sweating profusely under the intense scrutiny, Shen San scrambled for words. “Uh, well, I…” Hearing the crowd confidently label him as his master’s father while tracking the sheer, unreadable expression on Yunxi’s tiny face made him so incredibly nervous he nearly dropped to his knees.
Ladies, please, spare me! How could I ever be Master’s father?!
Watching the usually unflappable Shen San look completely stranded, Lu Yunxi found the dynamic both hilarious and deeply pathetic. Deciding to put him out of his misery, she let out a couple of soft, faux-baby whimpers, pouted her lips, and forced her eyes to well with tears.
Shen San let out a massive internal sigh of relief. He instantly scooped Lu Yunxi out of the stroller, awkwardly rocking her back and forth in a frantic attempt to play the part of a doting parent.
However, in his panic, he merely held her in total, tense silence.
The watching women lost their patience entirely, aggressively nudging him. “Don’t just stand there like a statue, talk to her! Comfort her! Coo at your baby!”
“Uh… b-baby!” Shen San squeezed the word through his clenched teeth, his expression twisting into a mask of pure, agonizing embarrassment. He pulled her closer, gently patting her back. “There, there… don’t be scared. Daddy’s here.”
The local women watched with critical eyes until they were satisfied that the infant had been properly pacified. Smiling warmly, they launched into a thorough, exhaustive lecture on the finer points of pediatric care before finally taking their leave.
The exact second the women’s backs disappeared around the corner, the master and disciple exhaled a synchronized breath of profound relief. Armed with their newly acquired grand-prize meal vouchers, they marched straight into the restaurant and secured a completely private dining room.
“I am absolutely starving. Let’s hope the food in this chain establishment lives up to the hype,” Shen San groaned. The moment the heavy wooden door clicked shut, he completely dropped his posture, slumping face-first against the table while clutching his hollow stomach.
“Didn’t you literally just consume ten bowls of soup on stage?” Lu Yunxi raised a sharp, tiny eyebrow. She nimbly scrambled out of her stroller and vaulted directly onto the tabletop.
Had any ordinary resident witnessed this sequence, they would have been driven mad with terror. An infant barely a year old was not only speaking classical prose with flawless fluency, but navigating vertical surfaces with the agility of a martial master. It was profoundly unnatural.
“Ten bowls?! Those were micro-samples! I was barely allowed a single drop per round!” Shen San complained. “Anyway, Master, we should seriously consider renting a proper horse-drawn carriage for our journey north. Tracking this map on foot is too brutal.”
More than anything, every single time he pushed her stroller into a public square, a fresh mob of citizens would inevitably corner him to critique his parenting. The psychological toll was becoming unmanageable.
Lu Yunxi didn’t offer an immediate response, her attention sliding to the door as a server materialized. A spectacular arrangement of exquisite dishes was systematically laid across the table.
The waiter offered an enthusiastic bow. “Every delicacy your honor requested has been served. Please, enjoy your meal.”
The moment the server cleared the threshold, Yunxi reached for her chopsticks, nodding in firm agreement between bites. “You raise a valid point. We will charter a proper horse-drawn carriage. A donkey cart moves at a snail’s pace anyway.”
She tasted another dish, her eyes widening slightly. “The culinary execution in this establishment is remarkable. The flavor profiles are light, clean, and perfectly balanced. The foundational techniques are incredibly similar to the methods I instilled in your training.”
Shen San lifted a piece of delicate, steamed fish with his chopsticks, his brow furrowing slightly as he evaluated the texture. “You’re right. The style maps to yours by at least sixty percent. Though, obviously, their execution falls catastrophically short of Master’s standard.”
Lu Yunxi stared fixedly at the familiar arrangement of food, suddenly dropping into a heavy, silent reverie.
This specific culinary lineage… it shared an eighty percent structural match with her mother’s personal recipes. Whether it was the structural presentation, the balance of spices, or the visual color palette, the style perfectly mirrored the foundations her mother had drilled into her during her childhood. It was only because Yunxi had later introduced her own modern refinements that Shen San perceived a stylistic gap between this restaurant and her own cooking.
She carefully sampled every single plate on the table, her head lowering as the data finalized in her mind.
“Shen San… what is the official designation of this establishment?”
Deeply engrossed in inhaling his noodles, Shen San blinked in surprise at her sudden inquiry. He set his bowl down, fished the grand-prize voucher from his spatial backpack, and scanned the fine print.
“It’s registered as… The Fisherman’s Inn. From what I gathered from the local town threads, this specific brand is legendary across the entirety of the Water Continent—universally recognized as the premium hospitality chain on the map. Their lodgings are immaculate, and their kitchens are pristine.” Shen San replayed the information, a sudden spark of logic connecting the pieces in his mind. “Master… could this specific brand be tied to your ancestral lore? Or perhaps… your missing aunt?”
Lu Yunxi swallowed another morsel of food, a wave of bittersweet nostalgia softening her tiny features. “I lack the data to confirm a direct bloodline link, but the foundational flavor profiles and technical execution are an undeniable match for my mother’s personal style.”
“Should we anchor our coordinates here for a few days and run a formal investigation?”
“We’ve arrived already?”
When the carriage driver rapped on the partition to signal their arrival, Shen San stepped onto the dirt road, his mind still slightly foggy from sleep. He could have sworn they had cleared the previous city gates barely twenty minutes ago. Could a standard carriage truly map distance at that velocity?
Sensing his spatial confusion, the driver offered an easy smile. “Young master, your ticket specified a transit drop at the nearest commercial hub. This is the perimeter of that very town. Will your honor be debarking here, or does your party require a secondary coordinate?”
Shen San scanned the bustling, heavily populated thoroughfare ahead. Satisfied, he handed over the fare, adjusted the straps of his stroller, and navigated straight toward the local branch of The Fisherman’s Inn.
Unlike the sprawling, multi-story pavilions anchored in the grand metropolises, this specific regional outpost was significantly smaller, though it maintained the brand’s signature pristine cleanliness.
Without hesitation, they ordered the exact same spread they had sampled at the capital. A single bite confirmed the reality: the flavor profile was a flawless, identical match.
Even though Ancient operated as a simulated holographic matrix, the core programming running the sensory engines was staggeringly detailed. In the Forest Continent, they had encountered various tavern chains, but unless a player explicitly visited a high-tier flagship establishment, the actual taste of a single dish would fluctuate wildly from town to town based on local ingredients. The fact that a tiny, remote branch of The Fisherman’s Inn could replicate the exact culinary data of a capital pavilion implied a rigid, highly centralized corporate structure that had been polished over decades of historical development.
Lu Yunxi’s brow locked in a tight frown. Could The Fisherman’s Inn be structurally tied to my mother’s background?
The heavy thud of the chamber door interrupted her thoughts as Shen San slipped back into the room. “Master, I’ve run a few text traces with the local staff. All culinary units operating under The Fisherman’s Inn are strictly mandated to complete their technical training at the central headquarters before being deployed to regional branches. Only the absolute elite artisans are permitted to remain at the core facility.”
Yunxi glanced at the table, noting that the color scheme of the dishes leaned heavily into soft blues and emerald greens. “And where are the central coordinates of this headquarters?”
“Huzhou.”
She snapped her head up, a sharp gleam of total clarity igniting in her eyes. It was practically a statistical certainty now: this hospitality empire was intrinsically linked to her mother’s history.
Recalling her mother’s tearful accounts of being torn from her family and sold off as a defenseless child, Yunxi’s expression turned deathly cold.
“Huzhou… is it?”
Inside the local general store.
Shen San stared with wide, bewildered eyes at the dizzying array of infant merchandise lining the shelves.
“Welcome, young traveler! Are you seeking provisions for your little one? Is the child a young master or a young miss? Wardrobe selections for boys anchor the left aisle; dresses for girls line the right,” the shopkeeper greeted warmly, gesturing toward the counter displays as he launched into an enthusiastic sales pitch. “These items are our latest imports, and a substantial portion of the inventory was personally crafted by high-tier outworld artisans. The utility designs are remarkably innovative.”
“Take this specific model of pacifier, for example,” the shopkeeper continued, lifting a small, colorful device to demonstrate. “It’s molded from premium, non-toxic alchemical materials, engineered with an anti-swallow safety mechanism. The moment a child engages the item, they turn completely docile and silent, totally eliminating the need for constant parental maintenance.”
Shen San glanced sideways at Lu Yunxi, who was currently sitting rigidly in her stroller. An uncontrollable, brilliant smirk flashed across his face.
Catching the sharp, lethal warning radiating from his master’s tiny eyes, he aggressively slammed his fist over his mouth to clamp down on his rising laughter. He twisted his head away, launching into a frantic conversation with the shopkeeper to keep his jaw locked, terrified that if he let out a single chuckle, his master would bookmark the offense for future retribution.
Lu Yunxi shifted her jaw, leveling a deeply unimpressed, flat stare at her apprentice’s physically contorted face before turning her attention to the surrounding merchandise.
Working with practiced efficiency, the two rapidly finalized their selections, pulling only a few tailored micro-garments, a specialized high-chair, and a set of child-sized utensils.
Just as Shen San reached into his spatial backpack to settle the bill—
“Brother Shen?!” a voice suddenly called out from the threshold.
