The Great Awkwardness stretched into a second day, then a third. The library, once a place of charged intellectual battles and then tender care, had become a silent, uncomfortable wasteland. Lan Yue had become a master of finding increasingly obscure sections to hide in, and Xue Lian, for her part, had stopped trying to make conversation beyond the most necessary, weather related pleasantries.
It was unbearable. Xue Lian, who thrived on action and manipulation, felt utterly stymied. She'd replayed the "physiological intervention" a hundred times in her head. It had been a tactical error. She'd gotten too close, shown too much of her hand, and now her prized captive was giving her a wider berth than a skittish void puppy.
This would not do. If Lan Yue was avoiding her because of heightened emotions, then the solution was to drown those emotions in something mundane. Something ordinary. Something so utterly normal it would reset their bizarre dynamic.
Which is how Xue Lian found herself marching into the depths of the celestial genealogy section on the fourth day, her expression one of determined cheer.
Lan Yue looked up from a scroll, her usual serene mask firmly in place, but her eyes held a flicker of wariness.
"Get up," Xue Lian announced, foregoing any preamble. "We're going to the kitchens."
Lan Yue blinked. "...The kitchens?"
"Yes. The place with the ovens and the sharp knives. A terrifying den of culinary danger. You'll love it." She didn't wait for an answer, simply plucking the scroll from Lan Yue's hands and setting it aside. "Come on. It's an imperial decree. I'm terrible at those, but I'm told they're legally binding."
Bewildered, Lan Yue allowed herself to be shepherded out of the library and through the corridors. The palace staff did a poor job of hiding their surprise at seeing the Empress personally escorting her Honored Guest towards the service areas.
The palace kitchens were a vast, bustling cavern of heat, noise, and delicious smells. Demons of all shapes and sizes worked in organized chaos, chopping, stirring, and roasting. The head chef, a large, boar like demon with an impressive set of tusks, dropped a ladle with a clatter when he saw the Empress.
"Your Majesty! Is there a problem? The Five Alarm Hellboar is roasting to perfection, I swear it!"
"No problem, Chef Mao," Xue Lian said, waving a dismissive hand. "We're just here to borrow a station. And some ingredients. And possibly your expertise if we set something on fire."
Chef Mao stared, his tiny eyes wide with confusion and terror. "B borrow, Your Majesty?"
"Don't worry, we'll be out of your way." She guided a still confused Lan Yue to a quieter corner station. "Right. Here's the plan. We are making dumplings."
Lan Yue looked at the array of bowls, flour, and mysterious ingredients. "I… do not know how to make dumplings."
"Neither do I!" Xue Lian said with unnerving cheerfulness. "Well, I know the theory. I've read about them. It's like a tasty little pastry purse for meat. How hard can it be?" She tied a spare apron around her waist it was comically large on her and handed another one to Lan Yue. It was covered in faint, floury handprints.
Lan Yue put it on slowly, feeling utterly out of place. "Why are we doing this?"
"Because," Xue Lian said, scooping a mountain of flour into a bowl with a decidedly un empress like lack of grace, sending a cloud of white into the air, "you are avoiding me. And it is boring. And I am the Empress, and I demand entertainment. And also, I'm hungry." She sneezed, powdering her white hair with even more flour. "See? Fun."
Lan Yue watched, a strange feeling bubbling up in her chest. It might have been hysteria. The most powerful woman in the Netherworld was covered in flour, trying to remember the water to flour ratio for dough.
"It says to make a well in the center," Xue Lian muttered, poking at the flour mountain. "Like a tiny flour volcano. For the lava… which is water." She poured water in, and it immediately breached the crater walls, creating a sticky lake. "…Okay, plan B. More flour."
What followed was less cooking and more of a culinary disaster zone. Xue Lian's "dough" was either a dusty desert or a sticky glue like substance. Lan Yue, following hesitant instructions, attempted to chop vegetables for the filling, her movements precise and controlled from years of sword forms, resulting in perfectly uniform, microscopic brunoise that made Chef Mao weep with admiration from a distance.
"Too small!" Xue Lian cried, peering at the pile of minuscule vegetable bits. "They'll vanish! We need chunks! Hearty, rustic chunks!" She took the knife and attempted to demonstrate, hacking at a mushroom with terrifying force and sending pieces flying across the station.
A piece landed on Lan Yue's nose.
There was a beat of stunned silence.
Then, a sound escaped Lan Yue. A small, choked giggle.
Xue Lian froze, her eyes wide. Then, a brilliant, genuine smile spread across her flour dusted face. "There it is."
Lan Yue reached up, plucking the mushroom piece from her nose. She was trying to frown, but the corners of her mouth were stubbornly twitching upwards. "This is… undignified."
"It's brilliant," Xue Lian declared, wiping her forehead and leaving a fresh white streak. "Look, our dough is… a substance. And our filling is… diverse in size. Now for the fun part. The purses."
The resulting dumplings were grotesque. Some were bloated and leaking. Others were tiny, anemic looking things. Xue Lian's were overstuffed and sealed with what looked like intricate, desperate origami folds. Lan Yue's were perfectly symmetrical, crimped with military precision, but contained almost no filling.
They were a mess. They were ridiculous.
And they were both laughing. Really laughing. Xue Lian was holding up a particularly lopsided dumpling that resembled a sad, bloated tick. "Behold! The Dumpling of Despair! It has seen things!"
Lan Yue was clutching her stomach, tears of mirth in her eyes, holding one of her own tiny, empty ones. "And this is the Dumpling of Austerity! It has renounced worldly pleasures!"
They managed to get a few presentable ones into a steaming basket. Chef Mao, seeing the Empress's genuine joy, had quietly sent a sous chef to make a proper batch in the background, just in case.
Sitting at a small table in the corner, covered in flour and vegetable bits, they ate their bizarre creations. They were awful. Some were raw inside. Others were just doughy blobs.
They were the best things Lan Yue had ever tasted.
The awkwardness was gone, burned away in the heat of the kitchen and the shared, goofy failure. The memory of the touch was still there, but it was no longer a wall between them. It was just another part of their strange, complicated story.
Xue Lian grinned at her across the table, a smudge of sauce on her cheek. "See? Not avoiding me anymore, are you?"
Lan Yue smiled back, a real, unreserved smile. "No," she admitted, popping another terrible dumpling into her mouth. "I suppose I'm not." The slow burn was back on, but now it felt warm, comfortable, and smelled vaguely of burnt dough and laughter.