Chapter 40: Lucifer's Strange Pride
"Lucifer… you…" Ren stared at the cutting board, which looked like it had been through a war zone.
"Shut up! I'm absolutely fine! It's the ingredient's problem!" Lucifer crossed her arms, her face flushed red with embarrassment. The dough she had been kneading looked more like a flattened slime monster than anything edible.
"Uh… The dough shouldn't be fighting back," Ren said gently, suppressing a laugh. "How about you go out first, and I'll teach you when there are more advanced dishes later? Baking requires a certain... temperament."
"You're telling me to leave, so I'm leaving! Hmph!"
After saying that, Lucifer spun on her heel and quickly left the kitchen, her heels clicking angrily on the floor.
Ren looked at the messy cutting board, dusted with flour like a snowstorm, sighed, and muttered under his breath, "She really is a tsundere Queen of Hell~"
"I'm not tsundere!" Lucifer's voice echoed from the dining room.
"She could hear that?"
Ren was genuinely surprised, because what he had just said was barely a whisper, only audible to himself. But he didn't expect Lucifer to have demonically enhanced hearing even through walls?!
Ren didn't think too much about it and continued to cook on his own, cleaning up the flour disaster.
In the dining room, Lucifer sat down at a table, her face still slightly pink. She pulled out her phone and started angrily searching for something.
"Eh? Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer!" Cerberus, who was lying on the table like a bored cat, perked up. "Why are you looking for recipes? Are we cooking again?"
Lucifer gritted her teeth and said, "It's nothing! I just think they look good! I'm critiquing them! Cerberus, which do you think tastes better, my cooking or Ren's?"
"Master!" Cerberus answered instantly, without a millisecond of hesitation.
Lucifer regretted asking the silly, sweet Hellhound. It was a blow to her ego. If she kept asking, she might get depressed.
So Cerberus just lay back down, bored, her dog ears occasionally twitching at the sounds coming from the kitchen.
Lucifer, on the other hand, was engrossed in looking at recipes for some unknown dish, zooming in on pictures of intricate pastries.
"Oh~ So it needs this thing called yeast... Godmother? No, fermentation starter... How strange...." she muttered, her brow furrowed in concentration. "It's like alchemy."
"Mm-hmm~ This thing called cheese looks very impressive... stringy..."
Lucifer occasionally whispered to herself, completely absorbed in the human culinary arts.
Ren emerged from the kitchen, carrying a large bamboo steamer basket. He looked at Lucifer's serious studying posture with a faint, fond smile on his face. She was indeed an arrogant Demon King, but her arrogance might be misplaced in the kitchen~
Cerberus looked at the steamer in Ren's hand, and her mouth instantly started watering. The smell of savory dough and meat wafted through the air.
Cerberus whispered, nudging Lucifer, "Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer! Mas..."
Lucifer nodded sagely, not looking up from her phone. "That's right~ Staple food is indeed a profound subject... The gluten structure is key..."
"No, no, no! It's the food! The food is here!"
"Cerberus! No talking! I'm concentrating!"
Cerberus looked at Ren with eyes full of grievance, whining softly.
Ren smiled. He walked over and tapped the top of Lucifer's head with his knuckle.
Bonk.
Lucifer immediately shouted, jumping in her seat, "Who dares to be so bold?!"
"It's me~"
Lucifer looked up and saw Ren, holding the steaming basket, looking at her with a playful smile.
Lucifer quickly put away her phone, hiding it behind her back like a student caught texting in class. She cleared her throat, smoothing her hair. "Ahem. What are we having for breakfast?"
Ren put down the steamer on the table. Then he returned to the kitchen and brought out three small clay pots, smiling as he said, "Congee and various kinds of Dim Sum snacks~"
[Akarin's Note: Dim Sum refers to a large range of small Chinese dishes that are traditionally enjoyed in restaurants for brunch.]
As he spoke, Ren opened the steamer lid under Cerberus's expectant gaze.
Whoosh.
At first, she saw nothing but a cloud of white steam. And along with the steam came wafts of fragrant aroma—yeast, pork, oyster sauce, and sesame oil.
Cerberus stared at the steamer, sniffed, and then said anxiously, bouncing in her seat, "Master, Master, Master! What is this?! It smells so good! Is it meat?"
Ren waved his hand to disperse some of the heat. Ren smiled and said, "These are various breakfast snacks from the Heavenly Dynasty (China). Cerberus, you should try this one first."
As Ren spoke, he took out a beautifully presented, fluffy white bun with a reddish top and placed it on a plate in front of Cerberus.
Cerberus didn't think much of it and immediately picked it up with her bare hands to eat.
"Wait." Ren stopped her gently. "Eat this slowly. The filling inside is still very hot. It's basically lava."
Cerberus wanted to say that she could literally drink lava (she was a Hellhound, after all), but after seeing Ren's serious gaze, her originally wide-open mouth narrowed slightly. She took a very small, tentative bite.
Nom.
"Mmm~ Smoke!"
"That's steam. This should be the pastry that best satisfies what you're thinking right now."
Cerberus sniffed the opening she had made. Looking inside, she saw the full, almost overflowing dark red, glistening meat chunks revealed by her small bite. The sauce was thick and rich.
Cerberus opened her mouth a little wider and took a big bite.
Unless one is a strict vegetarian or doesn't eat pork, no one would refuse such a bun. It was pure indulgence. There were no vegetables at all to interrupt the flavor. With one bite, it's full of savory-sweet, fragrant, and rich, yet firm, diced pork.
The BBQ sauce mixed with the meat chunks, the two became one, and combined with the soft, fluffy bun skin that was full of wheat flavor and a hint of milk aroma... one bite down, besides the fragrance, only pure satisfaction remained.
"Woof!"
Cerberus, after taking a big bite of meat, her tail was already wagging like an electric fan on high speed.
Lucifer swallowed her saliva when she saw this. Just as she was about to pick up her chopsticks to ask for one, she saw a black, bun-like object appear on the small plate in front of her. It had a brush of gold dust on top.
Lucifer asked doubtfully, poking it, "Is this a mantou (steamed bun)?"
Ren was stunned, then smiled and shook his head. "How could it be a plain mantou? This is called a Liu Sha Bao (Molten Salted Egg Yolk Custard Bun). It's also a kind of bun. But inside, it has that bursting-filling sensation, and because the filling is golden and flows like sand, it's also called a quicksand bun~"
Lucifer nodded. She opened her small mouth and took a bite.
The dough was delicious, infused with bamboo charcoal, but she didn't get to the filling yet, though she saw a faint yellow color peeking through.
Lucifer took another small bite.
Squirt.
The hot, golden filling burst out.
"Ah!"
Lucifer directly moved her body back to avoid the drip. The quicksand bun held by her chopsticks was placed directly on the plate, leaking golden custard.
Ren took out a wet wipe and, despite Lucifer's various displeased expressions (pouting, glaring), leaned over and wiped a spot of custard from the corner of her mouth.
"Careful."
After wiping, Lucifer realized what she had done—made a mess like a child. She quickly shifted her body back to a dignified posture and said, "I didn't expect this thing to actually burst with filling~ It's liquid gold."
Ren smiled and said, "Yes. It's a pretty tasty snack, sweet and savory. Cerberus, eat slowly. Oh, right. There are also Chicken Feet (Feng Zhao) and Glutinous Rice Chicken (Lo Mai Gai) wrapped in lotus leaves. And I've prepared Kimchi to cut through the richness~"
Cerberus, holding the meat bun with both hands, shouted, "Master, Master, Master! What is this thing?! It's so delicious! It's all meat!"
Ren smiled. "Char Siu Bao (BBQ Pork Bun)~"
"Char Siu Bao?"
"Those two pieces of meat you kept peeking at in that uncle's ramen bowl earlier were char siu, but this method is definitely different. It's diced and stewed in sauce. I made this for you because your eyes were practically popping out from looking at his bowl. Not bad, right~"
"Master.... Mmm! Super delicious! You saw me!"
"Master, Master, Master! What's this little bun called~ This is also so delicious! It has soup inside!"
"This is a Xiaolongbao (Soup Dumpling)~" (Cough cough, Xiaolongbao is the best!)
"This is a Crab Roe Bun~"
"This..."
While Cerberus was eating and clinging to Ren, asking about every dish, Lucifer had completely abandoned her Queen of Hell image.
Taking a bite of a meat bun, then gnawing on a braised chicken foot with gusto, she suddenly felt very fortunate to be a demon with high metabolism. Otherwise, she would definitely get as fat as a pig eating like this every day~
"Phew... Finally finished!" Lucifer sighed, patting her stomach. "Ren... What kind of porridge is this~? Why is it so delicious and comforting?"
"This? It's just a very ordinary Mushroom and Chicken Congee. Because of the chicken fat and slow cooking, I didn't make much. With all these snacks made according to your appetites, you should be perfectly full, right~"
Lucifer looked at the empty small clay pot and the pile of chicken bones in front of her. She felt a sense of lethargy and contentment she had never known in the underworld.
She sighed and whispered, looking at Ren, "I really don't want to go back to Hell anymore..."
Ren paused while stacking the plates.
"Then just stay. Your meal expenses... well, your eternal life won't be enough to eat them all, but I can put it on a tab."
"This is you... inviting me?"
"Hmm. I'm letting you stay. Rent-free."
"Hiss...." Lucifer sucked in a breath, her heart skipping a beat.
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